Victoria's Demon Lover (10 page)

     She flipped the pages to the
list of demonic names.  He had never told her his name.  He would not. 
According to the book, a demon’s name held its power.  Naming one gave you the
power to summon it, and if you could hold it, you could demand a favor.  If you
could not hold it, then it might take you to Hell.  This was the reason most
folks did not care to play with demons.  They did not play fair, and you never
knew who might show up if you mispronounced an ‘e’.

     She stood and held her book
against the moonlight coming through her window.  The pages nearly glowed, and
she could read the words easily.

     She was careful to draw out
the vowels and to sing them loudly.  She was careful to roll the r’s.  She was
careful to keep one eye on her chalk circle.

     “Not careful enough.”

     The voice was heard before she
could see the demon.  It did not materialize in her circle, but on her bed. 
She snapped the book shut.  The voice was wrong.

     This demon was in the form of
a woman.  Victoria looked again.  A harpy.  Not a woman.  This demon had
leathery black wings that protruded from each shoulder blade, and when the
demon smiled, her lips were black and her teeth pointed.  She crouched on the
end of her bed, perched like a cat on a limb, her long black hair hung down
over each naked breast.

     Victoria sniffed delicately. 
The harpy smelled like rotten eggs being burned on the stove.  She tried to
smile back.  “I’m sorry to disturb you.  I am a beginner at this.”

     “Obviously”

     “I am looking for someone.  He
is hard to find.”

     “I know.”

     Victoria brightened.  “You
do?”

     The harpy nodded as she looked
around Victoria’s bedroom.  The leather wings slowly unfurled, and though the
harpy did not fly, she used the wings to move herself from the bed to the floor
with one flap.  Victoria stood.

     The harpy opened one of her
drawers and pulled out a nightgown.  She shook it with her taloned fingers and
examined it with interest.  She put it down and fingered the perfume bottles on
the dresser, then moved to the closet with little click sounds of claws on wood
and began to rummage through Victoria’s shoes.

     Victoria cleared her throat. 
“Uhm.  Well.  I am looking for him.  I don’t exactly know how to find him.”

     The harpy did not turn
around.  A silver pump flew over her shoulder and landed on the rug, followed
by another.  “You have to know his name,” came the muffled reply.

     “I know,” Victoria sighed.  “It
once was ‘John’ and ‘Jack’ and ‘Marcus’ and …I don’t know.  He was a Viking. 
Maybe ‘Thor’ or something.”

     The harpy cried, “Ah!” and
stood up straight.  Her wings unfurled again in pleasure and she held up
Victoria’s old pair of red trainers.  “This is the price!”

     Victoria couldn’t help but
glance at the demon’s feet.  The harpy’s legs ended in birdlike claws.  Hardly
the kind of feet to fit into athletic shoes.

     “Well?”  The harpy looked at
her with eagle eyes.

     “Of course,” Victoria agreed. 
“They are yours.”

     The harpy did a little
birdlike happy-dance on her talon feet and hugged the dirty gym shoes to her
breasts.  Then she bent down and put them on.  The talons became human feet and
she slid them into the shoes without socks.  The harpy tied the limp laces and
stood straight, admiring them.  She lifted them one and then the other. 
Victoria could not help but think that now the harpy would not be able to land
on any trees.

     When the harpy was finished,
she looked straight at Victoria and said, “If you do not know his name, you
cannot summon him.  You have to go look for him.”

     Victoria opened her mouth and
closed it again.  “Go?” She asked.

     The harpy pointed a sharp
finger at the chalk circle.  “You want him?”

     Victoria did not hesitate. 
She had already weighed the possibilities.  She thought the blacksmith and the
Roman, not the fiery ram horns.  She thought of the sad Viking with scar on his
neck.  She thought of how he looked at her when she was a slave girl and how
tenderly he touched the small of her back when they watched Jack and Maggie on
their wedding night.  She remembered every shuddering orgasm.  She remembered
the way his voice sounded when he called her ‘Maggs’.  She remembered how he
had said, “help me”.  She stepped into the circle.

     The harpy had her by the upper
arm and jerked her painfully away from the yawning canyon that opened at her
feet. “That one often gets the newbies,” she said.  “It’s good to have a harpy
or other winged demon to help at first.”  She nodded meaningfully at the chasm.

     Victoria took a deep breath
and looked around.  Hell appeared exactly as she imagined, like parts of
Arizona.  There was not a green thing to be seen.  From horizon to horizon
there was nothing but red and black rocks, mountains and canyons.  The sky was
red and black as well.  It was hot.  She grimaced.  The harpy nodded.

     “You are doing this,” she
said.  “Hell always looks like what you imagine.  I am surprised yours is
unpopulated.  Usually that means the person doesn’t believe in an eternity of
punishment.  When I bring Christians down here they imagine one crowded with
people, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.”

     Victoria looked sat the harpy
demon.  “You mean I can cool it off in here?  With a thought?”

     “I wish you would.”

     Victoria concentrated on ice
and snow and it appeared.  The harpy shivered.  “Maybe not that cold.”

     She closed her eyes and
imagined a spring day.  Not too hot, not too cold, with a light breeze.  She
opened her eyes and the red and black were not so harsh.  She even saw a tree
in the distance now, and the ground was soil instead of rock.

     The harpy nodded.  “Good. 
Much better.”

     “How do I find…Jack?”

     The harpy raised its
eyebrows.  “I negotiated a trip, not to be a guide.  What?  Do I look like
Virgil?  You will have to find Jack yourself.”  The harpy’s wings spread and
with two heavy flaps she flew off across the canyon, the red trainers visible
dangling beneath her as she disappeared.

     Victoria spread her hands in
disbelief.  “Fuck.”

     “OK.”

     She startled.  Down by her
knees was a tiny demon, more like a monkey than anything else.  It had big
round eyes and long spidery fingers.  Its skin was black and shiny and it had
hair where monkeys have it and nowhere else.  Between its legs was an erect
penis, way too big for its body.  It smiled at her.  “You offered,” it said.

     “A figure of speech,” Victoria
countered.   “It was not a suggestion.”

     The penis wilted.  “I saw the
harpy.  She has new shoes.”

     “Yes.  She does.”  Victoria
began to walk toward the tree in the distance.  The demon trotted beside her.

     “I can show you around.  Did
you bring more shoes with you?” it asked hopefully.

     “No.”  The tree was as good a
place to start as any.  She wondered if it was any relation to the one that
grabbed her through the window.

     “Oh.”  The demon was silent
for a moment then added, “I work for other things.”

     “I am not going to fuck you.”

     “Oh.”  He trotted silently beside
her until they reached the lone tree.

     Victoria looked up into its
branches.  There were no leaves.  It appeared to be an oak based on the bark
and the way the branches spread.  She saw no face on the trunk, or any sign
that it might be alive…alive in a demon sort of way, not a tree sort of way. 
The little demon beside her looked up at it as well.  The stood there in
silence for a long time then the little demon spoke.

     “My name is Jasper.”

     Victoria looked down with
surprise.  “You are just going to tell me your name?”

     He nodded.

     “Why?”

     “I saw the silver pumps in
your closet.”

     Victoria turned from the tree
and looked closer at Jasper.  “And?”

     “Give them to me and I will
help you.”

     “I don’t have them with me.”

     “Give them to me when you
return.”

     “Done.”  She held out her hand
to seal the deal, but Jasper frowned.  She said, “You shake it to agree.”

     “Oh.”  Jasper looked at his
own tiny hand with the spidery fingers.  “We usually use blood.”

     “Oh.”  Victoria looked at her
hand.  “How?”

     Jasper took her hand and bit
her pinkie finger with his needle teeth.  It hurt.  He bit his own finger and
smeared the two fingers together.  Victoria felt his demon blood mix with hers
and it burned like lemon juice in a paper cut.  She winced.

     “There,” he said.  “I get the
silver shoes.”

     “I find Jack, or Marcus, or
Thor.  Whatever his name is.”

     “Right.”

     “Now,” Victoria looked around
Hell.  “Do we walk?”

     “Never.”  Jasper squeezed her
hand.  “Tell me what Jack looks like.”

     “He is tall.  His hair is dark
brown…he is strong with broad shoulders and arms like…” Victoria stopped.  Her
demon changed form constantly.  “He is also a Roman soldier.  Shorter and
sturdy.  His thighs are thick and corded from marching and climbing and
running.  His arms are strong from fighting and rowing and digging.  He is
dark, tanned from the sun, has dark hair and dark stubble that never seems to
be shaved smooth.”  She sighed, “And sometimes he has lighter skin and blond
hair and icy blue eyes looks like he lives in Valhalla.  That one is sad, and
each of them has a large scar here…” she touched her neck.

     Jasper jumped.  “A scar
there?”  He pointed to his own neck.

     She looked down, hopeful.  “You
know him?”

     “There are many with scars
from their human lives.  Most erase them or change form to hide them, but I
know one who openly wears a thick scar on his neck.”

     “Show me.”

     Jasper squeezed her hand and
the landscape around them disappeared.  They reemerged in a more earthlike
setting, wind and sky and trees…and a battle.

     They stood on a small rise,
again beneath a tree, but empty cultivated fields spread out before them to the
horizon.  Two armies on foot collided near a small stream.  Victoria heard the
screams, the shouting and the clash of metal on leather and the sickening thud
of bodies falling to the ground.  She put a hand to her mouth.

     Jasper nodded.  “War is Hell. 
There is a lot of it down here.”

     “He is in there?”  There were
hundreds of soldiers.  They appeared to be Romans and Gauls.  She knew from her
history books that this war had waged for many years.

     “Yes.  He is always here.”

     “Am I supposed to go down
there?”

     “I wouldn’t.  I’d wait until it
was over and then walk among the dead and wounded.”

     “I don’t want to find him dead
or wounded.”

     Jasper looked up at her.  “Why
didn’t you say so?”

     “Why should I have to say so? 
I am trying to find him alive.”

     Jasper stared at her.  “You
are in Hell.  No one here is alive.”

     He was right.  Victoria
realized she was searching for a dead man.  He seemed warm when he lay on top
of her.  His cock was warm.  He seemed to draw breath when he spoke to her. 
His hands were warm when he touched her.

     “It is the warmth of Hell,
“Jasper reminded her gently, “not the warmth of a heartbeat.”

     Victoria wiped at her eye. 
“Am I dead now, too?”

     Jasper shrugged.  “Your body
is lying on your bed.  Anyone seeing it would think you are dead, but when you
go back you can get into it again.”

     A long scream interrupted
them.  She turned back to the battle.  “When will it be over?”

     “It is never really over.  But
this phase will end soon.  We should wait.”  Jasper sat down and Victoria did
too.

     There was no nightfall. This
place seemed to have an eternal hazy glow of a cloudy twilight.  They waited
what seemed like an hour.  Finally battle was over. For now.  No one had won. 
The survivors had gone back to their camps.  Only a few men wandered among the
dead and the moaning.  Some looted the corpses; others put the gravely wounded
out of their misery.  Jasper tugged at her hand.  “Let’s go.”

     She followed him down the low
rise to the stream and picked her way among bloody bodies and pieces of
bodies.  She swallowed and reminded herself that none of this was real.  She
pretended she was walking on the set of a horror movie and that the blood was
really paint and the intestines and livers and hearts were from a stockyard. 
It didn’t work.  She bent to retch into the glistening gut pile at her feet but
nothing came out.

     “You can’t puke here,” Jasper
whispered.  “Because you don’t have a body that eats here.”

     “It feels like I do,” she
groaned.  “And it smells like I can.”  The smell of many eviscerated men was
indescribable.  She bent to retch again.  Her stomach twisted.

     “You are not going to find him
if you spend your time feeling sorry for yourself.”

     Victoria could not even take a
deep breath to clear her head.  Instead she put her hand to her nose and mouth
and took careful steps.  At least she could keep from slipping on some man’s
pancreas.  The grass was treacherous and soon she could not even look at the
battered faces for Jack’s, or Marcus’ or the nameless scarred Norseman she
decided to call ‘Thor’.  She stood still and looked up at the red and black
sky.

     “You said you wanted to find
him.  You said you would look for him.”  Jasper’s voice held a twinge of
accusation.  Perhaps he felt the silver pumps slipping away from him.