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Charles grabbed the last tossed poster from the air - neatly rolled and rubber-banded, aerodynamic - and dropped it in the backpack. “Right,” he said, and hefted the pack up over his shoulder. “That’s all that’s ready to go, yeah?”
He turned back to Edwin, who was apparently more trusted to pack Niko’s things to haul them to her new apartment in London - which he didn’t find fair, he was the enchanted object specialist, he could be careful - and saw Edwin frozen in the doorway.
“Back up,” a high, delicate voice ordered.
Edwin took a careful step backwards and then stood very, very still.
The barrel of a gun followed him in, pressed against his forehead, then a black-clad arm, at a sharp uptilt to reach him.
“Monty?”
A laugh, one that should be a soft bell-like giggle but instead came out hysterical and sharp-edged. “Yeah,” Monty said. “What, did you not expect to see me?”
“Thought you were a bird again,” Charles said, and he eased slowly to face the situation without startling Monty.
“Mm. I was. Funny thing, though, a good familiar’s never in want of a master.” Monty gave the crazed giggle again and Edwin swallowed audibly.
“I didn’t actually want to be human, you know? But, I mean, I didn’t really like being in a cage either. Or getting used for potion ingredients, or as a battery, or any of the shit that I’m good for, but you know what they say, if you’re good at something, they’ll never let you do it for free. Or something like that.”
“Monty,” Edwin said, and then his eyes widened as Monty clicked the hammer on the revolver.
“Yeah, I don’t want to hear anything from you,” Monty said. “I mean, I don’t want to be doing any of this, but,” he said with a sound that barely even counted as a laugh anymore, “I guess that’s life.”
“Are you bleeding?” Charles asked, and maybe it wasn’t the most important thing he was looking at, but he wasn’t used to guns being a real threat, okay.
Monty’s eyes flickered down. “Oh, yeah,” he said breezily. “My new master really likes my liver. Do you know, by the way, what happens to a familiar without a master? Because I might not’ve wanted to be a human, but I sure as fuck didn’t want to become a dumb BEAST!”
His voice dropped abruptly out of the yell and into a light tease. “Like you,” he said, making eye contact with Charles.
Edwin’s eyes twitched between them. “Is this the revolver from the Townsend history museum?”
“I told you to shut UP.” Monty’s upper lip went up in a mammal’s snarl or a human’s sneer. “You’re so observant, aren’t you? So perceptive. Such a good detective. Do you know I was so stupid I thought maybe you could figure things out? I thought, for just a couple hours, maybe you could help me. Well I guess we can see how that worked out!”
Monty closed his eyes for just a moment, gathering himself, and Charles started to lunge across the room.
“Almost as stupid as you two,” Monty said, eyes popped back open and digging into Charles’s. Charles froze.
“Monty, we can help you,” Charles said. “You’re being hurt, we can help you. That’s what we do.”
“Yeah, it’s too late for that,” Monty said, and he sounded tired. Blood dripped from his soaked coat onto the floor. “Only thing Elijah likes more than livers is power, and as soon as he got me to tell him what happened to Esther, well.” He gestured with the hand holding the revolver, rubbing the barrel across Edwin’s forehead and leaving a faint red streak. “He’s not as subtle as Mother.”
Edwin’s eyebrows furrowed in what Charles recognized as concern. “You called Esther your Mother?”
“She WAS,” Monty snarled, suddenly closer to Edwin, and Charles barely stopped himself from diving forward. “You fucking - you fucking humans, you don’t understand, you don’t understand what it’s like to be made, to be made and remade and remade and remade and…”
“Edwin does,” Charles said.
Monty snapped his head back up, lost in his mumbling. “What?”
“In… in Hell. They remade him, over n’ over.”
Monty blinked at Charles, then tilted his head. It looked so much like Edwin. “Huh.”
“The Spider liked my kidneys,” Edwin said quietly.
Monty turned back to Edwin, head still tilted.
“Sa’al preferred my eyes.”
“Mother said my eyes were better than a newt’s,” Monty said, voice distant. “So much more magic, more power. Softer and sweeter, made the brew taste fresher.”
“I am not a familiar,” Edwin said, voice low, “but I do not think I have been a human in a very long time. I am something Hellmade, something broken and eaten and remade and used until there wasn’t even enough of the original left to bother recycling.”
Monty’s arm, tilted up to reach Edwin’s much higher head, shook. Then it shook again, with eerie silent laughter. “Mother tossed my wings in the recycling bin in the park once,” he said. “She thought it was funny.”
“The Headmaster thought it was hilarious to watch me run through the burning wastes of Wrath until my feet melted, then walk up to me to pick me off the ground and take me back,” Edwin said. “I am not sure Masters are the best judges of humor.”
“Yeah,” Monty said, still shaking with laughter, and saltwater dripped down to mix with the blood on the floor. “I’m not sure they are.”
“We can help you,” Charles said. “We didn’t… we were stupid before. We didn’t understand, I’m sorry. But we can help you, okay? I swear.”
Monty’s face stayed tilted and turned toward Edwin, but his eyes slid towards Charles, and his arm shook harder and harder.
Edwin reached up and took the rune-engraved revolver from Monty’s fingers.
“We can,” he said gently, and let Charles take up the task of pulling Monty into a hug.