Only the Devil Is Here

by Stephen Michell

  At that moment, the bathroom door was hit hard and the boy sat up, eyes wide. A series of loud thuds and bangs rolled across the wall and ended with a hard crash. The boy listened to the progress of the noise, trembling and holding his breath. He felt dazed and weak.

  A heavy slam against the floor in the other room shook the bathroom mirror. Fast footsteps crossed the room and then there was a loud crash of glass and breaking parts. The boy pictured the television hitting the floor.

  Slowly, the boy crawled out of the tub and squatted in the middle of the bathroom facing the door. The sounds from the other room had mostly stopped.

  The boy waited. His hands were balled into fists, but they felt small. He looked around the room for anything he might use. Finally he found an old, dirty toilet brush wedged behind the column of the sink. He pulled it out but it felt light and even more useless than his own fists. There was nothing else.

  He placed the brush on the floor and stepped on the bristled end and pulled the handle back over the edge of his foot and it bent and then the old plastic snapped. He looked at it. The plastic was dull. But he held onto it. Maybe he could use it to jab the man in the eye, he thought. He lifted the hem of his jacket and tucked the broken handle into the front of his pants.

  The bathroom door was pulled open, and the man entered. He breathed in big huffs and his clothes were wet and glistening in the parted light. His face was drenched in blood, particularly around his mouth and dripping from his beard. The boy moved away until the backs of his knees were touching the edge of the tub.

  The man turned on the taps in the sink and ran them hot, then splashed his face over and over and scrubbed with his nails at his beard to break up the already drying clots of blood. While he washed, he looked sideways at the boy.

  “How in hell did you get your hands free?”

  The boy said nothing. He could smell the tang of blood and that other sick scent that was almost sweet that he was learning was called death.

  The man splashed his face one final time and turned off the taps. He wiped his hair back. Lines of water ran down his face and drops sprinkled in his beard.

  “What’s that in the front of your pants?” he asked.

  The boy fidgeted. His face burned. Caught, he was terrified.

  “Give it to me,” the man said.

  The boy lifted the front of his jacket and pulled the broken brush handle from his pants and placed it in the man’s palm.

  The man studied it. “Were you planning to stick me with it?”

  Still, the boy said nothing. The man scrutinized the useless weapon, the cheap quality of the plastic, and then he broke the brush in two and tossed the duller end onto the floor.

  He held the sharper piece of the broken handle out in front of the boy. The tip was now raggedly pointed. It was a decent shiv.

  “Now listen to me,” the man said. “I’m not going to tie you up again. I need you to trust me now. There is nothing for you to go back to, so there’s no point in running from me. I’m the only one who can protect you.”

  “Protect me?” the boy asked.

  “There are people out there who want something from you. I don’t know how many, but there will be more.”

  “Are they mean people?”

  “Yes, they are mean people. Very mean.”

  The boy nodded earnestly and it seemed he understood about mean people.

  The man wagged the shiv in the air and said, “If they catch us again, you might have to use this. Here. Take it. Put it in your pocket and be ready to use it.”

  Slowly, the boy reached out and took the homemade shiv from the man. He held it tightly and examined the new pointed end and touched it with the tip of his finger. It was sharp. He put it in his pants pocket.

  “We have to go,” the man said. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “Evan,” the boy said.

  The man stopped.

  The boy was looking up at him. He said, “My name is Evan.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now you have to tell me your name.”

  The man stared at the boy. Then he sighed and said, “I’m Rook.”

  “Rook? What kind of name is Rook?”

  “My kind. Now let’s go.”

  They went through the main room, and Rook stepped over the wreckage of bodies and furniture. Evan stopped and stared. There was blood everywhere.

  Rook nudged him towards the door and then stepped back and pulled from under the overturned mattress his heavy coat, swinging his arms into the sleeves. Snow blew in through the smashed window and the sound of sirens carried. They went out.

  When they came down to the first floor, Rook stopped Evan at the stairwell door and looked into the foyer.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Dark blue uniforms. Holstered pistols.

  There were two police officers questioning the concierge. Rook listened through the door.

  “. . . So you said there was a man that came in here, and he had a kid with him?” said the taller of the two officers.

  “Yeah, there was a guy like that,” the concierge said. “A lot of people come in and out of here. There was a group of punks that came through a bit, looked around and left.”

  “They were looking for the man as well?”

  “How the hell should I know,” the concierge said. “They walked in, looked around a bit, and walked back out. Some people are just curious what goes on in here. Christ, if these walls could talk.”

  One of the police officers stepped back and removed his peaked cap. “Listen, we need to know what room the man and the boy are staying in. Are they still here?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Client confidentiality.”

  “Look you greasy rat-fuck, the only thing that’s going to be confidential is how many bones we’re going to break if you don’t cooperate.”

  “You just try it. I got cameras in here. You just try it.”

  The other officer put his arm in front of his partner. “The man is wanted for murder,” he said.

  Rook stepped away from the door. He was surprised that the police had found them already. After the fledglings, he had expected to be tracked by a special investigations unit of Michaelian Knights—witch hunters, as August called them. Given their absence, Rook was not unpleased with the situation.

  Down the hall there was a solid grey door with a horizontal push-release bar. A fading orange sign above read: Exit.

  Rook glanced once more into the foyer and saw the taller officer walking out to the street. The other remained at the desk. He took Evan’s hand and led him down the hall to the door. Pushing the release bar, Rook shouldered the door open into the night.

  A blast of cold wind pulled the door fully open and it swung back against the side of the building with a hard bang. Evan shivered. The police officer standing watch over the side exit stopped short with a stick of chewing gum halfway in his mouth. His face and hands were red from the cold. Rook saw him and saw only him. For a moment they were all of them completely still. Then the officer dropped the gum and reached for his pistol.

  Rook pushed Evan aside and the boy fell into a mound of snow along the side of the building. The cop’s handgun was halfway out of his holster, but Rook moved much faster. He crouched low and rolled, springing to his feet at the officer’s elbow.

  Evan heard the policeman’s panicked shout over the wind and it sounded fake and faraway like they were in a movie. Evan was looking at his hands, wiping the snow from them. Then he heard another cry and a bright flash lit up the night and he jumped at the gunshot.

  In the afterglow of the shot, Evan saw the officer gripping his right arm and a wave of terror went through him. The officer’s arm was snapped backwards at the elbow, the white bone splintering out from his jacket sleeve. His pistol dangled from his trembling hand, caught on numb fingers.

  As Evan watched, Rook gripped the policeman’s shoulder and struck him hard on the side of the neck, and the officer crumpled to the groun
d.

  Rook rushed back over to Evan and reached out his hand.

  Evan recoiled. All his earlier fear returned and he saw Rook as a hulking monster. A killer. He scrambled along the side of the building towards the open door.

  “What are you doing?” Rook said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  But Evan was beyond listening. He clambered to his feet and dashed inside the building, out of the cold and the dark and into the hall, starting to cry as he ran.

  In his head, he heard the gunshot again, saw the officer’s backwards elbow. He saw the bodies strewn across the hotel room. He saw his foster parents lying beaten.

  The wind roared behind him and everything was loud and terrible and unending. His mouth was open to scream but nothing came out. His breath was trapped in his stomach.

  Three more cops rushed down the corridor from the foyer towards him. The first stopped and grabbed Evan, while the other two continued past. Evan looked into the woman’s face, but could not hear what she was saying. His mind was back in another room, hiding in the closet.

  The officer lifted Evan into her arms and started back to the foyer. Over her shoulder, Evan looked down the corridor to the exit. The two other cops had gone out. The doorway was empty. A snow-swept space where Rook had been, as if the wind had blown him away or he’d never been there at all. Evan continued to stare down the hall, into the night, with a vacant look on his face. Fresh tears ran down his cheeks.

  Then he was moving away, bouncing against the officer’s shoulder.

  The officer carried him into the foyer and set him down in one of the lobby chairs. There were cops coming and going through the front doors, and the one that had carried him stood by his side. After a moment, a woman with blonde hair joined them and she knelt before Evan and dabbed at his tears with a tissue. Evan considered her and thought she looked nothing like Evie. Where was Evie, he wondered.

  Evie was dead. No, she wasn’t dead. He hadn’t killed Evie.

  The blonde woman started asking him questions.

  Evan watched her mouth open and close. But he said nothing and sat very still. He looked down at his hands. Someone wrapped a blanket around Evan’s shoulders.

  The woman left for a moment and spoke with another policeman and returned. She squatted in front of Evan and curled the front lock of her hair behind her ear and resumed her questioning. Evan’s ears started ringing. He heard a dull hum. Then—

  “Can you tell me anything about the man who took you?” the woman asked. “Anything he said? Anything that might help us find him? Did he say where he was taking you?”

  Evan said nothing.

  •

  After some time, two officers escorted Evan outside to a police cruiser. It was still snowing and it shimmered in the blue and red lights. Evan could see his breath. He looked up once past all the lights and the gathering crowd and for a moment he thought he saw Rook watching him, but it was only two, tall men in dark coats standing close together. He looked down at his feet. The police officers opened the back door of the cruiser and gestured for Evan to climb inside.

  Just as the boy was stepping from the curb, the two men he’d mistaken for Rook approached the car. Tall men, they both wore black wool peacoats with the collars turned up over their chins, and their hair was dark and neatly combed. They stopped short of the car and addressed the two cops.

  “Evening,” one of the two men said. His face was long and grey.

  “Keep it back,” said the officers.

  The grey-faced man reached inside the breast of his jacket and retrieved a leather-encased badge. “Special Investigations,” he said. “I’m Agent Clarke. This is Agent Gallo.”

  The second man reached inside his jacket and presented his own badge.

  “Special Investigations, eh,” said one of the officers, studying the badges. “Are you with the RCMP?”

  Agent Clarke replaced his badge and said, “We’re not at liberty to say.”

  At the edge of the police cordon, curious faces gawked. Cell phones flashed above their human sightlines. From somewhere a cop shouted, “Come on, keep it moving. Nothing to see here.”

  Agent Gallo reached for Evan and said, “We’ll take the boy from here.”

  “Hang on,” the officer in front of him started. “This kid’s part of a homicide investigation, you can’t just—”

  “Believe me, we can,” Clarke said. “This is much more serious. This child is a key witness in the investigation of a known domestic terrorist.”

  “Domestic terrorist? Oh give me a break. This is some Ottawa bullshit.”

  “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, here, officers.”

  “This is just . . .”

  Clarke said, “Think of it this way. You’ve done your part in this. It’s all one big process, and we’re all on the same team. You found the boy. Now it’s our turn.”

  Agent Gallo reached past the two officers and took Evan gently by the arm. The officers hung back, shaking their heads.

  “Don’t you worry,” Gallo whispered to Evan. “You’re more than safe with us.”

  Evan went along easily with the Special Investigations agents. Their hands were flat and gentle on his back. He glanced once more through the shimmer of snow and lights, but he saw nothing of Rook or any of the others.

  Gallo helped Evan climb into the backseat of their black SUV and closed the door. Inside, the seat was stiff and cold and smelled of the leather upholstery. The agents had not bothered to secure Evan’s seatbelt and he slid around freely. He felt light and he wanted to laugh. His breath came in a gulp that he held in his mouth before letting it out.

  It’s over, he thought. I’m free.

  Evan looked at the dashboard as Clarke and Gallo climbed into the front seats. A small, silver cross hung from the rear-view mirror. The doors locked with a loud click. Agent Clarke started the engine and slid the transmission into drive and pulled away from the curb.

  As they reached the intersection, the traffic light turned yellow. Clarke laid his foot onto the gas pedal and the SUV sped through the light, turning sharply left, and Evan slid across the seat. The shrill crying of car horns erupted behind them.

  They drove through the city in silence. Evan sat in the backseat and watched the windows shimmer and shift with electric lights, blurring green and red on the glass. He was feeling better. The car was warm. He fiddled with his fingers and filled his cheeks with air, letting his breath escape through puckered lips.

  They crossed a bridge and Evan saw railway cars and tracks covered with snow in the dark below. He slid to the other window and stared up at the CN Tower. He had never been nearer to it and the structure’s colossal impression made him feel truly small. He squeezed his fingertips, needing to hold onto something. But the tower’s round pinnacle, glowing purple, dazzled him. He smiled. Watching the playful lights, he forgot about the dark city and all the bad that was behind him. He felt good and safe, charmed by what seemed like magic.

  They went down a low hill and the CN Tower was lost to view behind rows of glass-walled skyscrapers. Then they turned and the engine revved and sped up, joining other cars zipping past the windows, and Evan heard the whoosh of each car as the white lights came up and shone straight at them and then away. He looked back to once more see the lights of the city.

  A ringing sounded in the car, and Evan spun with a start. In the passenger seat, Agent Gallo shifted and took his phone out. It rang even louder. Ring-ring-ring. It reminded Evan of living at the Centre, when the phones would ring in the night, after hours. The memory gave him a shiver.

  Agent Gallo looked at the phone’s bright screen and groaned, and then looked at his partner.

  “It’s Maria,” he said.

  Clarke glanced at his partner. “Okay, answer it,” he said.

  Gallo brought the phone to his ear. “Hello, Maria.”

  Evan could hear the woman’s voice, faintly.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Gallo, but she won’t go to sleep.
. . . Wants to talk to you. . . . Sorry, Mr. Gallo.”

  “It’s all right, Maria. Put her on.”

  “Of course, Mr. Gallo. . . . Then she’ll go right to sleep. . . . Here she is. . . .”

  Evan slid forward to the edge of the seat to listen. A car whooshed past the window as they changed lanes. From out of the phone came a small, soft voice.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hi, ladybug,” Gallo said. “You can’t sleep?”

  “No, Daddy, I want you to come home.”

  “Daddy’s working, right now, sweetheart. It’s late.”

  “I’m scared, Daddy. . . . There’s something outside my window. It’s scratching.”

  “That’s just the wind in the trees, sweetie.”

  “I want you to come home, Daddy.”

  “Hush now. I’ll make you a promise, okay? I promise that when you wake up in the morning, I’ll be right there beside you. But first you have to go to sleep.”

  “You promise?”

  “I cross my heart and hope to die. Now go to sleep. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  “Put Maria back on. . . . Hello, Maria? Let her know I’ll be home in the morning. No, it’s no bother. Have a good night.”

  Gallo put the phone away and sat straight and sighed. Clarke looked askance at him but whatever he thought, he said nothing. Evan watched them both, expecting one or the other to speak. After a while he slid back on the wide, leather seat. The car hummed warmly. He closed his eyes.

  Soon, he was asleep.