Lexicon

steadied himself, bringing up the blade. How foolish. He was disappointed in himself. It was that garbage about her name:
Woolf, now.
The purest bullshit, and he’d bought it. She was Emily, of course. She always would be.
    He moved around the desk toward the sound of her voice, holding the blade flat, prepared for a stroke. He thought he heard something and jabbed speculatively. He turned in a slow half circle.
    “This way,” she said from the corridor.
    He felt his way to the doorway. In the corridor were strange whisperings. The vents? He felt surrounded. She had plans for him, apparently.
    “There are people here.” Her voice floated ahead of him. “Just so you know.”
    He took two steps and stumbled over a chair. He felt the toe of his right shoe bend in a way that suggested a permanent crease and felt grief.
    “So I have a proposition for you, Yeats. You can open your eyes, look at this thing I’ve got around my neck, and follow my instructions to disembowel yourself. This way, nobody gets killed but you. Or you can stand there swinging that oversized butter knife while I send your own people against you. What do you say?”
    He ran at her. Someone grabbed his arms. He slashed the blade at his aggressor and there was a gasp and the hands fell back. He thrust the sword out again and felt it puncture something. Weight pulled at the blade and he retreated before he could lose it. Something thumped against the carpet.
    “Congratulations,” Woolf said. “You killed your secretary.”
    He swiveled toward her voice, panting. The corridor was full of people. He could sense them. They were standing silently, waiting for his approach. To reach her he would need to kill them all.
    “So, no surprise,” she said. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
    She was still a 220. She had practiced her defense. But he could find a way in. There was always something. A hidden desire or secret shame. With that, he could unravel her.
    He explored air with the sword tip. “You were never going to be one of us. Eliot thought you could learn to discipline yourself. But the idea was laughable. You could never learn to discipline your excesses.”
    “I don’t know, Yeats. You may not be giving me enough credit there.”
    He swiveled toward her voice. “Do you really think you can hide your mind from me?” He swung the blade. The tip glanced against something and he scrambled forward, slipping and sliding, got the blade into something, and pushed.
    “Yecck,” said Emily. “That was Frost.”
    Perhaps she was unsettled by violence. “
Vartix velkor mannik wissick! Scream!
”
    There was a pause. No screaming. “So you figured out I haven’t really changed. Congratulations. Not going to help you.”
    “I can practically feel your emotions,” he said. “You radiate them. Tell me something, Emily. Why do you want me dead so much?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?”
    “I think it’s because you need to blame me. You need to believe that what you did in Broken Hill was my fault.”
    “It was.”
    “But a part of you knows the truth. That if you had tried harder, you could have stopped it.”
    “Goddamn it, Yeats. You’re persistent. I’ll give you that. But I didn’t come here to listen to this. I was going to make you apologize of your own free will, but you know what, screw it. Open your fucking eyes.”
    “You tell yourself you had no choice but you don’t believe it. That is why you desire me dead. You hope to kill a part of yourself.”
    “Grab him,” she said, to whom, he didn’t know. “Hold him down. Force open his eyes.”
    He raised the sword. “Who killed that boy at the Academy? Was that me? He was the first to pay for the mistake of loving you with his life. But not the last.” Hands plucked at him. He flailed with the sword. “Did I make you a killer, or were you already?”
    “Shut up!”
    “
Vartix velkor mannik wissick!
You killed your lover! Scream!” Hands gripped him. “
Vartix velkor mannik wissick, you deserve to be punished, you deserve to die for what you did! Vartix velkor mannik wissick, scream, you evil bitch!
”
    A weight of bodies bore him to the ground. Fingers groped at his face. Above this, a thin sound: a keening wail, like escaping steam.
    “
Vartix velkor mannik wissick
,” he said. “
Emily, lie down and sleep!
”
    His eyelids were dragged up. He saw faces he recognized, their expressions intent and focused. He knew their segments but nothing he could say