Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire (39 page)

She greeted him with a hug and a wry smile. The scar on her cheek was healing nicely, but it still wasn’t one hundred percent. Angry inflammation still reddened the skin around it. Todd hoped her boyfriend, Jake, wasn’t the shallow type. It would be a while before she looked like herself again.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked.

“I’m holding up, Dad. How about you?”

He gave a dry laugh because it was all he could do. Her sympathetic smile held. She reached out, squeezed his shoulder. Her hand was warm and it felt pleasant where she touched him. She followed him inside and he closed the door behind her. He motioned for her to have a seat and offered her a cup of coffee. She sat and shook her head. They stared at each other for a long time before either of them spoke.

“Dad…”

“Katie… I…”

They exchanged awkward smiles. The separation had luckily been drama free. Todd wouldn’t have gone so far as to call it painless, it was a separation after all, but it had been mercifully quick. Regardless of how smooth it had gone, this was the first time he’d had a chance to sit and talk with Katie in a long while. He took a breath before speaking again.

“I’m so sorry about all of this.”

“You don’t have to be,” she said. “No matter what you were involved in, I don’t think you ever intended for us to get hurt.”

“You’ve always been the most forgiving member of this family.”

She dropped her eyes for a moment and shifted uncomfortably. Only one lamp shined in the room, and in the vague light, she appeared almost ghostlike, embraced by shadows. A grave expression crossed her face.

“I saw things when that man had Mom and me. Things I can’t begin to explain.”

Todd nodded slowly. Outside in the distance a coyote cried.

“Dad, who was he? Who was that girl?” She paused. “
What
were they?”

“I don't know if I can tell you.”

“You can,” she said. “You can trust me.”

He examined her closely. There was something haunting about her eyes, as if her experiences had given her a much grimmer worldview. It was a look that he’d come to recognize in his own eyes since losing Chloe again. To confirm, he asked her if she believed in ghosts.

“I can’t say that I don’t. Not after everything I’ve seen.”

He collected his thoughts, his memories, everything that he wanted to tell her, everything that he wanted to tell somebody. Even as he worked out what he would say, he knew how crazy it all sounded. When he looked into his daughter’s eyes, he felt she was beyond judging him, her outlook now far too complex to judge anyone for what they claimed as reality. He told her everything starting with the first time Chloe walked into his life at his concert’s after party, continuing with how he ran away when her issues seemed too big for him to manage. He told her how he and her mother ended up getting married according to the wishes of their parents, how after Chloe’s death he buried her memories and the essence of who he was in work and building a life that he thought he was supposed to lead.

“For the longest time, I repressed those memories, but then things started to fall apart with your mom, and I found myself thinking about those days more and more. I started thinking about Chloe more and more. The day you gave me that CD was when everything really changed. She came back to life.”

Todd tried to gauge Katie’s reaction to that statement, but she kept a poker face. Someone coming back from the dead seemed to have no effect on her.

“With her back in my life, I couldn’t let her go again. But I didn’t know how to tell anyone, so I ran. I never intended for you and your mom to be involved. I love you, Katie. You’re the best thing to have come out of the mess I’ve made of my life. I love your mom, too, but...”

Katie nodded. Her genuine understanding made her look incredibly mature to him. Flashes of the little girl she used to be danced across his mind and faded away. She leaned forward and squeezed her hand around his.

“So what now?” she asked.

Todd opened his mouth and closed it. He had no answer for her.

“I don’t know, Katie. I feel fucking lost… like…” He forced himself not to finish the sentence. What he had to say was nothing someone should ever hear from their father.

She pressed him. “Like what?”

“Like… I have nothing left to do but try to find her.”

She swallowed. He had a feeling that it was anger she was gulping down. He almost wanted to beg her to get angry with him, to really let him have it. At least then it would be honest. With her, he felt like he always got off too easily.

“I don’t want to see you give up, Dad. Do some soul searching. You’ve got plenty of time to do it now. I know you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for, but please don’t endanger yourself again. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do understand. Trust me. You’re in a lot of pain.” Her hand went to the scar on her cheek and he was reminded that the wounds inflicted on her were likely much deeper than physical. “What’s important is what we do in the face of the pain.”

“That’s why I have to try again.”

Katie got to her feet and hugged him. “Do what you have to do, but be careful. Whatever you decide, I’ll always love you, Dad.”

Upon hearing that, warmth bloomed in his chest. He walked her to the door. After she’d driven away, he shut off the lights in his house and sat there in the darkness until he plunged into the depths of sleep.

* * *

Todd dug through his closet. He pushed aside boxes of things he knew he would never look at again. When he found what he was looking for, he wrapped his fingers around it. He relished the feel of the smooth wood and the strings on the flesh of his hand. Lifting the guitar took considerably more effort than it used to. His back and shoulder came alive with dull aches as he carried it over boxes and into his arms. Dust had collected on its body and its strings were rusted. He took it out to the porch, set it in his lap and got to work restoring the instrument to its former majesty.

An hour went by as he polished, restrung and tuned. When he finished, the Gibson shined darkly in the cherry light of the setting sun. He set it down on his knee and leaned over it, gazing down into the cracks in the floor of the wooden porch. In that darkness, so many things lived and died, so many things he couldn’t see and never would. Even parts of the world like this, that were so close and seemed so small, were far bigger than he could ever understand. Understanding this brought bittersweet humility.

He put his fingers on the fret board. It was awkward, like touching an old lover for the first time after years apart. He bent, repositioned, adjusted until familiarity returned. He was gentle when he found and pressed down on the first chord. He strummed and let it ring. Though the guitar was an electric, it wasn’t plugged in. The music was soft, a subtle voice on the soundscape of the night. That was okay. He heard it; that was what mattered. Maybe she would too.

He recalled the patterns and progressions. He remembered the words. His voice cracked on the first line. Clearing his throat, he began again, from the top of “Blissfully Damaged.” By the end of the first verse, he was in tears, but he continued playing. It didn’t matter to him that his voice wasn’t as strong as it used to be or that his hands no longer had their dexterity. What mattered was that it was all he had to give now. He transitioned into “The Lie,” the inflections stronger, the emotion escalating. Minutes went by. A third song poured from him. Then another and another.

He cried for Anna and Dale, who never talked to him. He cried for Katie and her undying devotion that he didn’t deserve. He cried for Chloe wherever she was now. Above all, he cried for her to return.

Eight songs and his throat hurt. His fingers burned with strain. He expelled a sigh of exhaustion and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he raised his head to look across the moonlit field that stretched before his house. In the distance, the clearing gave way to thick woods. Crickets filled the air with their indifferent song. All of them chirped in sync with each other, unaffected by the outpouring of Todd’s soul. Just another night in the mountains. Nothing worth breaking their routine.

Todd looked farther into the woods, tracing the dark outline of the hill. The moonlight made everything appear bluish gray. A strong scent of pines hung thick in the air. He sat there, guitar over his knee expectantly, not even one hundred percent sure what he was expecting. He sighed again. For him, too, it was just another night in the mountains. Summoning her with his songs was no longer feasible. He’d lost the ability to do even that.

He started to lift the guitar off of his knee when his eyes caught a faint orange light glowing between the trees. It expanded and contracted like a fiery heart. He thought maybe there were campers on the hill. Probably not uncommon in this area. When the light grew larger, Todd sat bolt upright. From an insignificant speck, the orange expanded to a bright explosion that engulfed the side of the hill. A chorus of wails overwhelmed every other sound.

Todd’s breath caught in his throat and he clutched the guitar tightly, holding it in front of him like a shield. The flames grew redder, angrier. The wailing increased in volume. Hearing the cries of tortured billions Todd wondered if Hell had grown impatient with waiting and had come for him.

His mind, still unable to accept the new worldview, grasped desperately for other meanings to what he saw. Even though Chloe had given him a different understanding of the world beyond, even though he thought that maybe through his music he could conjure her, this still felt unbelievable to him.

The fire became a spiraling tower, growing from the side of the hill and licking the dark sky. Within the column, among bright orange bursts and black clouds of smoke, bodies tried to squirm free from the torment. Even from the distance, he saw the anguish in their features. Their wailing was amplified, as if from the world’s most powerful PA system, and the sounds chilled him to the marrow.

Run
, a voice in the back of his mind commanded.
Run away, now!

Quicker than it appeared, the column of fire shrunk and the crying stopped. Todd blinked several times, trying to make sense of what he’d seen. The hellish images were tattooed on his mind and the wailing echoed in his ears. Dread gnawed at him. Though he had hoped to open the door again, he now regretted it. What he’d seen made the idea of even the slightest bit of hope seem foolish.

The crickets resumed their song. The hillside was unmarked as if the flames had never been. Todd sat frozen in his chair, staring out into the night. He tried to reason that he had hallucinated the column and the tortured souls within, but the truth was that he finally knew the hell Chloe had described. It was enough to make the furthest depths of oblivion seem attractive.

From between the trees, Chloe stepped out. She wore the same black dress he’d last seen on her. She staggered as if in a drunken daze, but she was certainly alive. Her pale skin glowed with vital energy. As she came forward, a slight inkling of hope stirred within him. Despite all he’d seen tonight, he thought maybe salvation had come for him after all. A bitter notion that maybe she’d come to punish him for being unable to save her also rose and threatened to eclipse all optimism.

She came closer. Hope and fear vied for supremacy. Todd set the guitar beside him and leaned forward. He braced to get to his feet.

Closer.

Behind her, Samael emerged, running, his hands gnarled into furious claws. He gritted his teeth in determination. Chloe looked over her shoulder as he pursued her. She quickened her pace. He was inhumanly fast, but she was fast too. She ran at the speed of desperation.

As Todd watched the scene unfold, he was sure only of the fact that the last moments of his life were upon him. Hell had come to show Todd the breadth of its power, tormenting him with one last vision of the woman he loved before Samael caught her and tore her to pieces in front of him. Then Samael would come for Todd next, because Todd had dared stand in the way.

Chloe came fast, but Samael was faster. Blood red fire burned in his eyes. He howled with the joy of the hunt, as if he knew how it would all end. Flesh and fire would meet and the fire would prevail every time. Chloe was twenty paces from Todd’s porch, Samael a mere five paces behind her.

Todd had only brief moments to think. That small piece of hope apparently still lived within him. He asked himself what would happen if Chloe reached his porch, if the two of them entered his new house together.

He stood up and took his guitar in his hands. He held it over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Maybe his hope was futile, but at least he could say “fuck it,” and go out swinging.
Just because the hounds of hell have you cornered doesn’t mean you have to lie down and die
, words from one of his songs. Chloe was ten paces away. Samael was on her heels. He swiped forward with one arm. She ducked beneath him.

Seven paces. Panic held her face. Samael’s cries tore through Todd, somehow even more horrible than the wails of the suffering in the fiery column. Numbness spread through Todd’s hands as he tightened his grip on the neck of the guitar. Four paces and Samael was practically riding on her back.

Two paces.

Samael caught her and tore her to the ground. She screamed in violent, desperate protest. Her hands reached toward the porch, toward Todd. She grasped without purchase at the empty air. Samael roped his forearm across her windpipe. Chloe’s choked shrieks gouged at Todd loose from his stance.

He ran down the porch steps, the guitar raised high above his head. He screamed and felt his vocal chords shred, his chest explode. He swung the guitar at Samael’s head and it connected. The body of the instrument shattered in a blast of splinters, and the strings came loose, scourging the air. Blood and teeth burst from Samael’s head as the demon fell to the ground. Todd moved quickly, no thought to where the energy came from and no thought to the consequences of his actions. He jammed the last jagged piece of the guitar into Samael’s chest. Ribs cracked and hot blood splattered upon Todd’s face. In what felt like a single motion, he released the guitar, spun, and hauled Chloe up by the wrist.