You see, I’m here to turn the devil in—
“And she’s right behind you, asshole,” says a voice I know all too well.
No one had come through the single door of the interrogation room. I can see it as plain as day, and I tell you that door never opened. I look into the flat, dead eyes of the agent sitting across the table from me and quirk one of my eyebrows at him. He scoffs and points over my shoulder.
I switch my grip on the F.B.I. agent’s Cross pen that I’d been writing with until I’m holding it like a dagger. There is no way I could get to her in time. I know that. And even if there is, I stabbed her once before with a fucking Bowie knife, and all she did was laugh.
“No,” says the agent. “Not with my good pen.” He reaches across the table and twists the pen out of my hand. “Do you want me to stay?” he asks, looking over my shoulder.
Her hand comes to rest on my shoulder, light as a hummingbird. I had forgotten how hot her skin was to the touch. It feels like she has a fever high enough to cook the brains right out of her head. “If you want. The more, the merrier,” Lily says. Her long, sharpened fingernails dig into my skin, and I have to turn around, to face her. She wants me to look her in the eye, and I dread that. She has a way of looking at you that—well, I’ve heard a lot of people say “Oh, so-and-so looked at me like I was some kind of bug,” and let me tell you, I wish her look was like that. And that’s when she keeps the voodoo black eyes to herself. She starts to pull me around in my seat. I think about resisting, but, really, what the hell is the point of that? With a sigh, I slide my legs to the side and turn my upper body to face her.
God, she is gorgeous. Her lips glisten like flower petals sprinkled with dew. Her skin is like groomed white velvet, looking so soft, so lovely. My hand rises on its own and is halfway to her cheek before I remember what this creature is. I glance at her eyes and the fire in them scares me. I jerk my hand to the back of the chair and grip the square metal tube so hard my tendons creak.
A smile spreads across her lips, as slow as molasses, but it isn’t a welcoming smile, nor is it a pretty one. It’s like the smile of a wolf, slick and predatory. Her teeth are just visible behind her blood-red lips, and they look shiny and sharp.
“Ay, que chulo,” she breathes with a wry grin. Her eyes aren’t grinning. No, her eyes are bloodthirsty. She starts that machine gun heh-heh-heh creepshow.
I have to ask her something to stop that weird chuckle before my head explodes. “Wuh-what...what does that mean?” I ask. “You never told me.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Internet? You should have looked that shit up when you had the chance.” Her smile fades, and she shakes her head, making the light dance and shimmer on her hair. “It means ‘oh, how cute.’ Look me in the eye, puto chulo,” she says.
I can’t. I don’t want to. My mouth is so dry that it hurts to swallow and something in there clicks when I do. I’ve never wanted to shoot up as bad as I do. I’d shoot up drain cleaner if I had any.
“Use those eyes to look at me, papito, or I will use these nails to plop those eyes out on the table.” Her voice is cold…so cold.
The coldness of her voice scares me more than anything else. She can be hot tempered—downright psychotic at times. To hear her go so cold is…well, it’s fucking terrifying is what it is. I look down at my hand on the back of the chair and am surprised to see it trembling.
“I-I-I don’t—” I stutter.
“Do you think I fucking care, Roberto? You better motherfucking look at me and you better motherfucking do it right goddamn now.” Her voice feels like thirty-thousand volts ripping across my spine. She’s going to kill me no matter what I do, I know that, but maybe if I go along, it won’t be as horrible. I start to look at her and feel a sharp, cold pain in the back of my neck. It’s like someone stabbed me with a chunk of ice. I wince. She laughs. “You think that hurt, batal?” she says. “Oh, that’s nothing.”
I believe her, you bet your life I do. I know what she can do, after all. I get my head moving again. It feels like it’s taken me hours to get my gaze up to hers.
Her eyes are bright orange, like fire, and are spinning like pinwheels. People’s eyes can’t do that, right? I mean, I know writers say that shit, but come on. The orange pinwheels get darker and darker until her eyes look as black as the pits of hell. She makes a little sound, deep in her throat. It’s almost like a kitten mewling, but it doesn’t sound sweet or cute or loving.
It sounds…hungry.
I’m scared witless, and I try to look away, but I can’t move my head or my eyes. I feel like I’m slipping. Slipping over the edge of a precipice, maybe, or down into a deep well. I try to jerk my shoulders to the side, but my muscles don’t even twitch. I try to lurch sideways in the chair, and she snickers.
She actually snickers and leans in close. “Oh, no, Bobby-boy,” is all she says. She doesn’t look much like a woman anymore. She looks bigger than a woman can be. Her body is getting blurry, but she looks like she has wings and a face made of shadows.
She pats me on the cheek like she used to, but instead of running her nails through the stubble of my unshaved face, she digs in like a predatory cat. Hot fire rips across my cheek, but as quick as a heartbeat, it goes cold.
I can no longer see any part of her that is like the Lily I knew. I see Ardat Lili, daughter of the sky, sister to night and wind and storm. She’s made of shadows and darkness, and as soon as her shape settles into one form, it shifts and blurs around the edges, seeking another. Her fingers are tipped with bright metallic claws, and some of them drip with my blood. Her eyes are blacker than black and full of hatred, pain, loathing, despair, and infinite sadness.
I wonder if that’s what Mikhail saw, toward the end.
“I thought you were the one, Robert,” she hisses. “You were supposed to be by my side forever more, but you threw all that away because of some stupid, snot-nosed brat. That hurts the most, I think—that you betrayed me over that piece of goody-good trash.”
I see scenes of the empty desert. I see sandstorms and alkali winds. I see the utter darkness of a moonless night.
I think I must be losing my mind. I want to answer her, to tell Lily that it wasn’t about the boy at all, that it was about her betraying me, even if it was her nature that compelled her to do it. I can’t, though. I cannot move. Hell, I can think—but only just.
I feel like her eyes are scorching me. Those twisted images are spinning in her eyes again, and I wish I had made her snatch out my eyeballs. It feels like I’m sunburned to blisters but from the inside-out. Even my blood hurts.
I see her being born. I see her marriage to a thing of shadows and wind that must be Lilu. I see her eating him on some desolate plain, and her tears are like acid on my soul. I see her summon Ifrits for company.
I don’t see Heaven. I don’t see angels. How can she be the devil if she was never an angel to begin with?
Did you think I wouldn’t know you were coming here? Even after L.A.? Even after Singapore? Could you be that stupid?
The voice inside my head is glacial and empty. It is bereft of anything I associate with a human being. I’m trying to scream, but not even my voice box is listening to me anymore.
All those savage murders. All the slavery, rape, war crimes. They are spinning and spinning in her eyes. All the smothered babies and beaten kids. All the hate crimes. Burning crosses, tattooed serial numbers on forearms, slave brands, I see them all. I drown in them.
Did you think you could fool me that easily, puto? Did you think you got away from me?
The voice is starting to hurt more and more with each word, each syllable.
Why are you all so fucking stupid, papi? Why can’t any of you ever just do as you are told?
I want to ask her who she is. I want to ask her what she is, but there’s nothing I can do. I want to ask her what her true name is before she kills me.
My name is Lilitu, daughter of the sky, sister to night and wind and s
torm. I am the goddess of seduction and desolation and disease. Chaos comes at my call. I am the reality behind the paltry myth of your devil.
I realize my body has forgotten to keep breathing.
I hadn't felt what I felt for you since before I ate Lilu’s soul so long ago. I had such plans for you, chingado. You were going to walk the Earth with me forever. You were going to be king to my queen. What an absolute waste.
I’ll do anything you want, I scream inside my head. ANYTHING!
I see her lips twitch. She starts to chuckle deep in her throat. At first, it’s the machine-gun heh-heh-heh, but then it slips into real laughter. Do you think I can ever trust you again, Robert? After you betrayed me?
The pain is… I long to be able to scream, but I’m trapped. Trapped inside those eyes. Trapped inside images of the worst kinds of depravity man wrought on man throughout history. Trapped in a sea of vicious stupidity. Trapped in her savage gaze.
People who have near-death experiences always talk about floating free of their bodies. Floating above themselves and seeing everything that’s happening in the room, not a care in the world. I’m not floating above my body, though. No, I’m falling. Falling into the twin abyssal pits of despair that are Lilitu’s eyes.
Snitches be bitches, suka.
What does that… Something smells like it's burning. Something pops and everything goes dark, but at least I can’t see those terrible eyes anymore.
Snitches get stitches, torcok.
I want to… I’m falling… I’m sorry, Lily… I love—
You betrayed me, verraeter, and I fucking ate your goddamn soul!
Author’s note:
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Bobby and Lily. If you’d like to read more of my short fiction, please click here to see my anthology on Amazon.
Please accept my sincere gratitude for checking out this novella.
If you’ve loved this novella, and are not currently a part of my Reader’s Group, please consider joining us here.
—Erik Henry Vick
The Devil Page 6