by Leo Hunt
Mum’s muddy body is tensed above mine, her eyes wide and white, filled with joy and rage, her teeth bared, one hand gripping my throat, holding me steady. The rain lashes down on both of us. She’s got the knife I was going to use on the gerbil, and as I flail at her face, fingers slipping in the grime, she stabs me three more times, this time between the ribs.
I’m getting weaker. The pain is so insistent that it becomes meaningless. I feel a desire to rest. Her body steps back, and I’m left lying on the flattest of the stones, rain falling down onto my face, hard and cool.
The Shepherd has seemingly recovered and he and the Oracle are standing over me now, Mum’s body beside them. I would like to close my eyes. I really am dying. I feel like I’m sitting in the seat of an airplane that’s about to take off. The Shepherd looks fainter and weaker, no longer glowing with the same intensity. I want to raise my sigil and burn him again, but I can’t even move my arm.
“It is as I saw,” the Oracle says from behind her veil. She sounds sad. The Shepherd says nothing. He stares at me with greedy fascination. I wonder how his revenge feels.
The sky, pitch-dark a few moments ago, seems to be filling with stars.
I’m six years old and Dad’s leaving home. I sit on the landing and watch as he struggles with his cases. Mum is in the bedroom. It’s strange that he chose to leave this way, in the middle of the day, while I was awake. It’s like he wanted me to remember.
Dad extends himself halfway up the stairs and says good-bye, holding his hand out to me. He’s wearing a blue shirt and a red tie with polka dots. There’s a big black ring on his finger. His hand envelops mine, palm rough as tree bark.
“Grow up good,” he says, then turns away. He walks back down the stairs and shuts the door behind him. I hear the flat mumble of his car pulling out of the drive. I’ve never understood what his last three words meant.
My name is Luke Manchett, and I’m sixteen years old. I think I’m dead. I’m standing at the Devil’s Footsteps, looking down at my body, which is laid out over the flattest of the three stones. Everything is quiet. I’m surrounded by gray mist, and I can’t see the Shepherd or any other ghost. I’m all alone here.
When I look down at myself, my spirit self, I’m unhurt and unbloodied. The only unusual thing is there’s a thin white cord, almost invisible, sticking out from my navel and running into the body lying on the flat stone. It looks like spiderweb, or maybe a loose thread of cotton. I take it in my hands. The thread is warm.
“I wouldn’t advise that.”
There’s a man standing beside the tallest of the three stones. He’s tall, with a sharp chin and a deep tan. His hair is chilly white, greased back and away from his face. He has a small, neat beard and wears a wolf-gray suit with a shirt that’s deep midnight blue.
“Mr. Berkley?”
“It’s extremely delicate,” Dad’s lawyer continues, “and to break it would have very severe consequences for you.”
“Where are we?”
“This is a passing place,” says Mr. Berkley. “A border of sorts, between what I believe you refer to as ‘Liveside’ and ‘Deadside.’ ”
“So I’m definitely dead this time.”
“You are not yet dead, my boy. Your fate is unmapped. That slender cord still ties your animus to your soma. If one were intentionally astral traveling, it would resemble a thick rope rather than a thread.”
“Are you dead, too, Mr. Berkley?”
“That’s never been a concern of mine.”
“But what are you doing here? Do you work for the Shepherd?”
Berkley laughs. “I do not serve him.”
“Are you my spirit guide?”
“I am not your spirit guide. Please. I am aware you have had a traumatic experience, my boy, but you are remarkably slow on the uptake. Let’s try a small thought exercise. Some critical thinking. Question the first: You were mortally wounded during the course of which black magic ritual?”
“The Rite of Tears.”
“Correct. So my second question: What is the nature and purpose of the ritual you were performing?”
“It was meant to summon the Devil. But I failed.”
“Don’t go so hard on yourself. I wouldn’t describe it as a failure.”
“But I didn’t . . . oh. Oh.”
Mr. Berkley grins a shark-white grin.
“As called, here I am.”
“You’re the Devil?”
“I am he: Satan, Lucifer, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Abaddon, Prince of Darkness, Father of Lies, and many other lesser-known titles. I shan’t bore you by rolling them out like some great moldering carpet. We have business to attend to.”
“The ritual failed, though. My sacrifice got away.”
“Did not the oil anoint both the creature and your own hand? Was not your own blood spilled within the bounds of the circle? I make no distinction as to the precise nature of the offering.”
“I . . . oh.”
“I believe you have some boon to ask of me?”
The Devil is smoothing part of his hair down with his hand.
“I want to . . . Mr. Berkley, sir, I would like you to remove the Manchett Host from my service. I would like you to take it with you, into Deadside.”
We’re not at the Devil’s Footsteps anymore, I realize. We’re standing next to a vast wall made from crumbling stone, which stretches as far as I can see. The ground underfoot is heather, lifeless and dry. The cool mist is all around us. I see a wooden door in the side of the wall, painted light green. The Devil picks at his nails.
“And you are sure this is the boon you desire? From all the things I can grant you, this is your wish?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
“I shall do as you ask, Luke Manchett. There is no price.”
“Thank you.”
“Shake my hand, and it shall be done.” He reaches out one long-fingered hand, a slightly bored expression on his face. Without hesitation I grasp hold and we shake. His skin feels no different from anyone else’s, but when his hand moves away from mine, I see there are no lines on his palm.
“Is that it?” I ask.
“They are coming.”
I shut up and wait. The door in the side of the wall has swung open, revealing a dark, narrow passage. A wind blows out of the opening.
After what might have been minutes or hours, there is a figure walking out of the fog, a thick-necked, slouching man. The Judge walks toward me with his head down. His boots make muted crackling noises as they crush the heather. He stops before me and looks back down at the ground.
“Boss,” he says.
“What did you do to Elza?”
“Nothing, boss, believe me!”
“What happened to her?”
“Nothing. I don’t know! Only pretended to chase her, didn’t I?”
“Is she alive?”
“I don’t know! You got to believe me! Don’t send me over, boss, I did the right thing. I helped you best I could, didn’t I?”
“You ‘pretended’ to chase Elza . . . but for all we know, she’s dead now. You didn’t help. You’d have let them kill me,” I say, “if I hadn’t discovered how to use the Book. You’d have helped them do it. You’re a weather vane; you choose whoever you think is strongest. Right?”
“I never, boss, swear on my soul. I’m not a bloody weather vane!”
“Sorry,” I say.
“Where are they sending me?” he asks. “Where am I going?”
“The darkness, of course,” says the Devil.
“No! Boss, Luke, please don’t make me! I don’t want to —”
“And yet you must,” the Devil says, sighing. “You belong to me. The Manchett Host is broken, the deal is done, and your punishment is already prepared. Now cross the threshold.”
“You promised,” the Judge tells me. “Promised I wouldn’t go to Hell. Just like your pa. Always promising. You’re just the same.”
He turns away from me and, after a hesitation, walk
s forward into the dark doorway. The sound of his footfalls cuts out.
There’s a period of gray silence. The Oracle drifts out of the mist in her white dress, stopping to wrap her thin, cold arms around my neck and kiss my cheek through her veil. She vanishes into the dark gateway without a word. Now the Heretic walks forward, bones flaring and spitting sparks, chanting his idiot litany. He passes between us and his fire is extinguished.
We stand and wait. The Shepherd appears, his suit seeming faded in the gray light, more charcoal than black. He holds his wide hat in his hands and moves with a shuffling gait, like a limp. I realize that he’s terrified.
“Octavius,” says the Devil as the Shepherd hobbles closer, “good to see you again. I’ve missed your company.”
“I shall not beg,” the Shepherd says to us. His mirrored glasses are missing. I look him in his tar-pool eyes.
“Nobody is asking you to,” says the Devil.
“Luke,” the ghost says, moving closer to me. “You are a fool. I have dealt with this being, and it led me to damnation. You cannot imagine —”
“You didn’t leave me a choice,” I say. “I didn’t want a Host. If you hadn’t been obsessed with your revenge, I’d have let you all go. But you made Mum kill me and then you watched me die. You got your revenge. Now here’s mine.”
“You think the Black Goat has answered your call from the goodness of its heart? It has none! You are deluding yourself. There is always a price. This is the end for us both,” the Shepherd snarls.
I don’t answer. He might be right or he might be trying to frighten me one last time. Either way, I can’t change what’s happening now.
“If we could move this along,” the Devil says.
The Shepherd pauses at the edge of the doorway, muttering to himself, and then the Devil clears his throat and the Shepherd stumbles through into darkness. His white hair is visible for a moment, a bright blot, and vanishes. As he leaves, I realize that I’ve won. The Host is leaving, it’s over. The Shepherd’s gone to the darkness, into Hell, and I’m still here.
We wait on. The Devil picks his nails, fiddles with his golden pocket watch. Eventually the smoky form of the demon appears from the fog, carrying the Innocent in thin black arms. The Fury’s horrible dog head is tilted downward, like Ham’s when he’s made a mess on the carpet. The Devil steps out in front of the door as they approach, holding up his long unlined hands.
“Most disappointing, my child.”
The Fury cringes.
“Attempting to escape into Liveside, to be reborn with the mortals,” he says. “You are fully aware of my view on those matters. Fully aware . . .”
Further cringing.
“We shall not discuss this in front of outsiders. But please . . . I should not welcome my kin in such a manner. Know that you shall be forgiven, in time.”
The Devil places his hands on the demon’s black head and strokes his finger down its snout. He stands aside, and the Fury stalks into the passageway, the baby held gently in its clawed arms. The demon stoops in order to fit.
The Fury doesn’t even glance at me.
Don’t you know me? asks the Innocent as it’s carried into the tunnel.
The green door shuts with a soft click. The Devil is rubbing his hands together, staring off into space. I clear my throat.
“Uh, that’s only six . . .”
“I am aware.”
“Well —”
“Your Vassal was consumed. He is no more.”
“Can’t you —”
“If I carve clay from the earth and bake it into a pot, then present the pot to you and ask where is my clay, what would you tell me?”
“He was a good guy. . . . He didn’t deserve what happened.”
“You would tell me that the clay is transformed, become something else. The process of being fired, in the kiln, has changed it forever.”
“And the Prisoner?”
“That starveling was already past my reach when your ritual was completed, so I cannot force him to cross over. But he is no longer bound to you.”
“What do you mean? What happened to him? What about Elza?”
“I do not know this ‘Elza.’ I believe you have me confused with my opposite. I do not keep track of where every sparrow falls. I only watch those who amuse me.”
“OK,” I say. If I got rid of the Host but I lost Elza and Ham and Mum, then . . . I don’t even want to think about it. They must be alive. When I get back, I know they’ll be waiting for me.
The wall is gone, and I’m standing with the Devil on a lonely gray beach. There’s still heavy mist all around us, obscuring the sea. I can hear a faint lapping of waves. I look down at my shoes.
“So now what happens?” I ask him.
“That is in your hands.”
“Can I go back?”
“You will not die today, Luke.”
“Thank you.”
“I cannot speak for tomorrow, or any day after that. But not today.”
“So I can go back?”
“Of course,” he says, turning his white smile to maximum radiance, “but there is one small thing I’d like you to do for me first. A tiny favor.”
“You said there would be no price.”
“I am the Devil. I am a liar. Luke, my price is only this: There is someone who wishes to talk to you. You will speak with him. This is all.”
There’s a shape walking through the mist toward us.
“And who is this,” says Berkley to himself, “that is coming?”
The shape emerges slowly, head down to the gray sand. It’s a man wearing a white suit and a light-purple shirt. The top of his head is balding, but his remaining hair is hanging past his shoulders. His hands are heavy with rings.
I’m five years old, watching the snow at our old house. The kitchen is tiled in warm pumpkin-orange. It’s winter, and I’m standing up on tiptoes to see over the counter. The garden is transformed into a driftscape of curves and contours. The sky is so white it’s invisible, and flakes are flopping down in fat clumps. I shuffle upstairs to Dad’s study in my green snow pants, and he grins and puts down his book without me even asking, and we run out into the snow.
Our snowmen were always uneven. I would make the bottom and he would do the top. I would roll up a big, lopsided ball and then keep cramming clumps of heavy snow onto the sides, wherever I felt like it. Dad was a craftsman when it came to snowmen. He would spend forever on the head, making it so perfect that it looked like it came from a factory mold. He arranged the coal eyes and mouth with equal care. He said he would get a hat and scarf and a carrot for the nose, and he went off across the garden in a long lope. I remember the snow was so heavy and white that he had vanished before he was even halfway down the garden, and I was worried he wouldn’t come back out of it.
Dad stops just in front of us and draws himself up to his full height. He looks me in the eye and actually manages to smile and steps toward me, hand outstretched. I take a quick step backward and Dad falters, lowering his arm. The Devil stays where he is, looking eagerly from one of us to the other.
“Luke . . . my son.”
“Don’t,” I say, “don’t even —”
“My son.”
“I’m not touching you!”
“Very well.” Dad adjusts the collar of his mauve shirt. “I was hoping we could act like adults, Luke, but if you still want to behave like a child, then I suppose I can’t stop you. Not many people get a chance to speak to their father after he’s dead, you know. I had to pull a lot of strings to even be allowed to meet with you like this.”
The Devil raises one white eyebrow at this but says nothing.
“Not many people get a chance to speak to their father?” I say. “What about when you were alive? Why couldn’t we speak then? Where have you been? You’re not even going to pretend to be sorry?”
“I am sorry, Luke. I’m sorry I haven’t been a part of your life. It was unavoidable.”
“Ten years,
barely even a birthday card, and then I find out you’re dead, and your lawyer, who turns out to be the actual fire-and-brimstone devil, tricks me into inheriting a Host of dangerous, pissed-off spirits, who then try their absolute hardest to turn me, your son, into a dead person as well, and now you’re here for one last chat and you’re telling me I should be grateful? Are you serious?”
“I won’t deny there have been some events in my life that didn’t transpire exactly as I had intended. Especially in recent weeks. I did my best to contact you once you were in the thick of it. It hasn’t been easy. My communications have been restricted.” He breaks off, glances at the Devil. “You’ll find you make mistakes, too, Luke. It’s part of what being an adult means. You’ve got to live the life you have, rather than the life you wanted.”
The invisible tide rushes and breathes somewhere in the mist. So the dream I had . . . it really was him. He did try to help me.
Dad’s face looks awful, really swollen and pale, with red blotches on his nose and cheeks. His eyes are badly bloodshot, and he’s got wrinkles on his wrinkles. He’s trying to sound angry, but I have the suspicion he’s scared of me, or of the Devil, or maybe both.
“So what exactly was your life, Dad? What was the life you wanted? Who even are you?”
“A necromancer,” Dad says. “I am a necromancer. And to have come this far, to have begun to use the Book of Eight and my sigil, you have the makings of one as well. It’s rather a shame you chose to disperse my Host. If mastered, they could have taken you far.”