I closed my eyes, and massaged the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. This kid was giving me a headache. If he noticed, though, he didn't seem to mind.
"So what brings you to Amsterdam? Business? Pleasure? A bit of both, maybe? Me, I just got off the train from Brussels. Thought I'd see the sights, maybe check out the Red Light District, know what I mean? After all, a man cannot live on bread alone."
I tossed back the remains of my drink and got up to leave.
"Oh, come on, mate, don't go yet – the night's still young!"
I shot him the kind of look I normally reserve for ax-murderers and pedophiles, and then made for the door. When I reached the table's end, he called to me.
"Hold on!" he said. "Don't go. We've a lot to talk about, you and me."
I turned and flashed the kid a rueful smile. "No offense, kid, but you and me don't have shit to talk about. I think you've got me mixed up with someone else."
"I do, do I?" He smiled, and raised his hands in mock acquiescence. "All right, Sam, if that's the way you want to play it. I just figured you might like a little company, now that the Haas unpleasantness is behind you. The job
is
over, is it not? Or did you decide to tie one on before disposing of his soul?"
I flinched as if stung. By the look on his face, the kid knew he hit his mark. I closed the gap between us in a flash, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt in my bony hands and hoisting him up out of his chair until his face was a scant inch from mine. "Who are you?"
"Easy, tiger! I'm a Collector, just like you," he said, his tone placating. "Name's Danny."
"Why the hell are you following me around?"
"I just wanted to talk to you."
"So what – you thought you'd swing by, swap some war stories or whatever? Well you came to the wrong guy."
"No," he said, not unkindly. "I don't believe I did."
"I don't care
what
you believe. Contact between Collectors is strictly forbidden. Do you have any idea what'd happen to us if our handlers caught wind of this? I ought to kill you just for being here."
"Perhaps you should, but I don't believe you will. It's my understanding you've got a certain affection for the living. You may wish to get rid of me, but I'm guessing you aren't going to sacrifice this perfectly good skin-suit to do it. Now, have a seat and let me buy you a drink."
"Why on earth would I do that?" I asked.
"Because the way I hear it, we ain't so different, you and me. We both know this job of ours is designed to chip away everything decent and human about us, until we're no better than the monsters we work for. I, for one, am shitting myself at the very thought of that, and I reckon you probably are too. Look, I know it's a losing battle, trying to hold on to what makes us who we are, but I also know that isn't going stop me from trying. And if I had to guess, I'd say you aren't going to, either. All I'm saying is, maybe it'd be easier if we weren't going it alone."
He was right, about the job part at least. See, this vocation is punishment for a life misspent – and as punishments go, it's a doozy. Every time we take a soul, we experience every moment that brought that person to our grasp – every kindness, every slight, every gruesome act our mark inflicted. Mind you, I don't mean we
see
those moments; we
live
them, with painful, blinding clarity. Over time, it wears on you. Breaks you down. Not to mention, every time you leave a vessel behind, you lose a little bit of what makes you who you were in life, until eventually there's nothing left. It was the thought of that happening – that, and the horrors I'd experienced collecting nutjobs like Haas – that kept me up at night. It was these that kept me talking to Danny.
"So what," I said, "you're asking if I'll be your
friend?"
"I'm
asking
if you'll let me buy you a drink."
"You're fucking nuts, you know that? If anyone were to find out about this–"
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Sam, all we're talking about is a drink. What's the harm in that?"
What's the harm?
I swear, over the years, I must've played that sentence back a thousand times. I'd like to think that if I knew then what I know now, things would've gone differently. And who knows? Maybe they would have. Or maybe I'm kidding myself, thinking I had ever had a choice. In those early years as a Collector, I was so lonely, so desperate – so scared of what I might one day become – there was really no other way for me to play it.
So yeah, I took that drink, and we got to talking. Turned out, we did have a lot in common. As I said, those who wind up marked for collection are either contract kills or freelancers, and since all Collectors were once collected, that means the same holds true for us. Now, I don't want to tell tales out of class, but the guy who collected me? He was a freelancer, and if that sadistic bastard is any indication, they're not a group you want to hang out with come the company picnic. Me and Danny, we were contract kills. The deal I made saved the life of the woman that I loved. Danny made his deal at the tender age of fifteen when, in the wake of the First World War, the British economy took a bad turn and left his onceaffluent family penniless, and his once-loving parents hateful and embittered. He was but a child, and the only education he'd ever had was in the classics as had befitted his family's station; he hadn't the skills to reclaim their fortune by wits alone. So he sought help – help of the demon variety. The way he told it, if he had it to do all over again, even knowing what that deal would cost him, he would've played it the same way. Something else we had in common, I suppose.
As the evening wore on, one drink became three, three became five, and by the time we stumbled armin-arm out of the pub and into the chilly November pre-dawn, me and Danny'd become friends.
Was it stupid? I don't know. Fate? I couldn't say.
One thing I know for sure, though: right or wrong, things would've been a lot simpler if I'd just killed him.
3.
The Plaza de Bolivar sparkled in the midday sun, still rain-slick from a spate of showers that had burned off when the first rays of morning light crested the Andes to the east. It was Sunday, and the massive square was flush with people: students, lounging on the steps of the old cathedral; lovers, chatting amiably as they strolled arm-in-arm; children, startling pigeons into flight as they splashed through the puddles that had gathered in the shadow of the capitol building. The scene looked like something out of a picture postcard, right down to the plaza patrons' unselfconscious good cheer. At the moment, I hated each and every one of them, traipsing about without a care in the world while Danny jerked me around like a puppet on a string.
Five days had passed since I'd received Danny's grisly message – five days since I'd left Varela's mutilated corpse, and the corpses of his men, to be reclaimed by the jungle they'd so wrongly sought refuge in. The first two of them I'd spent hiking to the nearest village, although maybe village was too strong a word. Really, it was nothing more than a handful of ramshackle huts clustered around a narrow dirt track that served as their only road. God knows what they must've thought of me, stumbling filthy and delirious out of the jungle and begging for food and water in broken Spanish. But whatever they thought of me, they took me in, giving me not only food and water, but fresh clothes and a bed to sleep in as well. The bus to Bogotá arrived two days later, looking – as all buses in Colombia seem to – like some crazy Technicolor school bus, its roof piled high with suitcases, wicker baskets, and sacks of grain. I boarded it with a full belly, a clear head, and an undeniable reluctance to leave after the staggering hospitality I'd been shown by these people who had so little to give. Of course, the choice to leave wasn't mine to make – Danny had made sure of that. I didn't know what he was playing at, snatching Varela's soul, and truth be told, I didn't care. All I cared about was taking back what was rightfully mine, even if I had to tear him limb from limb to do it.
I set fire to a cigarette, and then struck out across the square. Though the sun was bright overhead, the mountain air was cool and thin. After a week spent traipsing through the Amazonian lowlands, my lungs seared from the sudden altitude, and gooseflesh sprung up on my arms at the slightest breeze. I was dizzy and weak, and my muscles protested at the exertion required to remain upright and on the move. If this meeting of ours were to come to blows, I didn't like my chances. And with Danny, I really couldn't rule it out.
About a half a block from the square was a small sidewalk café – a smattering of wrought-iron tables beneath a black canvas awning, within sight of the twin spires of the cathedral. I took a seat and ordered a cup of strong black coffee, as much for warmth as to kill the time. The minutes passed by as lackadaisically as the tourists, as though both had nowhere in particular to be. When I reached the bottom of my mug, I signaled to the waitress for another.
By the time I finished my second cup of coffee, I was jumpy, and my palms were sweating. My waitress wasn't faring much better. When she brought my second refill, she shot off something in rapid-fire Spanish that I couldn't understand, but I think I got the gist: order something besides coffee or beat sidewalk. I tried to explain to her that I was waiting for someone, but that didn't seem to get much traction. Eventually, I acquiesced, looking over the menu and picking an item at random. That seemed to mollify her, because she snatched the menu from my hands and disappeared into the café, leaving me and my coffee jitters in peace.
"Hello, Sam. It's been a while."
Even though I'd been expecting him, I swear I never saw him coming. See, every Collector's got their type. Some pick meat-suits based on strength, or speed, or stamina. Me, I prefer the quiet of the newly dead. But Danny, he's got a whole 'nother set of criteria. Danny likes 'em pretty. Good teeth, a healthy tan, and ideally with a walk-in full of swanky clothes. He told me once in a moment of drunken confession that he clings to the creature comforts he enjoyed in life as a way of protecting against the erosion of self that comes from subjugating vessel after unwilling vessel, but I didn't believe him for a second. He does it because he likes the way the ladies look at him.
But that was then, I guess. Today, he looked like shit. Sunken eyes ringed dark from lack of sleep. Sallow skin beaded with sweat and streaked with dirt. There was dirt in his hair, as well, and his clothes were so covered in it, it took me a moment to recognize them as the same fatigues worn by Varela's men. So this is where the eighth man went, I thought – the one whose rifle I found abandoned alongside his dead compatriots. But that was nearly a week ago, and I'd never known Danny to stick with a meat-suit longer than a day or two. Something clearly wasn't right here.
"You ask me, Danny, it hasn't been long enough. Now where the hell is Varela's soul?"
He blinked at me for a moment as though he hadn't understood the question, and then dropped awkwardly into the chair opposite me. His eyes darted to and fro, never settling on anything for more than a second. His hands found the unused place setting laid out before him and began fiddling absently with it. His feet tapped out a twitchy, nervous rhythm from beneath the table.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said, his once lilting Queen's English now brittle, strained.
"Then you're an idiot. I
had
to come – your little stunt in the jungle made sure of that."
He recoiled as if I'd slapped him. His features twisted into an expression of hurt. "I'm sorry about that – really, I am – but I didn't know what else to do! I've got no one else to turn to."
"Sure you don't, Danny," I replied, my words dripping venom. "How is Ana, by the way?"
"Piss off, Sam, that was
years
ago. I mean, I'm sorry how that shook out, but I was hoping we were past that."
"Past it? Is
that
what you hoped? You
lied
to her, Danny. You betrayed me. You know damn well I had nothing to do with Quinn getting shelved – but hey, if pinning it on me means you and Ana get to ride off into the sunset together, then by all means. After all, what's a little backstabbing between friends?"
"Oh, for God's sake, Sam, we've been through this all a thousand times. I swear to you, whatever she heard, she did not hear it from me. How many times am I going to have to tell you that before you'll actually believe it?"
"At least once more."
"I think I'll save my breath," he said. "Besides, what I did or didn't tell her is immaterial. Ana's a big girl, and her conclusions are her own. You know as well as anyone that once she's made up her mind, there's not a force on God's Earth that's going to change it. Now, I won't deny that when she turned her back on you, it was me she turned to, but I can promise you there was no riding off into the sunset for the two of us. When Quinn got shelved, it shook her up pretty bad. And then you left–"
"
Left
?" I let out a single, barking laugh, shrill and humorless. "The way I remember it, you two abandoned
me
."
"Yeah, well, whatever you want to call it, it was the beginning of the end for Ana and me. We held on for a while – out of obligation, I suppose – but we were just forestalling the inevitable. Truth is, I haven't seen Ana in months."
I wasn't sure if I believed him. Then again, it didn't matter. After all, I hadn't come here to pick at old wounds. I had come here to take back what was rightfully mine.
I came here for Varela's soul.
"All right, Danny. Why don't you tell me what we're doing here?"
But Danny wasn't paying me any mind. Instead, he seemed suddenly transfixed by a spot over my left shoulder. His face contorted in panic, and the idle tapping of his feet ceased. I twisted in my seat to see what it was he was looking at, but it was nothing but a common crow, preening itself on a porch rail a couple doors down. Or rather, it
would
have been a common crow on damn near any other continent. As far as I knew, no one had ever seen a crow this far south, which made this one anything but common. But aside from Danny, who looked like he was going to crawl out of his skin – and me, I suppose – no one seemed to pay it any mind. Guess there weren't a lot of bird-watchers out that day.