Dead Souls

by J. Lincoln Fenn

  “Saul’s initials are all over the book of dead souls, but nothing else,” I add. “Not a copy of this article. No record of his trade.” Stab, stab, stab goes the knife.

  Alejandro is as still as a marble statue. “Saul had certain . . . beliefs he couldn’t be swayed from.”

  I’m not letting him off so easily. “So what happened to his record?”

  For a moment he doesn’t say anything, just looks at his empty bourbon glass with a strange intensity. Finally he says, “I removed it. I removed all his notes, which would have been enough to make a separate book. I would have erased him entirely if I could have.”

  Everyone present is collectively stunned. Removed a record from the book of dead souls? But I thought nothing is ever thrown away or reordered.

  Mike stares hard at Alejandro. “So Saul’s favor still hasn’t been called in?

  “As far as I know,” says Alejandro slowly, reluctantly. “No.”

  Electric, the entire group. Alejandro’s stock as leader is viscerally plummeting. Only the cold survive, Alejandro had counseled me, back in the early days when I trusted him implicitly. You must prepare yourself.

  And I have. He looks at me with what seems like a mixture of disappointment and pride.

  Jasmine eagerly turns to me. “So you think Saul made a double deal.”

  I say nothing.

  Mini-conversations start to take place, heated exchanges, like excited small children in the midst of a sugar rush. Our small group indelibly fractured.

  “But that’s not—”

  “Let me see—”

  “When did—”

  The paper is grabbed, shared, pulled in different directions, strains from being wet.

  I’m apparently not the first to wonder whether our contracts with Scratch can be renegotiated, and there’s even a term for it, the double deal, which is the Holy Grail for dead souls—equally mythical and unattainable, an urban legend that will not die. It’s nothing short of a soul-trading second mortgage, the idea being that you get out of your favor by offering Scratch something better than your soul alone, like, say, the souls of others. Many, many others. The trick is how to get that buy-in from the people you’re betraying. It’s the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories, and many a night at the New Parish has gone long, exploring the possibilities. Ellen thinks Hitler had all his SS officers agree to sell their souls, which is why he could finally kill himself. Renata is fond of pointing to the Salem witch trials—Why were they forced to sign their confessions?—which would also explain how a small group of Puritans with bad footwear were able to take over a populated continent. Mike thinks that the subprime mortgage crisis was a neat way to sell souls, because the original mortgage, bought by other nefarious companies, could be adjusted without the signer’s knowledge. Think of all the mad money that traded hands in 2008, who else could be behind it? he’d said.

  All empty speculation, but what’s igniting this fire is the year: 1976. Nearly four decades. All those years without a favor being called in, who knew what ability or wealth was achieved, walking scot-free through the world, untouched, unscathed. A life, a real life, unencumbered by the consequences of hanging your children in the closet or poisoning the water cooler at work. Selling the souls of others could almost be palatable if the consequences were distant, removed. Like the executives who decide it’s cheaper for the plant five thousand miles away to keep dumping PCBs into the watershed, even if they get sued, even if people get cancer and die. Death by spreadsheet hardly feels like a crime.

  And here regret kicks in, a blatant, two-year-old selfishness that wishes I’d kept this to myself. Mine, double deal is mine.

  “Where is he now, this Saul Baptiste?” asks Renata.

  “He was incarcerated at San Quentin. Solitary confinement,” says Alejandro, voice now as soft as a ghost. “Nearly twenty long years ago.”

  THE LOFT, and the bar, seem to disappear around us. Here I thought I was inciting a revolution and Alejandro’s turned it back around, holding us in the palm of his hand, all of us greedy for each and every word that comes next. Acolytes at the feet of Jesus. I note he seems to relish his part.

  “It was Saul who came to me as I have come to you, although then we would gather in the basement of this church, on Saturdays,” he begins. “Saul had convinced the pastor that we were a group of alcoholics, a branch of AA. It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery, he would say to the new ones. This was not long after I had made my deal.”

  I can see that this is news to some in the group. But maybe that’s why Alejandro seems so complacent about his fate—the prospect of Scratch coming to collect growing more distant with every year.

  Unless Alejandro’s made a double deal himself.

  “Saul was brilliant . . . but then, that is what his trade was for. Before, he had been an adjunct professor at a small college, with a few papers published in obscure and easily forgotten journals. His field of study was medieval history, with a passion for alchemy. What little money he had left over from his meager salary was invested in first-edition texts. One such text was The Alchemy of Souls, which includes the deathbed confession of Torquemada.”

  “He started the list. He thought Torquemada might be a dead soul,” I add eagerly, a sad attempt to stay relevant, center.

  “Very true,” says Alejandro. “But what he did not know was that Torquemada was the first to have successfully made a double deal. If you can call what happened to him success. But I will get to that.”

  Everyone leans in, spellbound. Me included.

  “When I met Saul, his career was blossoming. He had gotten tenure at Stanford, was happily married, had a young son. He had gone from having nothing to lose to having a lot to lose, which is when he started taking the idea of a double deal seriously. He felt there had to be a historical precedent, if only he could find it. He began looking at those who rose to great power quickly, and unexpectedly.”

  “But if you can do a double deal, then anyone could get out of their favor,” says Clarissa.

  “Really?” asks Alejandro, looking bemused. “And what exactly could you offer besides yourself? It is not as easy as it sounds, getting hundreds of thousands of people to sign away their own souls unwittingly. And how would you structure the double deal to make sure that you yourself were not getting played again? I bet Ellen wishes she had phrased her request a little more carefully.”

  Ellen bites her lower lip.

  “It’s a risky proposition,” says Alejandro.

  He looks at us then, and I can see him gauging how many of us are falling back in line.

  Me, I’m going to be the hard sell. “But Saul thought Torquemada made a double deal.”

  Alejandro says nothing for a moment, staring hard at the table, deep in thought. “Yes, he believed so. Torquemada lists two thousand dead through the Inquisition, another forty thousand confessions, all of them dead souls, or mortuorum animas, as they were called then. All it required was the slightest change in word tense in the forced confession, from past to future. Instead of Have you sold your soul to the devil? to Will you sell your soul to the devil? The people could not read Latin, they had no idea what they were signing. And imagine that, all those new favors at Scratch’s disposal. Is it any surprise that violence erupted across the world, from the War of the Roses in England to the genocide of Native Americans at the hands of Columbus? A bloodlust that spanned continents. Torquemada, however, lived to be an old man and died peacefully. At least that is what the official histories tell us. The Alchemy of Souls has a different ending, a postscript written by the monk who’d taken his confession. There had long been suspicion of an unnatural pact with Satan, and once the monastery learned the truth, they bricked him up alive in the catacombs, giving him only a candle, a quill, one jug of water, and a loaf of bread.”

  “Why would he confess when
he was so close to death anyway?” Mike asks.

  Alejandro shrugs. “Maybe he was a coward, confessing before death claimed him, or maybe he was tired, carrying the burden of his evil deeds. Maybe the murder and damnation of so many innocents drove him mad in the end.”

  It strikes us then, the cost of the double deal. Our own safety and security in exchange for the souls, and lives, of countless others. Could I be that cold? Could any of us? We glance at each other nervously, and for a moment, no one dares to speak.

  It’s Renata who finally does. “So? Did Saul make a double deal?”

  “I doubt it,” replies Alejandro somberly. “I don’t think he was capable. He had become ragged around the edges of his mind by this time. He would arrange a place for us to meet, then cancel abruptly, accuse me of spying for the devil. Sometimes he would call late at night, sobbing. Where we are is hell, and where hell is, there must we ever be. His marriage fell apart; his wife took the child away to live with her relatives. I saw him once, in passing, walking in the rain, muttering under his breath, but he did not recognize me, or if he did, he pretended not to. Then I heard he was in prison.”

  “What did he do?” asks Mike.

  “I don’t know that either. He has not replied to any letters, and there was nothing remarkable in the news.” Alejandro now looks up, meets us eye to eye. “Saul became consumed with the idea of a way out, an escape. This led to his despair, and so I decided that I would not follow him there. I would accept my destiny, such as it is. I would take pleasure where I could, and not perseverate on what is to come. Every man, woman, and child will die—they know it but do not think on it. Being damned is not so different from that essential agony. The only sanity is turning our eyes from the unbearable.”

  A soft quietude falls then, on us at least—in the bar below there is the murmur of dozens of conversations, the occasional burst of laughter, a familiar hum that transcends language even. In one hundred, two hundred years, they’ll all be six feet belowground. The cemeteries are packed with the long forgotten, and we delude ourselves to think we’ll be the exception. Above us the Virgin in the stained glass passively gazes on, arms slack, palms up, her dying son under her calm purview. A monument to acceptance.

  We are at that point in the night when the giddy, alcoholic buzz has worn off, when suddenly we’re aware of time, our coats, the ride home, and the day ahead, all the thousand, mundane realities. The Guinness in my glass is now tepid, the pretzels are cold, and I feel empty, spent.

  Except.

  Except I now have a name, a place to look, and possibly, just possibly, a one-way ticket out of hell and a chance to save Justin’s life if I play my cards right. An ember that glows, warmly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT’S LIKE PANDORA’S BOX, it’s like the small clear bottle that says Drink Me, it’s like the one door in the castle that the Beast says not to open, this thought, this double deal.

  Thinking about it doesn’t mean I’ll do it. Thinking about it can’t harm anyone.

  It consumes me the entire drive home, a Möbius strip of thought I can’t shake even when I let myself into the apartment building, step into the elevator. The weight of the world seems to shift beneath me as I close the accordion gate.

  Could it really be possible?

  When it was just conjecture, when it was just a myth, talking about the double deal was like speaking of winning an $800 million lottery—something that could happen to somebody, sure, but not me.

  If I could save Justin though. Get Scratch to reverse his cancer . . . could I live with myself if I didn’t try?

  The how of it though, and the what of it.

  Hypothetically, purely hypothetically, it’s not like one can start their own inquisition now. There are laws against that, constitutional rights. The impediments of modernity.

  Still, I can’t turn off the part of my mind that rolls by a bank and wonders how I’d rob it.

  Warranty cards? Sumpter sends one out with every bag and pack, a warranty card that promises a full replacement within the year if a purchase has some manufacturing deficiency, although really we’re just collecting data for future marketing campaigns and product development. And no one really fills them out anyway, except the occasional elderly retiree. They’re the same demographic that licks and stamps the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes envelopes, although I doubt they’d be attractive prospects for Scratch when they’ve already got one foot in death’s door. They wouldn’t be able to do much in way of favors.

  Although there was that old man who plowed into a farmers’ market with his car.

  That’s horrible. I’m a horrible person for thinking that.

  But then I get a visual—Justin healthy again, Justin himself again, the two of us walking hand in hand down Shattuck on a day when no one’s occupying anything. The weather clear, and brisk. It’s a thought that constricts my throat. I’m surprised at how thick my want is.

  The elevator grinds to the fifth floor, and my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out. Missed a few from Justin, but it’s Renata’s that makes my heart skip a beat.

  Hve u seen the news?

  Renata? Why on earth would Renata be texting me?

  What news? I text back.

  She sends an Oakland Tribune link, and as I walk down the hall, I click on it.

  “Oakland Executive Shoots Thirty, Attempts Suicide at Christmas Recital Rampage.” By D. Peters.

  My stomach flips.

  Today six children and five adults are dead, with ten more in critical condition following a shooting rampage during a Piedmont elementary school Christmas recital held at the school district’s Alan Harvey Theater. Police confirmed that they have arrested and will charge VUEWORKS CEO Gary Fulton in the mass shooting, the worst the East Bay has seen since the Oikos University rampage in 2012.

  With one hand, I dig through my purse for the key, heart beating so loudly I wonder why no one opens their doors to investigate.

  Sources at the scene report that in the middle of the performance Fulton, who had been seated in the upper balcony, stood, brandished an Mk47, and started randomly firing on the crowd. Among the casualties was his own daughter, six-year-old Beth Fulton. Sources also say his ex-wife, Carol, who had been volunteering behind the scenes, was seriously injured as the panicked audience rushed for exits.

  This is why Gary had missed our meeting. Time to pay the devil’s due.

  Holy shit fuck Scratch is in town.

  I read on.

  Fulton apparently then tried to commit suicide by leaping off the balcony. He has been hospitalized at Highland Hospital with minor injuries.

  The Piedmont community is in shock, noting that Fulton had been a devoted father and was a big supporter of local charities. Last year Esquire named him one of 40 Sexiest Single Millionaires, with an estimated net worth near $150 million.

  Then there’s an embedded video captioned:

  WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Shocking cell phone footage captures recital massacre.

  In a daze, I pause at the door, hand just above the antique doorknob. Press Play on the video. A tableau of children on a stage dressed as elves, singing off-key while paper snowflakes drift down from the lights above. “Dashing through the snow” (they pretend to hold reins in their hands), “on a one horse open sleigh, o’er the fields we go” (they pretend to crack a whip), “laughing all the way, HA HA—”

  —An eruption of shots, so fast it sounds like fireworks but then several elves fall—a man rushes the stage—the shooter?—no, he swoops down to pick up a boy—his son? —and starts to run but is hit, a bullet splitting his head open like a ripe melon. The cell phone drops to the floor as people scream, shout, more artillery fire, and I can hear him above the fray, Gary, his voice is hoarse, agonized: “I don’t want to do this; I don’t want to do this! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, someone stop me!”
<
br />   The cell is grabbed from the floor and pointed at Gary. A man from behind tries to throttle him but Gary uses the butt of the gun to punch him in the stomach, the head, and then he points the automatic rifle at the crowd, pulls the trigger, bursts of light from the gun’s nozzle followed by more screams (how are there not more fatalities?). The frantic cell phone holder swoops in to the stage again, where teachers and parents are dragging/carrying the children off the stage. I see a girl cradled by a frantic, middle-aged woman, the girl’s arms and legs gone lifeless and limp—

  Someone close to the cell phone holder says, “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go now.”

  —then another shocked rush of screams and the cell phone turns to Gary, teetering on the edge of the balcony. He drops the rifle over its edge, holds his arms out like a diver contemplating a pool, and just lets himself fall forward. Ready to leave his life, and what he’s done, behind.

  Fuck. Oh fuck.

  End scene. Cut to a reporter, camera A. I hit Stop.

  Shaken is not the right word, I feel like all the bits and pieces of me inside have come loose, that they’re in danger of scattering out into all directions, an atomic explosion.

  Then I notice streaks of black just on the doorknob that make my racing heart stand very, very still.

  They look like scorch marks.

  But I don’t have to touch them, wouldn’t have time to, because at that moment Justin opens the door, jaw clenched and eyes ablaze with what can only be described as an unholy fury.

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

  I don’t understand the question at first, my mind still on that Piedmont elementary school recital. I can almost smell it, blood and cordite in the air.

  “Didn’t you get my texts?”

  Husky—Justin’s voice has dropped an octave in the past month or so, raspy from coughing, a case of acute bronchitis that will never get better. Always gaunt, he’s now skeletal, except for his belly, which is engorged with the tumor, a dead thing that pulls and twists his energy into a corrupted mass of cells. Not unlike my immortal soul.