Burn, Beautiful Soul
Page 33
Although remade, Our Fiery Home has its troubles. An eyeless corpse appears every now and then, and no one seems to have a clue of its origin. Sometimes a shrill scream disturbs his sleep, and when he goes to investigate he finds only remnants of wrongdoing: a detached hand, a few droplets of blood, luminous pearls of spilled demon seed.
“Baby steps,” he tells himself.
If Shakespeare words of “what’s past is prologue” hold any truth, he knows everything could come undone all too easily. His gaze often wanders to the Pool of Infinite Perdition. The surface has remained still since the kraken’s barbed tentacles dragged Lucifer into the fathoms. He imagines Cthaal recessed into a tube-like cave, tentacles reaching into the darkness and plucking a slab of buttermilk flesh from Lucifer’s lifeless body. Unlikely, he figures. He half-expects to wake one day and see the Eternal One lumber ashore, eager to murder any demon standing in his path. But Basil doesn’t linger on the thought. If Lucifer does gain the strength to return, then Basil will react.
But until then …
As he runs his fingers along the smooth edges of the fissure creasing his forehead, Basil ponders the minutiae of his long, strange trip to Beak and back. He feels rested, the result of the stretches of deep sleep he now feels safe enough to take. He no longer worries of assassins lurking outside his doorway. He no longer imagines the teeth of a hot blade against his throat. And he no longer dreams of the human named Emmitt Wells and the struggle to make a life in a cold, hard part of the world that did its best to swallow him and spit out his acid-bleached bones.
Or, if he does dream of such things, he no longer remembers.
Maybe his good friend Chester had tapped into something profound that late August night on Basil’s patio as the three of them—Chester, Herbert and Basil—chatted beneath a sky abloom with stars after a bacchanalia of pork ribs, whiskey and beer. Maybe, as Chester drunkenly hypothesized, Basil had in fact once walked the earth as a human, a luckless Englishman, and after his mortal death been reborn as a demon, as penance for his theft and his adultery, his pride and his rage—all the horrible acts he committed in his foolish quest to tame an untamable London. And maybe, just maybe, the slate was wiped clean after Lubos’s ax opened Basil’s skull and stopped his heart.
Implausible? Certainly. Unlikely? Absolutely. But given the absurdity of Basil’s adventures, nothing seems impossible anymore. He trusts his gut.
So, he thinks, this is Hell.
“Maybe so,” the voice tells him, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.”
Acknowledgments
I likely would not have finished (or perhaps even started) this novel without the support and encouragement of several people: Donna Schoener Donahue, my wife, partner and best friend, for thoughtful critiques of early drafts and too many other things to adequately mention here; Don Swaim and the past and present members of the esteemed Bucks County Writers Workshop (Lindsey Allingham, Candace Barrett, Chris Bauer, Beverly Black, Kevin Callaghan, Bob Cohen, Daniel Dorian, Natalie Zellat Dyen, Tracy Grammer, Cathy Hilliard, Martha Holland, Jim Kempner, Wil Kirk, Kevin Knabe, George MacMillan, Fran Nadel, Jacqueline Nash, Bill O’Toole, John Schoffstall, Alan Shils, David Updike, Sharyl Volpe and John Wirebach); Gregory Pas Jr., for introducing me to Nebraska’s charms; and Krystina Kellingley of Cosmic Egg Books, for her thoughtful treatment of the manuscript. Each of these individuals has my sincerest gratitude.
I’m also indebted to the nonhumans in my life—Marbles, Crash and Baxter—for providing the best possible kind of disruption when I was trying to write or edit pages.
About the Author
William J. Donahue’s earliest career aspirations included, in order, a Catholic priest, an American ninja, a professional wrestler, a horror-punk icon and a goon for a minor-league ice hockey team. Although he failed miserably in each of these pursuits, the experience he gained in the process provided ample material for his fiction.
In addition to Burn, Beautiful Soul, Donahue has authored three short-story collections: Too Much Poison, Filthy Beast and Brain Cradle, one of which (Filthy Beast) was a finalist for Foreword Magazine ’s Book of the Year Award.
When he’s not writing fiction, entertaining his cats or wandering quietly in the woods, Donahue works as a magazine editor and features writer. His writing and on-camera reporting have earned multiple regional and national awards for excellence in business journalism. He currently oversees three monthly lifestyle publications serving the Greater Philadelphia Area, and he is also on the editorial staff of a literary journal focused on the remarkable people, places and history of Bucks County, Pa.
He lives in a small but well-guarded fortress somewhere on the map between Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pa. There’s no moat, but it has plenty of snakes.
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