William had urged Chris, had pleaded with him to stop, but to no avail. Cityscape Signs survived another fiscal year, miraculously avoiding a full-blown audit from the IRS. But it wouldn’t last. And it crushed William to watch as the company was halved down to a skeleton crew over the following year. Two whole production lines were shut down in the factory, at the cost of six major distributor accounts.
As Rodriguez’s most senior employee, William had taken the brunt of every one of the man’s poor business decisions, inadvertently at least. Because as the company accountant, his name was on every page of those “cooked” record books. Rodriguez had threatened his job at first, but eventually had threatened his safety when William’s discontent became too much for him. Chris was only a wannabe mobster, but it didn’t take much money to pay a guy off skid row to stab someone in the kidney. Those had been Rodriguez’s exact words.
And now it was over. The intimidation and the fear were done. The company would likely carry on, maybe even with William at the helm, and Chris Rodriguez would spend the rest of his days in prison, guilty of not just embezzling money, but also his surprise involvement in a child pornography crime ring. Everything had been wrapped up nice and neat, just like William’s new friend had promised. He could hardly believe it. The man had come through.
William let out a deep breath and straightened himself upright in his seat. His car was parked far enough down the block that the police had not noticed him, but not too far for William to see the most fulfilling details of the action. Right now things looked to be over. Officers stood around with hands loosely hooked in their belts, chatting with one another. A few men climbed back into their cars, carrying Rodriguez’s computers in tow as evidence. A handful of others surrounded the front door, asking Chris’s wife questions. Crimson and indigo danced across William’s face, passing over him as it did the surrounding trees, houses, and parked cars. He put his car in Drive, flicked on the lights, and made a U-turn out of Chris’s block.
“It’s finally over,” he mused in equal parts relief and disbelief.
“A beautiful disaster is never truly over,” said a gravelly voice from the backseat of William’s Volvo.
At this, the forty-eight year old accountant clutched one hand on the steering wheel. The other, he slapped over his heart. The beating organ failed to seize, but William still felt its unappreciative protest. A stiflingly frightful moment passed before William realized that he recognized the voice. It belonged to the dark man. It belonged to the demon.
William looked to the rearview mirror. A good part of him was fearful to do so, but he couldn’t fight the compulsion. He had to look. Again his heart lurched at the sight of the man. His features were lost to shadow, or at least that was what William thought until he looked again and saw that the man had no distinguishing features at all. It was as if William’s eyes were incapable of deciphering the face, leaving behind a scrambled, blank image that William’s brain could not recognize nor remember. There was only a smooth, empty face, perched above midnight black clothing. If William looked closely he would have seen that a more appropriate description would be to say that the man was not just hidden among the shadows, but rather dressed in them.
William did not bother turning around. The dark man appeared to him only in reflection. If he spun around in his seat to examine the rear compartment, he knew that against all logic, he would find the seat empty. It was, however, far from empty.
“How did you get in here?” William asked timidly. “Have you been here the whole time?”
“I come and go as I please, William. You know that.”
William gulped hard, took another deep breath.
When the man in his back seat did not respond, William mustered up a dab of courage and cleared his throat. “I… suppose I ought to thank you.”
“There is no need for that,” the demon said. “We had an accord.”
“I can’t believe it,” William said. “You actually did it. I mean—not to sound ungrateful—but I had my doubts. Any man would have.”
“Ah, yes. Doubt. One of man’s numerous despicable faults. It’s amazing your kind has managed to survive this long.”
“What about the company?” William said. ”There’s nothing to keep Rodriguez from blabbing about the illegally cooked books. Can’t he use that as some kind of bargaining chip?”
“You watch too much television,” the demon replied. “Not only would these fine state police be disinterested in the affairs of the Federal number crunchers, but the man has nothing to gain by outing those little indiscretions. But, just to put your mind at ease, I will have you know that I personally threatened to pull out his tongue and make him eat it if he ever considered playing the part of the rat.”
“You—you saw him personally? Jesus, did you say my name?”
The demon spat with distaste. “Please refrain from using such fucking vulgarity in my presence. You’ve got work to do. And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not begin on an upset stomach.”
“Work?” William asked, wincing as he caught another glance of that empty, blurry face. Even without features, William could feel the demon’s anger. This was how the demon had presented himself before, in William’s midnight bathroom mirror: a shadow of a face radiating pure anger.
“Yes, William,” the demon said. “My end of the bargain has been fulfilled. You sought revenge and revenge I have supplied you with. Now it’s your turn to make good on our deal.”
“What deal?” William asked, hoping after he’d said it that it didn’t sound offensive.
The creature in the backseat emitted a snarl that made William’s hands sweat. He realized then that it truly was a beast, something wearing the hazy shell of a human but that was anything but. William dropped his eyes to the steering wheel and did his best not to cower.
“The deal we struck quite simply in your toilet room, William. I heard the call of your troubled mind through the vine of dreams, tasted the purity of your hatred and fear, and answered your plea for vengeance. My only price, as you certainly must recall, was the procurement of fresh light. You did hear me say that, did you not?”
William paused, crinkling his brow. Yes, he did recall hearing that peculiar phrase as he had stood there in shock, staring at his bathroom mirror after taking a midnight piss in the darkness. At the time he had thought the whole thing to be a sort of waking dream, an extension of his exhausted and weary mind. And then they had shaken hands, William extending his own right into the mirror to take the demon’s. He had winced and looked down to find blood flowing from a cut on his palm. When he’d looked back, the demon was gone. But the cut remained. Further examination in the morning revealed a circular pattern that had been sliced into the skin. It was a sigil or sort of seal, the size of a quarter and inscribed with intricate lines and circles.
“Fresh light?” William asked. A leaden weight took his stomach as he realized that the circumstance, his fortunate reprieve from his living hell, had not come free of cost.
“Yes, William T. Bellows. We had a gentleman’s accord. And while I have concocted a damnably clever solution to your problem, you must now do the same for mine. You owe me one fresh light. One untainted nefesh. One pure essence.”
“A—a what?”
“A soul, you filthy manling. You, William T. Bellows, owe me one soul. And I, being a swift merchant, have come demanding my fee.”
“A soul? You mean, you’ve come to kill me?”
William felt the last of his breath escape him and could not force himself to take another.
“No, William. What purpose would that serve? All my hard work down the drain? I think not. Besides, you are anything but pure. No, you shall be my vassal and my blade. You will deliver one succulently fresh soul to me or by all the legions of Hell I swear I shall burn your life to the ground.”
“But, you said you couldn’t kill me.”
“Look at your former employer,” the being said. “And then think of your wife. And
your two pretty little girls snoring away safely in bed. The little one, Lynette, is dreaming of you right now, of the two of you at the circus. Think of Rodriguez and think of them, William. I cannot kill…but I have no need to, because what I can do to you is much, much worse than death. So I will tell you this only once. Do not renege.”
“This—I can’t—you want me to kill someone for you?” William’s head swam as he said the words. “Oh, God. Oh, fucking God. Who?”
“Blasphemy is becoming on your tongue, mortal. And you’re finally catching up. You don’t have to kill anyone, you just have to start the ritual for me so that I may take them. Whom I take is entirely up to you, just so long as they’re pure.”
“You mean, like, decent?”
“No, I mean pure. I won’t say the word again. You know what it means. You’re just stalling.”
William swallowed. “Okay. Fine. How long do I have?”
The demon snorted beneath his breath. “I’m not confined to the laws of time like you pathetic humans. But if you want a deadline, then fine. You have one week.”
“And…” William clenched the steering wheel, and nearly missed an approaching stop sign. He brought the car to a screeching halt; the figure in the mirror didn’t budge. “And I just do some ritual? H…How?”
A knife was placed into his hand. When William pulled it out of its leather sheath, he saw it to be nothing more than a thin blade with a worn stone handle.
“Twist this into their stomach, and then kiss them upon the cheek. I will do the rest. And do not get aggressive. I need them alive to perform my end of the ritual.”
William let the knife fall into the passenger seat. “And… and how will I know I’ve made the right decision?”
“When you meet someone truly pure,” the demon said, “you will know it. You will feel it. I won’t need to tell you anything.”
“And…” William winced. “And if I do this, my life will just go back to normal?”
He awaited a response, but when he glanced in the mirror, the demon was gone. Regardless, William already knew the answer to his question.
Even if he did keep his soul, his life would never be the same again.
*
“William?” Grace asked, for the second time. “Are you hearing this? Can you believe it?”
William glanced up from his bowl of cereal, blinking away his thoughts, and said mindlessly, “Yes, honey, I told you before that I knew what he was doing.”
As his wife and his two daughters sat at the table, glaring up at the television with spoons perched below gaping mouths, William shoved another spoonful of cereal into his mouth begrudgingly and forced himself to eat, even though his stomach was protesting every mouthful. Had he looked up, he would have seen the headline, “Local CEO Busted For International Child Pornography Ring” along with Chris Rodriguez’s mug shot. But he was too preoccupied with the feeling not unlike a boulder sinking to the bottom of his intestines, dragging both his stomach and his heart into the depths of his bowels.
“You knew he was… into little kids?” Grace asked, the latter of her sentence said in a hushed tone.
William shook his head, and glanced up at the screen. There was Rodriguez’s face, being projected in his modest dining room, but the expression was unlike he’d ever seen it before. Chris’s hair, something he often spent hours preening just to get right, was greasy and disheveled. His eyes were heavily creased and bloodshot and his mouth limp, looking utterly defeated and devoid of its usual smugness.
William wanted nothing more than to savor that expression, to know that soon his life might change for the better, were it not for the churning in his stomach that told him otherwise.
“Oh. No,” he corrected, “I didn’t know he was… you know, into kids. I thought you meant the money laundering.”
“Of course I knew about that,” Grace said, and placed a hand on his. She uttered a laugh. “It’s all you could talk about for months, Bill, and I hated hearing about it. I know how much it stressed you out. But it’s over now. It’s… it’s like God answered our prayers.”
William’s eyes trailed up toward his wife’s, honey-brown pools framed by chin-length hair of the same color and bright purple cat glasses. She was smiling. Happy. Relieved. William smirked and held his tongue, though he did grasp his wife’s hand and give it a firm squeeze. The sourness in his gut only continued to pool.
“I guess you could say that, dear.”
“What’s child pornography?” their youngest daughter asked, after slurping up the last of her milk.
“It means he likes to diddle little eight year olds like you,” snapped Dana, their elder daughter, a spitfire of raging hormones and teenage angst.
“What’s diddle?” Lynette asked.
“Nothing,” Grace said, standing from the table and collecting her bowl. “And Dana, don’t talk to her like that. She’s too young to be hearing about that kind of thing.”
Dana shook her spoon at her mother. “I always knew there was something weird about him, the way he looked at Lynny while we were at those company picnics. The way he always wanted to play with her. That’s sick, mom.”
“Yes it is,” Grace said, as she dropped her dishes into the dishwasher, “but she still doesn’t need to know about it.”
“So what happens now, Dad?” Dana asked. At fifteen, she was the spitting image of her father. She was also very pretty, and many liked to joke that William made for a better woman than he did a man. “They gonna make you CEO or something? You’re next in line and Mr. Rodriguez is probably gonna be in jail for the rest of his life.”
Grace stood up from the dishwasher. “Hey, she’s right. What do you think’s going to happen when you go into work today?”
“I don’t know,” William said, as he pushed his half-full bowl aside. “And that’s what I’m worried about.”
*
“If you become the CEO,” Dana said, fifteen minutes later, from the backseat of William’s Volvo S80, “will you buy me a car when I turn sixteen?”
William grimaced. “That was what got Chris in trouble in the first place. Spending money that wasn’t his.”
“Funny, I thought it was diddling little kids.”
From the passenger seat, Grace threw her head over her shoulder and shot her daughter a glance. “Dana! I said to stop using that word. You’re going to make her start saying it.”
But Lynette, squirming in her seat with her book bag cradled on her lap, paid her elder sister no mind. “When I get to school, I’m gonna tell everyone that my daddy’s in charge of a big company, and he’s really important, and I’m so proud of him.”
That statement couldn’t help but tug a smile out of William’s lips, and it held in place even after he dropped her off at school and she hugged him and Grace goodbye. Only after he kissed his wife goodbye and dropped her off at her office did he feel it starting to slip.
“Dad, seriously, why do you look so worried?” Dana asked, now in the front seat with her arms crossed over her chest. “You’re freaking me out.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” William lied.
“I’m not stupid, Dad. You look anxious. Scared, even. You keep checking the rearview mirror like you’re expecting someone to slam into us from behind. I’m not stupid.”
As William peeled his eyes away from the rearview mirror, which still held nothing more than a boxed view of the side street behind them, he sighed.
“Your mother and your sister seem so convinced that I’m going to just waltz in there and be given the key to the city like I’m the new mayor of Cityscape,” William said, finding himself unable to meet his daughter’s steel glance. His eyes remained locked on the road, even if they weren’t really paying much attention to anything. “But this is a business, and a floundering one at that. There are protocols. Chains of command. For all I know, I could walk in there and find out that I’m unemployed because they decided to liquidate the company. And it doesn’t help that whatever ha
ppened, decisions have already been made. As of right now, I might already be unemployed. I just don’t know it yet. Thus, unbeknownst to me, I’m right now driving to my own firing squad.”
He glanced again into the rearview mirror and saw nothing.
“Look, Dad,” Dana said, as the Volvo came to a gentle stop along the sidewalk; all around them teenagers gabbed and giggled on their way to class. “I know I give you a lot of shit, okay? But you’re really good at your job, and they have to see that. If anyone can turn Cityscape around, it’ll be you. You’re a good guy. Everyone there knows that.”
Those words, ‘a good guy,’ stirred William’s heart. He turned to face Dana, soaking in her freckled face and auburn hair, and smiled. “Thanks, Dana. That means a lot. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I guess.”
“You’ll be fine,” she said, as she pulled the door open. “I’ll see you later. Oh and hey, can you give me a ride to youth group tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, thanks, Dad! Good luck!” She let the door fall shut, and as she turned to walk away, William pulled his car out into the street. He checked his rearview mirror once more, and again he saw nothing.
Was it all a bad dream? Had he just imagined everything last night? Or was the demon merely ignoring him, finding himself not obligated to babysit the accountant and hold his hand through this task?
Shifting in his seat, William felt the weight of the stone knife perched against his pelvic bone; he knew it to be the latter.
*
The Graveyard Shift Page 16
