The Devouring

by T. M. Wright

  "Uh-huh," Spurting said. From behind him he heard the sound of running feet. He looked. McGuire was closing fast on them. Spurting waved urgently at him. McGuire veered off to the right. "Damned rookies," Spurling said to Officer Mathilde.

  Mathilde smiled and nodded.

  McGuire came up behind Spurling. "What's up?"

  Spurling nodded urgently toward the doorway.

  McGuire asked, "Is the perp in there?"

  "Perp?" asked Spurling.

  Mathilde whispered from the other side of the doorway, gun drawn now, "He means 'perpetrator,' Detective."

  "What perpetrator?" Spurling asked.

  McGuire answered, "The one in there, the one inside."

  "He means the woman," Mathilde whispered.

  And the three of them heard another low groan from within the building.

  Spurling called, "Are you all right?"

  Another groan.

  "You in the building; are you all right? Are you hurt?"

  Silence.

  Spurling sighed. "I'm going in there. Cover me."

  Mathilde nodded. McGuire nodded.

  And Spurling launched himself into the building. He tucked, rolled, came up on one knee, gun pointed into the darkness. He heard a shuffling noise just ahead, as if someone were moving toward him across the huge room. He strained to see, but the fading daylight filtering into the building showed him little; he'd have to wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he realized. "Stay right where you are!" he bellowed. He saw a shift in the darkness, a quick dull flash of green. "Stay right there!" He glanced quickly back toward the doorway. "Mathilde, McGuire, come in here." f He heard them move through the doorway.

  "Jesus, it's dark in here," -McGuire said.

  "Flashlight," Mathilde said, and moments later McGuire shone the strong white beam of a flashlight into the darkness.

  And caught the midsection of a tight green dress. He raised the flashlight. A woman's face—huge brown eyes, full red lips—appeared. These words, velvet and sensual and inviting, came from it: "Welcome, welcome. I have need of you."

  ~ * ~

  The Following Day

  Item from the Buffalo Evening News

  Psychic says: "Watch out, Buffalo"

  Nationally acclaimed psychic Ryerson H. Biergarten said yesterday that a "psychic storm" is brewing in Buffalo and that residents would do well to keep their doors and windows locked.

  "I'm not sure of the focus of this storm," he explained. "I can say only that I have sensed extremely powerful forces at work in the underbelly of this city, and that these forces, if allowed to gain a foothold, could cause a great deal of trouble."

  While he apologized for seeming to be an alarmist, Mr. Biergarten said it is the first time in his career as a psychic investigator that he has made such a pronouncement. "This psychic storm seems to be the result of the commingling of a number of psychic influences—all of them very, very real," he added.

  Asked to characterize the source of this psychic storm, Biergarten apologized yet again and explained that the only word that came to him would, as he put it, "play havoc with my credibility, although I believe that in this instance it describes very real and very dangerous entities."

  That word? "Demons," Biergarten said.

  ~ * ~

  The Same Day

  Item from the Buffalo Daily News

  Bizarre Incident on Baldridge Street

  Authorities are still investigating the police shooting of Benjamin Bloom, 16, on Baldridge Street yesterday afternoon. According to Tenth Precinct Captain Jack Lucas, Bloom was shot by Officer Isaac Mathilde while Bloom appeared to be in the process of attacking an unidentified woman. That woman is alleged to have attacked, in turn, 33-year-old Lilian Janus, of Buffalo. Mrs. Janus is listed in satisfactory condition with severe facial lacerations at Buffalo Memorial Hospital.

  The woman allegedly attacked by Benjamin Bloom is still being sought at this time. She was last seen in the Arnsworth and Peacock Street section of the city, an area commonly known as "The District."

  A connection between this incident and a murder on Lawrence Street has definitely been ruled out, according to Captain Lucas.

  ~ * ~

  Captain Lucas leaned back in his desk chair and put his hands behind his head. "Enlighten me, Mr. Biergarten," he said, "just what sort of demons are you talking about?"

  Ryerson, who was seated in front of Lucas's desk, answered, "I can tell you only what I saw, and how I interpreted it."

  "You mean in this 'vision' of yours? I'll bet you have lots of visions, right, Mr. Biergarten?"

  Ryerson sighed. "Can you forget your animosity for just a moment? I'm trying to tell you that your city is in trouble, for God's sake—"

  "And do you know that I could have charges of incitement filed against you, Mr. Biergarten? What in the hell did you go to the newspapers for?"

  Ryerson ignored the remark; he began, "Captain, there are indeed, as I told the reporter, entities in this city—"

  Lucas came forward suddenly, slapped his hands hard on the top of the desk. " ‘Visions’,’entities'?!—for Christ's sake, man, you sound like you've got rats loose in your head!"

  Ryerson asked pointedly, "Why did you let me in here to talk to you, Captain?"

  The question took Lucas aback. He stared at Ryerson for a few moments, then he stammered, "Well, Jesus ... somebody's got to keep you in line."

  Ryerson shook his head. "No. You let me in here because you know that what I'm saying is true, because you know that these ... these entities I'm talking about are real—"

  Lucas pushed himself to his feet, his face beet red from anger. "I want you out of my city, Mr. Biergarten! I am ordering you to get out of my city!"

  Ryerson calmly shook his head. "You don't have that right, Captain, and you know it." He stood, winced against the psychic onslaught of Lucas's anger, went on. "What have you got now? Four people dead? Five? By the time the week is done, that number will probably triple."

  Lucas pointed stiffly at 'the door. "Get out!"

  Ryerson nodded. "We'll talk again," he said. And even as he said it, he read again, as he had during their first meeting, something within the man that shamed him so much he hid it even from himself. And he read this, too: The man did not look ahead. His outlook on himself was very, very limited. Most people thought of themselves not only in terms of the past, but also in terms of the future—what has been, and what will be, so the picture that presented itself to Ryerson was usually very broad. Not so with Lucas. Ryerson could see only half of the picture. Only the past. And he wasn't at all sure why.

  ~ * ~

  Benny Bloom's surgery had gone well and he was recovering in a semi-private room on the hospital's second floor, near the maternity wing. He'd already received a lot of get-well cards and they festooned the area around his bed. On a small roll-about table there was a cute card from his playful Aunt Greta ("Hospitals," it read, "are okay if you don't mind," flip the page, "surly nurses, doctors with bad breath, cardboard food, basic beige, a morgue in the basement, going broke to get well—and that reminds me—get well soon!") and near it a handmade card from his Uncle Floyd, who wrote miserably confessional poetry for various small literary magazines, and around those two, arranged in a neat semi-circle—Benny had a wide streak of orderliness—there were half a dozen cards from classmates at Buffalo Pierpont High School, where he was a senior much liked by the high honor roll crowd.

  On the floor, again set up in a semi-circle, were six more cards. One was from his mom, who'd written on the envelope, "To my little boy—may he feel no pain," another was from a great-aunt who saw herself as something of a homey, if confusing, philosopher; her card went on and on, in her own hand, about the rightness of suffering and pain, "if only," it proclaimed, "as a state of looking backwardness and gaiety yet to come." Benny took pleasure and consolation from all these cards. They told him that there were lots of people in the world who cared about him, regardless of the
fact that he was more than a little odd.

  He said now, to a young nurse named Carlotta Scotti, a tall, olive-skinned brunette who had only recently earned her R.N., "You're not surly at all, Carlotta."

  She looked bemusedly at him. "Thank you, I guess," she said.

  He nodded at his Aunt Greta's card. "That card says nurses are surly. But I think you're great." His voice was strong and sure, although the rest of him was still weak from surgery.

  "I think you're great, too, Benny." She put one hand below his right shoulder, the other on his right thigh. "Do you think you could turn over just a little bit?" she said, and, with his help, she turned him so his buttock was exposed. "Hold it there for just a moment, Benny."

  His head was turned away. She heard a strange, soft giggle come from him.

  "We're not going to be using the needle today, Benny."

  "I don't mind needles," he said.

  "Well I do," said Nurse Scotti, smiling at his machismo.

  "I really do think you're great," Benny said.

  "Quiet now," said Nurse Scotti.

  Another strange, soft giggle came from Benny, a little stranger than the first, a little less soft. "That didn't hurt at all, Carlotta," he said.

  "I haven't done it yet," she said.

  "Do it then," he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Detective Guy Mallory threw back his head and downed a small glass of Genny Cream Ale: he followed it immediately with a shot of whiskey. Then he leaned over the bar and nodded grimly. "Yes," he said to Detective Spurling, "I'd have to agree, Andy; that was just about the nastiest thing I've ever seen."

  Spurling harrumphed. "You think what you had to deal with was nasty! Jesus Christ, that thing we found—"

  "It's amazing Lucas could keep it out of the papers."

  Spurling shrugged. "Why not. Just a wino; nobody cares about winos." He downed the rest of his beer. "Probably a half-dozen dead winos in there."

  "I wouldn't be surprised," Mallory said. He grinned. "Well, at least you guys found something."

  "Oh, gimme a break," Spurling growled. "What do you think I am—an amateur? I knew what I was doing in there, and like I told the captain—shit, there was nothing to find. Except that damned wino. And a thousand rats."

  Mallory's grin froze on his face. "What are you getting so hot about?"

  Spurling nervously sipped his glass of Michelob. He grimaced. "This stuff doesn't taste the same as it used to," he muttered. He glanced at Mallory. "Sorry. I guess I've been a little on edge lately."

  "Yeah," Mallory said, "tell me about it."

  Spurling shrugged. "I haven't been sleeping, you know? And I ain't had no appetite, either. Nerves, I guess." He took another sip of the Michelob, grimaced again. "Everything tastes like the stuff that wino was covered with smelled. Maybe that's why I ain't been eating." He pushed the glass away from him on the bar. "How's your partner doing? She on the mend?"

  "She'll survive," Mallory answered, "she's tough—maybe even as tough as she thinks she is." He smiled, pleased by his observation. "That damned kid sucked her blood? Did you know that?"

  Spurling nodded. "Yeah, I knew it. Jesus." He put his hand to his stomach.

  Mallory said, "Hey, you okay?"

  "Sure." Spurling closed his eyes tightly, in pain. "It's this damn beer, I think—I don't know." He took his hand from his stomach, sighed in relief. "It comes and goes, Guy," he explained. "Maybe I got an ulcer or something."

  And Mallory said, "I think you've got wormy winos on the brain, Spurling."

  ~ * ~

  The uniformed cop who shot Benny Bloom was a twenty-two-year veteran of the forcenamed Isaac Mathilde. The name, which suggested gentleness, sophistication, and learning, did not suit him on the job, when he climbed into his tough-as-nails, don't-mess-with-me character. But when he left work, and went home to his books, his flowers, and his cats, it fit him beautifully. He even looked the part: he was thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed, smooth-faced, graceful-looking. That side of him—his gentleness, sophistication, and learning—was in agony. He'd requested and had been granted a week's leave of absence because of that agony and now, at 10:30 P.M., five days after the shooting, he was sitting in his shade-darkened living room with a small glass of Grand Marnier in hand and Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun on the stereo. It suited his mood of guilt and self-doubt. It fed it.

  In his twenty-two years on the force, he had never before even drawn his gun, let alone fired it. And now he had come damned close to killing some kid with the unlikely name of Benny Bloom, who, it turned out, was only trying to be a Good Samaritan.

  And who in God's name had given him, Isaac Mathilde, the kind of power that had allowed him to step in and make a snap decision that had nearly ended Benny Bloom's life? Who had given him that power, who had authorized it, what moral right did he have? Who had let loose the foul creature who'd been strutting about for twenty-two years as if the world were answerable to his whim and his weapon?

  And why, in the past three days, had he found that creature so terribly strong within him?

  One of Isaac's cats came into the darkened room. The cat was a small and sleek Siamese whose favorite spot was on the wide mantel over the fireplace, five feet up from the floor. The cat eyed the mantel, settled back on its haunches, and leaped.

  "Good Samson," Isaac said, as the cat lay down on the mantel and began cleaning itself with slow and graceful deliberation.

  Isaac took another sip of the Grand Marnier, then poured some more from the bottle on the delicate cherry table near his chair. He'd never gotten drunk on Grand Marnier before and he wondered if it was even possible to get drunk on it.

  But hell, what did it matter now?

  On the mantel, Samson began to purr loudly. Isaac lifted his glass to him: "To all the sleek and sophisticated cowards in this world, Samson. To you and me!" And he downed the Grand Marnier in one swallow.

  Then he lifted his .38 from the table near his chair, put the barrel into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  ~ * ~

  At that very moment Lilian Janus was saying to her reflection in her bathroom mirror, "Well, you were never that beautiful anyway." Then she immediately turned away from the mirror and began to weep.

  From the bedroom adjoining the bathroom her husband Frank called, "Lily? Are you all right?"

  She nodded, face in her hands, left hand covering the bandages that swathed that side of her face. The doctors at Buffalo Memorial had made a heroic effort to sew the skin and the ear back, but had warned her that the probability was she'd lose the ear, and that since the skin over her cheek had suffered too much trauma, she'd probably have to have skin grafted from her thigh, instead.

  Lilian Janus was a passive, unassuming, gentle person. At thirty-three, she was the mother of twin seven-year-old boys, and a ten-year-old girl. She belonged to the PTA, the Buffalo Arts and Crafter's Club, the Young Republican Women's Club, and she regularly submitted "Life in These United States" anecdotes to the Reader's Digest, hoping to make a quick $500. At least twice a month she wrote letters to the editors of various newspapers in the area. She wrote about zoning laws, leash laws, massage parlors, and Bingo games, which she described as "ill-disguised gambling schemes." She had a part-time job as a cosmetics salesperson at Sibley's Department Store.

  Her husband appeared in the bathroom doorway. He was a muscular, hairy, handsome man with a cleft in his chin and a twinkle in his eye. He was dressed only in a towel, which he held at his waist. "C'mon, babe," he said, "it's not as bad as you think. So you lose an ear?" He was, of course, trying to be flippant, and therefore comforting. "You can still hear out of it; that's what the doctors said."

  Lilian let her hands drop slowly. She blubbered, "Whether I ca-can hear out of it doesn't make any di-difference, Frank. It looks ugly!"

  "So you cover it with your hair. You've got nice hair, Lily." He let his towel drop.

  Her mouth fell open. "What are you doing?" she whis
pered.

  He shrugged. "Hell, I thought we could make love. It is Thursday, you know."

  "No, it isn't. It's Friday."

  Again he shrugged. "So? Who says that just because it's Friday we can't make love? You want to know the truth, Lily?"

  "The truth?" She put her hand to her stomach.

  He nodded vigorously. "The truth. And the truth is, I like you ... uh, like that."

  "Like what?"

  "Like that. In bandages."

  "You like me ..." She winced against the sudden pain in her belly.

  "In bandages," Frank repeated. "I like you in bandages."

  "I don't understand," Lily said. "I don't think I want to understand." She glanced at his penis. "Please, Frank, cover that up, would you?"

  "You never asked me to cover it up before."

  "Well, it was never so . . . so obvious before."

  "That's because you were never so appealing before, Lily."

  With her left hand she again covered her stomach, where the pain had redoubled. And with her right hand she reached out and slammed the bathroom door shut. She did it so quickly, and took Frank soby surprise, in fact, that the door slammed hard into his erection and he screamed in pain.

  Seconds later, his voice trembling with anger, and with pain, he pounded on the door. "Open up now, Lily! You open up now, or this door's coming down. And that's not a threat! That's a promise!"

  "Frank, please, she pleaded. "I don't feel well. Please go away. I'm sorry I hurt you." And even as she said the words, she realized that she'd been right all along, that what she'd suspected these past twelve years of her marriage to Frank Janus had been true. He was a lecherous, unseemly, brutish dolt, and she deserved far, far better.

  ~ * ~

  For Ryerson Biergarten, the act of making love was an unpredictable experience, as it is for everyone. There were good times and bad times, and the bad times were always better than no lovemaking at all. And there were times when it looked like bad or just so-so lovemaking was going to happen and it turned out to be great, and there were times when what looked like great turned out just so-so. Such things could never be counted on.