“Slaughter the son of a bitch,” Ronald hisses from the other end, his voice laced with static.
“Aye-aye,” Hunter replies. “Nowhere for him to go but down.”
He motions his band of killers forward, and creeps up the last eight steps. He inhales deeply and heaves on the push bar. The door flies open, and air and sunlight flood the stairwell. As his eyes adjust, Hunter sees the demon standing in the center of the rooftop—an all-black silhouette, featureless, against the all-blue sky. The demon drops slowly to his knees. Gravel crunches beneath the immense weight.
“I’m yours,” the demon growls. “Come and get me.”
No sign of the demon’s human friend, the one Ronald had deemed a queer in need of culling.
“Surround him,” Hunter says to his brothers, and they cautiously obey, muzzles trained on their target. “I’ll find the pansy.”
Hunter zeroes in on a low-profile Rheem HVAC unit near the roof’s far corner. It’s the only place for the pansy to hide, unless he already jumped. Either way, problem solved. Hunter tramps the rooftop gravel, taking note of the spectacular view and the strong wind as he approaches the HVAC unit. The unit makes a loud, mechanical hum. He turns the corner to see the demon’s human friend crouched in a ball, his back to the HVAC unit, staring at the roof’s raised lip only ten to twelve feet away.
“I should make you jump,” Hunter says to him. “You probably wouldn’t die right away, likely break every bone you got. But I’m going to do it quick and painless, even though it ain’t what you deserve.”
Hunter grasps the shotgun’s forend, braces the stock against his shoulder and raises the barrel until the muzzle tells him there’s no chance of missing his target.
“Say good night, fuck-face.”
As his finger touches the trigger, he hears the din of footfall grinding on gravel. He turns to see a black blur speeding toward him. He takes an instinctive step backward, raising the gun as he retreats. He pulls the trigger as the demon hurtles into him, driving the breath from his lungs, and the two tumble off the edge of the roof.
Chapter 30
What It Means to Suffer
Melody wonders if she can succeed where Audrey failed. Huddled beneath the conference room table, she eyes the tinted glass separating her from the freedom of escape. The window would probably withstand a bullet, let alone a hurled chair.
As Audrey squeals, Melody sees her receptionist’s yellow locks in the grip of a beefy biker wearing a sleeveless denim jacket, arms painted with ink. A second biker in the same uniform, this one squat and balding, follows close behind. He eggs his friend on, adjusts his crotch with his free hand.
“Stop playing around and get to it already,” says the shorter of the two.
“Let me go, let me go, let me go,” Audrey begs, mewling like a trapped cat.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” says the biker with a handful of her hair. “As soon as I have a taste of that peach fuzz you got down below, you’ll be free as a dirty bird.”
Melody clenches her teeth as the bikers drag Audrey out of the office, into the hallway. Another door opens, and Audrey’s squealing ends abruptly as the door comes to a muffled close. Although she’s more terrified now than when the bikers broke through the door and started taunting, “Here, piggy-piggy,” Melody decides to wait. A new sound chills her blood: the door to the conference room hissing open. A pair of big, black, cowboy boots, overlapped by worn blue jeans, eases past. She hears the strike of a match as the man lights a cigarette. The door opens and closes again, but Melody can’t see around the end of the table to know if she’s alone again, if she’s safe. She crouches low to the floor and looks into the hallway, seeing no one. She peers around the edge of the table, exposing herself, and that’s when she realizes she’s caught.
A tall man with stubble and sunglasses sits in a cushioned chair by the door. A blood-soaked cloth swathes his right hand.
“You must be Melody,” he says. “Come on out here and say hello, why don’t you? Seems I could use a good attorney. I’m Ronald.”
She finds her feet and brushes the wrinkles out of her skirt.
“Are you and your thugs just about finished here?” she asks calmly. “I have deadlines to meet. Besides, the cops should be here any minute.”
“The more the merrier, I always say.”
Ronald takes a long, deep drag on his cigarette. He removes his sunglasses and tosses them onto the sheer tabletop. They slide along the smooth surface and tumble off the edge, snapping at the bridge as they hit the floor.
“I should tell you,” he says. “People are talking about you.”
“And what are these people saying?”
“So glad you asked. They say you and the demon are two peas in a pod.”
“You’ve been misinformed.”
“Aw. That’s not what my friend Robert Bulcavage told me. His last words, in fact, right before I varnished the walls with his gray matter. He had quite a lot to say about the pretty little thing downstairs, meaning you. He didn’t use quite those words exactly, but I’ll spare you his crassness.”
“How kind of you.”
“Now, we got a little problem. We came here to reclaim what’s ours—a bike that some goat-footed son of a bitch stole from one of my fallen brothers, to be precise. I’m pretty sure you have a good idea who I mean.”
“Ask Basil. It’s his mess.”
“Well, I could’ve done that, but chances are he’s deader than a flattened armadillo by now, or damn near close to it. Do you believe that fucker bit off my finger?” He holds up the bloody stub for Melody to see. “I’m hoping you can tell me where it is.”
“Your severed finger?”
“The fucking bike!” he barks.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that.”
She refuses to show any emotion, but his words terrify her.
“Oh?”
“It means I can take my recompense in other ways.”
He mashes his cigarette into the glass tabletop and undoes his belt buckle.
“I going to bend you over that table, and you’re going to thank me while I’m giving you what you got coming. Now get that Armani ass of yours over here.”
“You can go fuck yourself,” she hisses. She backs into the far corner and grabs a bust of Abraham Lincoln off the cherry-wood credenza.
“Good,” he says. “I like it when they fight.”
She moves to her right, keeping the table between her and her attacker. His long strides help him cover ground quickly. He steps around the corner, surprising her, and nabs a fistful of her skirt. She bashes his good hand with the Lincoln bust. He yelps.
“I’m going to make you sorry you did that,” he says.
She runs to the other side, toward the door, only to be thwarted by a chair that’s been jammed beneath the handle.
“Enough playtime, little mouse,” he says. “This cat’s hungry.”
He heaves the conference room table onto its side.
She has nowhere to go.
As he steps toward her, she realizes she will have to endure yet another assault. She hopes not to survive this one.
The light changes suddenly. Then comes the explosion. Glass shatters as a huge, shiny projectile sails through the window. The object slams into the half-wall, taking Ronald with it. Beads of glass spray the room, cutting Melody’s face, hands and calves. As she turns, the softness of wind brushes her cheek. In the glassless window frame stands Basil, haloed by sunlight. To her left lies a broken and bloodied Ronald, a mangled motorcycle atop him. She smells gasoline.
As Basil steps into the room, glass crunching under his hooves, he looks no better than Ronald. Blood seeps from deep wounds in his head, chest and abdomen. One of his horns spears a clump of grass, with a pound of dirt held together by a web of roots.
“You all right?” he asks her.
“Splendid,” she says, dropping Lincoln’s bust to th
e floor. “Good timing.”
He exhales.
Two bikers—the same two who had taken Audrey away—fill the space where the conference room door had been. Their mouths drop as they see their leader, Ronald, crushed on the floor.
Basil roars, and the denim-clad pair stumbles away.
“How many more of these pricks are there?” she asks.
“I estimated twenty to twenty-five total,” Basil says. “I took care of”—he rushes through a tally—“ten or so on the perimeter and inside, another seven or eight on the roof. Let’s see if this one can tell us anything.”
Basil blankets Ronald in his shadow. He places his right hoof on the motorcycle and leans into it with most of his weight. Ronald winces and chokes on his own blood.
“Fuck you,” Ronald says, groaning. He slaps the fuselage with his good hand, which, like the one missing the finger Basil removed with his teeth, is sticky with blood.
“On the contrary, fuck you,” Basil says. “Tell me of your numbers.”
“I can’t feel my legs.”
“Like I give a shit.”
“I can’t feel anything.”
“Probably because you broke something important. How many of these leather-bound sons of bitches came with you? Don’t make me ask again.”
“Twenty-two,” Ronald groans. “We brought twenty-two.”
“I wish you would have left like a gentleman, when I asked like a gentleman.”
“If you think I’m going to beg for my life, you’ve got shit for brains,” Ronald gurgles.
“Of course not,” Basil says. “You’ll live, but only because I’m not ready for you yet.” He pauses for effect. “You know who I am, what I’m meant to do in this world.” Another pause. “I want you to listen closely, and I want you to remember what I’m about to tell you, and to ruminate on it every day for the rest of your meaningless life: Your skinny little ass belongs to me.”
Ronald wrinkles his chewed-up forehead. Blood dribbles from the soft space of his right temple, a shard of glass jutting from the wound.
“Where exactly do you think you’re going when your heart stops?” Basil asks. “You’ll come right to me. Sooner or later, your body will fail—and you’ll come right to me.”
Basil bends closer, his face contorted.
“The day your broken body ends up in one of my boiling cauldrons, you’ll gain a new understanding of what it means to suffer. First goes your flesh, peeled from your body for you to eat, strip by salty strip. Then I’ll take your other nine fingers, up to the knuckle, followed by each toe. Those will find a way into your belly too. Any internal organs you can do without, those will be the next to go. Your bottom jaw—consider that gone too. And that’s where the real fun begins.”
He slices Ronald’s lower lip with a shaky talon.
“A hundred demons a day will slide their jagged cocks down your throat until you choke on their cum. Through it all, your eyes will stay firmly in their sockets, because I want you to see the approach of each hungry blade, each herpetic cock, each fang-filled mouth eager for a taste of whichever part of you will be the next casualty. I promise you this: You will beg for death, but the great thing about where you’re headed—great for me, anyway—is that you cannot die without my permission.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Ronald utters, halfway between a whisper and a cry.
“You had your chance, amigo. I’m afraid your only option now is to muddle through the remainder of your mortal life, a cripple with a colostomy bag. There’s no way out of this trap you’ve made for yourself, I’m afraid, not even if you take your own life. You’ll simply make your way to me that much sooner. So, for you and me, this isn’t goodbye. It’s TTFN.”
He turns his back to Ronald and bends toward Melody.
“Ta-ta for now,” he whispers to her.
“Smooth,” she says. She wipes pinpricks of blood from her sweaty brow. “Basil, you look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
“I’ve had better days,” he says. As if on cue, he drops to one knee. He leans forward with his palm flat to the floor. Reddish-black blood slicks the torn carpet, leaking from holes in his punctured abdomen.
Chapter 31
A Better Dragon to Slay
Melody exits the building first, at Basil’s insistence. He pauses at the door. The shattered glass resembles a spider’s web. The pattern reminds him of the world’s better places, the ones not yet fouled by men. Tears wet his eyes as he realizes he will never again see these sights. Worse, his eyes will never again see any parts of the human world, not after today.
Minutes and hours and days
The ticking hands that mete them out
Bid farewell, begging, “Forget me”
The stillness of ponds, the roving lust of meadows
The faithful stink of mud
Setting suns and burbling brooks, babbling
A language all their own
Insect wings, humming, thrumming like plucked strings
All gone, but maybe
Never were
Melody losing sharpness with each verse
A grasped thread slipping through the arthritic twigs of ancient fingers
Mirror lakes, delicate waifs, wagging tails on brick-dumb dogs
Too fragile, too soft for such a hard place
Let it all die, and me along with it
He takes three deep breaths before stepping outside. The sunlight blinds him, makes him squint, and even this smallest of exertions steals more life from his sapped body. Despite his best efforts to look strong, his hooves clop unevenly on the sidewalk. Blood trails each step. The drops shine black against the sun-bleached concrete.
“Thank Christ!” Herbert yells from the parking lot. Boothe, the diminutive imp, leaps excitedly at Herbert’s feet.
Another response starts small and builds in intensity with each syllable.
“No! No, no, no, no, no!”
It’s Edna Babych, haggard and incredulous.
“Damn you!” she screams.
These, it seems, are the only words she can manage. She yanks the cross-less Christ from her neck and hurls it across the parking lot. The figurine strikes the fuselage of an abandoned Harley and breaks into three pieces. The part containing the head and limbless torso ends up beneath the back tire of a burgundy sedan flecked with road dust. Edna moves in circles, struggling to make up her mind, and strides toward the cross at the edge of the parking lot. She leans into the wood, all her weight behind it. The cross moves inch by inch, until momentum takes control, and the oversized T topples forward. The left edge of the horizontal beam stabs the hood of Herbert’s car. It lingers there for a second before the beam turns and the cross’s right edge slaps the windshield, splintering the glass.
Herbert can merely look on as it happens. His shoulders droop.
The remaining protestors abandon their signs, the villain victorious in his fight to the death with the leather-clad saviors. The crowd parts as Melody leads Basil toward Herbert. Horrified facial expressions tell Basil he must look perilously close to death.
“The cops and the fire department are on the way, apparently,” Herbert says. “Bomb squad, too, someone said.”
“Don’t know what good they’d do at this point,” Melody says. “Maybe send a demolition team in their place. A bomb would only help at this point. The whole structure is shot to shit.”
Basil sees the motionless body of Officer Pierce, silhouetted in a pool of brownish red. Karen sits on the curb, a purple knob on her forehead, looking sullen and trying not to hyperventilate. Other familiar faces amble around the lot, looking lost. There’s no sign of Audrey Pernie.
“You saved my life—twice,” Herbert tells Basil. “I owe you everything.”
“You can return the favor by giving me a ride,” Basil replies. “You said you know the way to the cave entrance.”
“Patriot Rock. Sure. Just let me”—Herbert inhales sharply—“settle myself.”
“T
ake all the time you need,” Basil says as he counts his many wounds.
“Wait,” Herbert says. “Can I leave? I mean, should I? Isn’t this a crime scene?”
Basil tilts his head and says, “Did you commit a crime?”
“I guess not.”
“Then get in the fucking car.”
Basil sees Edna stomping on a patch of dry grass. He stumbles toward her. No hard feelings, he’ll say. As he extends an open hand, she slashes at him with a pocketknife. The blade slices the flesh of his palm. She then jabs at him, trying to add to the holes in his war-torn abdomen.
Through blurred vision, he catches her hand in his. He squeezes her grip until bones crack. Her lips tremble, but she refuses to drop the blade. Basil shakes the knife to the ground and kicks it across the lot.
He should kill her, because she deserves it, but he has no more fight in him.
“I swear,” he tells her, “I’m going to miss you in a strange way.”
“Good riddance,” she hisses. “I hope you rot from the inside out.”
“You’ll miss me when I’m no longer here. You’ll have to find some new target for all of that hate you’ve got in your heart.”
“It’s all for you,” she tells him. “Every last drop.”
He can tell she doesn’t mean it. She’s angry at the life she’s lived.
“You’ll never find a better dragon to slay,” he says.
He backs away from her, half-expecting her to pounce on him and start clawing at his eyes and other vulnerable parts. He ambles over to Herbert, who struggles to remove the toppled cross from the hood of his car.
Melody waits by the passenger-side door.
She motions with her index finger, inviting Basil to come to her. He limps over, and the agony in his abdomen makes him want to scream.
“So you’re going home,” she says.
“It’s time.”
“Be safe. Will you make it a better place than it was when you left it?”
“No more rape, you mean.”
“I was trying not to say it.”
“I will remake my home in Beak’s image.”
Burn, Beautiful Soul Page 27