The Mona Lisa Sacrifice

by Peter Roman

  He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door, then took me by the arm and walked me back to my car.

  “Is that what this is about?” he said in a low voice. “The body?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  “I own it fairly,” Carver said. “He broke the bonds and freed me.” He let go of my arm at the side of the minivan and shrugged. “I’m a demon,” he said. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  “I understand,” I said, and I did. “But it doesn’t matter. The man you took the body from has something I need. And you have something he needs. I’m sorry, but you know how this has to end.”

  He looked at me for a moment longer, then looked back at his house. I gave him the time. I’m sometimes stupidly generous that way. I say stupidly because a few seconds later the front door opened and a woman came out holding the hand of a young girl. They wore matching dresses with floral prints, and I swear I could smell cookies baking somewhere behind them. It was the stuff dreams are made of. It took me a few seconds to notice the phone the woman held in her other hand.

  “Ray, is everything all right?” she asked.

  Carver turned and smiled at her. “Just a friend from work,” he said. “I have to go in to the office for a few hours.”

  She looked at me, then back at him.

  “You promised,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Carver said. “It’s a bit of an emergency.” He looked back at me. “Isn’t it?”

  I could see it in his eyes. He knew what was going to happen, and he didn’t want it to happen here, in front of his family. Fair enough. I didn’t want that either.

  “That’s right,” I said. “It’s a real emergency.”

  The girl took a step forward. “My story, Daddy,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” Carver said. “I’ll be back in time to tuck you in.”

  Now it was my turn to look up and down the street. Anywhere but at them. I tried to tell myself I was doing this for the better good, but I wasn’t even sure about that.

  We got in the minivan, Carver still holding his beer, and I took us away from there as fast as I could. Neither one of us looked back. I’m not sure if it was easier for me or for him.

  “Ray Carver?” I said. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “I like his stories,” he said. “They looked like the sort of world I’d be comfortable in.”

  I shook my head. “Why couldn’t you just be a serial killer or a pope or something?” I said. “That would make things a lot easier.”

  “I’ve done all that,” Carver said. “I wanted to see what the mundane life was like. I wanted the things your kind always want. The job. The big house. The family.”

  “Those things are never what you think they are,” I said. I didn’t tell him he could have run and hid if he hadn’t tied himself to those things. If he’d stayed on the move, I probably would have lost his trail eventually.

  “It was worth it,” he said, so softly I may have imagined it.

  What could I say to that? I knew how he felt.

  I turned randomly at intersections, taking us down one tree-lined street after another, deeper into the heart of suburbia. I was lost in no time, but it didn’t matter. I was just trying to find someplace quiet and private to finish our business.

  “Is there any chance we can work out a deal so I can go home and read my daughter a bedtime story?” Carver asked. “Maybe I’ve got something worth more to you than whatever he has.”

  I shook my head. “Only if you know where Judas is,” I said.

  Carver sighed. “So that’s what this is about.”

  “That’s what this is about,” I agreed.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I knew where Judas was?” he asked.

  “Maybe when I thought you were a demon who’d possessed an innocent man’s body,” I said. “But not now that I know you’re a banker with a family and a mortgage. You and Judas don’t move in the same circles anymore.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough,” he said. He finished the rest of the beer in one swallow and put the empty bottle in the minivan’s cup holder. Then he threw himself at me with all the fury of a hellspawn.

  I should have been on guard for it—he was a demon, after all—but the whole family and suburbs business had lulled me into relaxing. I barely had time to throw up my arm to protect my face when he came at me, punching and snarling. He let his true form show now, his fingernails hardening into claws that raked skin from my arm while his eyes blazed fire—real fire.

  There are wards and binding spells and glyphs and such that you can use to keep demons at bay in a pinch. The problem is they’re very personal in nature, and you have to know a lot about the demon in question for them to work. I didn’t even know Carver’s real name, let alone his genealogy, so I had nothing on him. Someone really needs to do a set of demon trading cards someday.

  On the plus side, while the exorcism ritual would take some time to put together, he didn’t need to be conscious for it.

  I let go of the steering wheel and used my left hand to shield my face while I threw a couple of quick jabs at him with my right. It was an awkward angle, but I had a hard jab thanks to some time I spent in a boxing gym with no name in an old warehouse in Louisiana. Carver’s head went back so hard he cracked the passenger-side window behind him.

  But he lunged at me again just as quick and latched onto my hand with his fangs, and I screamed and started hammering him with my left to get him off. If his wife and daughter could see him now.

  I finally knocked him off my hand, but he took my pinkie with him, choking it down like a gull eating a French fry.

  “God damn you,” I yelled.

  “I am going to devour you piece by piece,” he laughed. “And then I’m going to let the pieces simmer in my stomach for the next thousand years.”

  Yes, the demon in him was definitely coming out now.

  Then he screamed and clutched at his stomach, and now I couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Holy blood stings a little more than holy water, doesn’t it?” I said, and gave him a few more jabs with my mangled hand to get as much blood as I could on him. It probably hurt me more than him, but it felt good doing it. I don’t think anybody had actually eaten one of my fingers before.

  He snarled at me and grabbed onto both of my arms. “I feed on pain,” he said.

  Ah, he was that kind of demon.

  We both opened our mouths to exchange more witty banter, but then the minivan went off the road and hit something on account of no one driving it. We went through the windshield still holding each other.

  We didn’t hang on to each for long, though, as he collided with the tree the van had wrapped itself around and I continued on my way, coming to a stop on somebody’s front lawn.

  I lay there for a moment or two, considering the crows circling overhead in the clear blue sky, and then I felt myself to see if there was anything broken. There was, but nothing I couldn’t heal with a bit of grace, and so I went about that and then got to my feet and looked for Carver before he could get away.

  As it turned out, there was little chance of that. He was lying on the crumpled hood of the van, his arms and legs bent in ways that I’d seen enough times to realize there was no hope for him. Or maybe I was the only hope. But I’d never know, because just then Carver left White’s body and tried to take over mine.

  I had time for a glimpse of White’s body shuddering as it gave out a death rattle, and then a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye. I didn’t bother trying to look at it. You can never really catch sight of a demon when they’re out of a body, unless they’ve found a way to manifest in their real forms. The less said about that the better.

  If they can’t manifest, though, they head straight for the nearest living thing. Which in this case was me.

  I had a sudden feeling of déjà vu—a sure sign a demon posses
sion was under way. I lashed out with my hand, still mangled and bleeding because I hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet—and caught Carver by the throat. As much as you can catch a wisp of smoke by the throat anyway.

  “I don’t think so,” I told him.

  He writhed in my grip and I burned some grace to keep him there while I looked around for someplace to put him.

  There. One of the crows had landed in a branch of the tree and was studying White’s body like it was a buffet. I threw Carver at the crow—into the crow—and it let out a squawk and launched itself into the air. I muttered a few quick words it’s wise not to share and sealed the outside of the crow in a layer of grace to keep Carver in it. The crow fell from the air and bounced off the roof of the minivan to the ground. It scrambled to its feet and looked around, then glared at me.

  “Better learn to fly,” I advised him. “Before the cats in this neighbourhood find you.” And I flicked some more blood on him from my ruined finger for good measure.

  Carver cawed in what I assumed was an indignant tone, then hopped away, opening his wings and battering them against the ground.

  You’d be surprised how many crows are actually demons.

  Granted, he’d be a problem again when the crow hit the end of its natural lifespan and freed him with its death, if he didn’t get himself killed first. But I can’t fix everything that’s wrong with the world.

  I went over to White’s body to see what I could do, but it was too late. The body was dead, which meant White was really a ghost now.

  If I had more grace, I could have tried a resurrection, but I didn’t have enough of that left after raising the princess and binding Carver into his new home. I had failed.

  A crow laughed at me from atop a streetlight. I didn’t see Carver anywhere on the ground now, so it could be him up there. But it could be any other crow too. That’s just the way crows are.

  People were starting to come out of their homes to look at the accident scene, some with phones in their hands. It was time to move on before the difficult questions began. I laid my hand on White’s forehead and said a few words that didn’t have any power to them, then got the hell out of there.

  THERE ARE ALWAYS ANGELS IN PARIS

  Maybe if I’d stayed with Penelope in that cabin in the woods and never left things would have been different. Maybe we’d still be living there now. Maybe, but I doubt it. I don’t believe in happily ever after anymore. I’ve lived too many lives for that.

  Penelope and I hiked out of the woods and to a farm where she’d left her car. It took us three days. We camped in clearings where we could look up at the sky as we fell asleep. It looked like there were more stars than people on the earth. Maybe there were.

  The farmer was a woman who lived alone with three daughters dressed in boys’ clothing. There was a grave marked with a simple cross in the yard. Chickens ran back and forth across it.

  Penelope paid the farmer for keeping the car, a rusting Ford Model A. We had to clean animal droppings out of the inside before we loaded it up with Penelope’s gear. If the woman thought it odd Penelope came out of the wood with a man she hadn’t gone in with, she didn’t let it show. She didn’t let anything show on her face. It was that kind of age.

  We drove down to San Francisco, passing shanty towns beside the road here and there, and people walking in the middle of nowhere, dragging suitcases behind them. No doubt all their worldly belongings. From dust we came and to dust we shall return.

  We stayed at a hotel in San Francisco. We rented two rooms, because that was the proper thing to do. We ate in restaurants and I bought new clothes for myself with some money I lifted from pockets here and there. I read the newspapers and that’s how I discovered the world was at war again, although it looked like things were winding down in Europe. I wasn’t surprised. I’d known Hitler was going to be trouble from the moment he got in power. I’d seen his type before. But I was surprised by the fact I’d missed most of the war. I’d been hiking around the forests and mountains looking for Gabriel for longer than I’d realized. I reacquainted myself with the luxuries of a bath and a bed. It wasn’t a bad life. I’d led better at times in the past, and I’d led worse. This was enough for me now.

  The third night we were there, Penelope took me to a meeting of one of the spiritualist groups. She put all her photos in a couple of envelopes and changed into a black dress. She told me to call her Miss Cassandra as we drove there.

  “Is that your last name?” I asked her.

  “It’s the name I use with this group,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with Penelope?” I said.

  “It’s not exactly a name with mystery,” she said. “And you need a little mystery to get in the inner circles of these groups.”

  I didn’t say anything for a while. And then I said, “So is Penelope a real name?”

  “Here we are,” she said, smiling and pulling into a long driveway.

  The meeting was at a mansion overlooking the city. A man in a suit ushered us in to a dining room, where men and women sat waiting for us. They’d already been at the wine and brandy in the glasses in front of them, judging by the flushes to their cheeks. They wore formal wear like they’d been born into it, instead of being forced to endure it only every now and then. Poor souls.

  The man at the end of the table, who actually wore a monocle, stood and came around to kiss Penelope on both cheeks.

  “My dear, it is so lovely to have you back from your expedition,” he said. “I trust it was fruitful?” He gave me a look that I couldn’t read but that said something.

  “It was,” she said. “I even found myself an assistant.” And she introduced me to everyone around the table. She used the name I’d given her, for whatever that was worth. I won’t tell you their names. Not out of respect for their privacy, but because I don’t remember them. Hey, I’ve met a lot of people.

  The monocle man seated us beside him at the table. He had to pull in a chair from the wall for me. I guess he wasn’t expecting Penelope to have any friends. I noted he kept his hand on Penelope’s arm a moment longer than was proper. I was surprised to notice it bothered me as much as it did, so I quietly did a number on the brandy in his glass, turning it into a cheap vintage.

  “Miss Cassandra, do tell us of your latest adventures,” he said once he’d settled back into his own seat.

  Everyone quieted and looked at Penelope, and she cleared her throat and took a sip of wine from the glass in front of her and then told them how we’d met.

  Only it was all made up.

  She told them how she’d seen a ghost moving through the woods outside her shack one night. She’d chased it through the forest, and it had led her to a midnight gathering of faerie in a clearing, where she’d found me, tied to a large stone. They’d been about to sacrifice me to some pagan god or another, but she’d driven them off by reading aloud some parts of the bible. She’d been too busy trying to save me to get photographs, but she had come back the next day to capture the scene. And then she pulled out the photos she’d taken that day on the hilltop of the stones or bones or whatever they had been.

  The women at the table put their hands to their mouths, while the men leaned forward and stared at the photos before emptying their glasses of brandy. I was gratified to see the monocle man gag on his drink.

  “You are so lucky to be alive,” one of the women said to me.

  “Miss Cassandra saved your soul,” another said.

  “I was lost and now I’m found,” I said, mainly because I didn’t know what else to say.

  The same man who’d answered the door brought everyone plates with small roasted birds on them. Smuggled in from Europe, the monocle man said. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble for a bird, when there were ones in the tree outside he could have caught and cooked, but I refrained from saying so. Instead, I settled for repeating the brandy trick on his new glass.

&
nbsp; Penelope kept on telling stories the whole time we were there. She said after she’d saved me she’d discovered I had no memory of who I was or how I’d wound up in that clearing.

  “The faerie cast a spell on him,” another one of the women exclaimed. Maybe she was a prophet.

  “I think it’s far worse than that,” Penelope said. “I think he’s a changeling. Taken from his human parents years ago in order to sacrifice him to their dark gods that night.”

  They all looked at me and I refilled my brandy from one of the bottles on the table. It was an excellent vintage.

  “I’ve brought him back to civilization in the hopes of finding his human family,” Penelope went on. “And of saving his soul.”

  They all stared at me, so I raised my glass. “Let’s drink to that,” I said.

  They were a good audience, so Penelope milked them for what they were worth. She pulled out the photo of the goblin skull in the stream and told them how it would call out in the voice of a lost child, trying to draw people to the water, where they would drown. She pulled out the photo of the grave where she’d found me and said it was home to a family of ghouls. She said she hadn’t been able to capture any of them on film but she had photographed their footprints. And then she pulled out photos of footprints in mud that could have come from any beast.

  “Did you encounter any vampires?” asked the woman who was convinced the faerie had cast a spell on me.

  “If she had, she would not be here to tell us her tales,” the monocle man said.

  “Oh, but I’ve heard that they are just dreadfully misunderstood,” the woman said, and the other women around the table nodded their agreement.

  I’d had enough to drink now that I wasn’t as quiet and cautious as I should have been. “Oh, they’re misunderstood all right,” I said. “Most people think that they just sip a little blood from you on some enchanted evening and then go about their merry way. If any of them got in here, it wouldn’t be little birds they’d be eating, I promise you that.”

  Everyone looked at me now. Penelope gently ground her heel into my foot.