The Devil Will Come (15 page)

Janus

“You guys don’t wanna to go in there,” the junkie said. “Take my word for it.”

There were three of them, all young, tough-looking and white — although, in that neighborhood, they could just as easily have been black or Latino. The local predator population was nothing if not diverse.

The young men strutted over to where the junkie was sitting, his back resting against the rear wall of the burned-out building that might have been a drugstore once.

The three of them formed a semi-circle around him. It was a menacing formation, and they knew it. And there was menace in the leader’s voice when he said, “Don’t think I caught what you said there, dude. Were you maybe tryin’ to tell us what to do, you worthless piece of shit?”

The other two grinned and gazed down at the junkie with contempt. Even before they were close enough to see the tracks running down the arms that were revealed by the sleeveless leather vest he wore for a shirt, they’d known what he was.

The junkie looked up at them, squinting as the hazy sunshine stabbed his eyes. He probably wasn’t much past thirty, but his face had the used-up look that all mainliners get eventually. And the gray eyes were old, older than God.

“Just givin’ you some friendly advice, is all,” the junkie said calmly. “It’s worth your life to go inside this place. Don’t do it.”

The leader hooked his thumbs through his studded leather belt. “Worth our life, huh?” He pretended puzzlement. “But, like, who’s gonna kill us if we
do
go in? You? You some kind of real bad-ass, or something? You ain’t even strapped, man.” His companions snorted with amusement, right on cue.

“Nah, not me. But there’s a fuckin’ monster inside, man. I don’t know what the hell else to call it, looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But I know this much: you go in there, you’re lunch. Literally. Fucker’ll kill you, all three of you. Then eat you.”

The leader laughed with delight. “Well, ain’t you a fuckin’ piece of work,” he said. He dropped into a crouch, then looked at the junkie more closely. “Ain’t seen you around before, man. What’s your name?”

An indifferent shrug. “These days, I go by ‘Janus.’”

“‘Janice?’ That’s a chick’s name, ain’t it?” The leader grinned at his two companions for a moment. “You a chick, is that what you’re sayin’? Maybe you got a pussy hid under that shit you’re wearin’, huh?’”

The junkie shook his head wearily. “No, it’s
J-a-n-u-s
. That’s an old Roman name for a guy who was kind of a doorkeeper.”

“Doorkeeper? Shit, that’s kinda like what you do now, ain’t it? Try to keep people from goin’ through that door over there, huh?”

Another shrug.

“So, how come you picked some old Roman name for a handle, dude? That what you really are, maybe? Some kind of old Roman? You look like you been around the track a few times, I’ll say that much.”

There was more laughter. The junkie looked briefly at the other two young men before returning his bleak stare to their leader. “Yeah, you got it right,” he said evenly. “That’s exactly what I am.”

There was silence then, until one of the minions broke it by muttering “Fuckin’ psycho.”

The leader held up a hand, as if to stifle further abuse. His expression combined amusement with curiosity. After a moment he said, “I didn’t do too good in school, but I know them Romans ain’t been around for a long fuckin’ time. Somethin’ like, what, two thousand years?”

The junkie absently scratched a bare arm, knocking the scab off one of his needle tracks. “The Empire finally went down for the count in the Fifth Century,” he said. “But I’d already been around for quite a while by then. Near as I can figure, I was born about 2 A.D., the way they reckon things now.”

The leader nodded solemnly, as if it all made perfect sense. Then he studied the junkie’s face, or pretended to. “You don’t look too bad, for somebody that old. What’s your secret, man? Clean living?”

There was more laughter.

The seamed face twitched in what might have been a passing smile. If so, it was a bitter one. “Wasn’t my doing. I made a mistake, is all. Pissed off the wrong guy.”

“Mistake? Shit, most guys’d give a
lot
to live that long.”

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“Frank, come on, man,” one of the others said. “Why don’t we just—”

“Shut the fuck up!” the leader told him. “I wanna hear this.” Turning back to the junkie, he said, “So what happened? Who’d you get all pissed off?”

“Since you asked, I’ll tell you,” the junkie replied. “But how about a smoke, first?”

“Yeah, sure.” The leader turned to one of the others, the one who had complained. “Dino, give him a butt.”

Once he had the Winston going, the junkie took a deep drag and let the smoke hiss out between his teeth.

“Growing up, I had tutors— a couple of Greek slaves,” he said. “Real smart guys, from Athens originally. They said I did pretty well, especially with languages. So when they’d taught me all they could, my old man got me an appointment in what today you’d call the intelligence service. The Empire was a big place, and there was always work for a young guy who was smart, and tough, and could learn the local lingo. I made myself useful in quite a few trouble spots— Asia Minor, Greece, Samaria, places like that.”

“Hey, say somethin’ in Latin, you’re so fuckin’ smart,” the one called Joey said.

“
Civis Romanus sum
,” the junkie replied, with unexpected dignity. “And there was a time when no prouder words existed.”

“Don’t fuckin’ interrupt, Joey,” the leader said, and turned back to the junkie. “Go on with what you was sayin’.”

“Well, eventully they sent me to this shithole province that had been giving them a lot of grief— place called Judea. The locals weren’t taking to Roman rule very well, and they were always being stirred up by some nut group or other— revolutionaries, nationalists, religious cults, they had all kinds down there. The local Procurator had told Rome he was having problems getting the taxes collected, and that got their attention. Money always does. So they sent me in, as a kind of agent provocateur.”

“What’s that mean?” the leader asked. “That ‘agent’ thing?”

“It’s a guy who stirs up the hornet’s nest while somebody else is standing by with a big can of Raid,” the junkie said. “I’d dress like a local and hang around the marketplace until I could hook up with one of the malcontents. Then I’d get to know his buddies. Eventually, once they trusted me enough, I’d talk them into some act of blatant stupidity— robbing a tax collector, or maybe trying to ambush some Centurion. Once they made their move, a bunch of Roman soldiers would move in and arrest everybody for treason, or sedition, or whatever. They’d all end up riding crosses along the side of a road someplace.”

The junkie ground out the stub of his cigarette. “Any chance of another smoke?”

“Yeah, sure, no prob.” The leader looked at the one called Dino and made a gesture with his chin.

After the new cigarette was going, the junkie said, “One morning, I had just watched from a safe distance as a bunch of my former ‘comrades’ got nailed up. Truth is, I got kind of a kick out of it. I was a vicious bastard back then. Then I headed back to the crummy little room I was renting, to catch up on some sleep. I managed to get a few hours shuteye, despite the heat and the noise from the street outside. Soon as I woke up, though, I knew someone was in the room with me.”

“Some crucified guy’s friend came for a little payback, huh?” the leader asked.

“That’s what I figured, at first. Thing is, I’d barred the door before lying down. Always did— I wasn’t stupid. I don’t say that nobody could have got in, but he would’ve had to make a lot of noise to do it. Or so I would’ve thought.

“I always kept a
gladius
, a short sword, hidden between my bedding and the wall. You know, just in case. I was reaching for it casual-like, trying to look like I was just stretching, when this quiet voice comes from the corner. ‘You will not need a weapon,’ it says.

“So I’m staring in that direction, and I can just make out the shape of someone in the gloom. Then he comes closer, where I can see him better. And the thing is, I
recognize
this guy.”

“Who was it, the ghost of one of them dudes you sent to be crucified? Somethin’ freaky like that?” The leader was smirking.

“No, man, it was no ghost— just this crackpot preacher that I’d been keeping an eye on for a while. He’d been starting to attract a following around Judea, but he’d been real careful not to say anything against Rome publicly, so I hadn’t made any kind of move on him, so far.

“He just stands there looking at me, and I’m about to tell him to get the hell out when he says, ‘You are like the serpent in the garden, promising deliverance but bringing only destruction. Your lying tongue has led many unwise men to their deaths, but I say that you shall deceive no more. Nothing but truth shall issue forth from your mouth, for as long as you walk the earth.’

“And these spooky eyes of his are like boring into me, I’ve never seen anything like it. Then he goes, ‘And you shall walk the earth for days without number— until I come again.’

“Then he steps back into the shadows. Well, I grab the sword and jump out of my rack. I figure I’ve got to kill the son of a bitch before he blows my cover all over the damn province. So I throw back the curtain to let in some more light. And he’s gone. Just—
gone
. Then I notice that the door’s still barred, exactly the way I left it.”

The one called Joey made a mocking “woooo” sound. Frank silenced him with a sharp gesture, his eyes never leaving the junkie’s face as he asked, “So, is that all of it?”

“Almost. The crackpot preacher got nailed up himself a few months later. I wasn’t involved— his own people set him up, had him accused of blasphemy, or something. He’d never said a word about me to anybody, far as I could tell, so I figured I was home free. Turned out, though, there was one little problem. Well, two, actually.”

The junkie took one last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “Seems I just can’t lie. I mean about
anything
. Ever since the day that damn preacher laid his mojo on me. And the second problem, well that one’s kind of obvious.”

He looked at each of them in turn, and his gaze was bleak. “I’m still alive. After two thousand motherfucking years.”

“Yeah, then how come you’re nothin’ but a fuckin’ junkie, instead of, like, head of IBM, or somethin’?” This was from Dino, the dark-haired one.

“I’ve been lots of things, in my time,” the junkie told them. “But when you’ve seen all the shit I’ve seen, sometimes all you want is to turn the world off for a while. And for that, smack is the best thing there is.”

The leader stood up, supple as a cat. “Yeah, well, it’s been a thrill and all, but we’re lookin’ for a dude who owes us some money. We heard he was crashin’ in one of these burnouts. Scumbag’s name is Lawford, Pete Lawford. You know him?”

The junkie shook his head. “Never heard of him. You’re not still going inside lookin’ for him, are you? I told you already, man, you won’t come out alive, not one of you.”

“Because of the monster.” The leader’s voice was flat.

“Right. Just like I said.”

“Gonna kill us. And eat us, too.”

“He’s done it before. Believe me, I know.”

The leader stood looking down at the junkie for a long moment. His fists were clenched now, and his breath started coming faster. His two buddies looked at each other, as if sharing anticipation of a treat.

“You know what pisses me off?” the leader said to the junkie. His voice was tighter now, and louder. “It pisses me off being told what to do, you know that? People tryin’ to order me around, do this, don’t do that, go here, don’t go there, bla-bla-bla, just like my old man.
Nobody
tells me what to do or where to go anymore, you got that? Nobody!”

He stood directly over the junkie now. “And you know what else burns my ass? Bein’ treated like I’m a
moron
by some lowlife
fuck
who ain’t good for nothin’ but sticking a spike in his arm. ‘Don’t go in there— there’s a monster!’” he mocked savagely. “The fuck you think we are, a bunch of kids? Think you’re gonna jerk our chain? Well, jerk this!”

He kicked the junkie hard in the face, driving the back of his head into the wall. The junkie made a sound like “Uh!” and fell sideways, and the leader kicked him again, this time in the side of the head.

Then the others joined in. It wasn’t as much fun as they’d had with other derelicts, since the junkie had lost consciousness almost from the start. But they made the most of it.

After a couple of minutes, the leader stepped back. “All right, all right,” he said to the others. “He’s done.” They stood, breathing heavily, and looked down at what was left of the junkie. His open, dead eyes stared back at them through the blood that covered his face. “Guy was supposed to live forever, huh?” Joey asked through a ratty grin.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dino said, and they all laughed. Then the leader said, “Check him out, see if he was holdin’. There’s any junk on him, maybe we can sell it.”

The other two went through the junkie’s pockets. “Nothin’ but his works,” Dino reported, holding up a needle and spoon. “Along with a snot rag, matches, and… forty-six cents.”

“Shit,” the leader said. “Well, let’s look inside. Maybe he kept his stash in there.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Joey said as they walked toward the door. “But watch out for the monster, man.” There was more laughter.

They went inside the burnout, leaving nothing behind but a battered and bloody corpse.

But after a minute or so, the dead man began to stir. He moved a finger, a hand, a whole arm. Then the other arm. Then his legs. Slowly, grimacing in pain, the junkie raised himself back to a sitting position. The cuts on his face and scalp were already healing. The pain, he knew, would take longer to leave him.

He was gingerly wiping blood out of his eyes when he heard the first of the screams. It came from within the building, and was soon followed by other sounds of agony and mortal terror that seemed to go on a long time. Something heavy was slammed against the wall from inside, jarring the junkie’s head forward for a second. His face took on an expression that combined anger and disgust.