Redemption Song (Daniel Faust)

by Craig Schaefer

  The door jingled. I looked up to see a couple of college-age kids in pressed white short-sleeve shirts, black ties, and crisp black slacks. Mormon missionaries out to save the world. I didn’t give them another thought, until they sat down across the table from me like they belonged there.

  “Sorry fellas,” I said, “don’t need my soul saved, just here to eat.”

  “I’m Mack,” said the bigger of the two, his tight shirt showing off a weightlifter’s build. He gestured toward his pal, a pale kid with razor-cut ginger hair. “This is Zeke. We’re here to show you the road to salvation.”

  I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth. Most Mormons I’d met were nice folks who didn’t go heavy on the preaching once they knew you weren’t open to it. Apparently the locals here took a harder line.

  “Sorry, like I said, not interested. I’m trying to enjoy my meal here, and I’m sure the owners of this place don’t want their customers getting pestered, so—”

  I started to wave for the waitress.

  “Call that girl over here,” Zeke said, “and I’ll gut her like a fish.”

  I put my hand down.

  “Something tells me you two aren’t the finest of the Latter-day Saints.”

  “Call it protective camouflage,” Mack said.

  I stretched out my senses, slowly, trying to get a fix on the situation. Both of the men were human, but there was something off-kilter, like a dark blotch on their auras square above their hearts.

  “Did you really think we wouldn’t see you coming?” Zeke asked me.

  “Depends entirely on who ‘we’ is.”

  “It is our honor,” Zeke said, “to serve the court of the great Prince Malphas.”

  “You’re both human.”

  Zeke nodded, his chin high. “Our prince enjoys using human servants on Earth. We can go places that others can’t, unseen and unnoticed. Our work is part of our oath in service to our infernal master, Satan.”

  I nearly dropped my fork. “Say that again?”

  “Human servants, so we can go where—”

  “No, not that, the second part. The stupid part. You guys are actually Satanists? Like real, no-kidding, play your heavy metal album backward and bark at the moon Satanists?”

  Mack blinked. Zeke looked like he was fantasizing about killing me.

  “It’s not stupid,” Mack said. “We have a place of high honor awaiting us—”

  “Yeah, it is. It really is. So this is how Prince Malphas ropes you dopes in. Don’t suppose he’s told you that nobody’s even seen Lucifer in over a thousand years? He took a walkabout and never came back. Hell had a civil war when he left, geniuses. How do you think the whole feuding-courts thing came about?”

  “That’s not true,” Mack said.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Zeke seethed, opting to change the subject. “We know who you are, Faust. You’re Sitri’s lapdog. This is Night-Blooming Flowers territory. You don’t belong here.”

  I shook my head. “Technically, it’s not. This is the no-man’s-land between declared boundaries. Seeing as I’m driving right into the heart of Malphas’s turf, though, I’ll be nice and tell you that your information’s outdated. Sitri and me are quits.”

  “That’s not what we heard,” Zeke said. “We heard you’re his hound’s fucktoy.”

  I kept my face stony. I had a role to play and a lie to sell.

  “We’re quits, too. I’m persona non grata in Vegas right now. I’m looking for more gainful employment. Fact is, with all the blood on my hands, I’m as damned as a soul can be. So before I shuffle off this mortal coil and fall to the Great Downstairs, I need a new patron watching my back.”

  They gave each other uncertain glances.

  “Go ahead,” I told them. “Go tell your boss. I’m sure he’s got ears out west. He can verify everything I just said.”

  If they did check, they’d hear I’d been run out of town on a rail, lucky to escape with my life. Sitri would make sure of it. Only he, one other person, and I knew the truth of the plan we’d hatched last night. Everybody else would be clued in when the time was right.

  “We should still bring him in,” Mack said to Zeke, pitching his voice low.

  Zeke clutched a knife at his place setting. Just a butter knife, but he held it like someone who knew how to use it.

  “We should just kill him right now and be done with it,” Zeke hissed at his partner. Mack was smart enough to be worried. Zeke was blood-hungry. I’d have to take him down first, if it came to it.

  The duffel rested at my side, a comforting presence. I could have my revolver out and blow them both to hell in about five seconds flat, but that’d be a great way to get my face and my plates on every news broadcast and APB in the state. No, I needed to be smarter about this and keep things from escalating.

  I scooped up a forkful of pancakes a little faster than I needed to, putting an extra flourish into the move. Their eyes darted to the fork, and my other hand quietly dropped under the table, resting on the duffel bag’s zipper.

  “What you should do,” I told them, “is go report to your boss and stay out of my way. I’m not here to cause any trouble. I’m even bringing a gift.”

  “What gift?” Mack said.

  “That’s my business.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “They warned us you’d try to pull a fast one. You’re coming with us.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Mack grinned. “Look under the table.”

  I leaned over and took a peek. It was the chance I needed to unzip the duffel, slow and steady, and slip my hand inside. Sure enough, I saw the barrels of two snub-nosed .32s pointed my way. Pocket guns with a nasty kick.

  I whistled. “Nice chrome. Now it’s your turn.”

  Frowning, Mack peeked under the table. I showed him the Judge. His wide eyes, when he sat back up, told Zeke the score.

  “You’re probably used to hearing this by now,” I said, “but mine’s bigger than yours.”

  “Two against one,” Mack said. “You’ll only get one of us before the other one shoots. You can’t win.”

  “Can’t I? This is a game of numbers, Mack. Not the number of guns. Calibers. At this range, a gut shot from a .32 probably won’t kill me. Oh, I won’t be loving life, but I’ll be alive and conscious enough to squeeze this trigger twice. Now, you take a blast from my piece? You’ll be lucky if your spine’s still intact.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Zeke said, but it came out more like a question than a statement.

  I shook my head. “Here’s how it’ll go down. You’ll shoot. I’ll shoot. When the dust clears, I’ll be a torn-up mess on my way to a prison hospital. And you’ll both be dead. I don’t want that any more than you do, so how about we talk this out instead?”

  “I’m listening,” Mack said.

  Zeke shook his head. “He’s bluffing.”

  “Shut up, Zeke,” Mack said, then looked back to me. “We’re listening.”

  “First thing we’re gonna do is take this outside, so we don’t bother these lovely people. Guns in your pockets. Hands out of your pockets. Walk ahead of me.”

  I fished in my pocket with my free hand and tossed a crumpled twenty on the table. I slipped the Judge back in the duffel but kept my hand on the grip, clutching it through the open flap. Then I escorted my new friends outside and around back, to the Dumpsters behind the restaurant.

  Zeke slowed his walk, trying to close the gap between us. I did the same and kept him at two arms’ length.

  “Mack,” I said. “I know your buddy’s itching to jump me, and he’s not being subtle about it. Maybe you can talk some sense into him before this situation goes all Wild West?”

  “Zeke,” he said, an edge of warning in his voice.

  “He’s gonna kill us anyway,” Zeke hissed.

  “Nope,” I said. “I need you both alive. It’s a show of good faith for your boss. Now, Mack, I’m guessing you’re the driver. How about you dip two fingers into y
our pocket, fish out your car keys, and toss them over here?”

  I didn’t watch his hand. That would have been too much distraction, made it too tempting for Zeke to make a move. I watched his eyes instead. Mack tossed me the keys in an easy underhand throw, and I snatched them out of the air.

  “Good job,” I said. “Now, while you’re waiting for a locksmith, do me a favor and call your boss. Tell him what I told you. I come in peace.”

  “You’re gonna leave in pieces,” Zeke snarled.

  “Now, see? That was good. That was actually clever. Kudos on the wordplay. But seriously, guys, if you come after me again, I’ll kill you both.”

  Shooting Mack and Zeke would have been like killing a couple of staggeringly dumb puppies. I hoped the prince would yank their leashes and keep them from coming after me for round two. Besides, they’d given me a hell of a head start.

  I drove for three blocks and tossed their keys into a drainage culvert. Then I got back on Interstate 70, bound for Colorado.

  Twenty-Five

  There comes a point in every road trip when you know it’s time to get out from behind the wheel. The highway is too dark, the strobing white lines too hypnotic, and every song on the radio fades into a slurry of forgotten notes. I hit that point about an hour before I rolled into Denver, but I kept pushing. I turned the air-conditioning on full blast and froze myself awake.

  I pulled into an empty strip mall a little past one in the morning. Squeezed between a nail salon and a liquor store, a sign above a darkened storefront read “Blue Karma”. It was the kind of hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant you’d find in a hundred strip malls just like this one, with a faded paper menu taped to the window and a dusty Closed sign suction-cupped to the door.

  I scribbled “I’d like to meet” on a scrap of paper, folded it, and slipped it through the mail slot. Message delivered.

  I found a cheap motel up the road. They gave me a room on the first floor with a painting of pine trees on the wall and a mattress so stiff it could have been plywood. I didn’t care. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow, plunging into dreams where I drowned in a whirlpool while lightning tore the sky.

  The morning found me sore and restless. I pushed myself out of the stiff bed, rubbing the crust from my eyes, and froze as my bare feet touched the carpet. A business card lay just inside my door, slipped under the frame. I padded over and picked it up, pushing back the heavy curtains to let some light stream in.

  It was an ordinary business card, rumpled and worn at the edges, advertising the Blue Karma. I flipped it over. A message waited for me on the back, inked in a spidery, feminine hand.

  “Come to me.”

  A fat cockroach crawled over the lip of the card and climbed onto my thumb. I flicked my hand out, tossing the card and the roach to the carpet. The roach scurried between my feet, zigzagging and disappearing under the dresser.

  “Cute,” I muttered with a shudder, feeling like I needed to slap away invisible bugs as I stumbled toward the bathroom.

  • • •

  The strip mall was alive and bustling when I came back around ten. Solid citizens were out doing their shopping and taking care of their families, blissfully unaware of the monster in their midst. I almost envied them. I parked the Barracuda and tossed my duffel bag in the trunk. Where I was going, the gun wouldn’t do me any good.

  Cheap tables and chairs, like leftovers from a clearance depot, lined the Blue Karma’s tiny dining room. A glass case up front by the cash register offered tiny elephant statuettes and fifteen flavors of chewing gum. A short, mustachioed man approached me with a menu, then paused.

  “Mister Faust, yes?” he asked, his accent thick as chutney. I nodded. He pointed toward a beaded curtain in the back. Double layered, so nothing beyond the strings of heavy wooden beads could be seen. “You go back. She is waiting.”

  I thanked him and steeled myself, taking one last look over my shoulder. If I got this wrong, if I made one misstep, I’d never see the sunlight again.

  The hall beyond the curtain was too big for the building. I’d driven a slow circle around the strip mall, getting the lay of the land, and I knew there was no room for a thirty-foot-long hallway lined with black candle sconces. I knew there was nowhere for the hot breeze that ruffled my hair to come from, or the slowly building aroma of roasted, spiced meat. Yet here it was, and here I was, making my way deeper into the shadows.

  Another restaurant waited behind another beaded curtain. The real one. A restaurant where furtive figures crouched over tables made of ivory and cold brass, hiding their faces from the sparse candlelight. A restaurant where splashes of blood smeared the dark wood walls and roaches skittered across the stained carpet. As I passed, a reedy voice whimpered from a recessed booth.

  “Help me?”

  I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. The silhouette of a bloated man cowered in the dark, extending a fat, trembling hand with half its fingers gnawed to stumps.

  “Please,” he wheezed. “I can’t stop eating, and they keep bringing me more—”

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head and moving on.

  In an alcove at the back of the restaurant, the table was set for a grand banquet. Piles of meat steamed on tarnished silver platters, flesh and gristle and glistening bone. Rich, hot spices hung in the humid air and clung to the roof of my mouth. Behind the table, on a long plush divan, sat the lady of the house.

  She was an Indian woman in her late twenties, with skin like burnt honey and a wave of raven-black hair dangling down to the small of her back. Her nails were long and painted the color of old jade, matching her silk sarong dress.

  I stood before the table and inclined my head in respect. “Baron Naavarasi, I presume.”

  She smiled, flashing teeth a touch too white to be real. “Daniel Faust. You’re the talk of the town. I didn’t dare to hope that I was your final destination, yet here you are. Come. Sit beside me.”

  I walked around to join her. A tiny snake, its scales banded in scarlet and deep yellow, slithered out from under one of the serving dishes and wriggled across the table. Naavarasi patted the divan at her side.

  “Your tale is an all-too-familiar one,” she said. “Scorned in love, scorned in service, unappreciated, and cast aside.”

  “You’ve done your homework,” I said, sitting beside her.

  “As have you, I imagine. Tell me what you know. Tell me my story.”

  I nodded. “All right. For starters, you’re not a demon, at least not as I understand them. You’re a rakshasi, sometimes called the Devourer of Innocent Flesh, or the Lady of the Foul Banquet. Still, you’ve been an honored member of Prince Malphas’s court since the 1400s at least.”

  “Honored?” Her lips pursed in a frown. “No. Placated. Humored. Pandered to and spoken down to. Daniel, my realm was once a jungle, lush and verdant. The days were bright and rich with life, the nights marked by torchlight and screams in the dark, screams of agony and delight. My people spoke of caste, not choirs. Of pleasure and death, not the arbitrary rules of a bureaucratic hell. Can you picture it? That was my home, my children’s home.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Malphas happened. He annexed my realm. Conquered it. Brought me, as he puts it, into the fold.”

  She stretched out her hand, flipping her fingers out at the restaurant.

  “This is my jungle now, along with a miserable scrap of land in hell that I haven’t visited in a hundred years. This is my consolation prize, this and a filthy colonialist’s title. I needed no title in my home. The souls who resided there knew me as their goddess, their protector, and their tormentor. I was their entire universe. What is a barony, compared to that?”

  I knew all of this already. Sitri had briefed me before I left. Still, I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping my eyes wide and looking surprised.

  “A bum rap from a demon prince? I know the feeling. Sitri and Caitlin both got what they wanted out of me. Then they kicked me to
the curb.”

  Naavarasi’s fingertips brushed over the back of my hand. I tried not to flinch.

  “I know,” she said. “And after you’d done so much to help them. You can’t be blamed, falling for that woman’s tricks. You were on the rebound, after all, and after the breakup with Roxy you’d taken to drink.”

  Now my surprise was real. The rakshasi knew way more about me than she had any right to. It must have shown on my face, because Naavarasi chuckled and gave me a soft smile.

  “Oh, I know all about you, Daniel. I’ve been watching you for years, from afar. Not constantly, just…checking in, now and again.”

  “Why?”

  She reached to one of the plates and tore away a strip of smoked meat with her fingers. She tilted her head back and dropped it straight down her gullet without chewing, swallowing it like a snake.

  “I can’t tell you that, it would ruin the surprise. I will tell you that I debated, for a very long time, whether or not to intervene. Now you’ve left me no doubt.”

  “Intervene?” I didn’t like where this was going. I’d planned my approach well ahead of time, rehearsed and prepared myself for any complication I could think of. This wasn’t one of them.

  “We were made for each other,” she said. “Think about it. We’re both outcasts, outsiders, despite our power. We both labor on the edges of a system we despise. We both face the slings and arrows of ants who think themselves our masters. You’re a formidable sorcerer, but you need a patron to become your very best. Someone to teach you, mold you, aim your talents in the right direction.”

  I sat back on the divan, figuring out her angle. “And you aim to make a play against Malphas. Break free. Get your jungle back. To do that, you’re going to need arcane firepower in this world and in hell. It’s a dangerous gamble, and you can’t afford to lose.”

  Naavarasi picked up a small, covered plate from the table. I got the feeling she’d had it waiting for me. She’d prepared her sales pitch ahead of time, same as I had. She pulled back the lid. Inside was a collar forged from linked plates of hammered brass, inlaid with glittering rubies. Etchings of the rakshasi’s personal seal ringed the inner lining.