Morris drew himself back into the shadow and I had a hunch then why Morris had been acting so strangely.
“That true, Morris?” Ronan said with a curiously raised brow. “You mean to tell me you, of all people, volunteered to bring them?”
Morris nodded nervously and even in the shadow, the regretful look on his bearded face was obvious.
Ronan shook his head.
The itch was overwhelming. Finally, I shut my eyes and scratched as vigorously as I could, not caring anymore if they saw me do it. I could care less about their conversation, or about the ‘Task’, and why I was in Big Creek and what I had to do in Fiedel City. All I cared about was relief and if I had to go ahead, drop my pants to my ankles and scratch myself until I bled, then I would do it.
“You can use my shaving room to put on the salve, if you want,” Ronan offered. He opened his hand, palm up, toward the hallway. “Mine is first door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
I left with an uncomfortable stride.
The salve was a godsend. Surely, it contained the scariest and most inhumane ingredients I could imagine, but I wasn’t going to ask and hoped like hell that Ronan would refrain from telling me. I stood in the shaving room accompanied by a cracked ceramic bowl on a wine barrel, a straight razor and a woven basket that held a set of vintage shaving supplies.
After my unsuccessful search for a towel, I wiped the rest of the salve onto my pants. I stood there, gladly taking in the room’s isolation. I could faintly hear the voices of Tsaeb, Morris and Ronan just one room away, something about “if he succeeds” and “safe passage” and “Sophia kills things” and “the End of the Beginning”. I thought about what Tsaeb had told me back in the Field of Yesterday; that once I met with the queen she would tell me everything I needed to know. Soon I would know. As long as I could get into the fortress, most of my questions would finally be answered. I was already so sick of it all that despite my encounter with Charla, I was ready to jump in bed with the queen and give her a bastard child. I just wanted to go home, back to the polluted city I grew up in, back to my ex-wife
—
no more decisions, no more consequences. And if she would not have me, back to Lou’s Coffee in my favorite seat near the south window where I could torture myself watching a woman I would never have. Back to work at the office where the smell of Bengay and Cool Water cologne was thick in the hallway near Hugh Bastardi’s office. And back to the street corner where I saw the Devil the first time and tell him to shove it, like I should’ve done.
I pressed my hands against the rotted wall in front of me. Closing my eyes, I lowered my head and sighed. I thought about curling up in the corner and falling fast asleep. Maybe I would wake up and find that this was all just a bad dream, but I knew better than that too.
What did I do to deserve this?
I had never killed anyone, or even physically harmed another human being for that matter. I was not the adulterous one in my marriage, no, Amanda cheated on
me
with the guy that worked at the auto body shop. I wasn’t a bad guy in general. I always tossed my extra change in the Salvation Army red kettle, and passed a buck to a homeless man on a street corner. I thought I had lived a decent life, one not necessarily for God, but not against Him, either.
Maybe that’s precisely why I was being punished.
I grew up under the religious thumb of my mother, but never followed her example. In fact, because religion was forced down my throat as a child, I was sick of it by the time I was old enough to make my own decisions. I never went to church when I got older, except once at my friend’s wedding, then at my own wedding, and at my father’s funeral. I never read the Bible, though I knew it better than anyone I knew, thanks to my mother. I never prayed, except when I really, really wanted something. I always hid when the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the door and I made up an excuse when they caught me.
I was being punished, I was sure of it, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses were probably behind it all.
A shadow moved across the floor. I lifted my head as I heard something outside the door and the shadow moved again in the pool of light underneath it.
When I opened the door, no one was there.
The hallway was thin, the ceiling low, the ship slightly titled at an angle; I could feel the unevenness in my steps. I crept slowly down the hall toward the end where a series of steps awaited.
When I came upon them, I noticed above me the hatchway had already been lifted. I heard the shuffling of feet on the upper floor and laughter as voices slipped past. I went to put one foot on the first step and then heard a noise behind me.
It was the rat from Ronan’s room. It sat in the hallway on its back legs, the cracker wedged in its tiny human-like paws. I was in no mood to hold a conversation with an animal and so I took that step up, intent on seeing what the second floor of the ship looked like from the top of the stair.
The rat squealed and I turned swiftly. The cracker fell in slow motion to the floor, breaking into several crumbling pieces. I heard the sound of bones crushing. I saw bloody muscle, tissue and tendon stretch and pop between a set of perfect pearly-whites. The rat’s body squirmed and twitched before falling limp. The corpse hit the floor with a
plop
.
The little girl seemed only hungry for the head.
“You must be Sophia.” I was shit-your-pants nervous, alone in the hallway with an imp that had a bad reputation and clearly bad eating habits.
Sophia wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. She wore a yellow dress and little black loafers. Her hair was done up in perfect blond curls. She tilted her head, smiling. Blood glistened on her teeth and on her gums.
“I’m Norman.”
Sophia cracked her neck. There was a faint crazed look in her eye, though the smile did its job to help distract from it.
“Sophia Ana-Lula-Desderii Medishini,” she introduced.
“And it’s alright if I call you Sophia?”
“Absolutely not, you big buffoon.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’ll call me Sophia Ana-Lula-Desderii Medishini, or you’ll not call me anything at all.”
I chewed on the inside of my mouth, nervously. The itch was returning, but that nuisance would have to wait.
“I’m kidding!” the little girl laughed. “I don’t really care what you call me as long as you pay me.”
“Pay you for what?”
“To get you inside the fortress, of course,” she said with an eerie, confident grin.
I didn’t trust the adorable smile, or the precious golden curls, or the big brown doe eyes that reminded me of Bambi. My instincts were running rampant.
The imp named Sophia made a slight movement forward and instantly I was on my guard. My eyes grew wide and alert, my heart skipped about six beats in my chest and my hands came up as if to push my way through a crowd.
Sophia clicked her tongue and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Maybe we should go to Ronan’s room,” I said, cautiously stepping off the stair. “Tsaeb’ll start wondering if I bailed on him, and
—
”
“Tsaeb,” said Sophia, “is just one of them Sin Demons and ain’t nothing to worry about.”
“You know him?”
“Nah,” she answered, shaking her head and curling her upper lip. “I just know. I could smell his stink before he stepped on this ship. Don’t like them. Never have. They get on my nerves.”
Sophia began to skip up and down the hallway. Her curls bouncing against her back and shoulders. Her smile was sweet and bright, her full set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth (minus the blood) shone in the passing shadows. As she skipped, her little black loafers tapped against the wooden floor, back and forth. She stopped directly in front of me and I pressed my back defensively against the wall.
“My price,” Sophia began, “is nothing less than getting me the hell out of Big Creek.” Her voice was stern and unforgiving, and her face began to reveal some of the evil that hid behind her peaches-n-cream skin. “You buy me from Ronan, become my new Master until I do what you need me to do, and then you set me free.” She leaned in closer, grabbing the tail of my shirt. “Fail to get Ronan to agree and I’ll rip your spine from the back of your neck and keep you alive long enough to let you watch me eat it.”
She pulled away and was the smiling, skipping Sophia again.
I swallowed hard and forgot what saliva felt like in my mouth.
“Sooo
phia
!” shouted Ronan from the door of his room at the other end of the hall.
She stopped and turned to me again. “Got it?”
I nodded, as I had no choice but to agree. She left me standing there for a long, tense minute and then I followed her back to Ronan’s room.
“Hi there,” Sophia said, grinning at Morris. “Did yah come to see me? I missed yah!”
Morris, visibly shaken, pressed himself against the window as though he would find a way to fit through it if he had to.
“Leave him alone,” demanded Ronan.
“You’re
such
a square,” Sophia said.
I stood in the doorway, arms heavy at my sides, a secretive fear controlling every movement I made. Tsaeb noticed right away and he watched me closely, at the same time, keeping his eyes on the imp who he was certain had everything to do with the way I was acting.
We’ve got a problem.
I wanted to say the words aloud to Tsaeb, but he knew by my stone-like expression.
Ronan wobbled on his wooden legs toward Sophia and grabbed her by the collar of her frilly yellow and bloodstained dress. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled and callously shoved her into the chair I had occupied before, next to Tsaeb who snarled over at her with a look of disapproval.
“Jealous?” Sophia smirked.
“Why would I be jealous of
you
?”
Tsaeb was jealous. He sucked it up, pushed out his chest, crossed his arms and raised his chin to Sophia’s eye-level.
Sophia turned away, bored, yet satisfied she had already succeeded in getting under the competition’s skin.
“My dear friend, Morris McAlister,” Ronan began, “stopped visiting about six months ago when my imp here strung him up by his ankles and started skinning him alive
—
he’ll always have the scars.”
Tsaeb and I jerked our heads simultaneously toward Sophia.
“I had only just bought her a few days before, and Morris, like most who meet her for the first time, thought she was just an innocent little girl. I was out hunting when it happened, and when I returned I could hear Morris screaming like a woman all the way from Little Cove just through the forest there.
“I paid far too much for her,” Ronan added, “but the gypsies have never been known to give refunds. I sure went looking for one, I’ll tell you what, I sure did! But the gypsies had already left Fiedel City. Last I heard they were heading to Bastia.”
“Can you make her leave?” asked Morris, trembling and barely able to look at the imp that wore the adorable skin of a little girl.
“Of course.”
Ronan made a movement with his hand toward the door, which I moved away from quickly. Sophia growled, gritted her teeth and then stood. Before she left, she glared at Tsaeb and then puckered her lips and made a smooching sound at Morris. At the door, she stopped and looked over at me. Only I could see her face. I knew without words exactly what that nasty look of hers meant.
She skipped out of the room, the sound of her loafers clicking down the hallway and fading as she turned the corner.