In the sudden silence, Paul could only hear his own ragged breaths and the roar of blood in his ears. The rage drained away into the prison under his heart, to nourish the demon. He stepped back, releasing Vern.
"I'm sorry."
Vern straightened, rubbed his chin.
"I'm sorry,” Paul said again. “After a hundred years you start to lose your temper a little quicker than you did before."
"It's okay.” Vern adjusted his glasses on his nose. “No problem."
The forgiveness tasted bitter. For a moment he considered explaining it all to Vern.
But if Vern knew about Kate, he'd be twice as willing to throw away his life. Gloria died because Laurie had been willing to risk her because she wanted Paul. He wasn't going to risk Vern because he wanted Kate. I won't be like Laurie. I won't become what I hate.
The first pain of transformation suddenly twisted through him, wringing out a groan.
"Are you alright?” Vern asked.
Laughter bubbled up from the ache in Paul's chest. He turned around to face Vern, laughing and not able to stop. “Am I alright? Of course I'm not alright. Look at the goddamn sky."
Another cramp seized him. He felt muscles and tendons begin to tear. He pushed past Vern and opened the door. Red clouds streaked the horizon.
"Where are you going?"
"To the garden.” For unknown reasons, the demon preferred to take over outside. Paul found it easier just to meet the change in the garden and spare the thing any extra stress. He stumbled down the stairs, followed the path. He put his back against the maple tree his mother had planted on his third birthday and slid down onto his knees.
Pressure built in his head. His ribs ached as they were pushed out. He tried to fill his lungs, but the demon squashed them.
A pair of tattered Nikes appeared on the path.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I want to see you change. I want to see it. Maybe I..."
"No!” Paul would rather have Vern watch him defecate or masturbate. “Can't you just give me the privacy and dignity...” Blood gushed up his throat and spilled out of his mouth, drowning the words. He fell down onto all fours, choking.
He saw the ratty Nikes stutter-step out of his field of vision. “Oh sweet Mother..."
The demon reached out through his heart and broke him open. His arms and legs gave way. He fell onto his side, then flipped onto his back as the pain arched him, his fingers scraping.
His eyes popped open wide. He saw the purpled sky and the shadows of clouds, the red blaze of the maple leaves. He felt the demon crawl out of whatever prison held it during the day, and held Paul at night. He felt it break through the surface of his skin. His sight dimmed, losing the color of the sky, of the leaves—of everything.
Freed, the demon began forcing Paul into the hole it had just escaped. His bones were being snapped and crushed, his flesh shredded—every time. The prison sucked him in. His awareness of the night, the wind, the smell of the earth, the salty taste of blood, receded. The pain receded, too; his body stopped registering pain because his body ceased to be.
His consciousness remained, though, floating through nothing, having nothing but a helpless share in the perceptions and hungers and hates of the demon.
The demon could not see color. For one hundred years, Paul's nights held no blues or violets, just flat blacks and depthless grays. The demon registered no smells. Nights came to Paul like stale air, no crisp snow or heavy rolling rain. The demon did not eat or drink, so his nights were a prison of hunger and thirst. The demon's form was boneless, liquid, running over itself like lava, only dark and icy cold. It did not sense through touch.
If for some reason—such as Paul's killing him—Sander Wald could not perform the reinvestment ceremony every year, the demon would take over forever, night and day. Paul would never see color or touch or taste or drink again.
The final bar on the prison scraped into place, and the demon took complete control of Paul's space in the universe. It looked on the black shapes of the trees and flowers, looked up at the gray squirming clouds in the sky, and then focused on Vern.
With a muffled scream, Vern pounded down the garden path. Through the demon's ears, Paul heard a car door slam, an engine rev, then tires squeal, as Vern fled from the horror.
The demon's fury and frustration, sorrow and hate, etched Paul like a dry wind driving sand. It shot up into the sky, boiling up from the garden, rolling over itself past the roof of the house, past the tops of the trees.
Every night, for a hundred years, it had tried to escape like this.
It ripped through clouds, shredding ice crystals and vapor, until gravity finally took it back. For an instant it hovered, straining, thinning its liquid body as it reached and reached to get away. But there was no escape. It fell back to earth, tumbling and squirming like a ball of mercury, splashing against the garden path. Exhausted, it lay there, slowly reforming.
Paul, trapped in the prison, wished he could teach it to cry.
The demon's body coalesced again. Paul knew that it appeared basically human, like a disembodied shadow cast by nothing. But that shape could distort and stretch and compress, a freak-show mirror image come to life.
With its form regained, the demon gathered itself and flung itself into the air again. Straining, reaching. Over and over.
It knew about the flowers, the black envelope, Laurie's plan. It knew what was coming, as it reached toward the almost full moon and fell again back down to crash against the unforgiving earth. It was doing its best to try to escape.
* * * *
The moon hovered above the eastern tree line when the demon finally gave up. It seethed with frustration, its surface boiling with it. Hand over hand, it climbed to the top of the house roof. At the apex it hunched down and sat, quivering with rage.
From his placeless, timeless prison, Paul tried to reach it. He tried to imagine his thoughts radiating out through the demon's liquid core like ripples.
Tell me your name, and I can end it.
In response, Paul felt a flood of burning sorrow wash over his consciousness, stunning him. He drifted, mind limp, despairing. Could the thing not know its own name? Did it not understand the concept of names? Or did it simply not trust him enough to share it?
Perhaps the bludgeoning sorrow came from its inability to communicate with Paul. Perhaps what Paul perceived only as raging grief was the demon screaming its name, over and over, unable to get through to him.
Whatever the reason, Paul readied himself to try again. How could he ask the question in a way that the demon might be able to respond?
It was then, through the demon's flat eyes, he saw the battered Chevy come down the street and pull up to the curb in front of the house. Both he and the demon saw Kate get out and stand on the sidewalk, looking toward the house with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. Through the demon's eyes, she looked as insubstantial, unreal, as a character in an old black-and-white movie.
What is she doing here? Even from the roof, Paul could see the sadness, the fear, on her face. She had come to his house looking for friendship, for comfort. With all his mental strength, Paul threw himself against the bars of his prison. He felt the demon ripple in response.
Kate stepped toward the house, out of the demon's sight. Paul felt it stretch and flow, rolling down the porch roof and hanging its head over the side to watch her. She was ringing the doorbell. Paul heard the ‘bing bongs’ echo through the empty house. She waited, then pushed the button again. And again.
The demon slithered down the porch rail, thinned itself until it stretched, like a shadow cast by the moon, across the plank floor, and looked up Kate's body.
She was wrapped in a denim jacket two sizes too big. The sleeves covered her hands completely. When she reached out to ring the bell, only the tips of her fingers showed before she crossed her arms around herself again.
Through the demon's eyes, Paul looked up and into her face. She swallow
ed convulsively, chewed on her lower lip. Her eyes darted left and right, then rolled up as she made a little sound of distress.
The curve of her cheek was slightly puffy. Paul saw the cut, vivid in the moonlight. Imprisoned, unable to reach her, Paul threw himself again against the force that held him.
Kate turned suddenly from the door. The demon retracted, sliding off the porch into the bushes. Kate jumped, squealing. She'd seen it out of the corner of her eye. She shivered visibly, then almost ran back to her car.
The demon gave chase, speeding after her like a snake in the desert. It squeezed under the car as Kate went around it, and slipped into the driver's door as Kate got in. It flowed under the seat into the back, where it coalesced and crouched, watching Kate's reflection in the rear view mirror.
She half-laughed, half-sobbed, leaning her forehead against the steering wheel. “God, Kate, you're so pathetic,” she whispered to herself. “Running scared of shadows.” She laughed again, a bitter sound.
The demon's rage cooled into a surprisingly bitter sorrow that Paul couldn't understand.
Suddenly, Kate sat up straight and wiped her cheeks. Her hand shot out to the glove box and the demon pulled back, surprised. The glove box sprang open and a hairbrush tumbled out. She rooted around, spilling hairpins and coated rubber bands onto the floor, until she extracted a little notepad with a pen attached.
The demon lengthened its neck, so that it could peek over the seat at what she wrote.
Kate put the pen to paper, but it left no mark. Furiously she scribbled in circles until the ink flowed. She tore off the marred sheet and let it fall to the floor. On the fresh sheet, she wrote Dear Paul and then the pen stopped. She tore off that sheet, too, and started again. Paul, she wrote, Had a bad day. Stopped by. Don't forget breakfast, please. Kate.
She read it over, then tore it from the tablet and crumpled it. Paul heard her curse under her breath, words he would have bet she hadn't known.
She began writing again. Dear Paul—back to endearments—Kate came to see you tonight, because she needs you.
She started to write furiously, the pen almost piercing the paper. Kate has never let herself fall in love before, and now I've fallen in love with you. She'd switched from third person to first, and although Paul couldn't see her face and didn't hear her cry, he saw a tear fall and smear the ink. I don't want to save the world, damn it. I just want to be happy.
With a growl, Kate tore off the sheet, crushed it in both hands and threw it over her shoulder. The demon jumped as the wad careened off the seat and bounced against its swirling skin.
"So stupid, so stupid, so stupid.” Kate jammed the key into the ignition, rammed the car into gear, and sped down the street. The demon hunched down against the floorboards, leaning and flowing as the car cornered far too fast for safety. A little avalanche of hair pins tumbled from underneath the passenger's seat, along with an empty coffee cup, and the yellow stub of a parking ticket.
Kate didn't drive far before swinging a hard left and turning off the motor. Still muttering to herself, she threw open the driver's door. The demon thrust itself up and out, barely escaping before Kate slammed the door. Catching itself on a tree branch, it scrambled up into the boughs to watch Kate march through the back yard of an old Victorian house. She went in the back door. After a few moments, a light flared in a third floor window. The demon launched itself toward it, skittering up the drainpipes and clinging to the window frame.
Through the demon's eyes, Paul saw Kate in her bedroom. She'd already taken off her jacket—he could see it sprawled inside out on a bedroom chair. He couldn't hear her through the window glass, but her lips moved and her hands gestured. The expression on her face wasn't hard to read: she was angry.
The demon watched, still roiling with that strange sorrow, as Kate dropped onto the edge of the bed. She leaned her elbows on her knees and cradled her head in her hands. Paul pressed against the limits of his prison, yearning to reach out, stroke her hair, take her in his arms, anything to soothe the pain he could read in the bowed shoulders, the fingers flexing in her curls.
A long, shuddering sigh shook Kate. She lifted her head, ran her hands through her hair, and rocked to her feet. Another sigh, and she turned her back to the window. Through the demon's eyes, Paul saw the reflection of her face and upper body in the mirror above the dresser. She put a fingertip to the cut on her face. Her bitter smile, her sorrowful expression, seemed so stark in the demon's colorless vision. Kate dropped her eyes from her reflection and pulled her shirt up over her head.
If Paul had a heart, it would have stopped.
The demon leaned closer to the window pane, fascinated. Paul stared too as Kate kicked off her jeans. She reached behind her back to unhook her bra. Without color, she looked like a pencil sketch come to perfect life.
Please. Paul sent the plea out through the demon's inky being. But he wasn't sure if he was asking it to turn away, or pleading with it not to take away the sight of her.
Kate pulled her panties down, hopping as they caught on her foot, and tossed them into the pile with her bra, jeans and shirt at the foot of the bedroom chair. Paul drank in the vision of her: the curve of her calf, the length of her spine, the tendrils of curls that feathered against her shoulder blades. The mirror reflected her face, so sad, and the polished weight of her left breast. She turned to take her nightshirt from the rumpled covers, giving him her profile, soft and round, like a drawing of pencil lines and subtle shadings. Then she raised her arms and the simple long t-shirt settled down over her body.
Kate climbed under her covers, fluffed the pillows. She reached out and clicked off the bedside lamp. In the demon's black-and-white vision, Paul could see the pale smear of her face by the almost-full moon. He saw the feathers of her lashes on her cheeks when she finally closed her eyes.
The demon stayed at the window, watching her sleep. Paul watched along with it, sensing a new feeling growing in the demon. He felt its rage cooling into ashes of loss, of grief, of hopelessness.
It isn't hopeless! He sent the words out like pebbles on the surface of dark water, tossing them, skipping them, hoping to reach something that would understand.
But the demon just turned from the window and let itself drop listlessly to the ground. Like a ghost, it drifted down the street towards home.
All I need is your name. Paul abandoned language, and thought only of name. He thought of himself, his being, what made him Paul and had kept him Paul through the century of the curse. He thought of Kate and her Kateness. Over and over he envisioned the curve of her as she stretched up to put her arms through her nightshirt, matching the vision with the idea of Kate. Tell me who you are. Show me who you are!
But all he felt in reply was a dull, aching sadness, as bitter and hopeless as the rage had been. The demon drifted back into the garden and huddled under the hydrangea bush. It looked out through the puffs of clovery petals, silvered by the last of the moonlight, and mourned something Paul could not understand, until both he and the demon felt the first stirrings of dawn. A shiver stirred the still inky surface of the demon, and Paul felt an echoing pang through his unbeing. The bars of the prison were thinning.
The demon flowed to its feet and slunk to the back door. After a few attempts—the thing never had fully grasped the idea of latches and knobs—it drifted into the house. It paused in the hallway. Through its eyes, Paul saw the black envelope on the table where he'd left it, unopened.
Paul felt a sudden sharp pain, the first thing he'd felt that was his and not the demon's since sunset. His body was reforming. Bones were coming back from wherever the curse had banished them.
The demon stopped in front of the bedroom mirror, a thing it had not done for years, for over a decade. It lifted its eyes to its own reflection. The demon's eyes were flat, yellow, without a pupil. Paul couldn't read any human expression in them. But the demon stared into its own eyes, and Paul realized it was trying to reach him.
Name! If it woul
d only give him a hint, a clue, something. Name, name, name, name, name, name—
Agony speared Paul. The demon fell into a heap, its reflection lost to its own eyes and to Paul's. Shivering and squirming, the demon snaked across the bedroom floor, into the hallway. It let itself tumble down the stairs, coming to rest against the closed studio door.
Paul felt his bones again, his heart. He tasted the coppery crust of the blood he'd shed during the sunset change. It was like climbing out of a pit of tar, every morning. It took every bit of his strength. He pushed his face up through the thick blackness, his newly reformed lungs burning with the need to fill with air. He broke the surface of the demon and gasped for breath. He pulled his body free of the thing, heaving and flopping, feeling the demon draining down into him, through his eyes and ears, his nose, his mouth, his pores. Finally, finally, he lay on the floor, naked, gasping, feeling the oily residue of the demon coating his skin. The prison formed just below his heart. He felt the decisive tactile click of the bars, and he opened his eyes.
The first rays of sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window and into the hall. From inside the prison behind his heart, Paul felt the demon's inconsolable wave of fury and grief rise up like a black tide.
Paul pulled himself to his feet and stumbled up the stairs to the bathroom. He set the faucets for steaming hot and hung himself under the pounding spray. He leaned his forehead against the shower tiles and felt the water beat down his neck, down his shoulder blades.
"We can't go on like this much longer,” he whispered to the demon. In response, he felt a crescendo of rage that snapped at the end with bitter helplessness. “We just can't."
He thought of Kate's body, all warm graphite lines and smudged shadows. He thought of the sadness stark on her black-and-white reflection. Reflection. He remembered the demon in the mirror, its body living ink, pulsing shadow, with flat shark's eyes. How could she accept that? How could she love that?
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