Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I stood and reached for my coat. “Let’s take a walk.”

  We bought a cup of coffee at a shop off Constitution Avenue, then strolled down the street. The impotent January sun couldn’t take the edge off the bitter wind. We were the only ones on the sidewalk not hurrying for shelter from the cold.

  “I thought about what you said, Bub, about you and the others not needing me anymore.”

  “Lou, I didn’t mean that, you know. I was just pissed off.”

  “You were right. You were right to be pissed off, and you were right about my job performance. I’m no good to you in this condition, so I’ve decided to take a sabbatical.”

  “A sabbatical?”

  “A few years off to pursue other interests.”

  “I know what a sabbatical is,” he said. “How many years?”

  “Just forty or fifty.”

  He halted. “Forty or fifty years?! Are you nuts?”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t done before. Remember a few centuries ago, after What’s-His-Face shut up for good, I took time off for my music? I’m doing that again. My music suffers when I only know evil, when I don’t experience the full spectrum of—”

  “This isn’t about your music, is it?” he said. “Forty or fifty years—for the rest of Gianna’s life, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  He threw his half-full coffee cup on the sidewalk. It splattered across my shoes and against the trunk of a small tree.

  “I don’t fucking believe this!” he said. “It’s not enough that we never see you anymore, it’s not enough that you go off celebrating Christmas and ruining our plans for world terror. Now you’re quitting to be with her?”

  “I’m not quitting. This is only temporary. Fifty years is nothing to you and me.”

  “And when you come back, everything will be the same, huh?”

  “I—”

  “It won’t be.” He shook his finger at me. “Don’t lie to me and tell me you’ll pop back into your seat at the helm of the evil machine and act like you’ve just been on a little vacation.”

  “Bub—”

  “This is crappy timing, you know? I’ve been talking to Moloch, and I know we’re headed for another showdown with Heaven.”

  “All the more reason for me to step aside. It’s me they want, not you. Maybe things will cool down a bit if I take myself out of the picture.”

  “Oh, so now I’m supposed to believe you’re doing this out of concern for us? That’s so sweet, it breaks my—”

  “You don’t have to like what I’m doing,” I said. “You just have to accept it.”

  “You think you can change who you are just by saying it?”

  “Yes. This is America.”

  “Lucifer, when are you gonna realize that being you isn’t just a job? You can’t strip off your destiny and hang it in the closet like a uniform.”

  “There’s no such thing as destiny.”

  “There’s definitely such a thing as nature, and what you’re doing goes against your nature.” He grabbed my coat sleeve. “She’s trying to turn you into something you’re not.”

  “No!” I shook off his hand. “You’re the one doing that, Beelzebub. You’re trying to make me into your image of me, of pure evil. But I’m not pure evil, and if you’d let go of your own fear for one moment, you’d realize that you’re not, either.”

  I caught his fist just before it reached my jaw. Our eyes clashed in a stream of fury.

  “You did not just say that,” he growled.

  “You want me to say it again? Or should I write it down for you so you won’t forget?”

  “No.” Beelzebub pulled his fist out of my hand and stepped back. He straightened his coat. “So is this one of those ‘we can still be friends’ moments?”

  “I’d still like to hang out with you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll come over for Christmas dinner.” He spat on the sidewalk. “Afterwards we’ll have a couple beers, watch the game, worship Jesus. It’ll be fun.”

  I moved toward him. “Bub—”

  “No.” He stepped aside and held up his hand, waist-high. “Hey, it’s cool, okay?” He glanced at his watch. “Look, I’ve got a meeting at the World Bank in half an hour. We’ll get together before you leave. We’ll have business to discuss, you and me and Mephistopheles, work out who takes over each of your projects, that kind of thing. Maybe we’ll even throw you a goodbye party.”

  “You mean a ‘see-you-later’ party,” I said.

  “Right.” Beelzebub’s pale blue eyes met mine, then shifted away. “I’ll see you around.”

  When I returned to my office, I called Gianna.

  “Hey,” she said, “speak of the Devil.”

  “You’ve been waiting to use that one, haven’t you?” I said. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “There’s this concert I really want to go to. They’re doing Verdi’s Requiem at St. Matthew’s.”

  “Would you like a date?”

  “It’s in a church, Lou.”

  “I love Verdi. Maybe that would offset my allergies.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If my head starts to blow up, I’ll leave and meet you afterwards, like I did on Christmas Eve.”

  “Okay, then. Pick me up here at six.”

  That night will never leave me.

  From the mournful, haunting strains of the “Requiem/Kyrie,” to the terrifying, nerve-stretching throbs of the “Dies Irae,” Verdi’s Requiem made me want to weep with fury, fear, and sorrow. Gianna gripped my hand throughout the ninety-minute performance. Her wistful rapture of Christmas Eve Mass paled before the wide-eyed fervor that captured her face that night.

  Afterward, we sat speechless in the pew. Finally, she turned to me and said, “How do you feel?”

  “I feel everything.”

  “No, I mean, your . . . allergies.”

  “That’s odd. There’s no sign of them. I didn’t even think about it once the music started.”

  “That was an incredible performance,” she said. “I’d never heard it sung live before. I think I actually got a fever during the ‘Dies Irae.’”

  “That was my favorite section.”

  “Naturally. That’s the nasty part with all the fire.”

  “Nah, I just like the drums. They kick ass.”

  She picked up her coat. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes. I’m getting a little stuffy now that this place has turned back into a church.”

  We stepped out into the chill evening. Gianna threaded her arm through mine as we strolled down the sidewalk.

  “I’ve been pondering a couple of things,” she said.

  “For instance?”

  “Like running for office. I’ve decided to run for city council first. Maybe after a few years of that, I’ll move out to Maryland and run for Congress, unless they see fit to give D.C. proper representation before then.”

  “Let me be your campaign manager,” I said. “You can’t lose. You want to be president? I can get that for you, too.”

  “No, I—”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Nixon, right?”

  “No, I’m kidding, of course,” I said. “My specialty was always Third World dictators. More emphasis on weapons, less on mass hypnosis. So what else were you pondering?”

  “Oh, that other thing.” Her grip on my arm tightened for a second. “I was thinking that . . . I’d like to marry you.”

  My feet stopped of their own will, and I almost tripped. “Wh—?”

  “Will you marry me, Louis?”

  My mouth fell open. Cold air rushed in and made it too dry to form words.

  “I still have the ring.” She fished in her pocket and pulled out the diamond ring. “Louis, say something.”

  I couldn’t. I grabbed the ring, dropped it, crawled after it down the sidewalk, and retrieved it just before it fell into the sewer. Gianna laughed and knelt down beside me on the c
oncrete. I slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her as if it were the first and last kiss on earth.

  My voice still didn’t work, so I just mouthed the words that stretched from my soul.

  “I love you, too, Louis.” She pulled me to my feet with her. “You know what? This is my new favorite moment ever, right now.”

  “For the wages of sin is death,” a voice close behind her said, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ.”

  I looked over her shoulder to see a tall, freckle-faced man reach inside his jacket.

  “Gianna—”

  She began to turn her head as the muzzle of a gun pressed against it. Then the sky cracked, and someone screamed.

  Gianna’s eyes met mine for a moment before they went dim. I caught her lifeless body and sank to my knees. Distant shouts clamored from what seemed like another world, but in my arms was the unbearable, stifling quiet of instant death. I clutched at Gianna’s back and stared into the darkness, the darkness into which I could never follow her.

  She was gone. Gone forever, with no poignant deathbed scene, no lingering goodbyes, no trembling last kisses.

  Gone.

  From within the orb of silence that surrounded us, I heard a cry of anguish that contained the sorrow of ten billion years of solitude. The cries of all my precious damned souls, together in a chorus of wretchedness, sounded like mere whimpers next to the sound that crawled out of my throat. If it did not blow apart the gates of Heaven and wake the fat, sleeping giants who dwelled within, nothing ever would.

  The people who were beginning to gather around us recoiled and covered their ears. Some ducked behind cars as if bullets were still flying.

  The man who killed Gianna, the man who will sit before the mother of all grand juries, was already at the next corner, scampering down another alley. I let him go.

  Gianna’s blood steamed in the cold air. I buried my face in her hair, singed from the gun blast, and breathed in the last of her life.

  Red lights and sirens surrounded me. A paramedic was shouting at me to let go of Gianna.

  “It’s too late,” I said.

  “We have to try.” He tugged at my sleeve. “Please, sir, let her go.”

  I unwrapped my arms from Gianna’s body. There was nothing left of her there now, only the cold, beautiful shell she once inhabited. Now she was . . . somewhere else, I couldn’t quite sense where, only that she was . . . waiting?

  I saw her face, unmarred and astonished.

  “She’s dead,” I said to them. “It was a .22, point blank.”

  The paramedics pushed me aside and began resuscitation attempts.

  “Don’t take her away from me,” I said.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a homeless man leaning against a nearby building, watching the scene. Then I saw nothing, as my eyes iced over with tears, and I collapsed at her feet.

  What seemed like hours later, someone shook my shoulder.

  “Sir, can you step away from the body, please?”

  I did not move or speak.

  “Sir, this is Detective Frank Brunner, from the homicide department. I need to ask you a few questions about the shooting, if I may. We’ve gotta tape off the crime scene, so if you’ll come with me for a moment . . .”

  I clutched at her shoe, a brown suede boot, and had an insane compulsion to take it with me.

  “Sir, please come with me.”

  I commanded each of my fingers to let go of her, one by one, then without looking at her, I turned away and followed the cop to his squad car. He poured me some thick coffee from his thermos bottle and said, “Look, I know this is tough for you, but the sooner we get some kind of ID, the more likely it is we’ll get your girlfriend’s murderer. Did you get a good look at the shooter?”

  “Fiancée.” My voice was hoarse.

  “Sorry?”

  “Fiancée. We were engaged. Just a few minutes ago.” I looked out the car window. The paramedics were boarding the ambulance, leaving Gianna on the sidewalk. A uniformed police officer was winding police tape around a lamppost.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” He took off his hat and examined the brim. “That’s about as tragic as it gets.”

  Numbness was beginning to creep over me, starting at my fingertips. “What were you saying?” I asked him.

  “I asked if you got a good look at the shooter.”

  I stared into the murky coffee. Yes, a good look inside his mind. I was not going to let anyone, including the police, take from me the justice I deserved.

  “I don’t remember,” I said.

  “You don’t remember what he looked like?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t think right now. Maybe in the morning I’ll be a better help to you. Right now, I’m just . . . I’m . . .”

  “You’re still in shock, I understand, but the sooner we can get better information, the more chance we have of catching this guy.” I remained silent. Brunner sighed. “Well, we have some descriptions from the other eyewitnesses. We’ll try to get at least some photos for you to look at tomorrow morning, if not a lineup.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you tell me about the victim, sir? Her name, someone in her family who we can call?”

  “Her name was Gianna O’Keefe.” Her name made my voice stumble. “She . . . she has a brother Marcus who lives in Baltimore. If I were you, I’d call him first.” My wandering gaze returned to the homeless man, who was still hovering outside the crime scene.

  “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill her?” he said. “Did she have enemies?” I shook my head and said nothing. The detective sighed again. “Mr. Carvalho, is there somewhere I can reach you in the morning?”

  I gave him my card and slipped out into the cold, declining his offer of a ride home. The coroner’s van pulled up to the curb, and a medical examiner got out to speak with the detective’s partner. I pressed as close as I could to the scene. Gianna’s body was already covered. My internal organs shrank together. I turned away and began to stumble home to await Marc’s inevitable call.

  Outside the church, someone grabbed my sleeve. It was the homeless guy.

  “Get the fuck off me.” I yanked my arm back. Then I saw his face. “No . . .”

  Not here, not now. Underneath the knit cap shone eyes of crystal gray. Michael reached for me again.

  “Lucifer—”

  “What are you doing here? Why now, why—” I looked up the street towards the murder scene, then back at Michael. “‘The wages of sin is death.’ You did this. You had her killed.”

  “No, I—”

  I lunged for his throat. Michael used my own fury and momentum to hurl me to the ground with barely a touch. My head knocked against the edge of the church’s lowest marble stair.

  “Lucifer, get a hold of yourself.”

  “Bring her back.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You can do miracles. He’ll give you the power. Bring her back.”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Nothing?” I sneered at him and tried to rise, my head still swimming from the jolt. “Nothing, of course! Every day you do nothing. You stand there, and you watch!” I pointed at him with a quaking finger. “People’s suffering is a spectator sport for you. You and your fucking father!”

  Michael shook his head. “Our Father hears when the sparrow falls.”

  I spat a shower of sparks. “Yeah? Well, Gianna was no sparrow. She was a person, with more courage and beauty than all you simpering little angels combined, and now she’s gone.” I turned my eyes to the church door. “It’s like falling all over again.”

  “I know.”

  “No!” I stood and faced him, my fingers curled into fists. “You do not know. You have no idea what it feels like never to hope, and then to have that hope for a few moments, only to be ripped away again. You didn’t know her, and you didn’t love her.”

  I backed away before I could give in to the desire to throttle him, to tear the pity off
his perfect face.

  “You are too much of this world, Lucifer,” he said. “Now you rage against death like a mortal, mourn and fear the transience of life when you know there is so much more beyond.”

  “I’m not afraid of my own death, if there is such a thing.” A spark of hope flamed. “Wait, is that why you’re here, to destroy me, too?”

  “No, I’m—”

  “Would you?”

  “Would I what?”

  “Please . . .” I seized him by the lapels of his overcoat. “If you have any compassion in that insufferable soul of yours—”

  “Get your hands off me.”

  “—you’ll kill me now.”

  “You know I—”

  “Come on, Michael, chance of a lifetime.”

  “—can’t kill you.”

  “Just try!”

  “No!”

  “Please, Michael—”

  “I can’t!” He wrenched my hands off him and pushed me away.

  “Do it!!” I tore open my shirt. “What are you waiting for, huh? Afraid you don’t have the power? Afraid Daddy will get mad? Kill me now, or I’ll send you back to Heaven in an ashtray!”

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “It’s not a trick, Michael, I just want to die.” My tears came, unbeckoned. “Please . . . don’t make me beg . . .” He stood silent, with his arms folded. I sank down onto the church steps and buried my face in my hands. “I hate you so much. I know you hate me, too. Can’t you just end it all right here? I’m sure he’d understand.”

  “I don’t hate you, Lucifer.”

  “You’re an abominable liar.”

  “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to give you a choice.”

  I looked up. “A choice?”

  “Yes. I’ll let you decide Gianna’s eternal fate. She can come with me, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “You can take her home with you.”

  Slowly I rose to my feet. “Home?”

  “Home. And I don’t mean your Foggy Bottom penthouse.”

  The cold night air seeped into my chest. I pulled my coat around me and turned away. “Oh. That home.”

  Gianna O’Keefe, Queen of Hell. We could rule together, play together among the demons and sorrows. She would bring a light fueled by something other than despair to that darkest of realms. With her at my side, I could transform the place into a paradise that would rival Heaven. The perfect balance of the cosmos would teeter.