Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  (& Mal’s voice resumes its inhuman monotone…). “Ha. Little Charlie surely knows the number of the Beast… & so much more…”

  [ 131 ]

  Frank pauses, allowing the punk adequate time to respond—if he’s smart… The ex-tackle’s huge, scarred left hand exerting wrecking ball pressure on the comparatively female-delicate hand crushed against the filth-stained, bullet-dented metal surface, the joints & digits paling to a sickly whitish yellow, the tips & nailbeds unnaturally flushed, as circulation is constricted. No indecision shows in the cold silver mirrors of his stare. & his interrogation subject sees only the hard black pebbles of his own pupils, the pallid flesh trembling over pain-tensed facial muscles, the perspiration-soaked strands of coal-black hair clinging to his forehead, shock-sweat, glacial cold, pouring forth from every pore, pouring from the shuddering jut of his chin in what feels a saline waterfall of voided fluids, reeking with the pheromones of still-silenced FEAR…

  But Frank is momentarily awash on a sea of indecision. No quibbling of moral qualms. No. Only tactical dynamics. CYA over which blade to employ in forcing a fast confession of facts…?

  “Now, Asshole,” he snarls, “NOW or NEVER—”

  His right hand lowers the survival knife to the pavement, next to the punk’s own weapon. The clatter is magnified, echoed in the lethal stillness… Frank grasps the breast of his captive’s T-shirt, straining the damp fabric taut, then yanks savagely, ripping the black cotton jersey in a fine spray of sweat droplets, ripping with a deafening roar like a hardwood plank split by an overheated buzzsaw… He wraps his right hand with the damp black cloth. Uses it to wipe his prints from the gravity knife’s handle.

  Sirens wail in the distance…

  & so does the punk as the razor-honed blade shears off the top digit of his left little finger, loosing bright jets of splattering blood, quick brush strokes painting hematic ideograms of pain across the grimy white vertical plane of the dumpster…

  “No balls,” Frank mutters, “Shit! The traditional approach to enko zume calls for the offending Yakuza to hack off his own joint… ‘though nowadays, a friend generally holds his hand steady while someone else performs the actual amputation…

  “So much for tradition, ehhhhh…?”

  Grudgingly, Frank must admit this kid’s got stones, despite his accusation to the contrary—he hasn’t spilled his guts yet…

  As if in perverse answer to his thoughts, Mt. Fujiyama erupts from the pit of the punk’s shock-stressed stomach, spewing a stinking lavaflow of half-digested, greasy pork noodles & bitter bile…

  “GODDAMN!” Frank bellows, flicking bits of vomit from his jacket with the knifeblade.

  “Gonna talk yet, Fuckhead? I’m countin’ down, & this is the Reader’s Digest condensed version of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo­—

  “five… four… three… two… one…”

  [ 132 ]

  …blue meanies never even guessed the full number of My Zodiac kills, the number of My collected slaves. They sat on their fat asses & never did as I instructed them. My tenth letter, dated April ’70 explained it all quite succinctly. But. No. They never asked their constituents & newspaper readers to wander around ’Frisco wearing some nice Zodiac buttons just like the peace symbols & ‘BLACK POWER’ slogans. I told them it would cheer Me up considerably. But. Alas. So I used a .38 & put down one of their very own sitting in a car. &, again, the pitiful piggies were so thick they even failed My simple bit of wit: I shot the frigging pig in the 600 block of Waller. Pig. Waller. 600 block. & I even included an altered Phillips ’66 road map pinpointing the peak of Mt. Diablo. Their main trouble seemed to be a total lack of any sense of humor. No true appreciation of this grand cosmic blue joke they call ‘existence.’ Needless to say, they never cracked My little two-line cipher which—”

  “Heh, Uncle Mal, quick! I think she’s doin’ it, already—” Julie cries out, her voice urgent & excited, daring to interrupt His discourse. A momentary dark cloud passes over the face of Maldoror, but blows away as He senses deep within the archetypical blue mandala slowly spinning in His Hellish psyche the cross & circle turning slowly, whirled by the maelstrom Winds of Limbo, wailing for yet another tormented soul…

  Yet another slave to serve in Paradi(c)e… but first there must be the Time of Summoning… in a dimensional rift where Earth & Sky & Sea merge into one great killing field, one boiling Primal Chaos, one eternal circle of the mystic ruling signs that knows no boundaries & awaits only for those guided by the inner vision to release this force of transformation… like a serpent shedding its old flesh, the world must change… like Nidhoggr… like Quetzalcoatl… like Ouroboros… Yes, the World Tree shall shake & let loose the serpents upon this ignorant imperfect world, summoned by the Great Beast the Maldoror…

  Maldoror raises the “Count Zaroff” blade, the blade He believes to be the blade of Spring-Heeled Jack, & blue flickerings pouring from the television’s screen twist & writhe as if possessed with their own Life or perhaps the very Ghost-spirit of Anti-Life…

  He lowers the blade until it points to the south, & intones the sacred litany: “Hail Satan, Lord of the South…”

  He repeats the gesture, pointing eastward. “Hail Lucifer, Lord of the East … “ Continuing the invocation as proscribed by The Devil’s Doctrine…

  [ 133 ]

  Frank is impressed. Though in his present subzero rage, the gutsiness softens his hard-hearted resolve about as much as a prolonged dip in a vat of liquid oxygen.

  His unwilling snitch is down by all three joints off his left little & ring fingers, & he’s two-out-of-three on the middle one as well. The asphalt looks like it’s littered with blood-soaked Vienna sausages… Not exactly the Good Housekeeping recipe of the month…

  He’s done his share of screaming but no squealing up ’til now.

  He’s passed out twice, albeit briefly. Hawkes zapped him back from nowhereland post haste. Like steel calipers his huge thumb & index finger dig into the pressure points of the punk’s left shoulder, just above the clavicle—a segue of excruciating pain jolting him ’round to Reality City…

  “So far about all we’ve got here is your name, rank breath & cereal… uhhh, noodles… & it looks like most of that hit the dirt already, huh, Scum Suck?” Frank acts as if he has all the time in the world to continue with the questioning. Tetsuo’s too far gone with his own internalized agony to notice the rising accrescendo of police sirens & the chop chop chop of cop copter blades.

  Frank pins the demolished stump of the assassin’s left hand flat against the face of the blood-smeared dumpster, pressing the razor-honed blade of the gravity knife gently against the soft flesh just above the knuckle bone, drawing a tiny trickling line of blood that is lost amid the flow of crimson tide.

  “The…guys…I…work…for…Mermaid’s Inn…last night…some guys…you…killed. Yeah…worked for…my boss man. They…fuck your ass…big time…motherfucker… So…so…fuck this shit, man… So…you chop my fingers…?

  As the blade begins to slice flesh again, the punk shrieks: “…FUCK YOU ANYWAY, THEY CHOP YOU FUCKING DICK & BALLS OFF, PIG! THEY CHOP YOU FUCKING EARS & TONGUE OFF, YOU DIRTY FUCKER PIG! & THEY FUCKING CUT THAT DOG-MEAT YOURS INTO FUCKING MONGOL HOT-POT…”

  Frank is beyond rational response. The reference to Elijah punches his final button, & he hacks off the punk’s remaining digits without even a pause for further interrogation. Laying the gravity knife on the tattered heap of the former T-shirt, he grabs his survival knife, gives the punk a couple of vicious body slashes, & swaps knives again.

  This time Frank shifts his hold on the youth’s arm, twists him into a bear hug, clenching him from behind. “You know about the Miranda, don’t you? SURE! Anyway, Ass-Fuck, you have the right to remain silent—FOREVER…”

  Frank pauses, grasping the punk’s undamaged right hand, forcing the knife into his grip, fingers wrapped around the handle, marking this potential “EXHIBIT A” with Tetsuo’s own palm- & fingerprints…
“BUT FUCK THIS FUCKING ‘ATTORNEY’ BULLSHIT—THIS IS FOR ELIJAH YOU SONUVABITCH!”

  Using both the punk’s hands to grasp the knife-hilt, Frank helps him to do the one honorable thing considering the circumstances—the six-inch blade rips deep into his lower abdomen, from left to right opening his belly, cutting him a horizontal slit, then slicing upward, metal grinding against his sternum, spilling his intestines in a rush of blood…

  “Seppuku. Good choice. The knife’s hardly a wakizashi, but—” the ex-Fed comments, as he drives the blade up underneath the breastbone, heading for the heart…

  “—if it feels good—do it!”

  [ 134 ]

  “Yes. Premature. But it seems this is her time.” Mal presses His surgical-gloved fingers to the semi-conscious girl’s neck, gauging the carotid’s failing pulsebeat with an expert precision born of professional training in His early intended role of physician, as well as countless practice in His thirty-odd years in the field…

  “Julie. Quickly. I shall allow you the pleasure. Select how you wish to do her. But make haste.” Young Juliette already stoops above their recumbent victim, her long black hair trailing like raven’s wings across Heather’s deathly pale naked arms & breasts. The Medic of Mutilations continues: “As you well know, the circumstances must be properly controlled if her passing is to have meaning, if she is to join our slave legion awaiting in the Blue Hell of Paradi(c)e…

  His protege’s lips are parted, her breath taut, her cheeks flushed, her own pulse rate elevated. Her soft pink tongue darts out, compulsively flickering across the coral-tinged, puckered flesh, wet & glistening. She hesitates for just a moment, then fumbles with the knot tying the saliva-soaked panties that still gag Heather’s mouth. “Daddy, can you tear me off a piece a’ tape—?” she asks.

  “All out. Y’ didn’t buy any.”

  “Aaawww, FUCK!” She curses, not wishing to press the point about the duct tape any further, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “What the Hell…” she whispers, pulling the gag loose, pinching Heather’s nostrils shut with the fingers of her left hand, while her right wraps itself around her throat, tightening, throttling the senseless girl, applying all her strength to the task, exerting ever-increasing pressure to her trachea, clamping her windpipe closed, until the girl’s face purples & the bruises form a necklace of dark amethyst about her throat.

  Heather’s body gives a last feeble convulsive shudder.

  Julie’s lips twist into a smile of wicked delight.

  She presses her own mouth to the dying girl’s, giving her the kiss of death, savoring the essence of her escaping soul.

  HER SEA-BLUE EYES BURN WITH THE LOOSED FIRES OF HELLISH BLUE, ECHOING THE BLUE LIGHT WRITHING FROM THE TELEVISION, FLICKERING, POURING FORTH WAVE UPON WAVE OF DEVILISH ILLUMINATION, DEVOID OF ANY HINT OF HOPE OR MERCY…

  [ 135 ]

  “Goddamn!” Frank Hawkes curses, letting the dead-weight of the punk drop to the asphalt. He lays the torn scrap of jersey with the rest of the T-shirt. Picks up his survival knife & awaits the coming shitstorm of heat the close keening wail of sirens signals. He hears the stirred wind & chop chop chop of copter blades… But it is a rippling flicker of BLUE from above & beyond that distracts him. He stops what he’s doing & gazes upward, staring at the sun just long enough to burn a painless patch of microscopic holes into his retina. In the blink of an eye he forgets what he has just done, & he is unaware of the solar tattoos branded upon the inner walls of his eyeballs.

  The skull beneath his skin commands an outer grin…

  [ 136 ]

  “It has been several hours since we first heard the sirens. The search will probably go door to door for at least several blocks in either direction. I believe we should prepare for a visit by the local constabulary: i.e., the pigs.”

  In Truman’s pain-dulled eyes, a bright spark of hope glitters among the charred last remains of his sanity. His brain has hit near-total burnout. Life, until this morning, has been filled with peace & prosperity & niggling little secret sins, all the more intensely pleasurable for their clandestine thrill.

  But since his ambush & deliverance into bondage, the very harlot halls of wicked Babylon & Sodom have seemed to throw open their gates to tempt & torment him with perverse & seductive visions… Truman’s helplessly unfaithful eyes spill a hot flood of tears as he flashes on the very real possibility he may never see his wife, Bertha, & the kids & their kids, the grandkids, ever again in THIS life… The phrase “this Veil of Tears” flickers through his consciousness for a second-long eternity then dissolves into the wavering haze of lachrymose dewdrops & Demerol… But now, the past seems an eternity away. Now all that remains is a memory dwindled to the perspective of an ass-backwards telescopic lens, now all that remains is the shrieking torment of shattered kneecaps further savaged by the tongue & blade of this young Lilith, his bleeding groin carved with shallow letters spelling “hELL,” & the numerals, “666,” & his forced complicity in these fiends’ crimes of rape & sodomy & torture… Surely he has already died, & through some gross miscarriage of divine justice he has been cast down into the bowels of Hades’ pit…

  “We must prepare for the eventuality of their visit.” The inhumanly controlled voice of this archdemon known as “Maldodor” cuts through the veil of self-referential reproaches at paths chance-followed, & the tiny flicker of rekindled hope.

  “Miss Julie, try to be discreet. Change into some garments that do not flaunt your too-seductive charms.” He glances at her, as she curls naked on the bed, using the dead girl’s cooling body as a pillow. There are red stains on her chin & breasts—whether these are blood or pizza sauce makes little difference. The deep purple-black of bruises mars the creamy flesh of her breasts, her tapering belly, her inner thighs, & the pert globes of her bottom cheeks. Minor lacerations on her back & buttocks & thighs & shins still ooze miniscule droplets of blood or are crusted with rust-brown scabs—the stigmata of her own ordeal. “We need no repetition of your earlier escapade,” He muses.

  The stocky serial slayer feels His groin tightening with renewed lust—her young flesh so infinitely more alluring for the marks of violence displayed upon it, & the presence of death, the sight of Heather’s defenseless corpse juxtaposed with Julie’s still-living, breathing nudity causes the dangling serpent to rear its Evil head anew.

  But there shall be time enough for the milking of its venom, all the time that Hell can offer…

  “Make haste. You. Wanton. Little. Cunt. Put on the plain khaki shift. Take the ice buckets from both rooms with you. Fill them. Bring the ice to Me. You will need to make several trips, no doubt…

  “Snuff. Help Me lift this dead bitch. We’ll keep her wrapped in plastic. Carry her into the bathroom, & lower the whole mess into the tub. That shall do until we can spend a little time to dally with her. & she is a dilly just made to dally, isn’t she? Use a washcloth & clean her up. Stick to business, too. No time to play your wicked little games right now. No ‘Doctor’ games. No ‘Toad-in-the-Hole.’ No ‘Cat-&-Mouse.’ No. Just wash the muck off of her. Then help Me with the Bible Boy. We’ll move him in with her. Chain him to the commode. & I’ll give him a stiff jolt of Demerol to keep him out of trouble.”

  Snuff helps Him hoist Heather’s deadweight, scooping her up with the layer of protective plastic wrapped around her. They carry her to the bathroom, & lower her carefully into the makeshift porcelain coffin. “We shall use the ice to keep her body cold. It will slow cellular deterioration. Keep her fresh as a lily. It will also serve to confuse the time of death, should we find it necessary to quickly dump the remains…

  “Always use every means at your disposal to confuse the so-called ‘experts.’ 99% have no ability to fully abstract. Save for a handful of the most gifted, they merely follow the seeming thread of logic as dictated by their uninspired textbooks, slavishly following the dictates of yet other ‘experts.’ They invariably overlook the true MO of the artistic slayer, failing to think it through with any re
al intelligence. Just as they did when we committed the Presidio crime, the cabbie killing. I wiped the taxi clean of prints. Not that I left any wearing My surgical gloves. Then I ‘accidentally’ printed the vehicle with the blood-smeared right hand of that Mex we did in Tijuana. We put it on ice. Then I walked it back across the border, plastic-wrapped inside a frozen packet of Guaymas shrimp…”

  “Yeah, & the rest of him made chow for the rats—” Snuff adds.

  “—& curs once we butchered him properly & left his bits in some deserted alleyway. In any case, their ‘evidence’ certainly removed Me as a viable suspect. A stroke of genius, I must admit…

  “Yet again, they let Me slip between their foolish fingers. I used their own forensics experts to prove Myself innocent, so I could continue My Zodiac doings without threat of molestation…”

  [ 137 ]

  The police copter hovers above the scene of slaughter. Trash whirls in a cyclone summoned by the blur of its revolving blades.

  “DROP YOUR WEAPON. MOVE SLOWLY TO THE ALLEY’S CENTER. WITH YOUR ARMS RAISED.” The voice booms from the on-board PA system.

  Frank knows the score. He lets the knife clatter to the asphalt. Reaches for the sky, & does a slow shuffle for mid-alley. Chances are there’s an M16 zeroed in on him, even now, the copilot’s finger tickling the trigger. He can sense the red dot of the Laser Aiming Sight as if it were the burning focus of a magnifying glass raising smoke, drilling into the flesh of his lower back & pelvis… & Frank feels the swarm of flies settling upon his inert form, upon his clothing, the exposed, bloodied skin of his cheeks, the nape of his neck, the shallow wounds on his left thigh & both shins & forearms, feels them crawling through his sweat-soaked hair, tiny pinpricks of pain sear where their salivated digestive juices cauterize his flesh…