Iago apparently had quite a taste for blasphemy that evening.
“How many more shots have you in that thing?”
“One,” Atchison said, hand carefully poised above the final cylinder hooked to his belt.
Iago positioned himself at the mouth of a perilously narrow opening between two buildings. It was barely wide enough for him to comfortably fit through, uneven and black as pitch. A sliver of light waited at the end.
Ah, it would do no good to give up now.
He appeared.
“Oh, Atchison,” he called, and their eyes met before Iago took off down the narrow passage.
It had the potential to be a death sentence. The inventor hurried to reload the gun as he followed. Even a blind man could make that shot. The sliver of light at the end grew larger. Iago heard the clatter of the gun loading behind him, felt the moisture on the old brick against his palms and knuckles as he pushed his way through.
If he were to be felled, he thought, this was the man to which he’d willingly give the honor.
There was the click of the gun…
…too late, Atchison.
Drawing a deep breath, Iago threw himself from the passageway, invisible once more. He quickly pressed himself against the brick wall which looked out to an empty street.
Snow couldn’t find the strength to stick even to the ground, each flake dreamy in its short life. Atchison looked from side to side, his expression still stony.
He waited rigidly for a clue, one which Iago would not allow.
“Are you there, demon?” he called and then softly, “Demon?”
But in that lonely and solitary moment, the wall around Atchison’s mind weakened. It was a brief glimpse of something from long ago, a memory lodged deep within the mind. Iago latched onto it.
A boy and a girl played hide and seek in the tall grass around the back of an old barn. The boy crouched behind the wheel barrow, snickering. It was the height of summer. The high and grating hum of cicadas filled the ears. The girl in her blue dress pouted. A voice that could only belong to a frustrated mother for all its sternness called out.
“Viola!”
The girl turned her head, and in that moment, Atchison did the same.
“Viola, you let your brother do his chores! Thomas has much to do!”
The mind does curious things as it remembers, and somewhere in the inventor’s brain was a modicum of identification with one of the participating players in the memory.
The pout. The furrowed brow. This was not a memory harbored in the mind of the boy, but rather that of the girl.
And in an instant, it was gone. The Great Wall was rebuilt.
Thomas Atchison’s soul indeed resides in Hell, wrote Damien Morte amidst his flirtations, for he made a deal to save his dying sister.
Viola.
It took quite a lot to surprise a thousand-year-old demon, but this turn of events certainly managed the feat. The inventor swiftly trotted back down the narrow alley, perhaps to retrieve the unsuccessful cylinders.
Iago peered into the darkness and waited until his foe was out of sight to even take another step. What a tremendous and remarkable being he had the fortune of combating, he thought.
He remained invisible until he was out of the neighborhood. His blood sufficiently warmed by the adventure, he could not conceive of merely walking home to his tiny room above the cigar shop. And so, he started quickly toward the home of one Dante Lovelace.
When Auggie Stewart was nine years old, he stood over a dead body for the first time. He poked it with a stick because when a nine-year-old is in the presence of a dead body, he simply can’t resist the urge to do so.
“Auggie, why would you do so horrible a thing? Mrs. Sykes loved that cat with all her heart,” Arthur insisted as they stood over the tabby-striped body. Its tongue stuck out pathetically.
“I just wanted to see,” Auggie said but refused to look his older brother in the eye.
“Wanted to see what?” Arthur looked anxiously around the neighborhood. The leaves had turned, and the members of Marlowe’s elite often fancied a walk or carriage ride. What would they say if they saw the Stewart boys standing over Mrs. Sykes’s dead cat?
“I wanted to see what would happen if I poisoned him.”
“What did you think would happen?” Arthur demanded. Auggie was unmoved, looking upon the cat as though he wanted to sign it and proclaim it a masterpiece. “We cannot let Mother or Father discover this, and certainly not Mrs. Sykes. We have to hide the body.”
And so they did in a particularly dark and thorny thicket behind the house, but all the while, Auggie was smiling, giggling.
Thirty years later, Detective Arthur Stewart could see that smile. He rocked on his heels as he waited for his brother to answer the door. He hadn’t intended to break his promise to the inventor, but a meandering walk around town had somehow led straight to Augustus’s door. Perhaps the inventor had already found his demon.
A group of urchins at the end of the hall watched the detective with wide and worrisome eyes. There was some stench about the building, something pungent and decidedly human.
The door opened, and for a moment, the detective had to remind himself of who he was visiting.
“Augustus? Is that you?” He snorted. “You look like hell.”
“Understandable. What are you doing here again?”
“I needed to see you,” he said. “May I come in?”
Augustus Stewart’s eyes narrowed in apprehension. He ultimately stood tall and moved aside for his portly brother. The detective ambled past, muttering lowly, “I just wanted to see how you were.”
“Why such sudden concern?”
“You are my brother. I’m worried… has someone…?”
He had never had to ask someone if they’d been dealing with demons, and he realized he didn’t quite know what to say. It was like asking someone how their syphilis was coming along or how life had been since the wife admitted to having that affair with the milkman.
“Has someone what?” Augustus asked impatiently.
“Has…?” Detective Stewart trailed off as he looked upon Augustus’s latest paintings. He knew these faces, these calm and utterly dead faces. These were unfortunate ladies who had graced the newspapers and waltzed into the grim imaginations of Marlowe’s citizens. He had hoped it wasn’t true; now he feared the Stewart name would soon be as dead and defiled as each of these women.
Unless they covered it up. He had always been so very good at that.
“Auggie, what is this?” he asked distantly.
“They will find another in the morning,” Augustus said lowly.
“Another? These women are dead, Augustus, and you’ve been in here painting them?”
“Yes.” He smiled, and his voice flirted with laughter. “I’ve done more than paint them, brother. I have claimed them. I’ve made them mine.”
Detective Stewart was loath to put his hand to his revolver, but he felt he must. “Oh, Augustus, I had hoped it wasn’t you.”
“I took their lives. But in turn, I gave them immortality.” Augustus paused to trace a finger over the face of his latest victim. Her full moon eyes stared blankly. “I killed them. It is their blood you see upon the canvas. They will live forever now.” It was the pride in his voice which chilled Detective Stewart.
“A demon did this to you. Yes?” the detective said desperately. He abandoned the weapon at his hip.
“You mean to say he set me free?” he asked. “I am free, brother. Don’t let Atchison poison your mind. Lucifer’s minion is a proud and generous creature.”
Detective Stewart regretted chewing anxiously on his thumbnail, a habit he had desperately tried to leave in childhood. He had wanted to leave so much behind—the family history, their ties to The Order. It was the whole reason he had declined a life of sitting atop the Stewart fortune and become a policeman instead. A lot of good it did him. There was no escape. “Listen. We can hide this. We can make certain that no one—
”
“No. No longer. No more hiding,” Augustus said with a smile, and he carefully plucked one paintbrush from an easel. He twirled it playfully between his fingers. “No more.”
His latest painting may have stared in shock or wonder. She may have delighted in what she saw, or perhaps it was repulsion which peeled her eyes open wide. Whatever the case, all she could do was stare as Augustus Stewart splintered the handle of the paintbrush and forcefully thrust it into the side of his brother’s neck with glee.
Blood—or was it paint?—sprayed the canvases. Detective Stewart fell forward, the centerpiece for his gallery of the dead.
Augustus wiped the paint from his sleeves and the apples of his cheeks as he sat down again. Somehow, in his heart, he knew the sphere upon the table would never again work for him. His gallery was complete. He wondered what the public would think once he unveiled it the following morning.
Then again, he had never cared much for public opinion.
XI.
“So, our Thomas Atchison is not Thomas Atchison at all?”
Iago nodded as he leaned against the mantle; Montgomery, the mounted vulture, loomed just above him with outstretched talons. The entire parlor at 13 Darke Street had been his stage as he strutted about and told his tale to Dante. “It would seem that way. It was the first clear picture of Atchison’s mind I’ve been able to latch onto, as pure and as true as any I have ever perceived. It all makes perfect sense. Thomas is dead, and Viola, the sister he saved by selling his soul, pushes onward to avenge him. She throws herself into playing the role of Thomas so fully in public that her mind is impenetrable.”
Dante settled back in his armchair and let the very idea wash over him. “Well… what a terribly romantic notion. A fascinating turn in the plot, if I say so myself.”
“Indeed. Better than witches.”
“This could be the weakness you’re looking for,” Dante said, piquing his fingers.
“Is it a weakness, though?” Iago asked. “I’m not certain it is. What interests me is why Viola would join The Order. She doesn’t appear the type.”
“Hmm.” Dante’s critical gaze fell to the tear in Iago’s jacket. “Well, whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that you went on some wild chase through the alleyways of Marlowe.” Dante affected a withering expression of faux thought. “I seem to recall telling you to take care and remain cautious.”
“I seem to recall that, too. Now. It must have slipped my mind at the time, I’m afraid.”
“A-ha. I see.”
“You can’t possibly blame me!” he exclaimed. “The chase was stupendous, my dear Dante. I wish you could have been there! It was as invigorating as when I first escaped the pit.”
Dante smiled a serpent’s smile, one which heralded to Iago something of a victory. “Damn you. I want to be sore with you for putting yourself in danger and yet, I cannot discount your… blatant ecstasy—”
“You see?”
“—but what, pray tell, is your plan for taking Atchison’s soul?”
Iago’s mind was humming with the adventure of the night. How could he possibly topple the creature which offered him such excitement? In his foul, black heart, he knew the answer, but it could not pass his lips quite yet, not even at his dearest companion’s request. “My plan?”
“Yes, your plan,” Dante said. “It would be very unlike you not to have one at this juncture.”
Iago wasn’t quite feeling like himself, anyway. This final assignment had so rattled him!
Iago insisted, “Of course, I have a plan. And I promise you’ll know in due time. …But not now. Allow me this evening to revel, unfettered by obligation.”
“Revel?” Dante asked lowly, positioning himself in a subtly licentious way. He had the posture of a libertine but a deliciously sweet and inquisitive expression. “Is that your reason for arriving on my doorstep at such an hour?”
There was a lustful gleam in Dante’s eyes. Beneath his morose exterior, he had always had a lover’s blood, but Iago had not seen such an eagerness in his gaze in some time. Iago nodded deeply and answered, “It seems as good a reason as any, wouldn’t you say?”
Dante stood quickly to kiss him, mouth warm and familiar, and he gripped Iago’s necktie between thumb and forefinger. It had been too long, but it was so horribly difficult at times, balancing one’s personal wishes with one’s despicable responsibilities to Lucifer.
“You know, this damnable pride of yours aggravated me so when we first met,” Dante chuckled as he brushed his thumb over Iago’s cheek.
“Everything about you aggravated me when we first met,” Iago said. “I never did care for catastrophe artists, and here one came, wandering into my territory and trying to claim it as his own. And he was so frustratingly handsome, at that.”
“Thank Lucifer Below we buried the hatchet all those years ago.”
“My dear Dante, we did more than bury the hatchet. We gave it a grave marker and promised to visit every Sunday,” Iago laughed.
“We’re approaching the anniversary of The Fire of 1751, you know.”
“One of our nastier spats. A good thing you thought me a better ally than enemy.”
Dante arched a brow. “Ally is not friendly enough a word, Iago. Listen to me. Once you succeed in this final assignment, and I am certain that you will, you will promptly be sent to California,” Dante said feverishly. “Who knows when we’ll have the good fortune of laying eyes on each other again?”
Iago smirked. “Or hands, for that matter.”
“Precisely. And with the pressing nature of your work lately, it has been some time since we surrendered to such passions, yes?” he insisted.
Iago laughed. There were times still when Dante Lovelace spoke like the tall, dark, and handsome stranger in some insipid piece of women’s fiction. Iago ran a firm hand over his partner’s chest. The excitement of the evening still hummed in his bones.
He would learn of Iago’s plan in due time. It would be a shame to dampen this emotion, to interrupt so pleasurable a moment.
“Dante,” Iago said sweetly, “I don’t need to be coerced.”
The Atchison home was surprisingly cozy, both outside and in. It was perhaps Sofia’s personal touch which created such a glow. A warm brick exterior and cheerful yellow shutters greeted visitors, and the inviting and decidedly flowery parlor was fit for songs, party games, and ladies’ teas.
However, Sofia never had multitudinous guests—certainly not the menagerie of acquaintances, well-wishers, and people worth tolerating that most women of Marlowe possessed. Most of the ladies in town found Sofia odd. Though they made it seem as though it were due to her bizarre husband, the Atchisons knew well it was for more unfriendly and prejudiced reasons. The handful of friends she did invite knew that the basement was Mr. Atchison’s territory, and they knew well not to enter.
Above all, however, the home was a safe haven, a place to hide at the end of the day once the doors were locked and only Mr. and Mrs. Atchison remained. Every sinner and miserable soul in Marlowe had their secrets, or so they liked to think. The Atchisons, however, guarded their privacy fiercely.
In the upstairs bedroom was a photograph of Thomas Atchison, entirely unrecognizable to the people of Marlowe, Massachusetts. Blond, yes, but robust and large. A broad and stocky man with a pleasant half smile and suspenders. He was a friendly farm boy who always had a joke at the ready, who still kissed his mama goodbye and was just as likely to help Old Martha Wallace mend her fence as he was to go drink until dawn with dear friends. But there was something dark in that gaze: a proclivity toward soul-rotting sin.
The framed photo rarely gathered dust. It was part of a small and well-curated museum of artifacts from the countryside of Ohio which sat beside the bed. There was a photo of a thin and dour young woman with piercing eyes and another of an old farm house. They were grim reminders of a past life. It is important to recall where one has been to better steer the course toward the place one desire
s to go.
Also upon the table was a letter which Septimus Boeing had delivered to the Atchisons’ mailbox before he ended his own life.
Atchison—
You were right. We all must fight our demons. I am sorry.
- S. Boeing
How very true.
Upon returning home that evening, Atchison walked slowly to the bedroom and sat on the bed to view the small collection of photos. There were no guests, the windows were shuttered, and so the thin moustache was carefully removed from the inventor’s lip. Fingers gently undid a silk cravat and black buttons before ruffling golden hair.
The inventor sighed deeply and, despite the night’s failure, felt a peace unknown beyond the walls of the house.
Sofia Atchison padded to the door and peered into the bedroom. “No success, my darling?”
“No,” the inventor answered bluntly and let the calm of the house do its glorious work. It stripped away layers of pretense, layers which society required. And while Atchison willingly played the games orchestrated by society, they were still unfair and brutal games. The refuge of a quiet home was more than appreciated.
Atchison looked to the young woman in the portrait by the bed. It felt like an age had passed since then.
“Viola?” Sofia asked softly.
Viola Atchison turned to her wife, and she was suddenly very thankful for the years since they had met. How wonderful Sofia was to take a chance on a wandering woman who dressed in worn suits and pretended to be a dead man. They became each other’s saviors under the unrelenting southwest sun years before appearing one day like conjured spirits in Marlowe. “Yes, Sofia?”
“I want to help you in any way I can,” she said as she sat beside her wife.
“I know that.” She took Sofia’s petite hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “However, I feel that I must change my course of action.”
“Is that so?”
“This demon is peculiar.”
“Peculiar? How, my love?” Sofia asked.
Viola thought carefully, delicately. It would do no good to admit even to herself what she feared to be true, that she actually had… oh, it was abhorrent! Oh, how awful that one might actually have something resembling fun spending time with some foul Hellspawn!
The Last Temptations of Iago Wick Page 14