Page 67 of The Bad Weather Friend

Every weary swag of flesh in Theron’s face was enlivened by terror, his eyes as wide as the lidless eyes of a fish, his mouth agape and trembling.

“If you won’t tell me what I want to know,” said Spike, “I will feel the need to extractyourheart and study it to understand what secrets it contains.”

So it was that even a man as armored in arrogance, insulated from reason, and divorced from reality as F. Upton Theron could be brought to an understanding that he wouldn’t live forever and might not live another minute.

First haltingly and then with increasing haste, Theron divulged the information that Spike demanded, his stare fixed unwaveringly on the beating heart. They called themselves “the Better Kind.” There were fifty-two of them, led by a woman named Llewellyn Urnfield. Their combined assets totaled two-thirds of a trillion dollars. Handy Duroc and Jill Swift and others like them were riffraff, trash,ignobile vulgus, not in the exclusive club of the Better Kind. They were merely tools, strivers who could be intimidated or bribed or otherwise manipulated into assisting the Better Kind in the destruction of anyone deemed to be a threat to the New Truth, the New Way, the New World, the glorious and inevitable New Future. Potential enemies of the New Future, such as the monster Benny Catspaw, were defined by criteria established by the Better Kind, and then identified byan algorithm applied to all social media, government records, and corporate data troves.

“Monster?” Benny said. His feelings shouldn’t have been hurt when his accuser was a lunatic like Upton Theron; nonetheless, they were a little bruised. “I’m not a monster. I’m just a guy trying to have a life.”

“A good guy,” Harper added.

“Not a perfect guy,” Benny said. “Nobody is. But I like to think I’m on the good end of the spectrum.”

“He’s way out there on the good end,” Harper insisted.

“Not way out there, but sort of comfortably in the middle of the good end of the spectrum,” Benny said, embarrassed that he felt the need to insist on his virtue and the limits of it.

Even though terror still gripped Theron, he remained capable of rage. He was so angered by the assertion that Benny wasn’t a threat to the happiness and welfare of all humanity, he thrust up from his antique urine sponge and jabbed an accusing finger at the man he’d labeled a monster, excoriating him in a loud voice dripping with hatred and bitterness. “You stand there with your boyish face, your innocent little-girl eyes, your silly mop of hair, pretending to be as harmless as a bunny rabbit, but in your h-h-heart, you know what you really are, what a revolutionary, what a threat to the hope and progress of humankind. You arenice!” He hissed the word“nice”as though he considered niceness to be the worst of all depravities. “You are foolishly, absurdly, dangerouslynice. You are also wise, you smug little shit, wiser than you know. And it’s the wrong kind of wisdom, based on truth that isn’t the New Truth. When you realize how wise you are, you’ll be wise andnice, you preening little pile of angel puke. When you’re wise andnice, you’ll have charisma. When you have charisma, youdespicable Goody Two-Shoes, you might inspirenicenessin others, open their h-h-hearts to a way forward that IS NOT OUR WAY! Despicable scum like you will bring us an Armageddon ofNicenessbased on stupid wisdom of the dumbest kind. You’ll muck up everything. I find you repugnant. You nauseate me. I detest you, despise you, loathe you, abhor you, hate you, hate you, hate you. You’re an abomination, and I want you to die hard, your brain to explode, your h-h-heart to to to—”

Having been terrified by the heart still dripping in Spike the craggle’s hand, and then having further excited himself by flying into a rage and indulging in hatred all while nonetheless terrified, Upton Theron proved that, as a man of ninety, he didn’t have the oomph to encompass so much emotion in one snarling fit of outrage and carry it off to satisfaction. The hand with the accusing finger swept away from Benny and clamped on Theron’s chest. His mass of wrinkles scrunched into an expression that saidUh-oh.His mean eyes rolled back in his head, as though to examine his conscience before it was too late. It was too late. He fell facedown, which would be a blessing to whoever found him.

“Neat,” said Harper.

“Overdue,” Spike said as he tucked the bloody heart back into his chest. The wound closed. He smoothed his T-shirt, and the tear disappeared.

Benny said, “There was a time when I’d have thought, because I came here and confronted him, I was somewhat responsible for this, and I would have felt bad.”

“Now?” Spike asked.

“I feel somewhat responsible, but I don’t feel bad. I’m sort of surprised I don’t feel bad.”

“You have arrived at cragglethink,” Spike said with approval.

The rabbit was so comfortable in Harper’s arms that it snored softly.

She said, “I better talk to the housekeeper who helped me find Arabella. The staff needs to know about the poison gas or whatever it is, so they don’t accidentally trigger it. Plus they don’t have much time left to compensate themselves for having to work for that creep.” She started to turn away and then said, “Oh, and I’m keeping this sweet bunny,” before hurrying from the room.

“I believe,” said Spike, “we will bring an end to this current war on you, Benjamin, by paying a visit to Llewellyn Urnfield. If you’re ready to chance it.”

“Chance what?”

“What every human being chances every morning that he or she wakes up—death.”

“Well, at least I guess my odds are good. With you on my side, a ninety percent chance of surviving.”

“Ninety-three,” Spike corrected.

“Just one thing.”

“Which is?”

“If I have to die, I’d like it to be quick and clean, not prolonged and horrific.”

“We can hope,” Spike said as they crossed the drawing room toward the foyer.

“Something you said makes me a little nervous.”

“What was it? How can I put your mind at ease?”

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