***
Outside in the corridor, Nathaniel's cigarette stub was still smoldering, burning a black stain into the antique mahogany dresser. After a moment, however, a hand reached out from the shadows and picked up the stub, squeezing it tight and then dropping the remaining ash to the floor.
II
She saw him in her dream, his eyes burning with anger, his heart like the raging core of the sun. He pushed the door open and stormed into the room, overflowing with such a massive level of furious anger that he finally grabbed a chair and smashed it against the wall, breaking it into a couple of sharp fragments and then carrying those fragments over to the bed, where a terrified figure was being held down by several men.
“So, Mr. Nixon,” Edgar said breathlessly, looking down at his newly-acquired prisoner, “it seems we've reached an impasse.” He turned to Kate. “You wanted to know what happened,” he continued with a faint smile, “so I'm showing you. It's not something I could put into words. Only a dream will be enough. I need you to feel my anger, not just learn about it.”
“Edgar -”
“You wanted honesty, didn't you? You wanted to see the truth, so here it is. Let's start by letting you feel what I'm feeling.”
“Edgar, please -”
Before she could finish, Kate felt a rush in her chest. Stepping back, she supported herself against a nearby dresser, and finally she realized what was happening: she was feeling Edgar's anger, feeling the rage that burned through his body and fueled his soul. She had been angry before, of course, in her everyday life, but this was something entirely new. This was the horrific, uncontrolled, uncontrollable fury of a man who refused to let anyone or anything stand in his way. Taking a deep breath, Kate tried to stay calm, even though she wasn't certain she could contain so much emotion without being torn apart.
With a faint smile, Edgar adjusted his shirt collar.
“Mr. Nixon,” he continued calmly, “we have worked together for quite some time, but I have become increasingly aware of a mismatch in our ambitions. I was worried initially that money would be a stumbling block in our business relationship, but unfortunately that has not been the nature of the problem. After all, money can easily be fixed, but this is something else and that, I'm afraid, is why I have had you forcibly brought here to Thaxos. Welcome, by the way, to my new home. Or rather, my old home. You see, I was here a long time ago, back when I was rather different.”
“You're insane,” Nixon replied, with hatred in his voice as his arms and legs were held down by Edgar's men. “You don't seriously think you can get away with this, do you?”
“I am getting away with it,” Edgar told him calmly. “I already have. The only difficult part was removing you from your apartment and smuggling you here, but that's done now. The rest is going to be very easy indeed.”
“People are going to come looking for me,” Nixon continued. “The police, everyone, they're not just going to stand back while I vanish!”
“I can deal with any problems that might occur,” Edgar told him. “It has already been quite some time since you left the public stage. I'm afraid I had to drug you and leave you in a dark room for a while. I wasn't quite ready to come to Thaxos until a few days ago, there were some... complications that had to be dealt with.” He turned again to Kate. “This is what happened on the first night,” he told her. “Do you remember when you met me outside Ephram Kazakos's shop? Just one hour before that, I was dealing with Nixon. I had the miserable fool woken so I could tell him what I was going to do to him.”
“Edgar...” She paused, still struggling to contain the anger she was feeling in her soul. “Please... Whatever this is, you have to stop!”
“It's already happened,” he replied. “Don't you understand? This dream is my way of showing you the truth.” He turned back to Nixon. “Thaxos is my home,” he continued, “and I'm afraid it's going to be your home as well. I can't kill you, not yet, but at the same time I certainly can't have you running around in the open. Therefore, I have had to come up with another way to hold you down and keep you from public sight. Don't worry, though. It's going to be horrifically cruel, and I imagine it'll drive you quite mad. Once insanity has set in, however, I imagine it will be much more bearable. Your mind will be pushed and pushed, but once it breaks you'll be far less aware of your own suffering. Consider that to be my little gift to you.”
“I'll destroy you for this,” Nixon told him. “I've got powerful friends.”
“That's nice for you. I don't need powerful friends.”
“This isn't over, Edgar. I'll make you pay!”
“Take him to the garden,” Edgar replied, turning to one of his men. “It's time to get this over with.”
As Nixon screamed, the men began to carry him out of the room. Edgar turned to Kate, and for a moment he seemed a little cautious, as if he was concerned about her reaction.
“Do you feel it?” he asked finally. “That rage, that passionate fury in your chest... What you're feeling now is just one tenth of the anger that I feel every minute of every day. I couldn't possibly have let you feel it all. You would have died.”
“Edgar, no-one can live like this,” she told him. “No-one can have this much anger in their soul -”
“I can.”
“It'll kill you!”
“No,” he replied emphatically, “quite the opposite. It keeps me alive. The day I lose my anger is the day I wither and die.”
“So you'd rather burn instead?”
“I respect you very much,” he replied, “but I will not take advice from you. Not on this matter, at least. Don't you feel the anger in your soul right now? Can't you imagine how it could give life?”
“Edgar, this is -”
“Let me increase it,” he added with a smile. “You have experienced around one tenth. Here, feel half of what I feel.”
Before she could reply, Kate felt an enormous burst of fury in her chest, enough to knock her to her feet. Falling forward, she struggled desperately to breathe before the sensation finally passed, but by the time she was able to look up at Edgar again, her entire body was already trembling.
“That was less than a second,” Edgar told her. “Now do you understand what it's like to be me?”
“I...” Looking down at her hands, Kate suddenly realized that whereas a moment ago she had been on the floor in one of the rooms in Edgar's mansion, now she was on a patch of grass in the garden. Turning, she saw that John Nixon was being dragged toward a freshly-dug grave, while Edgar watched from a distance.
“You're a maniac!” Nixon screamed. “You can't kill me!”
“I'm not going to kill you,” Edgar replied calmly. “I'm going to bury you.”
As Nixon continued to scream, Kate struggled to her feet and ran toward the grave. Her body still felt weak and damaged after that brief burst of anger, but as she reached Edgar she realized that she was now feeling something else, another alien emotion that he was forcing into her soul.
“I've been planning this for so long,” he said with a smile.
Nixon screamed as he was thrown down into the coffin at the bottom of the grave, and Kate felt a burst of emotion in her chest. It felt almost like... satisfaction.
“Do you feel it?” Edgar asked, as he watched his men climbing down to close the lid on Nixon's coffin. “Do you finally understand how good it can feel when you design the perfect torture device for your worst energy?”
She tried to reply, but the sensation was overwhelming her body. Whereas a moment ago she had felt Edgar's anger, now she felt the pleasure that came in its wake.
“Don't worry,” Edgar continued, making his way to the side of the grave and looking down at the coffin, which was fitted with a pipe that ran up to the surface level. “You'll be well fed while you're down there, Mr. Nixon. That's part of the fun.”
Kate watched in horror as Edgar's men began to fill in the grave, while Nixon's screams could still be heard from inside the coffin.
?
??What are you doing to him?” she asked.
“Keeping him close,” Edgar replied.
“You're going to bury him alive?”
“He'll receive food and water, everything he needs in order to keep breathing.”
“How long are you going to leave him down there?”
“As long as I wish,” he replied, turning to her. “Tell me it doesn't feel good, Kate. To take your worst enemy and do this to him... Believe me, he deserves this a thousand times over.”
Watching as the men finished filling in the grave, Kate couldn't help but think about Nixon down there in the dark box. She watched as another of Edgar's men brought a tray of food containing caviar, lobster and a glass of wine, and as Edgar took the tray and carried it over to the opening of the pipe, Kate's own sense of disgust and horror was drowned out by Edgar's triumphalism.
“Enjoy your first meal on Thaxos,” Edgar said as he opened the top of the pipe, immediately allowing Nixon's screams to be heard again. Smiling, he tipped first the caviar, then pieces of lobster, and finally the glass of wine down the pipe, before closing the top again and shutting off the sound of his victim's screams. With clear satisfaction in his eyes, he turned to Kate. “Do you see now? Do you understand why I do what I do?”
“Edgar...” She stared at him, and finally her own emotions were filling her body again as Edgar's withdrew. “You can't do this. You can't torture people.”
“I learned the art a long time ago. I had a most excellent teacher.”
“This isn't you,” she continued. “Not the real you. Please, Edgar -”
“I believe this dream is over now,” he told her. “I have shown you what happened, and I have let you experience everything from my point of view, including the emotions I felt. I hope that will be enough to allow you to understand.”
“No, Edgar, please...” She hurried over to him. “You're not this man. You're not like your grandfather.”
“Of course I'm not like him,” he replied with a smile. “Come on, Kate, you're an extremely intelligent woman and I know you've realized the truth, even if you won't admit it to yourself. You know the real link between myself and the man I claim was my grandfather.”
“But that's not possible,” she told him.
“Of course it is,” he replied, his smile widening until his sharp fangs were visible. “Don't deny the truth any longer, Kate. I've shown you everything now. All you need to do is accept what's standing right in front of you.”
“Edgar, no -”