"It's where I prefer them," Johannes says, snippy. He has a bit of a groundhog's approach to guilt, even he's aware. When confronted, dig deeper.
He tilts his head up at the eerie white expanse of the lighthouse. It's ugly to his turn-of-the-century eye, to be sure, but it's a fascinating sort of ugly that reminds him of things he's seen described in books he's read. And not novels or travelogues, either. Sunken cities, alien cities, places he's never been and never cares to visit. It has occurred to them that they might be in one of them, but this place is a bit... orderly, for that. It sort of reminds him of Geneva. Sarnath probably wouldn't remind him of Geneva.
Distractions. Useful things. "Yes, the damned woman. I gave the damned woman back her damned soul, you know," not so much using the word in the sense of 'condemned' except perhaps in strictly literal terms. "I gave them all back. It was a bluff. To the damned Devil. Do you know, she intended to turn me in," he says with disgust, not necessarily with Leonie Barrow. "I had no idea some of those laws were on the books anywhere. She certainly did. I didn't kill her," he appends in what is perhaps the most suspicious disclaimer that ever seemed perfectly natural to Johannes Cabal. "Quite the opposite. Are we done accounting for what I've been up to on my holidays, Horst?"
[location]
He tilts his head up at the eerie white expanse of the lighthouse. It's ugly to his turn-of-the-century eye, to be sure, but it's a fascinating sort of ugly that reminds him of things he's seen described in books he's read. And not novels or travelogues, either. Sunken cities, alien cities, places he's never been and never cares to visit. It has occurred to them that they might be in one of them, but this place is a bit... orderly, for that. It sort of reminds him of Geneva. Sarnath probably wouldn't remind him of Geneva.
Distractions. Useful things. "Yes, the damned woman. I gave the damned woman back her damned soul, you know," not so much using the word in the sense of 'condemned' except perhaps in strictly literal terms. "I gave them all back. It was a bluff. To the damned Devil. Do you know, she intended to turn me in," he says with disgust, not necessarily with Leonie Barrow. "I had no idea some of those laws were on the books anywhere. She certainly did. I didn't kill her," he appends in what is perhaps the most suspicious disclaimer that ever seemed perfectly natural to Johannes Cabal. "Quite the opposite. Are we done accounting for what I've been up to on my holidays, Horst?"