There’s a darkness in my soul, something in harmony with the storm. As heaven pelts me with rain, I rejoice. It feels clean, this resonance, this release. My hot breath is a white cloud quickly forgotten in the night, but it is a sigh of pleasure and relief. In the storm, I know the blood will fall from my hands.
All around me the rain is beating the ground; splattering raindrops descend in a mad flurry all about me.
. . . and I am washed in the rain of heaven, and I know that I am clean . . .
What is my warrant, this permission given me to shed blood, compared to this gentle bath? What is the state’s power compared to heaven’s? The words of a judge to the furry of this storm?
I am allowed to do my deeds in the night, and I am told I am absolved: What absolution did I require of them that they want to give it to me? I know this, and my fathers knew it: A steak and a hammer were all one needed in the night.
I am the slayer of monsters, and the state condones it in a whisper: The heavens shout it in triumph. If the state should begin to shout against me, could it shout louder than the storm? I am the hunter of demons as were my fathers, and I require nothing but what my fathers required, for the rain to wash our hands.
There’s a darkness in my soul which sings with the rain, but there’s a light in my eye.
I look out into the distant haze and see the blurry streetlights in their regular steps leading on down the road. It is enough to follow until the dawn. I pull my coat about me, shivering in the cold, and make my weary way toward the light.
Tale Told 