Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five

by Freeman, Jesse James

  There was something odd about the vessel, beyond its size — the more she looked at it the more she began to realize that it wasn't a typical airship. It was solid, a vast brushed nickel egg, completely metallic. Lissandra was no expert on blimps, but…

  “What is that thing?”

  Moon was walking up from the few troops she had left after sending them off in the direction of the small jungle. “That Lissandra, is my airship.”

  “That is no Hindenburg.”

  “You are quite right about that.”

  “How does all that metal float?”

  “Magic.” Moon smiled and began walking towards it.

  “That is not magic.”

  “Science is magic that works.”

  “Your riddles plagiarize Kurt Vonnegut now?”

  Moon stopped and looked back, “Oh you're right, that is Vonnegut. I didn't realize they had a library in the forest.”

  “I've seen a book or two.”

  “Books will bore you once you see what's written up ahead.”

  The two women walked through the sand and around the plane, Morta was close behind.

  “Why is she here, exactly?”

  “Because Lissandra, I have her father and his evil minions off on a mission.”

  “So we're babysitting her for him?”

  “Actually, you're babysitting her and I'm babysitting you.”

  “Why can't one of those useless soldiers of yours babysit her?”

  “They are not useless, how do you think you got out of Level 5? One of them had to carry you out. While running from a tentacle monster I might add.”

  “I'll have to thank him at some point.”

  “He didn't make it. We grabbed you though.”

  “Well, thanks for…” Lissandra's words just stopped coming out of her mouth when she saw it. She pointed, and Moon smiled, but still no words came.

  The dome of black rock stone. Polished and shining in the sunlight, sitting in its own little naked peninsula at the far end of the island. Lissandra stared, and suddenly didn't notice the vast floating egg in the sky.

  “My airship is starting to feel a little jealous, Lissandra.”

  Morta came walking up to stand between the two women. “So, it is real.”

  Moon nodded to the demon girl. “It is realer than real.”

  Lissandra felt a pull coming from the thing — for some reason she wanted to sprint to the big shiny black eyeball of the island and run her hands over every inch of it.

  “Moon, what is that thing and why do I feel so…?”

  “…weak in the knees? It has that effect on people like you.”

  “People like me?”

  “People with a gift for telling fortunes.” Moon raised her arm and pointed her black gloved finger. “That Lissandra is the greatest smoked crystal ball this side of the galaxy has ever known. Everything about everyone as far back as the beginning of the third age has an entry etched into it — somewhere.”

  “That's impossible.” Lissandra said the words, but she didn't believe them. She could feel it in her heart, and her gut, and her soul. “If you have that thing then why can't you just read it and learn anything it is you'd want to know?”

  “Because Lissandra, Billy Purgatory ruined it for all of us.”

  Lissandra found herself walking towards it, but couldn't recall telling her legs to start moving. “What could he have possibly done? We haven't had the conversation, but you realize that the man you seek is an unemployed, army dropout, half-assed car mechanic whose primary mode of transportation is still a skateboard?”

  “You get that he is completely unimportant in…” Lissandra looked back, but Moon was gone. Morta was standing where Lissandra had just left the two of them.

  “She went back down the beach. She won't tell you, but she's really sad to be here.”

  Lissandra couldn't even imagine something that could make Moon sad — she was an egotistical sociopath if one had ever existed. “What does she have to be sad about?”

  “This is where he died. This island.”

  “Where who died?”

  “Broom. He was the one who found it. He'd been here for years learning how it worked and how to read its language. He was the only one who knew how to read it, and Billy Purgatory killed him.”

  Lissandra scanned the beach and saw Moon staring out at the water. “So, that's why she's at war with Billy.”

  “No Lissandra, that is not why she's at war with him. You and I will finish Broom's work here. We will learn the language of the stone.”

  “Then why?”

  “She wants Billy Purgatory to die because she was in love with Broom.”

  Lissandra watched Moon standing all alone at the water. She loved something? How did this girl, Morta, know any of this anyway?

  “Because.” Morta answered without Lissandra speaking the question aloud. “You're not the only one with a gift for seeing what is not easily seen.”

  ~29~

  GETHSEMANE

  THE OLD SOLDIER TENDED HIS FIRE PIT and sat comfortably before its warmth, his legs crossed on the sandy floor of the open shed. The reclaimed wood and tin structure had never been gifted a proper floor, and the fourth wall, which would have closed it off from the backyard, had never been constructed. He had lived there off and on for many years, and how it had always been was exactly as it should be in his mind.

  Sometimes he would wander off into the woods beyond the fence, which was actually only half a fence since it didn't fully enclose the space behind the house from the woods beyond. He dug for roots mostly, but he also looked for fossils. He didn't find many fossils, and the ones he did find looked a lot like ordinary rocks. Perhaps he collected rocks, to be more precise.

  Rocks could be so interesting, though.

  More often than not, he stayed in the backyard, keeping his fire pit tended and watching the weeds and vines overtake most everything beyond his shed. He had never once thought to do anything about the overgrowth. It had been this way for a long time. He kept a neat and tidy swath in front of his shed cleared, but beyond that he liked the overgrowth, and the snakes had learned to keep clear of the Old Soldier.

  He viewed his home — with the missing wall that looked into an overgrowing yard — as a sort of living painting. He felt there was no reason to interrupt the cycle. It gave him much to contemplate, and contemplation kept him busy.

  He'd gone into the house two days before. He didn't venture in there often, but it had been considerably wet and windy, so he felt it was time to treat himself to a new jacket. He found them all hanging in the closet between the two unused rooms at the top of the stairs.

  He had noticed that someone had been there since he had last ventured in. Something was different. He realized that someone had knocked down a wall at the end of the dining room and revealed a door which led into what had been a hidden room. They'd made quite a mess in the process of doing so. A mess they'd not bothered to clean up.

  The Old Soldier decided that the secrets of that room had most likely been disturbed enough, and that there was nothing in there for him. As he slipped on his new jacket, he saw that a sledgehammer had been left sitting on the dining room table.

  “Billy Purgatory.” He shook his head as he walked back into the rain and the further tending of his fire.

  The sun had been out the days after that, but on the day of the conversation, it had become quite overcast once more. He found that odd, the weather changing to such a degree so quickly. He'd really thought the season's storms had ended.

  It was rare for her to leave the woods. It was even rarer for her to walk into the backyard. She had been a pretty thing once, but she was starting to show her age. It was easy enough for him to regard the beauty, even though he had given up on all those things that the admiration of beauty leads to a long time ago.

  “He has finally created enough chaos and made enough noise that they can ignore him no longer.” She spoke in her plain, yet commanding w
ay. As if every word from her lips was an official decree.

  She didn't leave the shadow under the elm tree. The Old Soldier looked over his fire to her. “Warm yourself.”

  The Goddess shook her head. There was a little slouch to her, a slight twist of her back. Her ears didn't look so pointy and her antlers not as straight. She had never put on the complete official airs with him. The young ones, her children — her worshippers, if you asked her — with them, she made sure her hair was done up and her makeup was on when she went to give them a sermon.

  “He's been in the house, can't believe I missed him.” Well, the Old Soldier could actually believe that he had missed him. He hadn't concerned himself with that kid since he'd been a little skateboarding boy. “Send your pupil after him. Doesn't she usually calm him down? Distract him at least?”

  Artemis made her face into disdain. “She follows another now. She is lost to me.”

  “After all you've done for her.” He said it flatly, and it came out more mocking than he'd considered it might, but he let the truth stand.

  Artemis turned her sour face to him. “I don't see what you find so amusing about any of this. They are coming for him, and where do you think will be one of the first places they'll look?”

  “Maybe they've already been here and I missed them too?”

  “Now you're being repulsive. When they do come here, it will be something that you cannot miss.”

  The Old Soldier looked to her and was struck that he didn't really recognize her anymore. The longer he looked, the less she resembled the lady he'd once known. “I have enjoyed our chats.”

  “You speak as if you're wishing me off on a voyage that you too are not about to undertake.”

  He reached for his bottle. “Are you sure you wouldn't care for some tequila before you go?”

  Artemis placed her hands on her hips and looked at him like he was mad as he took a shot straight from the bottle. “You mean to stay? You are old and foolish.”

  “True, I am those things.” He set his bottle back into the sand beside him. “But I'm also still pretty and I ain't dead yet.” He looked over the painting of the backyard that Artemis would soon erase her image from. “I also made a promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “If what you say is happening is really happening, then I'm not leaving. If anything, it's the whole reason for me being here in the first place.”

  “Then so be it. I am leaving the woods forever. Our last chat was my final stop.” She gave him a nod and the Old Soldier nodded back.

  The Goddess looked towards the trees, but didn't flee to them just yet. “What if I am wrong, and they don't come for him? Would you ever leave this place?”

  “How could I ever?” He reached for his bottle once again. “The yard grows higher and higher every day, right before my eyes.”

  “You're afraid you'll find her again if you venture too far from these familiar weeds?”

  “If I was to leave here or never leave it wouldn't matter. I'm destined to see her again.” The Old Soldier wouldn't allow himself to call up her face in his mind's eye.

  “You're the saddest creature, Soldier. The only I've ever met who is heartsick for being evicted from Hell.”

  She was staring toward the Old Soldier's eyes, even though he had them closed tight. Emerald points, rivers of red silk, lips that spilled lies.

  Salted tongue.

  “It's not Hell I miss so much, Goddess, it's the landlady.”

  II.

  There were helicopters just before first light. The Old Soldier had watched the troopers in riot gear rappelling from ropes into the woods behind the house. He knew then with all certainty that the Goddess was truly gone. They did the same sliding action down ropes suspended over the front yard.

  He didn't see any of them, directly — so far they were avoiding, or hadn't yet moved into, the back yard. Perhaps their tactic was to draw whoever they thought might be in the house to run out the back door and into the woods, so they could wait for them there.

  He watched the embers of his fire and tossed a few more logs upon it. He gave the fire a shot of tequila and the flames danced up towards his wrist. Then he gave himself a shot of tequila in case he decided to dance.

  As his eyes looked over the overgrowth of the backyard, he decided he would have another. “That was for you, backyard.” He raised his bottle from his shed and tipped his feed store hat towards it. “You have taught me much.”

  The weeds of the backyard did not answer him, they just glistened in the first rays of the morning sun through the clouds. The droplets, heavy on the weeds and vines, made many prisms in those first shafts, like the fireworks he'd seen spiral into the sky when he had been a boy.

  He could hear the front door of the house battered in. Windows broke. There were flashes of movement, the riot gear armor through some of the windows. Their guns aimed at the ready.

  There was no one to chase from the house into the yard. They would find no lost souls hiding in that place. Ulysses and the boy had both gone years ago — if they'd ever been back, and Billy surely had been at one point, the Old Solider had never noticed their coming or going.

  The sound of many boots interrupted the morning solitude that the Old Soldier enjoyed so in the yard. He knew that he would most likely never hear that sound of nothing he cherished so much, ever again. If there was a downside to what was taking place, it was that it would be loud from then on. Those who came to him that morning, and the boy they sought, only believed in gods that made a big noise in the world.

  The woman and her companions were not as heavily armored as the troops they had brought who had sailed from the helicopters. They wore windbreakers and bulletproof vests. They had badges and name placards on silver chains around their necks that swung when they walked. The Old Soldier did not move from his place drinking tequila by his fire pit.

  There was no need for him to move, they knew that he was there. They walked in a straight line across the yard, through the vines and weeds, until they reached the little place he kept cleared at the missing wall of his shed.

  She wore her hair long, and had it tied in a ponytail which fell down her back. It was blonde and the sun looked well spilling over it. He did not offer, but she did not ask, and the Old Soldier did nothing to stop her as she took a seat in the sand to his right. She too crossed her legs and sat as he did, and he felt it only fair to shift his body to face her.

  There were many men in the backyard. Most of them stayed back, as if the conversation he would soon have with the blonde woman was for his benefit alone.

  She had a very pleasant voice; it was deeper than he'd imagined it would be, but pleasant enough coming from her pretty face. She did not hold the lines that the Goddess tried so hard to hide in her own face.

  This woman's face was fresh. It seemed brand new.

  “What does F.B.I. mean?” The Old Soldier had his eyes affixed to the gold letters she had stenciled into her windbreaker above her left breast.

  She looked down at the letters herself, and then cast her gaze back to his. “It means Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  The Old Soldier nodded. “You are an investigator, then?”

  She shook her head. “Not quite. Those letters shouldn't concern you very much, old man.”

  She placed her fingertip into the sand and began to draw in it. She didn't get very intricate with her motions or the symbol it made. She didn't have to.

  From the Old Soldier's perspective, it was an inverted numeral five. “You know what this symbol means?”

  He nodded. “I have seen it before.”

  She smiled. “Good.”

  “I too have seen creatures like what you are.” He looked into those calm eyes on that new face of hers. To the Old Soldier's gaze, they had no color.

  “They're blue.” She smiled, using two fingers to indicate her lifeless eyes. “Most of them see them as blue.”

  The Old Soldier swept his eyes over the crowd a
ssembled in the backyard. None of them had color in their irises. “Most of who see them as blue?”

  “The humans.” She brushed the sand off her knees. “So, you know what we are? I can only assume that you know who we're looking for.”

  “I do know who you are looking for. I can tell you that if I knew where that someone was, I made a promise to his father a long time ago that I would not allow harm to come to him. I would not tell you a thing.”

  “Promises are delicate things. My kind has been promised much throughout the ages. I can tell you that not a single one of those promises ever revealed itself as a hidden truth.”

  The Old Soldier regarded a pop from the fire. “Then you should understand, even more than I, how unjust it is to break promises.”

  “So you don't tell me where the son is. I can live with that. Where is the father? Ulysses.”

  “That I don't know either.”

  “And…” She twisted her neck, it too made a pop. “…you wouldn't tell if you did.”

  “You understand much, for a thing which has wasted much time and energy on a fool's errand.” His hand swept across the assembled crowd. “This makes me think that you want something more of me.”

  “I do want more of you. You will happily give me that, eventually. First order of business, you're coming with me.”

  The Old Soldier raised a finger as she started to stand, and she stopped her motion and returned to his tired eyes. “Do you mind if I have a drink?”

  “Not in the least.” She motioned toward the tequila bottle in the sand. “Please, be my guest.”

  The Old Soldier nodded a thank you and took a long shot that finished the bottle. “I have one more request.” He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his new jacket.

  “I am listening.”