by Dante Graves
Chapter 10: The Devil & the Moon
“But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.”
Radiohead, “Creep”
When Zaches appeared in the arena in a circle of light, each spectator saw his or her ideal man. Tall or of medium height, with long hair or short, a firm chin or soft lips, elegant or strong. His voice was sonorous and melodic, his intonations affable or seductive. Every word seemed true. Everyone saw him as their ideal. Women saw him as a perfect lover, men as their best friend, children as a hero from fairy tales. After the show, people discussed him, and although they might disagree about his hair color or whether he was clean-shaven or bearded, all agreed that he was incredibly handsome. The fact that everyone had seen something different was assumed to have been just another trick of this circus of freaks.
But the truth was that Zaches, also named Zinnober, was not good-looking. His head was too big for his body. One shoulder was higher than the other, as if invisible forces had torn the dwarf’s body in half, one force pulling him up to Heaven, the other trying to drag him under the ground, to worms and damp graves. One of his eyes was almost completely covered by a heavy eyelid wart, and his other eye, as if to compensate for the ugliness of the first, was large, with long beautiful eyelashes.
People saw in Little Zaches only beauty, but he knew the truth. Mirrors reflected a beautiful face, but in stagnant water Zinnober saw his true face. And every time he saw his own ugliness, he suffered. In his trailer, the dwarf had collected various mirrors, large and small, some in huge twisted bronze frames, others no bigger than a matchbox. When Zinno entered his trailer after a show, hundreds of beautiful faces, full of generosity and joy, smiled pleasantly at him from the walls. He touched the reflections, dreaming that someday, instead of hundreds of different individuals, the mirrors would show him only one face, and it wouldn’t be the ugly face reflected in water.
Whenever Zaches thought about his true form, fury would consume him. Overcome by anguish and anger, he would smash some of the mirrors, littering the trailer with broken shards. When the rage passed and his strength had left him, he would collapse in exhaustion on the floor and fall asleep on top of the shards. In the morning, Zinno would come to his senses and begin the tedious process of pulling himself together. He removed the shards and fragments from under his legs and arms, debrided his wounds, and bandaged his cuts. Sometimes this could drag on for hours. He hated himself for it. He knew that after each seizure, the wounds he received made him even uglier, but he could not help himself. Besides, for others he remained as attractive as before. And in each new town he bought a new mirror to replace the old one, and then broke it. This went on again and again. And again.
People saw him as beautiful, but demionis saw the real Zaches. Among them was Greg. The magician came to the circus after Zinnober, but immediately began bullying him. He made up insulting nicknames for Zaches. One-eyed Mess, Cyclops, Swamp Thing, Mirror Breaker. Only Lazarus’s intervention cooled Greg’s imagination, but even then their relationship did not improve. The worst was that both worked in the advance team, visiting towns ahead of the circus to tell people about the show and paste up posters. Zaches’s life was awful, until Martha appeared.
Whenever he was near her, he did not think so much about his ugliness. In addition, she was the only one who saw his true face and did not feel disgust. She always looked at him and smiled. Sometimes she would touch him, patting his head or cheek, and on those days Zaches felt happy and did not smash mirrors. He would do anything for Martha. But she had chosen Greg, the narcissistic fire mage with the manners of a troubled teen.
Before he joined the circus, Zinno knew women. He did not even have to make an effort to win them. They were fascinated by his beauty, his voice, his eyes and body. He could easily get the most beautiful girl in a bar, leave in the morning without saying goodbye, and she would be still happy. But it did not give him satisfaction. Sometimes after sex, he thought about what would happen if a woman saw his true face. Would she love him? Or would she just turn away in disgust and take a dig at him? Lying in bed, he got worked up more and more, until he was convinced that all these girls who wanted intimacy with him were just mindless meat carcasses with beautiful shapes, stupid and incapable of feeling. He was terrified to the core. What if the girl woke up in the middle of the night and saw him like this? That never happened, but the fear of being uncovered firmly settled in Zaches’s soul. He feared and hated all these women who were seduced by his beauty. Fog shrouded his mind, his heart was ready to break in his chest, and his hands would frantically look for something.
Most often it was a pillow. He would cover some girl’s face with it and wait until she stopped moving. Then he was overwhelmed with pity for the victim, feeling guilty that he had deprived the world of a little beauty. Then he took his camera and photographed the girl. In his gallery, which he exchanged for Pietro’s services, were girls both dead and alive, but the archivist had no clue, believing the dead girls were sleeping. Sometimes guilt did not come, only rage. And then Zaches used his knife. Those girls he did not photograph.
The police could never find Zinnober. Even if somebody had seen him with the dead girl, the witnesses gave conflicting descriptions of the killer—tall but short, young but mature, white but black—and Zaches continued to live his life, hanging out at bars and enjoying the girls’ attention. This lasted until Mr. Bernardius found him. Or rather came for him, sent by Astaroth. Zaches did not know whether Lazarus was aware of the murders, but the fact that he came with Blanche and Black meant the tentmaster was ready for trouble. Lazarus could see Zaches’s true nature, and so could the brother ogres.
Bernardius offered Zinnober a job in the circus. And in return, protection. Not from the police, who would be unlikely to find Zinno, but from people far more terrible. From people who roamed the world in search of creatures like him and like the ogres, and even like Lazarus. They found them and killed them. These hunters were much smarter than the police and were not burdened by the need to comply with laws. Of course, said Bernardius, the dwarf would have to forget about any relations with the outside world, and any movement outside of the circus Zinnober would perform under supervision. Tiny Zaches was scared. The dwarf always killed without hesitation, not covering his tracks, but he was not afraid of the police because no one could identify him. But in the circus he met beings who knew his true nature and his crimes. He looked at the giants, who had come with Lazarus, and could not imagine any other creature more frightening than them anywhere in the world. If these men had found him, they would not go to the police but would decide the business on their own. Zinnober agreed to Mr. Bernardius’s terms.
Life in the circus was like an exile, only in a small space and with constant monitoring. Even when scouting some town ahead of the circus, Zaches was under Greg’s supervision. Greg eventually stopped insulting him but otherwise did not treat him any better. The dwarf missed the girls. Whenever he saw their eyes, either during a show or working as part of the advance team, he was full of desire. But he knew that his past was now known not only to him, and if he made a mistake, Lazarus or those from whom Bernardius harbored him, would punish him. Life was crap. Until Martha showed up. For her he’d be brave and ask Astaroth to give him a normal appearance. Then he’d convince her to run away from the circus with him, away from Greg, away from Lazarus, away from Astaroth, away from those mysterious assassins.
When everyone in the circus was asleep, Zaches peeked out of his trailer and hobbled away from the encampment. The dwarf walked along the road, his short crooked legs quickly becoming tired and tangled. He had not brought a flashlight, for fear that the light could expose him, and he now regretted it. He walked more than an hour, his goal an out-of-the-way cornfield where he would open the jar. He pressed the dolium to his chest, and he felt as if it could sense his desire to open it. It radiated heat, burning the dwarf’s skin and making him sweat.
After reaching the field, Zinno went as deep as possible int
o the rows of corn, which rose above him to the height of two adult men. He knelt down, took out the jar, and looked at it. The ancient signs again began to turn into insults. He read them, and every word crawled into his very soul and began to torment him, to nibble at him, poison him, and tear him to pieces. Zaches blinked, took a breath, and opened the lid.
There was a roar, and then a burning smell, and then the stench of rot and decay. He heard heavy, evil breathing. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in the middle of a scorched circle with a radius of five meters. The corn that had been there was burned at the root, as if it had been cut with a huge fiery knife. Standing before Zinno was a huge figure. The demon’s body was incredibly gaunt and covered with sores. Only the demon’s enormous genitals were unaffected by rot. Instead of a human head, the fiend had the head of a black donkey, and its face wore a menacing grin. From his back, huge wings extended, like the wings of a dragon or a bat, and his clawlike hands were covered with feathers.
“Why do you summon me?” thundered the demon. He spoke as if thousands of screams, groans, and growls in different tones were mixed up in his voice. “I come when I wish.”
“I know, my master. But you told me to keep an eye on everything that happens in the circus. And I learned something.”
The demon’s tail, made of three snakes, impatiently beat on the ground. The snakes hissed and reared their heads towards Zaches. Astaroth bent his face to Zinno’s. The demon’s eyes were full of anger and impatience, and his breath was so foul that Zaches barely mustered the courage to not look away.
“I know Greg’s secret! The magician. He violated the Pactum, violated the Pactum!” In his fear, Zaches thought that he whispered, but in fact he almost cried. The snakes from the demon’s tail dropped to the ground and crawled to the dwarf. One slithered onto his chest, the other onto his face, and the third wrapped around his neck. Their cold touch frightened Zinno, and their hissing terrified him. The snake on his face twirled around his neck in a tight coil, and the dwarf began to gasp.
“Tell me,” ordered Astaroth.
“He … he ... Greg uses magic against mortals. He not only shows tricks, he kills people!” Zaches voice had risen to a thin squeal. The snakes hissed and crawled all over him. “I saw it with my own eyes, saw Greg burn a man. He burned him alive!”
The snake around his neck loosened its grip. The demon looked pensive, almost human. Zaches decided that his moment had arrived.
“I have served you, master. I deserve a reward.” Zinno tried to steel himself, but his voice was timid and scared. “As you promised.”
Astaroth’s roar stunned Zaches. The demon’s leg twitched, and before the dwarf knew what was happening, it pinned him to the ground. A weight pressed on his chest, crushing his ribs, making it difficult to breathe. Zaches thought he was going to die. The demon’s huge genitals hung above him, and its stench enveloped him. He wet his pants and thought that such an ugly death would match his ugly life.
“Do not dare ever to ask me anything, dwarf,” growled the demon in a thousand voices. “I’m your master. I have saved you. You’re alive only because you’re useful sometimes. What you saw is of no value without evidence. But despite the fact that you insulted me with your requests, I will spare your life.”
“Yes, master,” croaked Zaches in response.
“As if you have a choice, scum. I will choose the next town for a performance of your damned circus. And you, when you go to glue the posters, will find a man there and give him an invitation to the show. I hope your pathetic brains are enough to do such a thing. And remember, alraun, you’re one of only a few of your kind. One in ten of your kind makes it through childhood, and one of those ten survivors does not go crazy. If you think you’re exceptional and no one else can be my eyes and ears in Bernardius’s circus, think again, and don’t overestimate yourself, mongrel. I can kill you at any moment.” The demon pressed harder on Zaches’s chest, and when the dwarf thought he heard the sound of his own ribs crunching, the silence around him stunned him.
He was lying on the field in the center of the burned circle. The demon was gone, there was no more stench, no more snakes. Only his pants, stuck to his hips, reminded him of the meeting with Astaroth. He felt his ribs and found a note on his chest with instructions from his master.
In the chambers of his infernal palace, Astaroth pondered what Zaches had said. He did not like to take the form of a monster, but those were the rules. If a mortal summoned a demon, then the hell dweller had to show up in his most disgusting appearance. This was a divine curse to turn people away from the inhabitants of Hell.
Hell. Astaroth was weary of this place without time and space. He looked out the window, and the dull gray landscape added anguish and pain to his heavy thoughts. He knew that mortals imagined Hell as nothing but fire. Many years ago, it was so, and it did not matter what the flames burned, the flesh of man or his soul. But Hell was so old that there was more ash than fire in it now. Black and gray ash covered everything outside the palace, the towers, the spires, the roads, even the skin of small demons lacking permanent shelter.
Astaroth’s apartments were clean and spacious. High white walls shone like polished black furniture, as if made of darkness itself. His favorite colors. Black and white chambers and a gray landscape outside the window. How ironic, thought Astaroth. Once his world had been far more vivid. He went to his desk and opened a silver casket. He stroked what was inside. Feathers. Feathers of the wings of angels. They might even have once belonged to him. He didn’t know. He just picked them up after the Fall.
The Fall. It had been many years, but the memories of it were still unpleasant. Because of Lucifer’s pride, they were expelled from Paradise. Then they, all the angels who had rejected God, supported their rebellious leader. Lightbringer they called him. They were with him now. Except one. Astaroth grew tired of Hell. He had repented. He wanted to go home. God had banished them, but if Astaroth could prove his repentance, God would take him back.
He stroked the feathers again. He thought about the never-ending flight through the darkness, occasionally split by bolts of lightning, and filled with the desperate cries of his expelled brothers. Feather by feather, he lost his wings, white and delicate, till there were only the bones. Like the others, he eventually grew a new pair of wings, black and gray as the ash that covered everything, and leathery, like a dragon’s wings. But they could not compare to what he had had long ago. Perhaps the feathers in the box were not from his wings, but they served to remind him of his long-lost home. His home, where he was going to return, even if he had to betray Lucifer.
The magician from the circus had violated the Pactum, had killed a man with magic. If Astaroth could prove it, and also prove that Lucifer had given protection to a mongrel such as this fire mage, perhaps God would forgive the repentant demon. Astaroth closed the casket. It was not the time to indulge in dreams.