“Fuck you, Faggot–” Roger yelled, pulling the trigger and at the same time squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself for the kick and roar that would surely follow. But the shotgun didn’t kick. And it didn’t roar.
Roger squinted his eyes open and the man in the jean jacket stood over him, his chest lined up with the barrels of the gun. His hands were on his hips and he was shaking his head at Roger.
“I thought I knew you,” the Devil said. “I knew you seemed familiar in some way. You beat her, right? Just like you used to beat up kids in grade school. You put a little boy in the hospital, I remember. I remember you now.” His voice got lower and lower, threaded with a cold menace that made the hair rise on the back of Kelly’s neck.
The cook that Roger had accused the waitress of being involved with had taken the opportunity to vamoose through the back door, but the waitress had stayed and now she peered out from between the swinging doors.
Roger glanced at his wife then back to the jean jacket man. His finger still squeezed the trigger.
“Huh?” he said. “No! I don’t beat her, I never did! What the hell are you talking about?” Roger now felt some of the same impending doom that had gathered in Kelly’s mind. Fear was worming into him and he couldn’t understand why. The scrawny faggot in front of him would be no match in a hand to hand, he didn’t even need the damn shotgun, what was he scared of? He didn’t know. But it didn’t serve to lessen his fear; in fact, it only made it worse.
The Devil shook his head at Roger, once left once right.
“Lying? On top of everything else? Not a good idea, Roger. Not good at all.”
The Devil placed his index finger at the tip of the shotgun. A tiny, blue flame rolled down the oiled center part of the barrels, splitting them as it went. The barrels peeled apart, curling back on themselves. The flame continued down, the ssshh it made was the loudest sound in the diner.
Kelly’s eyes had gone wide and she clasped her hands together at her chest. She was still kneeling and her distressed expression made her look like a penitent at prayer. The spark of blue fire reflected in her eyes, turning the green a murky brown.
Roger watched in stunned amazement as the small ball of flame laid waste to his gun. He couldn’t move. His arms were frozen, holding the gun just above his face. Only his left index finger was capable of movement, still squeezing the trigger over and over.
Now the blue flame hit the stock and a wisp of smoke rose behind it as it continued to roll. By now, the split barrels had bent all the way back and imbedded themselves in the floor on either side of Roger’s neck, caging his head.
The blue flames left a charred scar down the stock, still smoking, and the smell reminded Kelly of winter and fireplaces and…
The flame hit the end of the stock, which wavered inches from Roger’s eyes. It paused, glowing and burning deeper into the hickory wood and then it dropped, hissing, into Roger’s left eye.
Kelly screamed and the waitress–who’d been watching from the kitchen–screamed, too, and ran to Roger. She pushed past the Devil and fell to her knees at Roger’s side. She wailed and pulled at the gun barrel closest to her as Roger writhed and screamed, shaking his head side to side, bucking and kicking, trying to free himself as the small bit of Hell burned and burned in his eye.
The Devil stepped forward and laid a hand on the waitress’s head.
Kelly yelled:
“No! Mark, don’t!” Even as the waitress calmed and sat back on her heels, her hands going limp in her lap as she stared vacantly up at the Devil.
From her vantage point behind him, Kelly could only see half the waitress’ dazed and wondering face; the rest was blocked by the Devil’s khaki-clad leg.
For the waitress, everything disappeared except for the deep green eyes of the jean-jacketed man. Roger and his writhing fell away, the lady behind the counter fell away, the whole diner fell away and she was floating, floating in gray nothing, with only those eyes to guide her. It seemed she floated for hours or days in that murky gray but she wasn’t afraid, the eyes stayed with her, she kept looking into the eyes.
A small, blackish lump appeared in her peripheral vision and she wanted to turn to see what it was, but the man’s eyes held her. Now the blackish lump was coming closer or she was moving toward it, she couldn’t tell which, and the eyes seemed to tell her to get ready, get ready, you will need your strength. But she had no strength, had never had any. It was why she sympathized with Roger, even when he kicked or punched her. She knew that he had a good heart, a good soul; he was just misunderstood. He had no strength. It had been taken from him by the world.
It was the world to blame, not Roger.
The man’s voice came to her, floating somehow in the gray, and he asked if she was ready. She said ready for what? And he said to see, are you ready to see?
She said yes I am ready to see. But fear cramped her stomach, squeezing, making her aware she still had a body here in the gray.
Then you will see, the voice said, and she was turning, turning, turned and the black lump was in front of her.
It was slightly larger than a fist and shaped like a human heart, but it was black and dead looking. As she stared, it cracked open down one side and ichor leaked slowly out into the gray, feathering and staining it a dark reddish black. Along with the ichor came a smell…a sick combination of feces and rotting meat. She felt sick to her stomach and afraid. Very afraid.
This is Roger’s heart the voice told her and she wanted to protest. She looked at the eyes, wanting to shake her head, no, not my Roger, it isn’t, but the eyes were stern, unbending. She looked back at the black heart. Now it spun slowly, pieces of it lifting off and away and hovering steadily. She saw everything: his hate and his self-pity, his vaunting ego, how he despised everyone, everyone, even her. She saw how he despised her. And it broke her heart.
He will be mine in Hell, the voice said, and it is right that it should be so. Do you see that?
She nodded. It is right, she thought, and now she cried.
Do you, also, want to be mine in Hell? the voice said.
And she was very afraid. She’d been raised Catholic but hadn’t given it much thought since about tenth grade, but now she felt her mortal soul within her, felt it with all the certainty of an eighty-year-old priest on his death bed.
No, she said, the tears heavier.
Then you should not journey his path with him. The choice is yours, the voice said and all at once, she was back in the diner.
The lady behind the counter was yelling:
“No! Mark, don’t!”
Roger writhed and writhed, screaming.
The waitress stood, brushing the hem of her uniform down. She glanced once at the man in the jean jacket then she turned and walked out the front door.
Sirens in the distance forced Kelly up and onto her feet.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, taking the Devil’s hand.
She started toward the swinging doors but he stopped her, his hand gripping hers. She turned back to him, suddenly shy to look into his face. Her eyes met his. She nodded.
He looked into her eyes, searching, and then nodded back.
They pushed through the swinging doors and into the kitchen.
The back door was still open, swinging a bit.
Kelly and the Devil passed through and into the bright sunlight of early afternoon.
* * *
She drove smoothly and competently, even though her nerves were singing. She felt like a high-tension wire, taut and alive with electrical current, dangerous, maybe deadly. She saw Roger in her mind, his writhing, bucking dance played over and over, and each slam of his booted feet seemed to say your fault, your fault, you brought this demon in upon me. Though some part of her wanted to see this as a burden of guilt, she found a larger part of her accepted the responsibility without regret. She’d brought the Devil into the diner, yes, but Roger had brought everything else upon himself. He had only himself to blame.
Outwardly her features did not change, but inside she smiled. Not a smile of triumph, not one of satisfaction or even righteousness, the smile was one of acceptance. She had accepted her own responsibility and found she could hoist the weight. Easily.
She glanced at the Devil next to her and for the first time, she saw him as wholly another, an entity apart from Mark, not her brother. She was awed by him, her mysterious passenger, and drawn to him. Not in the way you’d be drawn to an attractive stranger across a room, but in the way you are drawn to watch a thunderstorm, magnetized and frightened at the same time, unable to turn away from the firework display.
The Devil considered her feelings as she felt them. He couldn’t read her mind as such, but having made a bond with her by showing her Hell, he had a good idea of at least the flavor of her thoughts. And he was troubled.
He felt drawn to her, too, to her innate goodness and the strength that was her base, her basic nature. In the topography of Kelly, her bedrock was pure iron. There was something of an Angel’s character in her combination of strength and kindness, a balance, and it was beautiful. There was no beauty in Hell, and he found that in having it, he would miss it more when he had to return.
It had been a very long time since he’d been in Heaven and this woman next to him reminded him of that sad fact. And yet at the same time, her presence assuaged his grief.
He was very troubled.
They had stopped twice more for food and the Devil had eaten prodigiously each time. He could feel this body around him like a vehicle and it thrummed and revved, souped up and developing quickly, its metabolism almost literally on fire. Torn muscle rebuilt itself, gobbling the protein the Devil ingested. Tendons began to loosen, oiled by the physical activity he was putting this body through. And all the while, the clamoring for drugs faded and faded, becoming wee, winking out.
They were on the bridge to Philadelphia and the sun was hanging at the horizon as though too curious about the state of this part of the world to sink the rest of the way down. Kelly flicked on her lights as they curved onto the Vine Street Expressway, merging with the traffic.
“Just anywhere in Center City?” she said. “Are you sure?”
The Devil nodded, knowing she could see his profile, at least peripherally. He had disengaged from her thoughts/feelings/being and was concentrating on his mission. He kept Thomas Evigan in the forefront of his mind and began to quest.
“Listen,” Kelly said, exiting the sunken expressway and emerging into almost full dark. They were in the city now and she piloted the car absently, heading to Market Street and the middle of downtown. “I can stay and help while you search. You might need a driver, someone to help you get around.” She glanced at him again. He was very still, looking out the front windshield, but, she got the feeling, seeing nothing. In the past half hour, she’d felt an almost physical lessening of him, as though he was taking himself away even as he sat next to her.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Do you want me to stay?”
He looked at her then, his eyes clearing as though coming awake from a dream. He tilted his head like he was surprised to see her.
“Stay? No.” he said, and turned from her. “This is not for you to be a part of.”
“Why?” she asked, the hurt evident in her voice. “All I want to do is–”
He shook his head. Once left, once right and she was reminded of him using that gesture with Roger.
She pulled into an alley off Market and pulled to the side, where service vehicles parked.
“I just want to help,” she said and though she was afraid, she put a hand on his arm.
He turned to her again and she saw a brief flash in his eyes, not of anger but of something that made her unsure…was it sadness she saw?
“Kelly, you’d be putting your mortal soul in jeopardy. I can’t let you.”
Another thrill of fear coursed through her and she felt her soul like a vulnerable, living thing inside her that required protection. She nodded.
“Okay, I understand, but…” she blushed and he could not see it, it was too dark where they sat, but he knew it anyway. “Call me then, I guess, if there’s anything I can do. If you need a ride or anything.”
He felt her smile, small and sad. And it tore into him. He put his hand on his door handle, almost as if, in self-defense of his feelings, he’d need to make a fast escape from the car.
“No,” he said. “I won’t call. You’re out of this. I shouldn’t have asked even as much as I have. I shouldn’t have involved you to this degree. I…I regret–”
At his words, she’d felt herself growing sadder, but when he said that he regretted her, her head snapped back in surprised misunderstanding.
“You regret it?” she said, hurt threading her voice.
He reached for her hand.
“I don’t regret you, that’s not what I–”
Kelly had turned to face him, twisted with her back to the window. Even as he reached forward, conciliatory, her door burst open behind her, bending in a screech of tearing metal, all the way back to the front tire.
Kelly was pulled out into the night.
In one smooth motion, the Devil grasped his own door handle, depressed it and rolled from the car. He landed on the balls of his feet and forcing this body beyond its abilities, he sprang up and onto the roof. He reached up and his hand grazed the underside of Kelly’s shoe as she was pulled into the sky.
An eerie, shrieking laugh split the night air and echoed back and forth between the building walls. Kelly continued to rise, struggling, reaching for him, her face a frozen, white, fearful mask. At the level of the fifth story, a balcony jutted out into the dark. Kelly was flipped up and over onto the balcony, disappearing from the Devil’s sight.
Standing on the balcony’s stone railing was another demon.
The Devil stared up, making his own face a mask. Then he waved.
“Hello Lillith,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Lillith, the demon on the balcony, had not been expecting this response. Her features drew together in irritation. She’d commandeered a whore’s body and the face was still beautiful if a little pinched; witchy and hungry.