Fear Nothing

then.
        Instead, after standing awkwardly at the table for seconds that were interminable, not sure what to do, I went at last to the back door and double-checked the dead bolt to confirm that it was engaged.
        “I know Rod loved me,” she said, although the anger in her voice didn't soften. “It broke his heart, just broke him entirely, to do what he had to do. Broke his heart to cooperate with them, tricking me into surgery. He was never the same after that.”
        I turned and saw that her fist was cocked. The blades of her face were polished by candlelight.
        “And if his superiors had understood how close Rod and I had always been, they would have known he couldn't go on keeping secrets from me, not when I'd suffered so much for them.”
        “Eventually he told you all of it,” I guessed.
        “Yes. And I forgave him, truly forgave him for what had been done to me, but he was still in despair. There was nothing I could do to nurse him out of it. So deep in despair… and so scared.” Now her anger was veined with pity and with sorrow. “So scared he had no joy in anything anymore. Finally he killed himself… and when he was dead, there was nothing left to cut out of me.”
        She lowered her fist. She opened it. She stared at the cordial glass - and then carefully set it on the table.
        “Angela, what was wrong with the monkey?” I asked.
        She didn't reply.
        Images of candle flames danced in her eyes. Her solemn face was like a stone shrine to a dead goddess.
        I repeated the question: “What was wrong with the monkey?”
        When at last Angela spoke, her voice was hardly louder than a whisper: “It wasn't a monkey.”
        I knew that I had heard her correctly, yet her words made no sense. “Not a monkey? But you said-”
        “It appeared to be a monkey.”
        “Appeared?
        “And it was a monkey, of course.”
        Lost, I said nothing.
        “Was and wasn't,” she whispered. “And that's what was wrong with it.”
        She did not seem entirely rational. I began to wonder if her fantastic story had been more fantasy than truth-and if she knew the difference.
        Turning away from the votive candles, she met my eyes. She was not ugly anymore, but she wasn't pretty again, either. Hers was a face of ashes and shadows. “Maybe I shouldn't have called you. I was emotional about your dad dying. I wasn't thinking clearly.”
        “You said I need to know… to defend myself.”
        She nodded. “You do. That's right. You need to know. You're hanging by such a thin thread. You need to know who hates you.”
        I held out my hand to her, but she didn't take it.
        “Angela,” I pleaded, “I want to know what really happened to my parents.”
        “They're dead. They're gone. I loved them, Chris, loved them as friends, but they're gone.”
        “I still need to know.”
        “If you're thinking that somebody has to pay for their deaths… then you have to realize that nobody ever will. Not in your lifetime. Not in anyone's. No matter how much of the truth you learn, no one will be made to pay. No matter what you try to do.
        I found that I had drawn my hand back and had curled it into a fist on the table. After a silence, I said, “We'll see.”
        “I've quit my job at Mercy this evening.” Revealing this sad news, she appeared to shrink, until she resembled a child in adult clothing, once more the girl who had brought iced tea, medicine, and pillows to her disabled mother. “I'm not a nurse anymore.”
        “What will you do?”
        She didn't answer.
        “It was all you ever wanted to be,” I reminded her.
        “Doesn't seem any point to it now. Bandaging wounds in a war is vital work. Bandaging wounds in the middle of Armageddon is foolish. Besides, I'm becoming. I'm becoming. Don't you see?”
        In fact, I didn't see.
        “I'm becoming. Another me. Another Angela. Someone I don't want to be. Something I don't dare think about.”
        I still didn't know what to make of her apocalyptic talk. Was it a rational response to the secrets of Wyvern or the result of the personal despair arising from the loss of her husband?
        She said, “If you insist on knowing about this, then once you know, there's nothing to do but sit back, drink what pleases you most, and watch it all end.”
        “I insist anyway.”
        “Then I guess