Lance stared at the dead thing before him. He felt thoughts begin to flow over his mind like water pouring in through a crevice. Not his father. Anthony Metzger was not his father, Aaron Haff was. A feeling of elation bounded through him. The constant fears that he had been predetermined to be violent like the apparition before him were gone. No blood bound him to this family of secrets and murder. He was not of their flesh.
But just as quickly, the feeling of happiness was eclipsed by another revelation. His mother wasn’t truly his mother—Harold’s daughter was. A woman he had never met, and now would never meet. He was an orphan, cut free of his true family and placed within the nest of vipers his real father had set out to destroy so many years ago. Anthony’s voice roused him from his thoughts and pulled him back to the darkness of the room.
“Everything works out in the end. That old man out there got what was coming to him, and it was a nice surprise that your little ex showed up unannounced.” Anthony leaned closer to Lance, and he could smell the foul air expelled from his rotting mouth. “I just can’t wait to cut up your new flame.”
Lance looked into the blue eyes of the thing that was no longer his father, and watched them turn black.
“Oh yeah, she’s coming here for a little rendezvous. I can’t wait to carve her up. That sweet skin parting over a blade. And what tops it off is, it’ll all tie up so neatly. When the police finally show up after the place gets stinking bad, they’ll find quite a mess. Seems the famous writer went a bit nuts and sliced up a few people he knew and loved, and then slit his own throat here in this room.” The ghost came so close that Lance could feel icy waves rolling off its skin and onto his face. “And that’s how you’ll be remembered.”
“Kill him now, son,” Erwin said. The Nazi’s naked pale flesh jiggled in impatience as he pointed toward the knives hanging from the chair’s arm. “Avenge our deaths.”
Lance watched as Anthony reached toward the handles and then hesitate. Something wavered within the ghost’s eyes. The knives, Lance realized. The memories they carried were painful, even for the departed soul before him. The agony experienced by the man Anthony had once been held power even after death. Erwin looked from the handles to his son’s back, and almost lunged for them when Lance spoke.
“You’re still afraid of them, aren’t you?” His voice drew Anthony’s eyes from the wooden handles, and Lance stared into the black orbs. “Those things were the source of all your fears growing up. And not only when he strapped you in this chair and cut you to ribbons. But before that, when you had to listen to the screams of men being tortured here in this room. When you watched your own mother kill a man right in front of you.” Lanced didn’t drop his gaze when the ghost’s hands began to clench in anger. “When she let you be led in here instead of her.”
Lance saw Anthony’s left hand twitch and move toward the knives. He’d done it. He’d angered him and threw him off. It was now or never.
“I’ll hand it to you,” Lance said in a cold voice. “You know a lot about me, but you don’t know everything. Even if you kill me here in this chair, you won’t win, because I’m not like you. I don’t have hatred running through my veins. Your lives were wasted on a weakness that you couldn’t control, while I created things that people will enjoy for years to come.” He paused and stared at the bloodstained floor. “I found someone I want to love.”
Lance saw Mary smiling at him from across the table in the restaurant and felt the smooth skin of her hand in his own, and he savored the memory for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the two things were staring at him, waiting for his submission. Waiting for him to bow his head and expose his neck, and so he did just that. He waited two beats of his heart, clearing his mind of all thought, and then spoke, perhaps the last words of his life.