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A VILE MAN

L éon had followed Mollard carefully the night before as he made his way home from the prison.

He’d discovered the man lived in a low neighbourhood, slanted houses and uncobbled lanes full of dirty puddles and rotting scraps.

That night, it was approaching midnight when Léon knocked softly on his door, hoping to avoid any neighbours seeing him.

But Mollard soon answered.

Léon’s welcome was nothing like that of DuPont, yet not nearly as belligerent as he had expected it would be.

Mollard searched over Léon’s shoulder, beady eyes scanning up and down the street, then he stood back and motioned for Léon to enter.

There was no, ‘what do you want,’ or ‘this is a surprise,’ or even ‘fuck off, you prick’.

There was only Léon alone with Mollard in the dark and dank little house, Mollard grinning wide, then his disconcerting, “I’ve been expecting you.”

The comment took Léon’s breath away.

Whatever could he mean?

Léon and no one else knew of his plan.

He hadn’t said a word.

He’d played his role to a tee.

What was the meaning?

Mollard, either through tiredness or keenness, wasn’t playing games.

He picked his coat up off the table where he’d thrown it an hour earlier, rifled through the pockets, and plucked out a set of keys.

Not those same formerly coveted keys to Reims Prison.

It was a smaller loop, housing four different keys.

These, he threw onto the table between them with a clatter.

“What’s that?” asked Léon, though he already knew.

“Keys to the Witches’ Tower,” Mollard confirmed.

“That’s what you’ve come for, isn’t it?”

How could he know?

How? What crumb had Léon dropped along the way—what clue to allow this man to step ahead of him?

Léon couldn't decide whether to confirm or deny it. It was the very thing he wanted, and it seemed so easy, but it felt exactly like a trap. “I need to bring him out to the square tomorrow. To kill him,” Léon said pathetically.

Mollard let him suffer in tense silence while he pulled the cork from an already-open bottle of wine and filled his cup. “I saw you,” he said finally. He took a long drink, a wet, red line above his lip pulling into a smile. “You and him. I saw you kissing him.”

The horror of it. That he had been caught. He had told his tale, convinced everyone, and all the while, Mollard was watching, waiting. How naked Léon felt. That night, that kiss that was supposed to be their goodbye. That one kiss out in the open. And this whole time, not a single word from Mollard, until now.

“Whatever you think you saw—” Léon tried, voice breaking with the pulse raging in his neck.

“You and him, I know, you have a thing. You’re one of them , aren’t you?” Despite the contempt on his face, his dirty fingers slid the keys towards Léon. “Take them.”

Léon reached for them, in spite of whatever implication or pit he was about to fall into.

But Mollard’s hand snapped closed on his. “On one condition.” The feeling of Mollard’s fingers on his skin sent a shudder down Léon’s spine, especially when Mollard leaned close and said, “That little girl of yours…”

“Little girl?” He was speaking of Souveraine, and Léon knew it.

Mollard didn’t have to make his meaning any more clear, except with the words, “You send her around here, no questions asked, and I won’t tell anyone what I saw.”

Léon’s blood curdled.

“You don’t want her. And now I know why.” He shook his head slowly. “Should have guessed. But there’s no use letting a woman like that go to waste. So unless you want everyone to know…”

His eyelids trembled with the nausea that flooded his system. Trapped again and again and always stuck and trapped.

He could send Henry on the run, with a head start in the night, and tell him to go directly back to England. Anywhere. But where was Léon to go? Where was he to outrun this? He had no friends in Paris. He had no Robespierre on his side. He had Souveraine and émile to protect, and all he had in the world to do it was his reputation.

“Mud sticks,” Mollard threatened, as though he needed to. “You bring her around here, you give me an hour with her, or I’ll tell them all it was you that set him free. That it was you, sleeping with him.”

“I did not,” Léon whispered.

“They won’t believe it, any more than I do. How long have you kept that pretty girl waiting? Do you think it would be hard to convince anyone? Do you think she’d like to know?”

Staring into nothing, glassy eyed, Léon replied, “I love her.”

“Then give me back those keys.” By instinct, Léon’s hand scrunched around them. He was so close. So close to freedom, so close to escape, and this—this hideous man was the only thing that stood in his way. This man who had spent years making his life hard. This cruel and disgusting excuse for a human who had stumbled upon the single most beautiful moment of Léon’s life, and turned it against him.

“No,” Léon heard himself say.

“I’ll walk straight over and tell DuPont.” Mollard’s hand slithered off Léon’s to take another sip of his cheap wine. “I’ll tell him to watch that tower all night. I’ll tell him you’re coming for him. I’ll march him out into the square in the morning, and I’ll drop the torch myself.”

“Fine,” Léon muttered, unable to bear another moment with him. “I’ll tell her,” he lied. “I’ll make that deal with her.”

He turned to go, but Mollard’s hand was on his arm. “Empty your pockets.”

Léon’s eyes flared. “Why would I do that?”

“Just a feeling. A feeling you’ve got your money and your papers in there, and you’re ready to leave town. But you won’t get away that easy. Not until you fulfil your end of the bargain.”

Mollard’s hand ripped at his coat, and Léon tore them away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Give me it. You’re not leaving—not tonight or ever. From this day forward, you belong to me.”

A simmering rage that had been building in Léon all his life finally spilled over. His fist shot out and caught Mollard on the chin. Mollard lunged for him, but he snapped fingers closed on Mollard’s throat and he squeezed. He felt the windpipe crush closed beneath his strong hand, and Mollard’s eyes grew wide in shocked fright.

He knew what was happening, of course he did, and it struck a blow at Léon’s easy humanity—his belief in justice, his gold-coated system of ethics that allowed him to do what he needed to do to survive. He killed the condemned, he stuck to the letter of the law, he eased the blow, delivered them gently to their fate.

Not anymore. Not since he lost émile. Not since he tasted Henry. Not since he found something worth fighting for.

The tension moved from his wrist to his biceps, and he slammed Mollard’s head back against the table. Mollard kicked at him, pulled his wrist with one hand, groped about with the other, scrunching at Léon’s coat, slapping along the rough wood. Léon’s voice, his grunts of effort, of desperation, sounded hollow and too-loud in the empty room, the stark walls echoing back the breaths and the voice and laying bare the act of murder.

He knew with every fibre of his being exactly what he was doing. He knew as Mollard’s face turned pink, then red, then purple, as his yellowy eyes bulged gelatinous and gruesome, as his tongue pushed out between his teeth, just as Mollard knew.

In a last-ditch attempt to save his small and scratching life, Mollard grasped the wine bottle and aimed for Léon’s head. A glint of firelight on glass wrenched Léon’s neck back just in time, the bottle cracking down on his shoulder, slipping from Mollard’s hand, and dropping to the floor in a shatter of shards, a dizzy array of glimmering mirrors shining back his final moments.

All but the base broke apart, leaving one round reminder of a bottle decorated with a dozen deadly spikes. Léon saw it. He saw it, and he wanted it over, fast, just like taking a head would have been.

He wrenched Mollard up by his throat, and Mollard grasped at his wrist, with no understanding of his intention, or he might have braced himself. As it was, it was only too simple for Léon to kick a leg to the right, slip one foot from beneath the man, and slam him to the floor, back first, head crashing down on the sharp shards of the broken bottle.

They punctured his skull easily and deeply.

And Mollard was dead.

Just like that.

Léon took a step back from the twitching body, horrified by what he’d done. Frenzied, he shoved hands into his pockets, made sure all his money, the papers DuPont had given him in good faith, his identification, all of it was there.

He snatched the Witches’ Tower keys up off the floor, then he reached into Mollard’s coat pocket and stole the rest of the prison keys.

He looked down at the vile man one last time, eyes gaping, still, and slowly decomposing on the floor of his small and damp house, just as repulsive in death as he had been in life.

Then Léon left him there to rot.