Consequences by Elyse Draper Page A

dreamt it, I could have it. And it all came with an
allowance that would provide anything I wanted; whenever I wanted …
it was mine, just as long as I allowed V to use me.”
    “Okay, I have two questions before you
continue … what exactly did V want from you, and where did all the
money come from?” I have to smile because Michael’s mind is full of
questions, but he only asks two.
    “On the way to Vegas, James finally, and for
the most part, honestly, told me why he had been hunting me. V is
very old, approximately 550 years old, and he was part of a
particularly scary sect of Aztec priests. In his human lifetime, he
was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Psychotic with a
taste for terror, thanks to his talents for inflicting pain and
feeding on hope, he became a sort of vampire. When we finally met,
I pulled memories of him bathing in blood. In any case, James
explained to me that V was looking to resurrect his cult; he needed
for us to torture people so that he could feed. He saw James as the
one to prepare the sacrifice, by imposing terror, and I was to
perform the surgery, extracting secret truths about fears … then
all V had to do was make sure those fears would come true. James
neglected to tell V that I could pull memories out of the threads
of truth, and he swore me to secrecy: I was to never tell or give
any sign that I could read ethereal creatures in any way. I
understood eventually that James had done that to protect me, and
since James would never do anything without harvesting something
for himself, he did it, hoping I would protect him, too. That was
the real reason he gave me free reign with his assets.
    "James made his money as a hit man for his
mob family. He took side jobs, and hid the money, and his actions,
from those in control, mainly his boss. When he died, he had sunk
all the money that he had earned from the family into real estate,
like his penthouse apartment, and all of his other secreted
earnings went into Swiss bank accounts. Between both, he was worth
about seventeen million when he died. Hoping to give me incentive
to keep him safe from V, and give the appearance of cooperating
with his master, he gave me access to his Swiss accounts. Working
without names, just in numbers, no one was the wiser when I became
approximately twelve million dollars richer, overnight. I just had
to stay away from any of the assets tied to his family … ignoring
that particular warning, I stupidly used the penthouse.”
    “James was a hit man? Did he use his special
talents to commit murder?”
    “Yeah, that’s what made him so valuable. No
evidence, just a relatively mentally sound person doing things like
throwing themselves off of buildings, or having the sudden urge to
drive out into the desert and never return. I say relatively sound
because he couldn't force someone to take their own life if they
didn't want to … he would infect their brain with hallucinations,
making them act like habitual PCP users. Ultimately, he made
rational thought impossible for even the sanest person.”
    “I think dealing with a sociopath, with that
kind of talent, is actually my worst nightmare.” Although he has an
almost joking tone, I can sense he is being completely honest.
    “What happened next? Even though it was blood
money, it had to be kind of cool to have the freedom that only that
amount of money can provide.” Michael is horrified; he puts up an
understanding front, but he is having problems with the direction I
allowed my life to take. That’s all right; I have problems with it,
too; and I haven’t even told him what I’ve done during my time with
V.
    “At first, I knew there were going to be
prices to pay, but I rationalized that at least Ellie and Ann were
safe. I thought as long as we were focused on criminal types,
feeding them to V, the pluses outweighed the negatives. V decided
to work on James’s family first.”
    Michael's thoughts are muddled and weary as
he speaks, “Good, I