Page 58 of The Darkest Half

But how many wake up one day and find themselves in a life like mine? Not many, I would assume, but that is really beside the point.

Mozart escorts me down the center of the room, and as I pass, those behind me finally take their chairs. I try to look at everyone, wondering if there are any present whom I already know or have seen before. There are a few familiar faces here and there, operatives who have worked with us in the past, but mostly they are new faces.

I’m disappointed that the one face I had hoped to see is not here. Where are you, Fredrik?

James Woodard can’t make eye contact with me as I pass but looks down instead at his shoes. I stop long enough to touch his shoulder, letting him know I forgive him. Because, unlike Mozart, James is that kind of guy. And besides, if James had betrayed us or been a spy, he would not be standing here now. He would never have left the building in Ohio alive, much less be here among the rest of us.

Victor is standing at the head of the centermost table in the room, looking out at everyone in attendance but mostly at me as I approach. His expression is stoic again now that he is in front of this large group of people he now leads. But behind those eyes, I see the Victor Faust that is madly in love with me.

He gestures at the empty chair next to his, and I sit down. Mozart sits next to me on my left, and everyone else still standing follows suit; the sounds of chair legs moving across the marble and shuffling three-piece suits fill the massive room.

“This,” Victor begins, pointing at me with an open hand, palm up, “is Izabel Faust. She would stand to be introduced, but she is on the mend.”

Everyone nods at me, and a few voices of welcome chime around the tables. My heart blooms behind my ribs and warms my blood upon hearing him call me by his last name.

“As you have been informed by now from various sources,” Victor begins, “your former leader, the one known as Vonnegut, has been killed in the line of duty. Those of you who knew him might be asking yourself the obvious question: Who am I, exactly? Aside from the obvious fact that he and I were twin brothers—if you were ever given the rare opportunity to meet him in person, it is obvious—I was also the one in line to replace him in the event of his demise.”

A susurrus of voices moves around the table.

“My name is Victor Faust.”

The susurrus rises and lasts longer.

“That is Victor Faust?” I hear one man whisper. “I’ve never seen him. Only heard about him.”

“I’ve never even seen Vonnegut,” another says, “so this is all news to me.”

“Faust is a legend,” says yet another.

“Faust was a fugitive.”

“Yes,” a woman with raven-black hair and crimson-red lips whispers. “The Order has been tracking him for years—but now he leads it?” Her eyes move across the room to find Victor, and I don’t like the suspicious glare she shoots him with.

Victor waits until everyone gives him their full attention again.

“Is this not the most sophisticated assassination and spy organization in the world?” he says aloud.

No one answers because they know that Victor is getting around to making a point. So, instead, they listen intently.

“I did go rogue from The Order,” he continues, “and yes, there was a bounty on me for a time, but was the bounty to bring me in dead or alive?”

Still, no one answers.

“Precisely,” Victor says. “If your former leader wanted me dead, do you not think I would be by now? That an organization as large and sophisticated as The Order would not have succeeded in eliminating me, a lone man, long ago?”

Many heads nod in agreement and the whispers around the table are more accepting than skeptical.

“I am in control now,” Victor says with authority. “If anyone here has any objections, please make yourself known.”

Not one person stands. But then why would they? To object publicly would be suicide. And Victor knows this, of course. But this is the way of things in this business; it always has been and will always be.

Almost everyone will fall in line with the changing of things; they don’t care much who leads them so long as they are led and, more important, paid. A few will rebel and find themselves on the wrong end of a loyalist’s gun. But at the end of the day, Victor Faust will still be the leader of The Order.

He is the leader of The Order…

A part of me will probably never fully grasp it after all we’ve been through to get here.

“Business will resume as it would any other day for most of you,” Victor goes on. “Some will be assigned under new unit leaders. Others will find themselves in different departments and relocate to other countries. You will be notified.”

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