'What did you say to me?' She's sharp. She's had a bad night.
Temper wells up but I let it go. I've been mulling over this for two hours now. Not her fault she's not up to speed.
'Back in the hotel. About being afraid...'
'I dunno. When I fought the Hollow. I said, this is true, I said I'd never been that scared before. What's...'
'No. There was something else.'
She shrugs.
'Seriously. There was something else. Try to remember.'
Quiet for a moment. Nothing. She shrugs again.
Swear under my breath.
'Something about when you were a kid?' Bettina.
'Oh yeah. Umn. When I was a kid, my mother had a boyfriend. One day, he snapped. Beat her up in front of me. I was really scared.'
Snap open my Zippo and close it slow. 'There was something else.'
'Yeah. I. I remember thinking that at least I wouldn't be scared of anything else. Including stories. My old man, he used to make up ghost stories and they scared shit out of me when I was a kid. I loved them.'
Scary stories.
There's no such thing as the Devil.
Nod at her. Go quiet.
'Hey Bettina.'
'Sup?'
'What did the Hollow say when the Devil turned up?'
Aristide turns and looks over his shoulder at me. 'Diable?'
'Don't worry about it. Like a codename for something that's been bugging us.'
'Whatever you want, man.' Goes back to driving. He's not noticed the big black car, following us all the time.
'Called him... Sweet Tech. Accessory?'
No.
'Sutehk. The Sutekh story.'
Aristide laughs. 'Egypt stuff man. Sutekh is, like, the Devil from old Pharaoh days and that. Seth. Set. Well, he wasn't, you know, a perfect fit for the Devil. But he was the bad guy. Messed with the other gods. Got his dick cut off.' He thinks that's a bit funny and gives another deep laugh.
But he's hit it.
He's fucking nailed it.
There's always a Devil. There's always a shaytan or an Iblis or a Lucifer. There's always an enemy. Even that fuck Elliot gave me a piece of it. Perhaps you think I'm the bad guy in this story.
I've been telling myself there's no such thing as the Devil but that's ... that's reductive. It's not a whole crew of entities hiding behind a whole lot of different names since the world got going. It's one story, told over and over, with the details chopped and change to suit the mood.
Whatever he is, Devil, rebel angel, enemy of the cosmos, tempter... he's a story. He's undeniably a story.
Which means he has rules.
Open my mouth to say all this, which is when Jon hits us at a hundred miles an hour.
Car comes out of nowhere, clips us and we spin out. Say this for him, Aristide is cool under pressure. Drives out of the collision, not trying to brace against the momentum. The noise takes a second to hit, crashing like a wave. Then the jerk sideways.
Want to hear something funny?
Bettina made me buckle up. Saves the worst of it but still, we're bashed around.
Only thing that saves our lives, I figure this out much later, only thing that saves us is that Jon can't drive. He's taken a woman hostage. Told her, blade under her chin, ram that car or I cut your throat. She doesn't know how to maximise the impact.
Hollow doesn't really care about road safety. Goes through the windscreen. Lands on his knees. Even the mask needs a minute to patch that shit up.
Bettina? This ain't nothing to her. We hit a streetlamp and she's out, pulls me loose, then Katanya, then Aristide.
See the Hollow down the street, not so far. Rising up out of his crouch. Cars are bawling at us. Someone runs over. You ok, you guys ok you get the number of that guy who hit you?
'Forget', I tell the nosy fucker and he walks away. Don't even look at him. Eyes focussed on the Hollow, walking down towards us, jerking, on broken legs that knit together with each step he takes.
'Fucking, Terminator and shit.' Aristide is impressed. He flares the coat out from his sides, takes out a cane knife.
'Predator, too.'
'Don't be so fucking stupid you hoodoo bastard.'
Looks at me. Smiling. Mad. 'There's no getting away from him, hommes.'
'Yeah. There is. There's no fighting him.'
Watch the Hollow and his execution step. Something different about him. Not just these new, bullshit superpowers he's gotten, though that's part of it. No...
There.
Yeah.
So much magic, so much information coming from him, takes a moment to see. But I've got the gaze. I know what I'm doing. He's changing. He's transforming. Jon's body is like a cocoon and the Hollow is.... its gestating inside him. Butterflies, most of their bodies turn to liquid inside those things, reform, reborn, instar to instar. Jon's there, Jon's in the liquid.
Too late to help him says that bad dry part of me that's right too often.
Bettina helps me as I limp to the front of our car. Glance back at the Hollow, thirty or forty steps away, hands by his sides. Showing off the weapons isn't his style.
Rifle through the dash. Insurance. Medical information. An Aesculapius on it. No, Caduceus. You know, two snakes around a pole. Symbol of Hermes. Symbol of Mercury. God of messengers. God of transport. Snap the car antennae off. Hand it to Bettina.
'When I say, hit my bad leg with this. No. My neck. Like executing a king. I jarred it in the car. Hard enough to hurt. Don't need you snapping my bones, just to hurt.'
She hands it back.
'No.'
That's the problem with people who are loyal to you. They want you to make good decisions.
Twenty steps away.
'I need a sacrifice. Pain. Related to the cars, to the crash. No time for more. Just do it or we're dead.'
She's still.
'He knows what he's doing...' hisses Katanya.
'Please.' Can smell the mould that's been growing on Jon's body. Fifteen steps.
'Say when,' says Bettina, shoulder dropping.
Focus on that medical insurance symbol. Hit the Gnosis. Mercury, god of travellers, patron of cars and all things that travel like the wind, I offer up this sacrifice of pain to you if you will assist us against our persecutor.
Something appropriately quicksilver hits my thoughts. A hyperdimensional speed. A laser gelling, a storm in the surges of chemicals, lightning leaping from axon to synapse.
'Do it.'
Bettina brings the wire down onto my neck and it really is just like an executioner.
Jesus. It hurts. No time to worry about that. Focus on the pain. Feel it. Tears in my eyes. Order myself again to feel it.
Ten steps.
Barely even notice Aristide, brave as hell, step in front of us, raising his blade.
It says yes.
It's accepted. The sacrifice. Take a moment but the pain flows out of me like smoke, up to where the Gods live. The ambulance that's racing towards our crash, somehow the driver doesn't seem to see Jon. Hits him. Knocks him back. Watch him go under the damn things wheels, getting dragged. I watch my friends arm, caught between axle and chassis, crush down to paste. Glad for it.
'Let's go!'
Bettina grabs me and we run. Can't see where we're going. Pain in my neck is intense.
I'm bleeding.
Running.
Fifteen
i
Aristide takes off.
'I am not going to take on the Hollow unprepared, hommes. You are good with the empty-hand hoodoo. Game recognise game, no doubt. But that won't save you twice. I have some boys, on the pipe it was tits. Shiv a whale I pay them. I'm a get them. Bodies man. So many bodies his blades will be dull.'
Then he's gone.
Bettina turns her head to the side, watching as he goes through the wreckage of cars and the bustle of cops and paramedics. Looks back to wink at her.
'Ah, Lark,' she says sadly. 'Sometimes I miss being al
ive.'
Nod at her. I know.
Sun is coming up.
Where is safe? Where is protected? What do I need?
Pizzalgo. He'll be just heading home by now.
Drop fifty on a cab, head on a swivel. There's the Devil, by a bus stop, dressed in Jermyn Street fashions from the sixties, for some goddamn reason.
Press Pizzalgo's buzzer, again and a third time.
'What?'
'Lark, with Bettina and a friend. Let me in.'
'I have woman in here!'
'Serious.'
Silence.
'Fine, fine but you owe Pizzalgo, I think.'
We funnel up. The woman, who looks about as young as a schoolgirl to me, is in her pants and one of Pizzalgo's filthy Minor Threat t-shirts.
'Out,' says Bettina, thumb over her shoulder.
'Piz,' she whines but Bettina finds her skirt, boots and bag. Hands ‘em to her and one look into Bettina's eye shuts that noise down.
The ex-priest himself is in a pair of boxers. He's cooking eggs. Brewing coffee.
'Lark, I know that you don't care for yourself very good so at least I can -'
Sees Katanya.
'Librarian.'
'She's working a thing with me. She's no, she's not official, like.'
Silence for a bit. 'Okay then! She can stay and eat breakfast with me. But, lady, you must know, if I am ever in trouble, I will expect you to remember Pizzalgo who made you eggs.'
'Yeah. You need a hand?'
Heads behind his kitchen counter. Two of ‘em both like to cook and take to the job like pros. Bettina follows me to the balcony and we light up.
'The Hollow.'
'Yeah,'
'I know - look, I know he's your boy but. Lark. No help. There's no help to give him. You saw him get up. Nothing human is left in him.'
'One more shot.'
'I don't - '
'Listen. Sutekh story. He doesn't like the Devil. Recognises him. Called him abomination. Don't throw around that kind of drama word without some feeling behind it. Put the two of them in a room, see what happens. Devil isn't gonna have an issue with Jon. Just the mask. Risks - sure. But I thought I'd have time, do some serious research.'
'But you don't.'
Nothing to say to that.
'One shot, Lark. One.'
'I know.'
'Then -'
'I know!'
Flick the butt down into the street.
'Come and eat!' calls out Pizzalgo.
Good food. Better coffee.
While we eat, I ask Pizzalgo a question. He lays it out.
'Stories about the Devil. Yes, I am seeing your thinking - but you must be understanding, I am an exorcist and I deal with imps and lesser bad spirits. But they are all, like, grunts. Like bully boys who serve the Boss Devil. Perhaps it is not even the imp's fault, I think. They trusted a boss but... you know, perhaps an analysis of Satan as the man who detourned a revolution simply to gain access to a pool of disenfranchised worker-angels is for another time.
Anyways, yes, this Devil, he's many things, even to a Catholic like me. You're right to say he doesn't exists, even though he clearly does. Is he the big enemy who Christ came down to save us from? He says so himself but, that Christ, he says a lot of things and it is hard for men like us to understand a Christ, I am thinking. The Devil, he says himself "I am who am not." That is how an Archbishop describes the Devil and I think it is clever. Is he mocking God, who is who he is? I think so.
God, you see, God isn't ambiguous. He's everything! This is what I think. But the Devil? He is such a thing of lies that there's not even the truth of him anywhere. I will tell you Lark, this Satan, he must be a sorry thing indeed. We should perhaps pity him, I am thinking.'
Feel the soreness across the back of my neck, my leg, my cheek. Pity.
'So yes! If your Devil is real, walking the earth, like we know he does, waiting out his time before the Outer Darkness... he isn't real. These things are... the counter indicate each other, is how it is said. So how do you know to deal with such a creature? I have an idea. Do you?'
I'm not new to this.
'Real, not real... What matters is how we relate to him, the idea of him.'
'Yes! And so, for a long time, we tell each other stories about him. Because, he is neither real nor unreal, he has no authority over stories. Because, what's better at being real and unreal than a story? '
Bettina doesn't like this. 'I don't get it.'
'I tell you a story. Little Boy who Cried Wolf. That never happened, right? Or maybe it did. Maybe it's exactly a true story. Who can say? How long ago? What kind of wolf? No one knows, no one cares. But its meaning is real. That's magic. It's the acting like it's real that makes it real.'
Frowns. 'Alright man.'
Katanya sips at her coffee. 'I only know one story where the Devil loses. One big, powerful story anyways. You ready to open up some Seals, Lark? Read for Whores of Babylon getting off with big-ass dragons?'
Pizzalgo likes this. 'This girl, she is funny, Lark. I do not think you are the kind of man to ride a horse and conquers world.'
No. No I'm not.
But Ava has a story. It's a family drama.
'I have an idea.'
'You must tell it to me but for now, I have too much coffee.' He stands, hits the bathroom. We can hear the piss hit the water. Who does that?
'What's the deal?' says Bettina.
'Ava mentioned a deal. A brideprice.'
'What's a brideprice?'
'Back in the day, you didn't get married for love, you got married because it was a good business play. Marriage is to ally your family with another family. You want a good mother from a nice home. Classy lady. You want someone keep your name going, give you healthy kids. So, what happens is, you buy one. Brideprice. Pay off the dame's family. Sometimes, you put a bit aside for her in escrow, in case you die.'
Bettina snorts her feelings on that. Katanya opens her mouth.
'Much as I'd like to redress historical wrongs to womankind through the centuries, maybe it ain't the time.'
Daggers from Katanya but Bettina nods. Professional.
'Which means, Scratch, he's in a story ain't finished yet. You reminded me of it, Bettina. Said your grandmother read you stories, right? You too, Katanya, with your dad's spooky ones.
Well, there's a lot of stories about the Devil. Aristide bought it home though. He's on the voodoo tip. His magic comes from a people in Africa called Yoruba. Interesting cats. Their stories are still alive. Gods like Ogun and Shango, they still tell stories of them today, but now, they drive down to the supermarket. Stories like that, never end. There's lots of stories about the Devil and his extended family.'
'So?'
'We go talk to Ava. See what can be done. Ask yourself though, lady like that, sand to make the evil run out of hell... Who fixed her brideprice? Ava said it to me herself. Part of what drove her into hell in the first place was her family life. Ask yourself, lady like Ava...what's her mum like?'
Must be terrible to be a story. To be trapped by narratives you cannot influence.
That eases a smile onto Katanya.
Just one problem though. Pizzalgo stopped pissing a while back and still hasn't come out.
Look at Bettina. Point to the door. She gets up. Walks over. Comes back.
She's tracking blood through Pizzalgo's carpet.
Just shakes her head. Draws a finger across her throat.
Goddamnit.
ii
Hollow. Playing stealthy games, putting the spook on us.
It's working.
No point in wiping down fingerprints. Too many. We'll be on camera anyway. Pizzalgo's piece will remember Bettina for sure. Look at Katanya.
'We walk out of here like nothing happened. No running. Bettina, pick up your shoes, no more blood tracks. We'll toss ‘em later. Cops investigate us, which they will, we give the magic enough help so it makes our story believable. We just went over for
breakfast. Happened after we left. Yeah?'
She nods. Alright. I grab a pen and paper from Pizzalgo's notes. He was working on a piece about forgiveness.
File out orderly.
Eight in the morning. No time for a man to die. Working hard not to glance over my shoulder. Jon's around somewhere. Pizzalgo didn't deserve that and yeah, I know deserve doesn't have anything to do with it.
Still, he didn't deserve it and, if I can, I'll answer it. If it's not too hard, says that voice that's always right.
Write down AVA as we walk along the street. Make a cool, spiky sigil out of the sharp letters of her capitalised name. Walk along the street with it in my hand, head clear, letting the magic letter drag me as it likes. The sigil has the scent, taking me where I need to go. We jump a bus, cut out fifteen blocks, heading north.
Midtown. Rich town. Boat shoes and khakis and floral print skirts. Strollers. The young and the aspirational, out for ethically-farmed, locally-sourced breakfasts. We don't fit in here so these people do what they do best and turn their gaze away. We might as well be soaked in hiding spells and all we have to do is look like hell.
Good thing about these people, they crave authenticity. They've gone to a foreign country or two. They've made a holiday in other people's hell. They love brushing up against the real world, getting a distant look at it, taking it home stories. Idiots should be holed up here in this paradise, never moving out for a second.
But no, they want to feel solidarity with people who'd kill them for a sackful of grain.
Use that fetish for the real, though. See, they all pamper their kids like they were dauphins. Buy them boring educational toys. Feed them vegan soymilk with their bran for cereal. Poor little bastards. Also, they don't buy them the tarted up 'commercial' folk tales the poor kids thirty blocks down get read to them by the lady on the TV. Say things like oh, I know, but Grimm's is really heteronormative.
Then they read what the real folk stories are like and keep ‘em on a top shelf. Big Bad Wolf did more than just eat granny. Bit of a bind for your modern parent. Feed the kid sugar or feed it salt.
But the book shops that sell those limited edition authentic collections of folk tales and books like that, they thrive here. What I need is easy enough to find. Ava gave me hints about her story. A mother, a Devil in a keyhole. Sigil leads me right to book I want.
Devil City Page 20