Here’s another exercise in having characters flap their gums at one another. Enjoy!

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“It got away from you, didn’t it?”

I turned at the sound of David’s voice. I knew he was there; I’d sensed his arrival a few minutes before but wasn’t in the frame of mind to greet him properly. “I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“I suppose I just did.”

“Hah. Clever man.”

He gestured in the direction of the valley floor, visible through the blackened remains of once-proud evergreen trees. “Was it worth it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“You’d better damned well know.”

I sighed. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Good. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“Go to hell.”

“I live there, remember?”

“Right.” Nobody is ever really in the mood to have their nose rubbed in their mistakes, and I’m honest enough with myself to admit that I’m touchier about that sort of thing than most people. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Do you suppose you could go bug somebody else for a while?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You’re all heart.”

“Uh huh. Don’t you know it.”

“Look, David. Could I really have done it any differently? They were messing about with forces they couldn’t begin to understand, yet, let alone control properly.”

“And that’s a good excuse to break cover, make an ass of yourself showing off, and escalate the situation beyond all reason?” This normally quiet-spoken man, my opposite number, my secret co-conspirator, was almost shouting at me now. “Look at this! Look what you’ve done, you jackass.”

“I can see it well enough, thank you.”

“You’re going to remember this day, right?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything, at all, since the day I was made what I am. You know that.”

“Well, good. Because there’s nobody left to forgive you, so you’d better damned well not forget.” Quietly now, David asked, “Didn’t you see it coming?”

I shook my head. “I should have. I… got carried away. Caught up in it. I was angry, more than anything else.”

“I’d have thought that Lynn’s imbroglio with that research lab would’ve taught you a thing or two. Puck’s perverted pickle, man, you’re the one who stopped her! You know what happens when you can’t walk away from a fight that you start on principle and feed with rage.”

“I know. I know.”

“Oh, you do now, I bet.” He waited, but I had no reply. “You’ve got to do better than this. There’s too much at stake.”

That, I could answer. “This will not happen again.”

“It had better damned well not. We can’t afford for you to be doing the demons’ work.”

As I looked down from the mountain at a world stripped of all animal life, all I could do was shake my head. The tears didn’t come until later.