20This ending feels more like a beginning in a lot of ways... It's also totally different from what I had originally planned when I started this project. Anyway, thanks for sticking it through with me to the end! I've definitely appreciated all the feedback!
Epilogue:
The man had been watching her all evening; Margot could feel his gaze on her from behind. Of all the women in the bar, Margot was the last one any man should want to talk to. Usually they picked up on it and steered clear of the wild, unkempt woman that always smelled of booze. She preferred it that way.
Knocking back the rest of her whiskey, she waved at the bartender and pointed at her empty glass. He sent a fresh drink down the bar to her. She might be wild, but she paid, and she never kicked up a fuss.
Those eyes on the back of her neck were getting tiresome. She sipped at her whiskey, savoring the burn on the back of her throat. The only thing she'd been able to taste for months. Her stomach churned.
Margot finished her drink and left the money under her glass as she stood to leave. She allowed herself a glance at the man who'd been watching her from the corner; he was now studying his drink with thoughtful intent. For a moment, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu; not that long ago, another man had watched her in a bar not unlike this one. Hunted her, rather.
She shivered and stepped outside.
It was snowing. The clouds glowed with the orange light from town, reflected off the snow, bright enough to see by, which was good because the streetlamp had gone out again. A lazy wind had picked up, the windchill well below freezing. Margot didn't feel it.
She did sense the man behind her, though, felt him follow, heard the bar door open and close behind him, boots crunching in the snow.
"Don't," she whispered, not sure if the warning was for him or for her.
"Margaret Vallance?"
She turned.
His ears and nose were already turning red, the wind ruffling his thinning hair. He had one of those authoritative faces: strong jaw, stern brow, piercing blue eyes. Right now, though, he looked more miserable than authoritarian, shivering and sniffling in the cold.
"You're mistaken," said Margot. "She's dead."
"Undead, I believe would be the correct term," he replied in a strong baritone that made Margot glance around nervously, even though nobody else was around to hear.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
He took a step toward her, reaching inside his coat and flashing her a badge. "Agent Tom Bowers."
"You're with the FBI?"
"In an auxiliary capacity."
"I haven't killed anybody."
Agent Bowers smiled wanly. "I know. I can't imagine how difficult it's been, given the nature of your unusual circumstance."
"What do you want?" A terrible thought ran through her mind. If he knew what she was, what she was capable of, if the government was aware of her…was he here to put her down? Preemptively save innocent American lives from her?
"I'm here to make you an offer. You have another revenant in your custody, a James Assadourian. Turn him over to me."
Revenant. She'd asked Jamie once what he was, what he'd turned her into, and that one word had been his answer. He hadn't explained further.
"What exactly is a revenant?" she found herself asking.
"You…are one?" Agent Bowers responded, slightly confused. "Did no one—?"
"Explain? No, I missed that memo."
"Christ," he groaned. "Look, I'll explain, but right now you need to take me to Mr. Assadourian. It's important that I get to him as quickly as possible."
"You can't kill him. Trust me, I tried." Her stomach turned; she swallowed hard to keep the liquor down.
"I'm not here to kill anyone," said Agent Bowers. "But James Assadourian is a known threat and he needs to be put away."
"Where were you six months ago? You know, before he did this to me?" She indicated herself with a curt gesture.
"You're a veteran. You should know everything in government moves slowly."
"Fuck you." Margot turned.
Agent Bowers caught her by the arm. "This is urgent, Ms. Vallance. I need you to take me to Mr. Assadourian right away."
"What do I get in return? You gonna put me away also?"
"You haven't done anything wrong yet."
"When did that ever stop the FBI?"
"Margot—"
"'Margot?' You're getting awfully familiar, Tom."
"I've been authorized to offer you a job, provided you can give me Mr. Assadourian. You could do some good instead of hiding."
Margot stood as still and silent as a statue for a moment. Snow quietly dusted them both, melting as it touched Agent Bowers' warm skin, merely accumulating on Margot's cold flesh.
"A job?" she finally asked.
"Mr. Assadourian first."
"Hang on." Margot turned and vomited, coughing up all the liquor she'd consumed that night. Sadly, she enjoyed the burn as it came back up. At least she could feel it.
She wiped her mouth with a shaking hand, taking a moment to gather herself before she turned back to Agent Bowers, who seemed more than a little concerned.
"Ok. I'll take you to him."
It was an old property, a rundown farmhouse on a couple of acres in the mountains, outside of an unincorporated community literally called Good Grief in northern Idaho.
"Pardon my curiosity, but how does an undead woman find the money to afford a house?" Agent Bowers asked as they pulled up and stepped out of his car.
"Jamie had a whole lot of cash squirreled away. He told me where to find it after some…persuasion." She didn't mention that it had all been Armenian dram and a pain in the ass to exchange at several different banks along the way.
He pulled out his phone and texted something briefly before asking, "How did you manage to subdue him?"
"We fought in the morgue," Margot explained, fishing in her pocket for the keys. "I overpowered him."
"You were fresh. Strong."
"Yeah, something like that." She opened the door and flicked on the lights. "Sorry it's cold. Heat's kind of a waste when you're dead."
Agent Bowers nodded, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a flask. "And now? How do you have the strength to keep him here? You're not killing, you're not eating."
"Neither is he. What's that?" she asked, indicating the flask.
"Colloidal silver. It'll tranquilize him."
"Silver? Really?" Margot snorted. "You mean all the monster movies actually got it right?"
He shrugged distractedly, still searching his pockets for something. "Hold this." He handed the flask to Margot and produced a case with a glass syringe inside. "Here." He took the flask back and filled the syringe with the amber liquid inside.
"You ready?"
"Lead on."
Agent Bowers followed Margot down a narrow set of stairs into the cellar, which was lit by a single bare bulb. The concrete floor was sticky with a dark patina of gore.
"I bring deer down here sometimes," she explained quietly.
He nodded, eyes watering at the stench of death.
"You good?"
Again he nodded, unable to speak.
"Well, well, the warden herself," said a quiet voice from the shadows. Her prisoner shifted slowly, sniffing audibly. "Could it be? You finally brought me something edible?"
"Don't get your hopes up," Margot retorted. "He's here to take you away."
"Away? And here I was just starting to settle into my new home." Jamie stepped out of the shadows, chains clinking around his legs. His hair was tangled and matted, most of his face hidden behind a thick, scruffy beard, but his dark eyes still glittered with barely contained malice. They flickered disdainfully at Agent Bowers. "You trust him?" he asked Margot, not taking his eyes off the man. "He wants to fuck you." His gaze finally shifted to Margot. "Can you feel that?"
She didn't feel anything but an awkward indignity rolling off Agent Bowers. "You're a hopeless fucker, you know that?" she told Jamie, taking a step closer. "Wherever they take you, I hope you rot there."
Jamie laughed, "We're all rotting, baby." Then he lunged.
Margot met him like a linebacker going in for a tackle. They grappled for a few moments, Jamie gaining the upper hand when he got one of his chains around Margot's throat. She pulled, wondering if he had the strength to decapitate her. Would she survive it? Wander with her own head in her hands for the rest of eternity?
Jamie collapsed suddenly, before they could find out, and Margot hastily scooted away as Agent Bowers removed the now empty syringe from the soft tissue between Jamie's neck and shoulder.
"Fuck," she gasped, rubbing her throat. "That shit works fast."
"You're lucky," Agent Bowers responded, carefully putting the syringe back in its case in his pocket. "You could've warned me, you know."
"I'm fine." She rose to her feet, dusting herself off, only succeeding in smearing congealed blood on her jeans.
"We'll have you looked at when the response team arrives." He glanced at his watch. "They should be here soon."
"You sure they're not gonna put me away with him?" She gestured at Jamie, who still managed to look boyish and innocent while unconscious and covered in gore.
"You're focusing a lot on the revenant part," Agent Bowers noted. "You're more than that, Margot. You're a fae killer."
"A what."
"A hunter. You've killed monsters before."
"I'm not sure—"
"Kabul. You stepped on an IED."
"Yeah."
"You reported seeing a shadow figure, a monster."
"That was a long time ago, I was drugged out of my mind, I nearly lost my legs, and I'm pretty sure that's confidential information."
"It was real, Margot. You killed what I suspect was a daeva, however inadvertent it might have been."
"Look, you're saying a lot of words right now and I'm just really—I'm really…" tired, hungry, confused, done. She slowly slid back down to the floor, holding the sides of her head, staring at Jamie, who still looked as if he was merely sleeping. To her chagrin, she felt tears on her cheeks.
"It's a lot to take in." Agent Bowers sat beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.
Margot's estimation of the stuffy agent immediately improved once he'd seated himself in a particularly sticky pile of gore with hardly a sniff of complaint.
"You're making the right choice," he added. "Jamie won't hurt anyone else. He's not your burden anymore."
Margot sighed and nodded. "Sure. That doesn't solve the problem of me, though."
"I told you, we have a job lined up for you."
"What, hunting monsters, while I slowly turn into one? No, thank you, I'd rather die." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "I'm so fucking hungry all the time. I can't even starve to death, I just hurt."
"Here."
She looked at Agent Bowers. He held out a baggie of white powder, shaking it a little.
"Take it."
"Are you offering me crack?"
He chuckled. "MSG."
"The fuck?" Margot took the bag. "Let me get this straight, you think a total umami experience is going to cure me? I doubt I'll even be able to taste it."
"Try it."
She opened the bag and dipped a finger inside, tasting some of the salt. "Great, now I want Chinese—" Margot went quiet. "Wait. I can taste it." She glanced at Agent Bowers and asked suspiciously, "Why?"
Still smiling, he explained, "Glutamate is the neurotransmitter associated with fear and anxiety. It's the chemical that makes you feel physical fear. Revenants feed off of all kinds of emotions, but fear more than anything. We have plenty of scientists you can talk to about this later, but from what I understand, this is what revenants are really after, what they really digest. Not flesh, not even the emotion, but the chemical itself."
"So this really is like crack," Margot said, but she emptied the rest of the bag into her mouth.
"We'll see how you feel in an hour. In the meantime, is there somewhere else we can wait?"
"Sure. I've got a bottle of Glenlivet upstairs."
"I could use a drink."
"Good. Then maybe you can tell me more about this job, Agent Bowers."
"Tom," he said. "We're going to be working together, might as well call me 'Tom.'"
"Tom," Margot repeated with a nod, smiling for the first time in ages.