The day is breaking as the lights in Arcadia return after the events of last night’s rampage by Tombstone. Mr. Nobody sits on the wet ground at Michaela’s graveside.
“Daddy? Why did you abandon me?”
Her question from the mouth of Tombstone was directed at him, and he responded hoarsely to the grave.
“I’m so sorry, I would’ve never left Zeus’s side if I knew what would’ve happened. I truly thought I was doing the right thing I never wanted you to know me as a killer for hire.”
Harold choked on a sob that had made its way to his lips.
“But I realize now, I would reap a million souls if it could bring you back.”
He stares at the grave and then his face twists sadness replaced by anger. Harold quit for her, he went to Deathrow for her, he truly did want to be a better man. However, the APD whose job it was to protect the innocent, Harold heard murmurs at the APD.
Cade had Redgrave in his sights, dead to rights. If he’d have pulled the fucking trigger.
“Hostile down? My ass, the boy never had the balls! Fucking a rookie, a coward, and now a paper fucking Champion. He abdicated his responsibility to us, honey…”
Attano’s mind quickly shifts to the best Doctor in Arcadia, the Luchadoc. He’d learned through a few of his contacts that he’d been communicating with the Mariachis of Life and Death. The good Doctor owed Harold a couple of favors for credits collected in his name and he’d seen Michaela as she grew up. Zeus ensured she’d gotten the best care in exchange for his services.
“The Doctor, that greedy asshole owed me, but he thought he could stiff me just because I was on Deathrow. He had the two Mariachis who could’ve saved you, Death and Life were at his disposal. But he flaked on his commitment to us.”
It was then the visage of those haunting white eyes flooded back. Him, dragging her soul back just to taunt him, forcing her to go through more pain. He’d eavesdropped on the conversation with Igor at the cemetery gates. This was all due to the fact he “retired” from ferrying souls.
“And him, dragging you back to this world. To be used as some pawn in his sick strike. All because he wanted to relinquish the title of Ferryman. He chose to use your spirit and voice thinking it would break me…”
This verbalizing was a conviction, like the Last Gasp of a Dying Man as his eyes narrowed. We all abandoned our posts in one form or another.
Tombstone, yeah, he was back to work, his retirement short-lived as it was. However, there was one spirit that he couldn’t ferry, the embodiment of a Dead Man Walking, and the Arcadian Ghost would haunt him for the rest of his existence for what he’s done.
“All of them men whose abandonment of their commitments have caused you pain but don’t worry, Daddy remembers what they did, and Nobody will remember when they disappeared.”