Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I turned away from him to the window. “I’m not supposed to feel those things.”

  “No, you’re not. But you do, and I want to know why.” He moved next to me now, his face reflecting the blue sky outside.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I said softly.

  “Why not?”

  I placed my hand before me on the cold windowpane. “You don’t spend enough time with them. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to be loved by a human.”

  “Humans love me.”

  “I’m not talking about worship, having icons and prayers and rituals in your honor. I’ve had plenty of that, too, and it’s worthless.” I turned to face him. “The kind of love I’m talking about, Michael, is between two bodies, two souls who let the world slip away when they’re in each other’s arms.” My voice became a husky whisper. “Humans don’t kiss the way angels do. They have smells and tastes like you can’t imagine.”

  Michael swallowed. “I can imagine.”

  “You want this, too. Why wouldn’t you? Why should I, the most wretched of creatures, be part of the holiest union this world can offer, and not you?” Our faces were a few inches apart; my voice caressed his name. “Michael . . . don’t you want a piece of this joy? Something tangible, something earthly, something to make you feel a little more . . . real?”

  He couldn’t rip his milky gaze from my eyes.

  “Yes.”

  I patted his shoulder and turned away. “Nah, you just want to get laid.”

  “How dare you,” he snarled, “you miserable little weasel.”

  “Not so miserable these days.”

  “I’ll say this again, and you’d better listen. If you care about Gianna at all—and you know you do—then let her go.”

  “Or what?”

  “Are you willing to risk everything for this woman? Are you willing to risk going to war again?”

  “War? Oh my, is hers the face that launched a thousand angels?”

  “We are many more than a thousand now,” he said. “We’ve been recruiting.”

  “So have we.” I sneered at him. “And I was paraphrasing Christopher Marlowe, you illiterate simpleton.”

  “I know you were. I know the story, and I know the ending. Don’t assume Gianna will be as lucky as Doctor Faustus was.” His eyes dumped disdain on me. “Bargaining with the Devil is one thing. Falling in love with him is quite another story.”

  “Get out of my office!”

  “Gladly.” Michael turned to leave. “I almost forgot. Do you have any messages for me to take back?”

  “Messages?”

  “Yes. I am required to ask.”

  “No kidding. Messages, let’s see . . . Why, yes, as a matter of fact.” I went to my desk and began to scribble on a legal pad. “Let’s see, a memo from the executive offices of Eternal Damnation, Inc.” I tore off the top sheet, which read “BITE ME,” and handed it to Michael. “There.”

  He read the message and crumpled the paper in his hand. “You are so small. I don’t know why He makes me bother with you.”

  I sat down and put my feet on the desk. “Maybe because he still likes me best.”

  “But I’m the one going back to Heaven.” Michael dropped my message on the floor. “Where will you sleep tonight . . . Satan?” He headed for the door. I stood.

  “You’re a lackey, Michael! A lackey, and that’s all you’ll ever be. But not me! I’ve got my own lackeys—thousands of them! And they all—hey, don’t you dematerialize in front of me, you sonofa—” He was gone.

  I collapsed back into my chair and spun around. A gnawing pain lurked behind my right eye. I covered my face with my hands to blot out all light, but it was too late. Red circles began to dance sambas on the backs of my eyelids. I pulled the thick, forest-green curtains over the tall windows before opening my office door.

  When Daphne saw my face, she stood up quickly.

  “Are you all right?” she said. “I tried to stall Michael, but one moment he was standing in front of me, and then he was gone, and when—”

  I held up my hand to silence her. “Please, Daphne, I have a headache,” I whispered.

  “Oh. One of those headaches?”

  I nodded, and my neck creaked.

  Daphne flinched. “I’ll cancel your appointments and hold your calls. And I’ll order a truckload of ice.”

  “You’re an angel, Daphne.”

  “You don’t have to insult me just because you’re sick.”

  I would have given her a huge smile, if doing so wouldn’t have split my skull in two.

  20

  Salva Me, Fons Pietatis

  “Louis, you look like hell.”

  “How appropriate.”

  I brushed my lips against Gianna’s cheek on my way into her apartment.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing, just . . .” I held my hand to the right side of my head and winced. “Bad day at the office.”

  “Headache?”

  “Like a vise. Like a flaming vise.”

  “I know the feeling,” she said. “Here, sit down.” Gianna went into the kitchen and came back with an ice pack and a dish towel. She sat on the end of the sofa and placed a pillow in her lap. “Lie down.” I obeyed. She wrapped the ice in a towel, placed it on my forehead, and held her hands on top of it. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No,” I said. “I’d rather just forget it.”

  “Even better.” She slid her fingers under my neck and held them against the base of my skull. They were cool and soothing. Shivers of comfort spread through my head and shoulders.

  “While you’re back there,” I said, “would you mind jabbing a syringe full of morphine into my brain?”

  “Ugh, one of those headaches. It feels like your head is on fire. Try to relax.”

  The heat from my swollen capillaries dissipated into her fingertips. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but you would have made an excellent nun.”

  “Thanks, but I doubt that. I’m not very good at celibacy. Or silence, for that matter.”

  I opened my eyes and gazed up at her upside down face. “But your love is so palpable, so healing, I shouldn’t be the only one to benefit.”

  “Does this mean I can date other men?”

  “I have a migraine. Don’t take anything I say seriously.”

  “Damn.” She cooled her fingers on the ice pack again and trickled them against my scalp. I sighed. In the midst of my serenity, I remembered Michael’s threat, and the way his lip had curled as he uttered it.

  “But seriously, Gianna, I don’t deserve you.”

  “You deserve me, and much worse.”

  “I’m not joking. I don’t want to bring you down.”

  “Why would you—Lou, you’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll become like me. You’re so good, it would be a tragic waste.”

  “Thanks for your concern for my soul,” she said, “but don’t worry about me. Worry about your own soul.”

  “There’s not much of that left to worry about.”

  “You have a migraine. I’m not taking anything you say seriously, remember?”

  “Gianna, I’m trying to warn you—”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.” She covered my eyes with her hands. I fell silent, lulled by her sweet, cool darkness, and within minutes drifted off into a fitful slumber.

  “Asshole!”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Gianna pointed to the television set, which mumbled at a low volume. “He won’t even quit for Christmas.”

  “Who?”

  “Senator Scrooge.”

  “You mean—”

  “Don’t say his name under my roof. Even at home he takes every chance to grandstand. Look, they’re tearing down a community center to build a new prison.”

  I turned on my side away from the television and
wrapped my arm around her leg. The throbbing in my head had faded into a faint pulse. My body felt like someone had stuck a faucet into it, turned it on, and let my life force drip onto the floor.

  A commercial began, and Gianna muted the volume. After a few moments, she said, “Is it evil to wish that someone would die and make the world a better place?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Never mind.” She smoothed my hair back from my face. “Go back to sleep.”

  I awoke later to the smell of Chinese food. Gianna hovered above me holding a teapot.

  “Feeling better?” she said. I nodded, groggy. “Have something to eat and some tea. You’ll be good as new.”

  I slid off the couch onto the floor next to the coffee table, where Gianna had set up dinner. My nearly numb fingers tried to wrap themselves around the chopsticks.

  “Want a fork?” Gianna said.

  “No, I’ll get it under control. It’ll just take a minute.”

  “It’s been months since I’ve had a migraine.” She knocked on the table’s wooden leg. “I remember the way I’d feel when it was over, like I’d gone through a firestorm and come out the other side. It was a triumphant, almost heroic feeling, not so much one of conquest, but endurance.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What a rush, to be free of pain after such a battle. Practically a high all its own, though I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  “Not even the senator?”

  “Please, I’m eating. Let’s talk about something pleasant.”

  I put down the chopsticks and picked up my cup of tea. “You mean like what it feels like to have a headache? Pleasant like that?”

  “Geez, sorry. I thought you said you were feeling better.”

  “I’m very tired.” I tried to smile at her. “Thank you for taking care of me. I’m not accustomed to that.”

  “Then get accustomed to it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I picked up the chopsticks again and shifted the kung pao chicken around on my plate, trying to conjure up some hunger. “Remember, tomorrow night I won’t see you. Bob and I are hanging out, doing the brotherhood male bonding thing, I suppose.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she said.

  “He’s looking forward to it.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “I was thinking,” she said, “Bob is bi, right?”

  I scoffed. “Bob’s not bisexual, he’s . . . omnisexual. If he could have sex with himself, he’d never leave his apartment except to buy more beer. He’s a maniac.”

  “Then this is definitely the worst idea I’ve ever had.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I was thinking maybe we should introduce him to Marcus.”

  “What?!” One of my chopsticks twanged out of my grip and hit the wall. “No. No. No. No. No. Absolutely not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my brother is a very, very bad man.”

  “Come on,” she said. “He can’t be any worse than you.”

  “Believe me, he is.” I retrieved my rogue chopstick.

  “Okay, okay, forget I mentioned it,” she said. “It probably wouldn’t work out, anyway. Despite what he said the other night, I think Marc is looking for another relationship, and your brother would probably appear too frivolous.”

  “No, he wouldn’t, that’s the problem. Bob can alter his manner and his personality to suit whomever he’s seducing. He knows exactly what they need at any given moment and how to give it to them.” I cracked open a fortune cookie. “He’s amazing.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you two are brothers, right?”

  I looked up from my fortune, which read YOU ARE HONEST IN ALL YOUR DEALINGS. “Sorry, what?”

  “I said it’s a good thing he’s your brother.”

  I reached for my teacup. “Right.”

  21

  Ne Absorbeat Eas Tartarus

  “You’re early.”

  “I thought you said seven o’clock.” Beelzebub stood in my foyer holding a shopping bag in one hand and a covered box in the other.

  “I did.”

  “And it’s quarter after seven now.”

  “I know. For you, that’s early.”

  “Just trying to keep you on your toes.” He moved past me towards the kitchen. I noticed the cologne he was wearing and was flooded with a familiar, unwelcome rush of anticipation.

  “What’s in there?” I said.

  Beelzebub placed the box on the kitchen table and pulled the cover off with the flair of a magician. Inside the box, which was actually a small cage, flapped a small black chicken.

  “Dinner.”

  “I thought you were bringing pizza.”

  “I had a hankerin’ for fresh chicken.” The hen pecked at the sides of the cage with a methodical casualness.

  “Where’d you find a live one?”

  “I bought it off some Satanists,” he said. “I told them who it was for, and they let me have it half-price.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I shit you not.” He raised his left hand to swear.

  “Did they believe you?”

  “I’m not sure. I think they were hedging their bets, though, just in case I was telling the truth.”

  I pulled the cleaver out of its wooden block next to the stove and a knife sharpener out of the drawer.

  Beelzebub picked up the shopping bag and took out its contents. “I brought a six-pack for me and a bottle of Glenfiddich for you.”

  “Thanks.” I drew the blade quickly up and down the shaft of the sharpener. It threw glints of light against the kitchen wall. The hen looked at me and grew quiet and still.

  He poured me a drink and opened a beer. “So that was weird seeing Michael again yesterday, huh?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Let me guess. He wasn’t there to talk about the good old days.” Beelzebub retrieved a butcher’s apron from my broom closet and approached me with it.

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Was it about Belial?”

  “No.”

  He placed the apron around my neck, then moved behind me and tied it, his knuckles brushing my back.

  “What do I have to do to get you to tell me?” he said.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What Michael wanted.”

  I stopped sharpening. The blade’s last shrill echoes faded.

  “Did you think if you only brought me pizza and cheap scotch I wouldn’t tell you?”

  Beelzebub sat at the table and poked his finger inside the cage. “You’ll tell me if you want to, whether I bribe you or not.”

  I laid the cleaver on the table in front of him and replaced the sharpener in the drawer. The chicken turned around once in her cage.

  “Michael . . . had a message for me.”

  “A message? You mean, from—”

  “Yes, so he claimed.” I placed an iron basting pan under a wooden chopping block on the table.

  “What kind of message?”

  “A warning.” I reached for the cage, and the hen squawked to life, beating her wings against the thin bars. Little black feathers floated to the table and floor.

  “A warning? Shit, what did we do now?” Beelzebub said. “Have we started too many civil wars again?”

  “Nothing like that this time.” I laid my hand upon the chicken and caught her wide yellow eye with my gaze. She lay still again, her tiny heart slamming against her breast.

  “So what was it? Tell me.”

  I lifted the hen and cradled her against my chest.

  “He wants what you want, Beelzebub. He wants me to leave Gianna.”

  “I never said I wanted you to leave her. I don’t care what you do with her.”

  “You don’t?” I scratched the chicken’s head and stroked its back. Beelzebub looked at it, then at the chopping block.

  “No, I don’t, I just—”

  I picked up the cleaver.
/>   “You just what?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “See, I think that Michael and his boss are scared.” I began to pace the kitchen floor, flipping the cleaver, blade over handle, and catching it. “I think they worry that if, hypothetically speaking, of course, I were to discover love, the key to their domain—it would make me stronger.”

  “I—”

  “You, on the other hand, Beelzebub, are afraid that love would make me weak.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Too weak, perhaps, to do this.” I flipped the cleaver once more, caught it overhanded, and brought the blade down on the outstretched neck of the hen. She gurgled once, and her blood poured down the chopping block into the pan.

  I dipped my finger in the warm liquid, leaned close to Beelzebub, and spread the blood on his lips.

  “What other tests have you got planned for me?” I whispered into his open mouth.

  “That wasn’t a test.” He licked his lips. “It was a gift.”

  I removed my apron and placed it on the table in front of him. “Then pluck the gift.”

  He stood and folded the apron in half before tying it around his hips. Then he removed his shirt and laid it over the chair.

  “It’s new,” he said. “I’d hate to get it dirty.”

  I swilled the rest of my whiskey and reached for the bottle. “I’ll be in the other room.”

  “How do you want this fixed?”

  “Blackened.”

  “As you wish . . . commander.”

  His loaded smirk rose above his smooth bare shoulder. I left my glass on the counter and carried the bottle with me into the living room.

  A nearly full moon was rising over the skyline outside my window. I went out to the balcony.

  I needed a game plan for the evening, needed to decide now what would happen when the inevitable moment arrived. It wasn’t so much a choice between Gianna and Beelzebub; I could have them both, and keep them both, with little effort. It was more a choice between me and myself, between parts of me I wanted to feel were in control. Whatever my decision, it couldn’t be made out of fear.

  I took another swig of scotch. It would be easier just to get very drunk and let events unfold themselves. But sooner or later sobriety would return to taunt me.