Devil at the Crossroads

by Cornelia Grey

  “So . . .” Logan was fairly sure he’d understood. But he kind of needed to hear it out loud. “So you aren’t going to kill me?”

  Farfarello’s lips curled in an exasperated smirk—but there was fondness there, a lingering warmth still between them. “I went through all this trouble to make a bluesman out of you,” he said. “If I killed you now, all my efforts would go to waste.”

  Logan blinked. There was something . . . he was missing something. Still. He’d been missing it the entire night. The past six years. Most of his life, really. “To make a bluesman out of . . .” He trailed off, fighting to keep his thoughts on track. It wasn’t that easy, what with Farfarello’s naked body right in front of him, and he still hadn’t memorized all the marks on that pale skin—and he just wanted to lean over and lick each and every scar over and over, until he could follow their pattern with his eyes closed. “I thought . . . your efforts did go to waste. I became this . . . idiot, threw it all away. Your gift, the music . . . everything.” He swallowed heavily. He wondered if the shame would ever stop burning. “It was all for nothing.”

  Farfarello sighed. He rolled over and let his arm dangle off the bed, retrieved his jeans and pulled a crumpled packet of Marlboros out of his pocket. He sat back, tapping it with his hand to shake out a battered Zippo lighter. Then he brought the packet to his lips and pulled out a squashed cigarette with his teeth. When he lit it, Logan’s nostrils were filled with the sharp smell of the Zippo’s fuel. Farfarello took a long drag, then handed the cigarette to Logan, exhaling smoke from his nose, his mouth. “Here,” he said. “Have a smoke. Maybe it’ll kick your brain in gear.”

  Logan nodded in thanks and took a drag as Farfarello lit another Marlboro for himself. He tipped his head back when he exhaled and watched the smoke spread in the dim light. Damn. A dingy hotel room, with old wallpaper and dusty velvet and a burned carpet, and yet Logan would be happy to spend the rest of his life in here, making love to Farfarello again, living on sex and smoke and whiskey, and nothing more.

  “You came to me that night asking to be a bluesman, and for money and fame,” Farfarello said, exhaling smoke. His eyes were now a deep burgundy. “As soon as I heard you play, I knew you had potential. But you were . . . misguided. Young. Stupid. You had a lot to learn, Logan, so I went about teaching you.”

  “A lot to learn . . . about what?”

  “Can’t play the blues when you want glory and fame.” Farfarello leaned forward. “When your head is full of gold and Jacuzzis and whatever foolishness you thought you wanted back then. As long as you’re still scratching at the surface of the world—as long as you’re drunk on cheap illusions—you’ve got nothing to say worth hearing. And yet you said it. Very loudly. For six excruciating years.”

  Logan cringed and lowered his eyes. The cigarette burned slowly between his fingers, an ash hourglass marking the time of his humiliation.

  “You needed to get through that. You needed to grow up. Hey—there is no shame in that.” Farfarello put his fingers on Logan’s chin, forcing him to raise his gaze. He looked completely serious. “You needed to crash through the illusion until you hit rock bottom and lay there bleeding. You needed to crawl in the mud to understand that fame matters nothing, that your vanity matters nothing. That the only thing that matters is the music.” His mouth curved in the ghost of a smile, and he pressed his palm to Logan’s cheek, thumb brushing his lips. “And you did: you learned. You grew. That was my goal, Logan, all along, and you didn’t disappoint. You got through, and now you have the duty to go and play your goddamn blues to the world. Now I know you won’t turn into a douche bag and forget that it is not about you. Just the music.”

  “Just the music,” Logan murmured, savoring Farfarello’s words in his mouth. They sounded . . . right. Sounded like something he’d known for a long, long time that had taken him years to finally remember.

  Farfarello nodded. “Yes, Logan. The music. It has always been the music.” He hesitated a moment, seeming to debate something with himself, then leaned to the side to squash the butt of his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. He scooted closer to Logan, who instinctively shifted, leaving Farfarello room to snuggle up to his side. Farfarello lay on his stomach, folded his arms on Logan’s abdomen and rested his chin there, looking up at him in all seriousness. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

  Logan thought it was a strange request, but tonight had gone well beyond strange already. And Farfarello’s eyes were so solemn—so Logan just nodded, without a word, reaching down to twine a strand of Farfarello’s hair around his fingers.

  “It is your story, Logan,” Farfarello said. The room, the entire building seemed suddenly very quiet, as if the entire world were sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the bed to listen to Farfarello’s tale. “Tomorrow morning, you will leave here, and you will never return. Oh, you will try, but I assure you, you won’t be able to find this place—on any maps, along any road. This is a strange place, Logan, the place where lost souls go when they are shifting between worlds; you don’t belong here anymore. You belong back in your world. So you will leave tomorrow and venture back into your life. But you’ll always stay aside, in the shadows, closer to the brink, where no one will see you. You will be a bluesman, Logan, a great one. Not the greatest, but good enough. But it will be very different from the life you’ve led so far.”

  Logan just listened. Farfarello’s hair was cool and smooth between his fingers; Farfarello’s arms were warm against him, pale skin contrasting with his. He could feel the warm puffs of Farfarello’s breath on his chest when he spoke.

  “You will never be famous again. You will never have money. You will travel, Logan, you will play in smoky bars for people who will not pay attention at all—too busy drinking and looking for someone to fuck. But there’ll be some who will notice. They’ll be the ones who’ll sit in a corner, ignoring their drinks, blatantly ignoring hot chicks trying to strike up a conversation. The ones who’ll stare at you in silence, eyes on your fingers. And when you look at them—you’ll know. You will not talk to them, though. At the end of the night, they will tip their head at you, but you will not soil the music with words. You will not have friends, Logan; you will be alone, except for silent one-night stands—men and women—and you’ll never know if they are sleeping with you or trying to sleep with your music. You will not remember their names.”

  Farfarello’s words were slow, measured, marking the time as inevitably as the black clock ticking on the wall. Time doesn’t need to convince you that it will come; it merely needs to exist, and so did the devil’s tale. Logan’s stomach felt heavy. It was frightening, that inexorable fate—and yet, somehow, reassuring. He looked at Farfarello’s white hair, shimmering in the dim light between his tanned fingers. Farfarello’s warmth, and Farfarello’s voice, and the steady ticking of the clock—it was all he knew.

  “You won’t be rich. They’ll pay you pennies for your gigs; they’ll try to scam you and kick you to the curb when you ask for money. Cheap motel rooms will be your only address; the smell of stale mattresses and dusty carpets will be the one you recognize as home. You will not have a car, a kitchen, a TV; you’ll have barely more than the clothes on your back. You will drink too much and think too much, but you will never play enough.

  “And the night of your seventy-second birthday, you will get off a worn wooden stage and go sit at a corner table, where a silent waitress will bring you your usual, a glass of cheap whiskey. You will rest your back against the wall and prop your feet on your guitar case. And you will die like that, hat tipped over your eyes. People will think you fell asleep. The waitress will realize the truth when she comes to shake you awake at closing time. The bar regulars will all chip in to pay for your funeral. Your old guitar will go to the waitress’s niece. It will burn to cinders, years later, in a car crash. The waitress will be the last to forget your name.

  “This is going to be your life, Logan. I can see it as clearly as I see you now, in fr
ont of me. And you know what?” Farfarello paused, reaching to touch Logan’s cheek. Stunned, drunk on the images Farfarello’s words had conjured, Logan could have mistaken the warmth in his eyes for love. “You will be happy. I can promise you that. You will be happy, and that night, you will die without regrets. Without fear.”

  He fell silent, and Logan nodded, mesmerized, scared, elated, the thoughts spiraling in his head. But it was all distant, too many tomorrows to imagine, and all he could think about were Farfarello’s solemn red eyes. Logan seemed to remember devils were just fallen angels and, in that moment, he thought he could see the wise, powerful being Farfarello had once been. He wondered what his story was, how he’d fallen from heaven, how many centuries ago. Had there been a battle, eons earlier, when mankind was still discovering itself, tentatively reaching out to the world—a fratricidal war that had torn Heaven apart? Had Farfarello accepted being cast down, or had he been proud and wrathful, fighting until he’d been overwhelmed, captured, forcibly banished from Heaven?

  Logan shivered, tracing his fingers over the scars that marred Farfarello’s back. Were these the marks of his fall? Had they been inflicted as a punishment, as a permanent reminder of his defeat? Had the angels held him down, cold and distant, and torn his skin, cast him off into the abyss, just another lost and broken brother—or had the newly created devils torn each other apart in the madness of the early days of Hell?

  He brushed his fingers along Farfarello’s jaw, then cupped his face with both hands, tugged him up, and kissed him. Logan was bursting with questions and too-heavy emotions, so many his chest ached. He wasn’t good at that stuff, not without a guitar in his hands. But kissing Farfarello made him feel some control, some safety. How ridiculous, to feel something akin to love for a devil. He tightened his arms around Farfarello—one hand at the small of his back, the other sinking in his hair. Farfarello moaned into his mouth and moved against him, hip brushing Logan’s half-hard cock, and Logan shivered and bucked up in response.

  He shifted until Farfarello lay between his legs and indulged in licking Farfarello’s lips, exploring his mouth as they rubbed against each other. He took his time, savoring the devil now that the blazing hunger had subsided, replaced by a simmering heat. Logan lifted his leg, rested his thigh over Farfarello’s hip, giving him room to rub and thrust against him. They brought each other off like that, with slow touches and deep kisses, their cocks thick and hot between them, slick with pre-cum. Logan came first, tensing up and arching against Farfarello’s body, a low moan in his throat. Farfarello hung his head and groaned, eyes closed, thrust against his damp skin, and came with a gasp, hand clenching on Logan’s wrist hard enough to bruise.

  Logan let his head fall back onto the pillow, pushing his sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead. They were a mess: sweat and cum smeared between them, their bodies still burning too hot. The room was stifling and smelled like smoke and alcohol and sex. Farfarello grabbed something from the floor to wipe them both—Logan’s shirt, of course. He was almost smiling, and his white hair was tangled and his skin was fucking glowing in the half darkness, so Logan grabbed his wrist and pulled him down to kiss him again.

  When Farfarello pulled back, he looked at the window and said with a sad smile, “Dawn is coming. I have to go.”

  There was nothing Logan could say, no bargain he could offer—not even his soul, since apparently it wasn’t worth shit. All he could do was nod and watch quietly as Farfarello rolled out of bed and collected his clothes, completely at ease, once again exposing every inch of his marred skin to Logan’s gaze. He tugged on his jeans, slipped on his shirt, then pulled his hair out of the neckline. Every covered scar tugged on Logan’s heart, making it smaller and smaller, too heavy in his chest.

  He took a deep breath and sat up, too. He couldn’t find his jeans, and his shirt was a goner, so he slipped on his boxers and lay back against the headboard, waiting in silence as Farfarello put his boots back on, then recovered the whiskey bottle from the floor. The devil took a swig, downing what little was left, and tossed it behind his shoulder.

  The crash of shattering glass gave Logan a grim satisfaction.

  There were things he wanted to say. They were burning in his chest, crushing his lungs, but he didn’t know how to translate them into words. He was choking on them, and the frustration made him want to scream. He needed a guitar—then he’d be able to speak, and Farfarello would understand. He was sure of that.

  But he was trapped and wordless and could only watch Farfarello prepare to leave, to disappear from his life forever. He’d be left with the memory of his deal, of this night, and over time it would all fade. He would start wondering if he hadn’t dreamed it all, maybe, if too many drugs had created the handsome, pale devil in his mind, along with a strange hotel room at the edge of reality. That memory was too heavy and maddening to carry out with him in the real world; should he try, it might just drive him insane. It was a too-big ship trapped in a bottle, and Logan didn’t know the trick to get it out; he’d just have to walk out of the bottle, leave the ship in there, and try to forget about it all.

  Farfarello patted his laced boot and got up from the velvet chair (not two hours earlier he’d been writhing there in pleasure, panting and moaning and coming around Logan’s cock and fuck. Logan couldn’t do this). The devil stretched languidly, then tucked his hands in his pockets and turned to face Logan with an easy smile. “Well. I’ll be off, then.”

  Logan swallowed. When he spoke, he tasted blood on his lip, and his voice was rough. “You seem pretty darn happy for someone . . . who doesn’t get even a scrap of soul after six years of hard work.”

  Farfarello winked, looking mischievous and sexy, just like the first moment he’d walked into Logan’s life—and damn if that didn’t tear Logan’s heart apart just a little more. “Don’t worry, I got it covered. It’s just a matter of time, Logan. After all . . . you know all bluesmen go to Hell.”

  Something jumped in Logan’s chest. It was ridiculous, really, to get excited at the prospect of eternal damnation. But then, he’d always been an idiot. “So, I will . . .” Logan paused. “I will see you again?”

  Farfarello stepped closer and leaned down to look Logan in the eye. “Yes, you will. I’ll come and wait for you, that night. You know I never miss an appointment.” He bent to place a quick kiss on Logan’s lips. “And it’s not as bad as the company line would have it. There will be a guitar there for you.”

  Logan blinked, trying to hide his disappointment. “But I’ll have to wait to see you again. Until I’m dead. That’s nearly fifty years.” His heart was racing. “Could you, maybe . . . visit me before that?”

  Farfarello’s smirk was nothing short of devilish. “I’m sure . . . we could reach some sort of deal.”

  Bounty Hunter

  The Ronin and the Fox

  The Tea Demon

  Apples and Regrets and Wasted Time

  City of Foxes

  The Mercenary

  Cornelia Grey is a creative writing student fresh out of university, with a penchant for fine arts and the blues. Born and raised in the hills of Northern Italy, where she collected her share of poetry and narrative prizes, she moved to London to pursue her studies.

  After graduating with top grades, she is now busy with internships: literary agencies, publishing houses, and creative departments handling book series, among others. She also works as a freelance translator.

  She likes cats, knitting, performing in theatre, going to museums, collecting mugs, and hanging out with her grandma. When writing, she favors curious, surreal stories, steampunk, and mixed-genre fiction. Her heroes are always underdogs, and she loves them for it.

  You can find her at:

  Website: http://www.corneliagrey.com

  Blog: http://corneliagrey.blogspot.com

  LiveJournal: http://corneliagrey.livejournal.com

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/corneliagrey

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cornelia
grey

  Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3432559.Cornelia_Grey

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