Burn, Beautiful Soul

by William J. Donahue

  “And what about you? We’ve been working together for almost a month now, and I still know nothing about you, other than the fact that you’re a demon with a fondness for the written word.”

  “Ask me a question and I’ll answer as best I can.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “From below. Imagine the place you might think of as Hell, only it’s not quite as bad as you might think.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “It’s worse.”

  Basil explains why he left Our Fiery Home, how he crawled his way to the surface, describes the short list of characters with whom he mingled: Kamala, the bastard Lubos, Calvin and the other Elders in the Council of Unerring Wisdom, the ghosts of those who ruled the underworld prior to his rise.

  “Oh,” Herbert says, wrinkling his brow. “Do you have a family?”

  “I had a mother. She’s gone now. I never knew my father. He could have been one of a thousand demons, or he could have been a thousand and one demons. Mating works much differently in Our Fiery Home. Here, humans pair off—one to one, more or less, for as long as they can stomach each other. Down there, you see only the most temporary of couplings. One lock, many keys.”

  “And why do you call yourself Basil?”

  “That’s the name I was given.”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. The name came to me so long ago, and I’m fortunate to have it. My mother never had one. In truth, very few demons are blessed to have a name, and the Nameless have next to no rights.”

  “Why?”

  Basil twists the cap off another beer and drains half of the bottle in one pull. The tinny notes of blues guitar spill onto the patio from speakers in the living room. When Albert Collins’s “I Ain’t Drunk” comes on, Basil taps the concrete with his right hoof in time with the thump of the bass drum.

  “Couldn’t say. To have a name is to have power, to have privilege, to have the freedom to roam. The Nameless? They are told they may never leave Our Fiery Home, not that most would ever want to. Most are too frightened to go anywhere, even though they will never find a worse place.”

  “You mean there may be others up here, like you?”

  “There is no one else like me.”

  “But other demons, I mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve never seen one. Not ones that don’t look like regular people, anyway.”

  “They’re here, among you. They know how to hide. Call it camouflage. Most humans have no patience to just sit and observe. A demon, though—a demon will stay put for a week, frozen in place, if he knows it’s his only way of staying unseen. Eventually he will act. Just turn on the eleven o’clock news and half the stories you see bear the fingerprints of demonic influence, if not their outright involvement.”

  Basil goes on to list events in which demons likely had a hand, ranging from high-profile missing persons and the goriest of murders to wartime genocide and the poaching of endangered wildlife. If demons have a fondness for anything, he explains, it’s exploiting the weak and vulnerable, eager to push any living thing to the brink of extinction.

  “If you looked close enough at photographs taken at Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen or the so-called Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, you would likely see the faces of non-humans, directing traffic.”

  Herbert looks on, horrified.

  “You probably won’t see another demon in Beak, though,” Basil continues. “I haven’t sensed any. Most demons up here tend to stick to the major population centers, as I understand it—more targets. Plus, they like the warmer climes, so they stick as close to the Equator as they can. A demon is neutral blooded, meaning his body temperature depends largely on the temperature of his surroundings. Airdrop a demon into the middle of a Nebraskan winter, and he’s likely to make a beeline for the nearest working fireplace and stay put for five straight months—and no one will even notice he’s there.”

  “But I can see you. In fact, everyone can see you.”

  “I choose not to hide. That’s the point of my being here. By staying in a quiet, do-nothing place like Beak, I’ve essentially chosen who can see me. Why risk hauling ass to Manhattan or Chicago or L.A. and proclaiming, ‘I’m here!’ That’s a death wish. I’m not fool enough to think I’m infallible, that I’m immortal.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course not. By my best guess, I’m barely a hundred years old, but it’s difficult to know. Time passes much differently below ground. We have no sunrises or sunsets to measure the day, no clocks to dole out the hours. No one celebrates birthdays in Our Fiery Home.”

  “Yeah, I guess candlewax is an endangered species down there. All that fire.”

  Basil reaches over to clink bottles with Herbert.

  “So, I’ve been wondering,” says Herbert. “What happens if you … you know? What happens if you die?”

  “The earth will consume my remains, and my dust will return to the sea and the sky, the soil. I assume my memories will become one with the ether.”

  “That’s the end of you? Nothing after?”

  “I have no reason to believe a Great Beyond awaits me. The Elders said nothing of it, and only they would know. The day my heart drums its last beat, I will be no longer.”

  “If you’re in Hell, I suppose that seems about right. Unless you make amends for the things you’ve done before you kick the can, there’s nowhere else to go. Terminus.”

  “Not Hell,” Basil corrects. “Our Fiery Home.”

  “For the record, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. No one’s screwing with you. Except God, maybe. You must hate him.”

  “How can I hate something I have no knowledge of?”

  “I figured you two would be at each other’s throats.”

  “If he does exist, and I suspect he does, I hope he does reach out to say hello someday. For now, I’m content interacting with humans like you. A few exceptions, perhaps. Edna Babych and her tribe of acolytes come to mind. I don’t much care for her.”

  “The feeling is mutual, believe me. But she’d slit her own mother’s throat if she thought it would bring her two steps closer to salvation.”

  “I wish she’d leave me alone.”

  “Hasn’t she? The mob’s dispersed. Your girlfriend Melody saw to that.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, but you’d like her to be.”

  “Who wouldn’t? Present company excluded, of course.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Basil doesn’t respond, and Herbert doesn’t push the matter.

  “You two are close, it seems,” Basil says.

  “She’s a good listener.”

  The roar of a souped-up muscle car or pickup truck mars the quiet. Herbert imagines the cornstalks rattling in the glare of taillights as the vehicle rips past.

  “I simply cannot understand why humans have to make such a bone-breaking racket every hour of the day,” Basil says.

  “Probably because they don’t know any better. Or maybe just because they can.”

  “A flagrant abuse of freedom.”

  Basil leans back and eyes the heavens, as if counting celestial bodies.

  “You should have seen me down below, Herbert. I’m a shadow of myself up here. I feel small.”

  “I can’t imagine why. Based on the way you throw around that Harley, I’m guessing you could bench press a Sherman tank.”

  “You speak of strength, whereas I’m talking about power. I am blessed with other talents besides my physicality. My gifts are diminished here.”

  “Like what?”

  “How about you, Herbert Teak from Des Moines?” Basil says, redirecting. “I know nothing about you.”

  “No, no, no. You said to ask you anything. You said you had other gifts. Like what?”

  Basil shakes his head no.

  “Can you spit fire? Part the ocean? Melt a nickel with nothing more than a ha
rd stare?”

  “None of that. But I can control energy. Oh, and I can reanimate the lifeless.”

  “You’re saying you can bring the dead back to life?”

  “Most times, yes. Some are beyond help.”

  “This is some bullshit,” Herbert says. He turns to Chester, unconscious in his lounge chair. “You hear this nonsense, Professor? Go peel some flattened road kill off the asphalt for Victor Frankenstein here to resurrect.”

  “Like I said, I can’t do it up here,” Basil adds. “It’s just the way things work.”

  “How, pray tell, do you make this happen?”

  “Let’s just call it magic. That seems to be the best word for it. My people have a language for it, spoken only in whispers. Each word has its own weight, its own dominion over the forces that govern Earth’s core.”

  “Magic?”

  “Magic.”

  “I’m afraid not, Merlin. There’s no such thing.”

  “How do you explain me?”

  Herbert pauses and then says, “I guess I can’t.”

  “Precisely. And what is magic but something no one has quite figured out how to explain?”

  Herbert has no response. He tilts back in his chair. The sky opens up—a sheet of purple and soft blue, pocked with the flickering pinpricks of far-off stars.

  “You need magic in your life,” Basil says. “You need mystery. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s hard to stumble upon magic if you believe it doesn’t exist.”

  “Right-o. Save that gem for your next ad campaign.” Herbert chokes on a swill of beer. As he recovers, he asks, “So you’re not Satan then?”

  “No.”

  “Does Satan exist?”

  “You mean is there an all-powerful demigod responsible for all of the world’s evils?”

  “You said it.”

  “You ask good questions.”

  “So is there?”

  “To answer that would spoil the surprise.”

  “You’re such an asshole sometimes. Most times, in fact.”

  “Your turn, Herbert. From what I can figure out, you’re here in Beak for the same reason I am, more or less. Bulcavage says you’re trying to escape or outrun something that’s eventually going to catch up with you.”

  Herbert’s head turns sharply. His fuzzy gaze settles on Basil for a moment, and then his eyes dart elsewhere.

  “There’s nothing to know,” he says. “I’m boring. I’m wallpaper.”

  “That’s what you want people to think. You live alone?”

  “Mostly.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  Demon alcohol has worked its witchcraft, and Herbert knows it—but he doesn’t care. Any internal governor that would have prevented him from sharing the most guarded details of his personal life has taken a hiatus. Now, several beers into the night, he knows he will spill every secret with only the gentlest of nudges.

  “I live with my father, or what’s left of him, anyway,” he says. “The dementia has pretty much taken over, so he doesn’t much resemble the man I used to know. Some might consider that a blessing, though.”

  “Why did you choose to live in Beak?”

  “Why did you?”

  “I didn’t choose anywhere,” Basil says. “Ending up here was a complete accident. Or maybe it was fate.”

  “I guess I could say the same thing.”

  “No girlfriend?”

  “No time. No interest. But mostly no time.”

  “I know loneliness. I see it in you.”

  “Isn’t everybody lonely?”

  Basil nods in agreement.

  “Believe me,” Herbert says. “What we did today is probably the most excitement I’ve seen all year.”

  “How sad,” Basil says, smiling.

  “I’m serious,” Herbert adds. “I’ve been dreading this afternoon since the moment I left the office on Friday. But I’ve enjoyed this get-together.”

  “I’m glad something good came of it.”

  “Probably not enough, though. We haven’t spent more than a minute talking about Bulcavage’s bullshit cooker campaign.”

  “We’ll be fine. I have an idea.”

  Herbert takes another swig.

  “Truth is essential,” Basil says. “I might not be the best judge, but those ribs were a religious experience. Bless that cooker! We don’t even have to lie about it.”

  “I’m sure the pig had something to do with it.”

  “What time is it?”

  Herbert checks his wristwatch. “Eight thirty, more or less.”

  “Listen, we both need our beauty sleep, and you’re drunk as fuck and need to sober up. Can you get to the office a little early tomorrow? Maybe an hour or so?”

  “I could. What kind of scheme are you cooking up now?”

  “Those ribs tasted so damned good, it felt almost wrong eating them,” he says. He nabs a moist napkin from the edge of the table and scours the area until he finds a pen. He scrawls furiously. “And what’s the best representation of wrongness? Of sinfulness? Of indulgence?”

  Herbert shrugs his shoulders.

  Basil smiles as he holds up the napkin.

  Herbert eyes the crudely drawn stick figure. Despite its primitive design, the figure seems remarkably familiar.

  “You’re looking at him,” Basil says.

  Chapter 18

  Mercy

  I wake with my back to the damp stone pylon, a sharp pain in the sole of my foot. A shadow looms before me. A blackened oak truncheon sways in the mist.

  “Get on then,” the constable yaps.

  Both my legs have fallen asleep, so I struggle to find my feet. I stumble for a few steps, ambling into the ochre murk of early morning.

  “Break a neck, filthy sot,” the constable says to my back.

  My mouth parched, lips cracked, I wish for the luxury of drunkenness. I haven’t sipped from a mug of ale in weeks. My stomach pleads for a proper meal, mostly barren for too many days on end, save the crusts of bread and the uncooked stalks of root vegetables that end up as rubbish behind the nearest public house.

  What a wretch I have let myself become.

  Though the contents of my troubled mind have no place in the most recent post to my dearest back home, I have cautioned her to stay put until summer. By then, I admit to her, I will have either secured my full fortune or applied my savings to the cost of hauling my arse back to Berwick.

  The feeling returns to my legs by the time I reach the end of Monument Bridge, so I lean over the balustrade to eye the Thames rushing by. How I love the presence of moving water. How I grieve for the cataracts of the countryside, the waves cleaving the fossil-riddled rock of the northern coast. Thought it’s not the same here, in kinder weather I imagine wandering to the water’s edge to wash my face, underarms and, most urgently, the grimy cleft of my arse.

  The Thames is no trickle, though, and I have yet to master the strokes needed to swim from shore to shore. Certainly no one has offered to teach me. With my luck of late, I would lose my footing and become one with the Thames, the current grabbing me, forcing itself down my throat. I would sink like a fieldstone, my corpse reduced to grub for catfish and any other bugger craving a nibble. Some fisherman would find my bloated remains washed up on a pebbled shore somewhere across the English Channel.

  At times like now, such an end seems acceptable.

  I turn away from the river and find something to lean against so I can eye the handful of stragglers, like me, who wander the bridge all hours of the night. Drunkards, mostly, roused awake by the suggestion of daylight or kicked out of their stupors by passing constables, or heavy-breasted harlots retreating to their flats after a sticky night’s work.

  Speak of the devil, and he finds you just fine.

  A tom in a bright blue dress steps toward me. Her bone-white bustier catches my eye, all scooped out to reveal a chasm of soft flesh. No more than twenty, by my guess, she gives a curt smile before returning her eyes to t
he stone walkway, likely to avoid the craters that might crack her ankle. I suppose any tom worth her trade could still earn her keep with a cracked ankle, as she does her best work on her back anyway.

  I search for any hints of weakness I might exploit.

  “Shilling to spare,” I say to her behind.

  She turns, eyes me from boot to cap, and pads toward me. Her heels clack against wet stone. She is beautiful—brilliant, in fact. Her eyes, despite their icy blueness, seem warm.

  “And why should I?” she says.

  “I’m quite hungry. Tired. I could use the help, miss.”

  Lies come easily to me now. I am all right with playing the role of taker.

  “I’m hungry and tired too,” she says. “You don’t see me begging for other people’s pocket coins.”

  Just brain her, the voice tells me. Brain her and pry your mitts into whatever darkened fold she keeps her stash, remove what you find and move along like the whole business never happened.

  I would never, could never. It strikes me that such thoughts fill my brain so freely. Desperation does that to a man.

  “Come with me,” she tells me.

  I hesitate, because I have seen little kindness in all my weeks in London.

  “I ain’t going to bite you,” she says. “That’ll cost you. You coming with me or you just going to prop up that beam until the sun pops up?”

  I step toward her and thank her profusely.

  “I ain’t done nothing yet,” she says. “I’m Alice. What do I call you?”

  I stutter, as some time has passed since I have told my name to anyone. We walk silently in the mist. As dawn approaches, figures materialize out of the gloom. Men wearing well-kempt mustaches, long coats and proper hats, shoes without holes in their bottoms. Women in velvet dresses, boots laced to the knee. Newsboys staking out their corners, eager to announce the triumphs and tragedies of another spent day.

  A low fog clings to the streets, keeping the stone damp. Alice leads me down a close alley, and I realize she could very well be escorting me to my doom. The streets waver. If my belly does not fill soon, I will succumb to my failures.

  She does not know it yet, but her kindness is saving me.

  “Come on then,” Alice says.