Flytrap

by Stephanie Ahn

  But it’s not Eartha Kitt’s voice that I hear shout, “Down, boy,” across the mall.

  The world freezes with my head still engulfed in moist, corpse-breath monster mouth. And then the jaws around my head pull back—as the darkness gives way to dim light, a scarlet road flare hisses, landing next to me and lighting Beelzebub’s face in an eerie red glow. A braying laugh echoes as my boombox shuts off. By the light of the road flare, I see the flash of a circular lens, then another. Glasses.

  A little boy in a newsboy cap and suspenders walks up from behind Beelzebub, patting his flank with a small, pale hand. “Playtime’s over, boy,” Archie says in his sweet, cherub-like voice. “Back in yer kennel.”

  He clicks his fingers, and Beelzebub retracts like a bad dream. More road flares roll across the floor toward me, surrounding me. From the shadows of the setting sun, I see the approach of… a head of platinum blond hair, a white latex nurse’s outfit, and massive blue butterfly wings. A man with sloping shoulders in a federal agent’s suit, with black cricket fingers and antennae sprouting from his brow. They help Archie out of his suspenders, and he tosses away his bow tie as his bones grow taller, lankier. Dolly plucks off his glasses to reveal bottle green, glittering eyes, around which the face is lengthening, jawline squaring, peach fuzz appearing over the upper lip. He shucks off his shirt to show—sharp, shifting scapulae against the skinny, alabaster back of a teenager.

  Dolly wobbles on her platform stilettos and hands him a folded gray hoodie. He flaps it out and pulls it over his head. The cricket demon brings him a plastic lawn chair to settle into, and a foldable table to match. He puts his grimy, bare feet up on the table, thunk, thunk, and crosses them, leaning back with a comfortable sigh.

  “Welcome to the party, luv,” he says, grinning and ruffling his blond hair. “Like the new look, do you?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Clair de Lune

  Hands grab me from behind—I kick and flail, then choke in pain from the claw still stuck in my thigh. I’m dragged to my feet, then dumped into a chair opposite Beelzebub. I look to my left and right and see the two EMTs who took Chloe and me to the hospital, still in their uniforms.

  In front of me, Dolly leans on Beelzebub’s shoulder and makes kissy noises at him. I realize now why she looked younger—she and Beelzebub are a matching teenage dream. They swap tongue as her wings flutter theatrically.

  Someone else comes to stand beside her, a demon with chitinous pauldrons on his shoulders and across his chest like a breastplate—I look into his face and recognize it as that of the waiter at the restaurant where I first met Kate. More faces and chitinous shapes come out of the shadows, skitter-crawling, heads click-tilting, feet and hands making hollow, sticky noises against the floor: the receptionist at St. Julian’s who handed Bautista and me our visitor stickers. The fake lawyer who pushed me off the fire escape. The employee at the information desk at the New York Public Library. And more, too many more, lurking in the shadows, the red of the road flares shining off their beady eyes.

  An army. He has an army.

  My throat is dry, and my first word comes out a whisper. “I thought…”

  Beelzebub pushes Dolly away by the throat, and snickers. “Of course you thought, luv. That’s what I wanted you to do. You never got any harder to manipulate, did you?” His accent sounds different; he rolls his R’s in a way he didn’t before, and his inflection swings around like a cueball on a string. Still British, still Northern, but a little smoother, a little more hip. “That’s what I like about you—the consistency. Some might call it boring, but, ah, I think it’s sweet.” He sucks the tip of his finger and smacks his lips.

  There’s a resounding, pained squeal. To the side, the cricket-fingered demon is yanking the harpoon out of Beelzebub’s—no, out of the unnamed monster’s head, one foot planted on its tusk. When the barbed end comes free, the monster slumps to the floor, wheezing. The cricket brings the harpoon, while the lawyer brings the rifle I dropped earlier. “What do we do with these, boss?”

  “Keep them. I love a good souvenir.”

  I want to cry. Archie’s clothes are still scattered around the floor. “You. The whole time. I spoke to Archie for the first time a—a year ago. A year, you were—alive, and watching me.”

  Dolly is trying to perch sexily on the plastic table, but Beelzebub swats her away without breaking eye contact with me. “Not necessarily, luv; I wasn’t sitting at that street corner every day. I have things to do too, don’t you know? I kept tabs on you, intermittently. But your little stunt with my blood did wreck my former glorious empire, so much so that I had to fake my death and do some facial reconstruction for a fresh start. On my list of priorities, you were not the celebrity you think you were.”

  I point at the monster with drooping skin still hulking in the shadows. “So what the fuck is that?”

  Beelzebub beckons, and the monster drags itself to its feet to come over, each step shaking the floor and my dingy plastic chair. “This is my happy, unkillable friend. The Biblical name, I believe, would be Behemoth.” He slaps its hide the way a redneck would a pickup truck. It snuffles, sagging in discomfort.

  “Is it a demon?”

  Beelzebub rubs his hands together, making a sandpaper noise as he grins. “Good question, fantastic question. Yes, and no.” He spins his index finger in a circle, as though rewinding time. “A few centuries ago, I found it, slumbering under the ocean. I didn’t know how to use it then, but I knew it would be mine. It has no connection to Hell, no laws to bind it. That means that, in essence, Behemoth here is not a demon.”

  “But he’s in a body you sired. I talked to Chloe, I saw the birth…”

  Dolly titters, leaning over the back of Beelzebub’s chair to hug him and ruffle his hair. “Sweet little Addy, I finally got her. Bubby here gives the best anniversary gifts.”

  “Shut up, Doll,” Beelzebub says, smacking her thigh. “But yes, you’re right. Behemoth’s essence has been ripped from its form and drawn into a body of my own making. As long as it doesn’t move by its own volition, there is this… marvelous disconnect between the intent of its soul and flesh. And that’s the fine line we’re walking, you see? I order the body forward, and the soul is dragged along for the ride—but a body can’t have agency, magically, legally speaking. That’s still assigned to the driver of the vehicle, even if I did tie its foot to the accelerator. Loopholes, I love them. You know, in a past life, I was a lawyer?”

  Beelzebub grabs Behemoth by a tusk, yanking its head toward him with terrifying strength. He presses his forehead to the top of it muzzle, aggressively rubbing against it—it makes a pathetic noise, almost a whimper.

  “You despise me, don’t you?” Beelzebub coos, gravel in his voice. “Yes you do, yes you do! Ah, but there’s nothing you can do about it—orders say you can’t snap a hair on my head, crush a fingernail, spill a drop of my blood. So sad for you, eh, boy?”

  Behemoth makes a face that I can only describe as a cringe, bowing its head as it tries to pull away. Beelzebub doesn’t let it go until he gives its skull a good, brain-rattling shake, then shoves it with one hand so that it nearly tips over. “This thing is just a baby, really; last of its kind, as far as I can tell. I looked all over for its progenitors, but traces of them vanish somewhere around the beginnings of human history. If it has a mother, it would be older than me, even. I wonder what happened?”

  A sentence comes to me, unbidden, in Lilith’s voice. I whisper, “Once upon a time, there was a beast.”

  “You say something, sweetheart?” Dolly hisses.

  I ignore her and keep talking. “So, that—it—Behemoth—you just summoned it to fuck with me?”

  Beelzebub flaps a hand at me. “No no no, fucking with you is just a side benefit. Of course I have bigger plans, don’t flatter yourself.”

  I feel like I’m watching the string of a kite fluttering just out of reach—something I should
know, something important. “Are you… trying to kill someone?”

  Dolly rolls her eyes with juvenile irreverence, and Beelzebub clicks his tongue. “Don’t pry, luv. It’s unattractive.”

  “Was there someone other than me who undermined your power?”

  His eyes narrow. I see the echo of his old self in them, the one I knew in that fucked-up hospital room, the one with my blood staining his teeth and fingernails. He clicks his fingers.

  Behemoth bursts forward, scattering a few demons standing too close—I flinch, putting my arms up—slimy spittle lands on my face and arms, but nothing more. I look up and see the mutant creature panting in front of me, its jaws drooping open.

  And then it turns tail and thunders to the exit, shattering through whatever glass it didn’t destroy its first time through. Dolly giggles, girlishly. Beelzebub is obviously amused by my fear and surprise.

  “What the fuck?” I breathe.

  Dolly is getting up, smoothing out her latex skirt, turning around as one of the EMT demons hands her an object. “Of course I never meant for it to kill you, luv,” Beelzebub says, almost kindly. He rolls up the sleeve of his hoodie, setting his arm palm-up on the plastic table as the other EMT ties it off above the elbow with a rubber tube. Dolly sterilizes the inside of his elbow with a quick swab, then tucks the needle of a syringe into a bulging vein. As I watch, my head swims… I can’t tell if I’ve forgotten to breathe, if the wound in my thigh is infected, or if there’s foul magic in the air, poisoning me. Dolly pulls out the syringe, caps it, and hands it to Beelzebub. In turn, he slides it across the table to me.

  “I mean for you to kill yourself.”

  I want to pass out. I know I can’t, but I want to. I feel like an animatronic, reading scripted lines. “You… you want me to damn myself. By committing suicide.”

  Beelzebub taps the syringe with his finger. “Here’s the important part, pay attention, luv—this is what you’ll use. Finish the job you started when you first let me into that pretty, empty head of yours.”

  “And if I don’t…”

  The sun is long gone. The scarlet light of the road flares reflects off the points of his teeth, and off his eyes. “Then my incredibly useful Behemoth is going to dismember the people closest to you and suck the marrow from their bones. Like that fussy new girlfriend. Kate, was her name? I’d say your feelings about her are complicated, but, well—simplicity is more your style.” He makes a V with his fingers and flicks his tongue between them.

  Just pull a clever trick, is what Bautista told me. I can do that, I can pull something out of my sleeve, out of my ass, anything, anything—“I’ve already sold my soul,” I announce.

  Beelzebub just shrugs. “Interestingly enough, you have. But not in the conventional sense. Frankly speaking, I don’t recognize the sigil on your stomach; it’s laughably simple. The second I have you, that sigil means nothing. If your demon tries to withhold your soul from me, I will kill them. And as long as they are scattered uselessly in Limbo, their claim over you will mean nothing. It already means nothing.”

  My cheeks are hot and I feel something more painful than tears behind my eyes. I'm still shaking, have been shaking, harder than ever now, and my body is flush with clammy, cold sweat.

  Beelzebub tips his head back, groaning in exasperation. “Choose, luv, we haven’t got all night—at least, your estranged girlfriend doesn’t. Behemoth is on its way to her gallery opening right now, and I heard he doesn’t stop for traffic.”

  My body can’t decide if it’s hot or cold, if we’re going to freeze to death or burst into flames in this stupid plastic chair. Beelzebub is still speaking, smoothly, as though singing a lullaby.

  “I am killing your loved ones, one by one, or maybe even three by three, until you top yourself. Your math tutor friend, his wife, their baby, your werewolf dealer in the coffee shop, that damn leathery hag of a telepath, your very talented sister—your girlfriend’s just the warning shot, and not a very impressive one at that.”

  I stare down at the syringe. I’m trying not to truly consider it, but I know that I am by the way the sigil on my stomach is flickering, light unsteadily shining like a guttering candle. “And if I… kill myself… using this blood. Then my people are safe from you. Everyone you just listed—Brian, Deborah, Leona, Gael, Bautista, Luce, Kate—all of them. You don’t hurt them, you don’t order anyone to hurt them, you don’t directly or indirectly cause any physical or metaphysical harm to them whatsoever.”

  Beelzebub extends his hand, the one with the sleeve still rolled up. “A deal’s a deal, luv.”

  I drag my hand forward, across the table. When my fingers touch his, I feel it—the prickle of energy, the contract solidifying. His hand is baby-soft, not a callous in sight—but his grip tightens on my hand, yanking me across the table.

  I lose my breath in a panicked exhale, my fingers turning to claws as his lips open, teeth about to clamp down on my fingers—I jerk myself away just as his jaws snap where my hand was. A chuckle goes around the room, and Beelzebub grins, leaning back with his arms folded behind his head. Dolly pouts, whining, “Aww, Bubby, are you trying to make me jealous?”

  I look down, back at the syringe, then back at my sigil. It’s started to glow steadily, mournfully, like it just can’t lie to me. We’re going to die, my own skin is telling me. You’re going to kill us.

  “Fuck you,” I spit. I scoop up the syringe and run. The demons don’t stop me, but I hear their laughter as I go—getting louder and louder, more voices joining in, as I stumble out of the mall into the night.

  “Lovely lass, isn’t she?” I hear Beelzebub’s voice fade into the distance. “Great spleen on that one. A bit tough, but I like a little something to chew on.”

  I make it out to the parking lot, slipping on icy asphalt and half-melted slush, trying to see in the near pitch-black aided only by the moon and the faraway lights of the interstate. I crash into the dark, boxy shape of my U-haul, clamber in and try to turn the key that I left in the ignition—the car starts, but then it crawls like a dying slug. I get out, feel around—the fucking demons slashed my fucking tires. Shit shit shit, my phone, my phone is still back there in the mall with Beelzebub—I can’t go back now, but I’m out in the middle of fucking nowhere, I couldn’t even call a fucking Uber if I had my phone—

  “Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!” I scream into the empty parking lot.

  With nowhere else to go, I move around the side of the mall and curl up against the damp brick near the northern entrance. The wind is biting, and I can feel myself shaking from my core. My hands are so frozen I nearly drop the syringe as I take it out of my pocket. Oh gods. I… I can’t stop crying. I should be going out with more dignity, like I was going to before, back with my head in the Behemoth’s stinking mouth, and even before that, back when I was numb, back when I was doing it for Johanna—I may be too late already. Kate could be dead in pieces on the floor of a stupid hipster art gallery—just imagining it brings on a fresh burst of tears. Gods, I’m so pathetic, pathetic and scared and helpless.

  I have no choice. And if there is one thing angry me taught me, it’s that, when there’s only one path and it leads off a cliff, you throw yourself off that cliff like you fucking mean it.

  I prick my arm twice trying to get the right vein before I realize I don’t even need a vein, the blood will kill me no matter where I inject it. It punctures my skin so easily. Maybe it’s the cold, but I don’t even feel the pain. My body’s already given up. I guess my brain’s just taking a while to follow suit.

  There’s nothing I can stare at but the moon. Joy, I plead in my head, How did you do it? How did you wait so long for me to find you, and still go so calmly?

  I know the answer: she knew that when she died, she had the fey who loved her, and she was going home. But I’m going to Hell. Oh my gods, I’m going to Hell, just like my fucking mom always said I would. I find myself laughing from deep in my
chest, or maybe the cold is just triggering spasms. There’s that thing people say, about how if you look at the sky at the same time as someone who’s not with you, you’ll both be looking at the same moon—with freezing tears streaming down my face, I say up to the stars, “Fuck you, mom.” I close my eyes, and my thumb lands on the plunger.

  The squealing screech of tires. My vision shows red behind my eyelids. I open my eyes just in time to be blinded by headlights—I scramble back on my butt and hands, narrowly dodging a passing black blur. I sputter at the gutter slush that’s splashed onto my face and in my mouth, trying to blink away the burnt spots in my vision.

  I hear the sound of a car door opening. I squint up. A single pink tennis shoe steps out of a black, dented Cadillac. A thick, jeans-clad leg follows, then a hand holding a pair of sunglasses, and a loose travel scarf. The December wind whips through coils of black hair, and by the light coming from inside the car, I see a cautious smile, coppery brown cheeks, and golden eyes.

  “Hi,” Lilith says. “Need a ride?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mr. Taxi

  No kids in the car this time; just Gorgeous in the driver’s seat, managing pin-sharp turns like he’s done this every day of his life since he was twelve. Which, he might have. Lilith, his boss, and I are pretty squished in the back. There’s no seatbelt for the middle seat, so I hang on tightly—at least, I try to.

  “Stop waving that thing in my face, you’ll poke someone’s eye out,” Gorgeous’s mother snaps.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I say, trying to tuck away the uncapped syringe that’s still in my hand. I search for the cap in my pockets and realize I must have left it behind in the parking lot, but I do find a lonely cork from a grain alcohol bottle I was using earlier. I stick the syringe’s pointy end in the cork, and tuck the whole thing into my breast pocket.