Devil and Disciple

by L J K Cross

  “Sssssssh,” he silenced, placing a long nailed but impeccably manicured finger on her lips. Amanda was stunned into silence. No one had ever dared shush her before. Amanda found that she had not the slightest inclination to retaliate. It seemed pointless to defy. Who the hell was this man, Amanda found herself wondering?

  “You must forgive my bad manners at not having introduced myself. I am Alexander Sokolenko.”

  How did he do it? How was he able to put voice to her thoughts, Amanda puzzled?

  “But my friends call me Sasha,” he continued. Amanda hoped that by friends he wasn’t referring to the three brutes outside. If that was the case, Amanda shuddered to think how hostile his enemies were. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “So I take it that you are Russian?” asked Amanda hesitantly. She had not picked up the slightest trace of an accent or inflection but was desperate to strike up a conversation and bring some semblance of normalcy to this strangest of evenings.

  “You are correct,” replied Alexander, again with a smile that appeared to both encourage and mock at one and the same time. “My main residence is in St Petersburg although my business takes me all over the world and means that I get to spend a lot less time than I would care to at home.”

  His business, mused Amanda. Exactly what type of business afforded such opulent surroundings pondered Amanda as she took in the outlandishly ornate decor and the excruciatingly expensive furnishings. Such thoughts were disturbed, in a seemingly deliberate attempt to distract, drown them out even, as the previously tranquil background music whipped up a frenzied cacophony that demanded attention. What was that infuriating racket, wondered Amanda? It was giving her a headache.

  “Mephisto Waltz No 1 by Liszt,” informed Alexander and at once the music lulled as if his voice had conducted a diminuendo.

  “Do you like it?” Amanda tried to think quickly of a polite way to respond. She was desperate not to offend but he didn’t wait for her answer.

  “Listen,” he demanded and Amanda did not hesitate to obey. She shut her eyes and on cue the tempo changed, softened.

  “Listen,” Alexander’s voice also became more soothing and assuaging, “Do you hear that intoxicating melody? That is Mephistopheles playing the fiddle. Listen to its seductive, captivating rhythm. What other choice does Faust have but to give into his wildly amorous waltz?”

  He was right, thought Amanda as she swayed in time to Alexander’s hypnotic voice, allowing the music’s tantalising rhythms to wash over her. There was no choice to be made. The combination was mesmerising. She felt powerless to resist. How could she possibly have thought of it as a raucous din? How could she have been so unenlightened, so uncultivated?

  Amanda opened her eyes and felt like she was truly seeing her surroundings for the first time. The room had become more illuminated, more expansive, more energised. The atmosphere now seemed charged, pulsing to its own heartbeat. Alexander himself had also stepped into the light and was stood on the far side of the room by the blazing fireplace. How had he got there without Amanda noticing? The thought briefly occurred to Amanda but was immediately incinerated from her mind, as she stood transfixed by the image before her. In front of the fire, Alexander glowed, grew, became galvanised, as if feeding off the energy of the flames that fanned around him in a frenzied state of worship. Any last remnants of sensibility, caution and control that Amanda was clinging onto melted in the heat as she walked towards his outstretched arms with blind, unquestioning faith. Utterly seduced. Shamelessly enamoured. Like a moth to the flame – an ever so willing sacrifice.

  The sanctity of his arms was exhilarating, an overload of the senses. The roaring heat of the flames made her muscles swell and surge with an insatiable passion. Just one look into his intensely deep smouldering eyes jolted her pounding heart into her throat, leaving her breathless and light headed. The room began to spin. Faster. More frantically. Twirling. Pirouetting. Flying. In time with the maniacal pace of the music they spun round the room. Waltzing. Whirling. Amanda utterly acquiesced in his arms. She was already dancing to his tune. She was the Faust to his Mephistophelian charm.

  The head spinning dance gradually began to slow. As the enchanting music faded off into the distance, Amanda felt herself being released somewhat reluctantly from its spell. Just for a few heavenly moments she reveled in the tranquil silence, relishing the brisk breeze that cooled her flushed cheeks and tousled playfully with her hair. Amanda struggled to open her eyes against the eye watering rush of the wind and the intense dazzle of a moon, so close it almost felt like she was flying across it. A witch cutting a spectacular silhouette to any insouciant stargazer far below who chanced to look up. From such a vertiginously high vantage point, the world below seemed so detached, so distant, such a stark contrast to the serenity and calm up above.

  “Wow,” uttered Amanda as her gaze scanned in one long lingering sweep the entire neon exuberance of Las Vegas. “It’s breathtaking,” she inhaled, as if wanting to draw in its energy and vitality.

  “It is just so exhilarating to look down and see all those people enjoying themselves, being care free and seeking pleasure wherever they can find it.” Intermittently, laughter bubbled up from the incessant, low rumbling of the life that was being played out below them. A high pitched, thrill seeking scream was thrown from some distant roller coaster as it plunged its cargo, happily, head first towards the earth.

  “You must feel like a King looking down on his kingdom from up here. It is such a rewarding sight,” reflected Amanda, wistfully.

  “No. No it isn’t,” he sighed. “It’s a sight I have grown tired of and come to despair. You would too if you had been viewing it for as long as I had,” he lamented.

  Amanda started to laugh politely, convinced that this was some kind of Russian attempt at good old British sarcasm but as she turned her gaze from the Strip below, she realised he was being totally serious. There was no mistaking the cruel, unforgiving glare of neon that highlighted every deeply drawn, dejected line that was etched on his heavy face.

  “There is nothing rewarding about watching mankind relentlessly seeking self-centred and empty thrills,” he continued. His tone was dead, devoid of emotion. It seemed sombrely resigned to the situation.

  “It’s a view I have come to find so sickening and saddening. It truly is Sin city. Behold, Man and his cardinal sins,” Alexander rebuked.

  As he spoke these words, Amanda flinched as a dark cloud seemed to pass over his face but to her relief she realised it was just a cloud passing in front of the moon, momentarily obscuring its brightness and clarity from the world below. If Amanda had not been so perplexed by Alexander’s observations, she may instead have been perplexed by the symbolism of that solitary cloud in an otherwise cloudless desert night sky. And yet despite Alexander’s obvious distaste for the view that spread before him, he continued to cast his omniscient stare over the Strip and he continued in his condemnation.

  “Everywhere is depravity. Everywhere is debauchery,” he spat. “Mankind has always been intent on revelling in his own lurid and unadulterated pleasure and yet remains blind to the true meaning of happiness.”

  Amanda was beginning to wonder if she had totally misjudged him and mistakenly been taken in by his powerfully hypnotic sexual allure, just as Rasputin had been famed to before, when in reality she was just listening to the fanatical ramblings of a religious nut. And yet he continued his preaching with cold, detached frankness, and without the slightest hint of any of the excitable agitation you would expect from a mad mystic.

  “I can see that you do not believe what I am saying. That you do not have faith,” he chided gently. “Allow me to show you and open your eyes.” Amanda followed to where his finger seemed to point and rather than widen, her sight narrowed, honing in on a couple stood amidst a raucous crowd spilling out from one of the many bars into the street. Suddenly, almost supernaturally, she viewed the couple with pinpoint, eagle-eyed accuracy. Her ears, now suddenly as sensitive
as an owl seeking out its prey in the night darkness, tuned into their conversation, over hearing every word despite them being several miles away.

  “Wrath,” Alexander informed her, although just by reading their body language it was evident that emotions were riding high between the two. Amanda fixated on the jugular vein that pulsated prominently in the man’s neck and observed the spit spraying vehemently from this mouth as he fired his words. She then flitted her eyes across to the woman, who was pointing, jabbing with pent-up rage, lethal talons, inches from the man’s face. Amanda’s hawkish eyesight also noted a fresh looking tattoo on the inside of the woman’s wrist, of the name Andy and a date only two weeks previous. Amanda couldn’t help but wonder if the warring couple was here on their honeymoon. If that was the case, she also couldn’t help but wonder how two people who now seemed filled with such spiteful hate could have ever been in love?

  “I knew I never should have trusted you,” screamed the woman, causing people in close proximity to stop, stare and knowingly nudge the person next to them. “Everyone warned me that I shouldn’t have married you.” The man laughed slowly and sarcastically and somehow managed to spray more spit.

  “I don’t know why you didn’t listen to them then. You usually do, you stupid cow.”

  “It is so much easier for humans to give into feelings of jealousy and rage,” remarked Alexander wearily and all too matter of factly. “They are not disposed to trust and show love.”

  “That is a pretty pessimistic view,” retorted Amanda gently. “Just because one drunken couple...”

  “Pessimistic but a perfectly accurate view of the world,” interjected Alexander.

  “Let me show you some more, seeing as you are still not convinced. Greed,” proclaimed Alexander as he swept his arm across the entire expanse of Las Vegas. “There is no better testament to man’s greed than Las Vegas. The whole town is dedicated to money. Everywhere it is celebrated, coveted, flaunted, revered. Look,” commanded Alexander. Amanda followed his finger to see a chauffeur deferentially opening the door of a black stretched limousine. From the limousine exited a leathery tanned gentleman with all the tell tale signs of middle age; expanded waistline, heavy jowls and receding hairline greased back into an irritating ponytail. He was accompanied by a blonde gazelle like creature who, seemed to be only slightly wider than the fat cigar that was hanging lazily from his mouth. It was difficult though for Amanda to get a good look at the woman due to the blinding glare that was reflecting off the obscene amount of ostentatious jewellery that adorned her.

  “The drug baron is King in this den of iniquity,” surmised Alexander.

  Although a distinct possibility that he had accumulated his wealth through the drugs trade, Amanda wondered how Alexander could possibly comment with such certainty. It was as if Alexander had omniscient knowledge. But he had not finished with his sermon just yet. Indeed, it seemed like he was only just getting going.

  “You may think that I am pessimistic, fatalistic even, but this world has made me so.” As Alexander spoke, Amanda looked deep into his eyes and felt she was looking back through the expanse of time, through all its tragic history.

  “Money is the only religion people worship nowadays. Their blind faith in money is unequivocally unquestioning. It gives them the one thing they so desperately seek –instant gratification and pleasure. In the Gospel of Matthew, didn’t the Son of God drive the moneylenders out of the Temple? Didn’t he chastise the thieves and admonish those who used the Temple to worship money rather than God during Passover? But where is he now?” cried Alexander, holding his arms aloft and looking out at the seething city below.

  Imbibed by the zealous passion of his words, Amanda looked back out over Las Vegas and saw it as if for the first time. He spoke with such clarity, such perceptiveness, such belief that she couldn’t help but be converted. But rather than be illuminated by the truth of his words, Amanda now saw the grim and dismal reality of Las Vegas. Gone was the neon that had until recently dazzled and delighted. Now as she purveyed the scene below she could only see its shadows, silhouettes and marauding murkiness. The neon no longer dazzled and delighted. Up here with Alexander, Amanda felt detached from the world below, and like him, she now viewed it with disdain. She now saw all its immorality and impurity for herself. She saw for herself the sloth and the gluttony as she surveyed the obesely overweight, lazily driving their mobility scooters into the ‘all you can eat’ buffets, hungry only to satiate their greed. She didn’t need Alexander to draw her attention to lust that shamelessly cavorted itself, as prostitutes flaunted their flesh provocatively in every hotel lobby. And yet despite being surrounded by an endless array of abundance and opulence, Amanda could see that the people below were still not satisfied. Everywhere she saw eyes full of envy, blinded by jealous hatred that could only covet and prevented them being content with their own lot. All were consumed with pride, driven purely by their own desires and oblivious to the needs of others.

  “I can see now”, exclaimed Amanda, almost euphorically. She had never before felt so exultant and did not want to ruin the moment with the one nagging doubt that continued to pervade.

  “You are so right Alexander,” she started hesitantly “I see that your faith makes you despair of the world and how materialistic it has become. I’d never looked at it like that before. But is it not hypocritical of you to be surrounded by all this wealth and then sit up here in judgement of others?”

  With his head bowed and grasping onto the balcony railing, Alexander’s shoulders started to shake, gently at first and then shuddered spasmodically. Amanda felt afraid. She was afraid that she had ruined such an epiphanic moment. She was afraid of the possible consequences of her impertinence. She was about to apologise effusively for any unintended offence she may have caused when she was stopped by a low, rumbling laughter erupting from between the hunched shoulder blades. Alexander turned to face her fully and Amanda could see the amusement he derived from her confusion dancing devilishly in his eyes. He took her hands in his so that both their hands encased the book he had given as a gift, as if they were swearing an oath on the Bible.

  “You misunderstand.” Alexander’s laughter died and was replaced by a sharp seriousness, made even more severe by the harsh reflection of the moon on his face.

  “I have no faith in religion,” he spat, as a demon would spit out holy water. “I do not believe in such fabricated fairy tales. Such fables are for the weak of mind, for sycophantic plebs.”

  Alexander took a step closer so that the black bottomless orbs of his eyes filled Amanda’s vision. Mesmerised, they pulled her in and she felt herself fall with every compelling word.

  “You and I, Amanda. We are different. We would never fall for such puerile mythology. I knew that as soon as I discovered your favourite book was ‘The Master and Margarita’ that you had a pragmatic, clear sighted view of the world, that you were way too intelligent and enlightened to fall for such ignorant naivety.”

  Amanda blushed, flattered that someone as powerful as Alexander held her in such high esteem. She had never really thought about it before but now that he mentioned it, she had been drawn to the book’s challenging originality. A voice inside Amanda’s head – a rapidly inflating ego – told her only those of sufficient intellect, a superior intellect such as hers, would interpret the book in such a way. She couldn’t prevent the pride beaming across her face. She saw this all-consuming pride reflected back at herself in the black mirror of Alexander’s eyes, blinding her to the lessons of Alexander’s sermon that he had spoken only moments previous. No one could have accused Alexander of not having tried to warn her but just like those in the world below, those who Amanda had condemned with supercilious disdain, she would fall prey to her vanity and the fragility of her ego. Just like Woland in the book, Alexander knew exactly how to play to people’s weaknesses. And just like Margartia, Amanda allowed herself to fall for his devilish trickery.

  “Think Amanda,” invited Alexand
er, “about when Woland showed Margarita a fragment of the globe. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” replied Amanda, eager to show off her erudition.

  “And do you remember what they saw? What cruel sight they stumbled upon?” he urged.

  “They saw a house reduced to rubble with a dead mother and child lying beside it.” The relevance of the question was lost on Amanda. Again she couldn’t help but feel a burgeoning pride in answering his question correctly.

  “Then you will also remember Woland’s interpretation of the scene – that this is the harsh reality of the world. A child who has had no time to sin is not spared from cruelty or death. Why then should you waste your time worrying about God and living a moral, righteous life when God allows such atrocities to happen?”

  Amanda had always thought that the book was referring to atheism in Communist Russia and the evil of Stalin but she did not speak up. She did not want to appear stupid and diminish Alexander’s opinion of her. She didn’t dare correct him. Not when he spoke the truth.

  “So you see Amanda, the only reality is life. The only thing that matters is the here and now. You cannot be held back by your fears. You cannot live your life according to fabricated rules designed to hold you back.”

  Amanda found herself imbued, believing wholeheartedly in every single word Alexander uttered.

  “Doesn’t the book say that Cowardice is the most terrible of vices?” asked Alexander rhetorically. “You need to have courage. Believe in yourself and your dreams and pursue them at all costs.”

  “I can help you Amanda. Let me use my wealth and power to give you the one thing you want more than anything, the one thing you have sacrificed all your life for.” The temptation tumbled off Alexander’s tongue with every word but Amanda needed little cajoling. Immediately her head was filled with visions of flashing light bulbs and rapturous applause. The prestige. The adulation. The swelling feeling of pride was a mere flutter of a heart beat away. Instinctively she gave voice to her ultimate ambition. For the first time she felt courageous enough to say it out loud.