Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  The acne-scarred Cuban clerk gives a disinterested shrug & slow-scans the bewildering array of pigeon-holed packs. He hauls out three packs of Camels, & tosses them down beside the fresh-faced Hamilton. “Yeah—?”

  “No. I said. two packs of Marlboro soft-packs.”

  Frank’s own sunglassed, slow-boiling image is reflected in the quicksilver glare of the clerk’s mirrorshades.

  “No, man…, you said—”

  This punk is wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned “RUSH” under an unbuttoned K-Mart-special Hawaiian sportshirt that looks like a disordered bamboo-jungle in lurid shades of blue & red…

  Frank suddenly flashes on the word “RUSH,” keying back to the Zodiac letters marked “RUSH TO EDITOR,” & the flickering blue jungle stained in blood red: he hears the whispers of the war-dead filtering through from the other side, feels his anger rising rising, tries desperately to fight the psychic undertow, & somehow slides into a bizarre S-of-C connection that raises gooseflesh with its startling juxtaposition of intertwining concepts­—

  Scorpio Rising… & Lucifer Rising… (Two occult-influenced oldies by ’60s biker-savvy badboy, experimental-art-film-director, Kenneth Anger—the latter starring Bobby Beausoleil, lead guitarist for Magick Powerhouse of Oz… Manson-cohort, & future participant in the Gary Hinman murder…). Frank feels the silver chord of his Reality link spiraling into a Hell-BLUE tempest-rift of utter weirdness, & struggles to stay ashore the rapidly eroding sands…

  “So, wad’you want? Heh?”

  “TWO! PACKS! MARLBORO! SOFT-PACKS! YOU! STUPID! FUCK!” the ex-Army-Lt. bellows, more from the desperate need to shatter his own train of thought than in response to its catalyst, the inattentive & ill-mannered Cuban clerk. Frank gets what he asks for this time. & more…

  He grasps the brown paper sack containing his purchases in trembling fingers, picks up the four Washingtons, folds them into his wallet, pockets the spare change, & exits without another word.

  He doesn’t see the punk flip him off. Doesn’t hear him grumble his parting “Fuck you—” Not that Frank gives a shit, anyway.

  The swinging doors slam shut behind him, the glass rattling, threatening to shatter at the seismic-shock intensity. Frank swings into the cockpit of the Vette, & burns rubber out of the parking lot, fishtailing, lurching into the traffic flow.

  [ 108 ]

  Slice is reeling him in now, giddy with anticipation, picturing the four-eyed egghead flopping on the planks of the pier like a dying fish. Got my hook in his fucking brain. Bringing him down to the dark waterfront. Down to meet his unmaker… Professor’s fingers crawl into his pocket to fondle the vials of Blue Devil.

  Slice cracks a reptilian grin. Blue Devil coming down. Then the queer sensation of being in two places at once as he watches Professor Punk step onto the pier & sees his own dark form through Frank’s eyes, slouched against a starlit backdrop of night sky & sea—like looking at yourself looking at yourself down a hall of mirrors in Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell… Hell…

  Professor Punk’s mind is long past balking. His conscious mind has been reduced to a shadow of itself, walking those twisted nightmare streets, trapped within those two-dimensional distortions of unreality within the silver screen flickering The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari…only this flick is straight-snuff in deathly shades & tints of BLUE… Yet he has just enough awareness to understand what is happening to him…to understand that he is taking a last walk down a long pier to Hell… Hell… Hell… & that his death is waiting at the end of the pier, the walk itself a condemned man’s last plodding steps down the Hellish hallway of sea-sprayed darkness. He has known the touch-kiss the intimacy of death before, & hence he fails to truly fear it. After all, he is a man reborn through his acid-etched ritual of sex & death, nine candles & the ceremonial katana blade paying blood-homage to her, the succubus…a snaking tendril of white smoke, billowing, expanding, languidly forming itself into the shape of a lithe woman, her fingers swimming toward his thighs as smoke becomes supple flesh—Wordsmoke whispers from her perfect lips, a solitary puff: “Professor…” & she touches his thighs with a delicate spider kiss…

  He senses, as if vicariously, the hollow drum-cadence of wood echoing beneath each footfall; the rough boards snagging at the rippled soles of his shoes. It reminds him of a hundred grade-Z zombie movies, seen since childhood, & his mind flashes with the illogical phrase: “Dead man comin’ down…”

  [ 109 ]

  The seared-pork stink of frying human flesh permeates the motel room at this moment. The alligator clamps, secured with strips of micropore, chew cruelly into Heather’s stiffened nipples, but the pain she suffers from their metal-toothed bite is nothing compared to the utter agony as electrical current jitters through her tits, scorching grey-green burn marks into their tender flesh.

  Truman lies on the other bed, gripping the rheostat, giving the helpless girl jolt after excruciating jolt at the urgings of his captors. Whenever he eases up, Julie digs the tip of her switchblade into one wounded kneecap or the other, prompting him to increase the voltage… “Juice the bitch, Bible-boy,” her father urges, his huge erection thrusting lewdly as he fondles & pinches at the naked flesh of his daughter & the captive man alike.

  Heather writhes in Hellish agony, twitching like an epileptic as the electrical charges rip through her, triggering involuntary muscle spasms. The plastic drop cloth from Mal’s shopping list covers the bed beneath her, protecting the sheets & blanket from any “accidents,” should the young girl lose control of her bladder… or other bodily functions…

  Wired past the point of all control, Snuff scrounges in Julie’s suitcase, &, finding what he wants, returns with a tube of K-Y Jelly.

  He offers the tube to Mal first.

  Excited by the sight & smell of blood & torment, the once-Zodiac obliges. He lubes up His lurching penis, yanks the cord from the wall socket, then forces young Julie face downward across Heather’s thighs, & penetrates her, anally, from the rear. Snuff follows suit, rolling the helplessly naked Bible salesman over onto his side, forcing the fat man to submit to his brutal act of sodomy…

  [ 110 ]

  Something nags at Frank’s mind as he steers the Stingray toward Little Havana. Something flickering just beyond the borders of rational perception, as his anger cools in the sunlight & sea breeze. Something dark & troubling… On a sudden impulse, he reaches back with his left hand, tugs his wallet from his pocket, &, while he drives, lays it open against the leather-covered wheel, & unfolds the four bills the clerk gave him—Bingo! The third bill down has something written across old George’s mug: the numbers “666.”

  Something barely glimpsed for a single split second as he received them. Something hitherto unheeded in his anger. Something filed away in the mnemonic storage banks for future sorting. & the future is now: Frank flips the bill over, almost losing all four as a sudden sea-blown gust threatens to rip them from his fingers. & everything goes BLUE again, as he stares down at the arcane graffiti neatly block-printed across the back: “NO ONE BUYS OR SELLS WITHOUT THE MONEY OF THE BEAST—APOCALYPSE.”

  Gooseflesh ripples across his skin. His face goes pale. & he barely misses ramming the Vette into a Miami City Bus.

  Elijah lets out an ear-splitting, tormented howl…

  [ 111 ]

  Slice’s fingers creep into his pocket & close lovingly around the smooth cylinder of an empty vial of Li Di 9. & the smooth handle & sheathed blade of his bootknife send a cold chill thrill up his spine, a tingle of near-orgasmic rapture. Ahhh, once he has the vials of Blue Devil, the Professor will no longer be needed & I’ve been so looking forward to your death for sooo long now, Proffy Punky baby, so fucking long…

  “So good to see you, Old Friend,” hisses Slice, flicking his tongue over the smooth ridges of his lips. He holds out his empty hand, & Professor fills his itching palm with vials of Li Di 9. Once the vials & the bag of theatrical supplies are put snugly away in Slice’s pockets, he
wordlessly instructs Professor to turn his face upward so that his throat is offered to the God of the New Flesh. He grips the man’s hair with his left hand, exerting physical as well as psychological control upon his intended victim.

  DON’T KILL HIM. The voice startles Slice, & for a few seconds his will & his control over Professor waver. Professor Punk’s body trembles & his bladder turns loose, pissing his pants.

  WE MAY NEED HIM LATER. The voice, Slice determines, is coming from within himself. Another effect of the Blue Devil? His will re-asserts itself, & he gets a firmer grip on Professor’s mind, slipping his knife from its scabbard with his right hand, touching the blade to the offered throat… NO! The blade comes away dry.

  [ 112 ]

  The wailing banshee shriek of police sirens rips the relative night quiet of the seedier outskirts of Quincy, Illinois. The throbbing road hum of cross-country rolling semis, the occasional squeal of brakes or the screech of tires, furtive snatches of laughter or a sudden cry or the frenzied jabber of angry, arguing voices: all of this dissolves to nothingness in the wailing warning of Law & Order’s harsh imperative.

  Inside of motel room Fourteen, flesh still slaps flesh, but Maldoror stands amid this scene from The 120 Days of Sodom. He places the index finger of His right hand to His lips, a signal for silence perhaps better suited to some priggish Sunday school teacher than to the Sultan of Serial Slayings. But it is a gesture totally in character for this as-yet uncanonized Patron Saint of Paradoxical Perversity.

  “No cause for concern—” He says, the sirens’ shriek leaving little room for misinterpretation. “as the radicals & anarchists of the ’60s used to caution, ‘Sit tight for thirty hours,’ & the pitiful piggies should have nearly expended their energies in the fury of their tail-chasing shenanigans & fiddling & farting around like so many tanked-up tigers & Little Black Sambos churning little but dust & butter…” He laughs. But there is no hint of humor in that flat, monotone outburst. More the warning snarl of a rabid dog than any emotional conveyance vaguely approaching the humane or human.

  Maldoror holds the straight-edge razor up to catch the flickering blue radiance out-rushing from the television.

  “Roll the girl over onto her belly, Snuff,” He commands, pointing to the burned & battered teenager.

  [ 113 ]

  The long scenic drive & a half-dozen chain-smoked cigarettes prove enough to mellow out his latest case of the jitters… Frank detours by way of the precinct station, & a call by the Desk Sgt. to Lardass Lucas nets a quick verification of his approved involvement in the investigation. The officer in Property retrieves the abandoned blue dress, & Elijah snarls savagely & lets out an eerie howl when he whiffs the scent of the mind-fucking killer, Slice.

  “Sorry,” Hawkes apologizes, “Ol’ Elijah, here, seems to have taken one Helluva instant dislike to our mystery slayer, I guess, huh…?

  “Any problem if I cut just a scrap from the inside hem, so I can give my hound a refresher scent if the trail gets scrambled…?”

  “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt. Okay—” the petite, straw-thatched young policewoman answers.

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Ma’am,” Frank says, sizing her up surreptitiously. Her nameplate says “OLAFSON L.,” but he files her mentally under “H.H.H.”: for “Heidi with a Hammill Haircut.”

  [ 114 ]

  “Sorry to bother you,” Professor Punk says in his characteristically clipped speech, “but I need a favor.”

  “Go on,” she tells him.

  “I’m looking for an old friend & colleague of mine,” he says. “If I could enlist the aid of your spook network, I could locate him much quicker. His name is George Brittain. He possesses certain talents I need in dealing with Slice. & the whole project, for that matter.”

  “At this point in the game you want to bring in an outsider? What is this shit, Professor?”

  “The man is a genius in His own right. I’ve known Him for many years, so He wouldn’t really be an outsider. Hell, He was working with me when I first envisioned the concept behind Blue Devil.”

  “Why am I getting the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  “I can’t answer that, Lucy. All I know is George Brittain can be a tremendous asset to Erebos. Without him, I’m afraid I can’t promise total success of the project.”

  “You’re jerking me around now,” she says angrily, “& I don’t like it. If this project fails, you’ll live just long enough to regret you ever met me.”

  “Don’t you think I fucking know that?” he says. “All the more—”

  “Do you want my trackers to find Him for you?”

  “No. At least not quite yet. But I’ll need some quick cash for some…uhhhhh…supplies… I’ve gotta play a couple of hunches. But I should soon have some valuable info that will help them.”

  “Tell you what, Prof,” she says, the anger no longer clouding her voice. “Keep me posted. When you’re ready, I’ll alert my network. But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. Right now my fucking trackers can’t even find your fucking mutant in your own backyard.”

  “Thank you. You won’t regret this.”

  “I sure as Hell better not regret it.”

  [ 115 ]

  “Nnnnooohhhhh! Please! God! Please! Anything but that! Not back there—!” Heather tries to scream in protest, but the saliva-soaked panties gagging her mouth prevent her from articulating her frenzied plea for mercy. “It’s so SICK—so UNNATURAL…!” Instead, her words are garbled into a totally unintelligible groan.

  Snuff has untied the cords that bound her to the bed frame, &, leaving her ankles unfettered, he cinches her wrists tightly together. Then he & Mal roll the futilely struggling blonde over onto her naked belly…

  & the very worst of Heather’s previous nightmares returns to torment her reason, ripping at the strained moorings of her sanity, threatening to drag her down into the riptide of babbling terror that slurps & sucks within the primal sea of Chaos so close, so very close, to the churning surface between her limbic backbrain & conscious mind… How long ago—? Less than two weeks? How can that be possible—? It seems so long…so very very long & yet the memory assaults her as if it were just occurring­—

  [ 116 ]

  Frank finally locates the exact spot where Rios had parked his Plymouth last night. Daylight streams through the bustling street, &, with the festive rainbow of brightly colored garments worn by its primarily Hispanic inhabitants, all aura of the sinister has vanished with the rose & saffron fire of daybreak, with the blazing sapphire of mid-morning sky. Even the little shop across the street touting its complete inventory of Santeria supplies seems quite innocuous.

  He parks as close as possible, locks the Vette & sets the anti-theft alarm. No reason to take unnecessary chances. Then he & Elijah head for the narrow mouth of the nearby alleyway.

  But his trusty cop-sense continues to fail him—the coffin-black Targa noses to the curb a full block away, unseen by the normally wary & sharp-eyed Hawkes. & he fails to note the Evil image of the black-bugeye-masked Chan speaking into his cellular phone.

  Frank removes the scrap of cloth from his coat pocket, & gives the dog another whiff. Elijah sniffs around experimentally, then sits bolt upright, refusing to budge.

  “Hhhhmmm. Looks like that’s a deadend for the moment,” he muses. He digs into the other outside pocket, & pulls out a driving glove he’d swiped from Rios, sealed up in a Ziploc Baggie. Frank unzips the bag, holding it open so Elijah gets a snootful of concentrated Rios’ scent.

  The redbone gives an excited yelp & beelines for the alleyway. The two partners plunge into the shadowed defile, both hyped to follow the trail left by their buddy, &, with a kiss from Lady Luck, perhaps locate the infamous Mermaid’s Inn, &, perhaps, bring their quarry, the Beast, to bay…

  [ 117 ]

  The mirror returns his reflection as if it wants to get rid of it as soon as possible, spitting the distasteful image back to its outlandish source
. The latex on his face has been applied unevenly, giving his face a freakish facade, certain to draw unwanted attention. But then, Slice is no makeup or special effects artist.

  GOTTA DO BETTER THAN THIS, SCUMBAG, says the voice in his left ear.

  What the fuck?! Who is that? He looks behind himself, then glances all around the room. The woman’s naked, mutilated body is on the blood-soaked mattress, just as it should be. No way SHE said anything. She’s got a mouthful of fucking intestine. Who said that?

  YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING REJECT FROM NIGHT OF THE FUCKED-UP DEAD. LIKE A RETREAD GETTING READY TO BLOW OUT BIG TIME…

  Who are you?

  WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, YOU ANUS? GET THAT SHIT OFF YOUR FACE & START OVER. WE’VE GOT PLACES TO GO. PEOPLE TO DO…

  It ain’t that bad, You can’t see the New Flesh, that’s the main thing, & it’s dark out. Who’s gonna see?

  IT’S GONNA GET A LOT FUCKING DARKER BEFORE WE’RE FINISHED, MR. HYDE… Slice begins peeling the latex mask from his face. Blue pebblelike flesh is revealed as each piece of latex comes off. Beautiful, isn’t it? WORDS CAN’T BEGIN TO DESCRIBE IT, ZIT SUCKER. DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME. THAT FUCKING WHORE YOU DID IS STARTING TO STINK. & WE’VE GOT MILES TO GO BEFORE WE SLEEP.

  I know who you are… OF COURSE YOU DO, SHIT STICK. YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN ME … But I was never sure… WELL, YOU CAN BANK ON IT NOW, HEMORRHOID… You shouldn’t talk to me like that. I’m the New Flesh… I’LL TALK TO YOU ANY WAY I WANT TO, SCOURGE OF THE EARTH. WHO DO YOU THINK MADE YOU WHAT YOU ARE?… Blue Devil made me what I am. Not you … THE MOON IS BLUE, BUTTFACE. WHERE DO YOU THINK THE FORMULA FOR BLUE DEVIL CAME FROM?… The one called “Professor”… BULLSHIT, ASSLICK. BLUE DEVIL IS MY FERTILE SEED. & YOU ARE MY FUCKING OFFSPRING. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP & FIX YOUR FACE…