The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (Mammoth Books)

by Paula Guran

  I looked up at him. I had never seen fear on Ivo’s face, and I hated the way it made him look. He said, his voice barely a whisper, “Oh, Kyle, I am so sorry. Oh, my beloved, I never meant to hurt you. Here, come with me. I know what to do.”

  I let him lead me to the bathroom, let him wash the burn with cold water – his hands now barely warmer than mine – let him smear it with some ointment that he got out of his overcoat, a crumpled tin tube without a label. He wrapped my arm then, carefully, lovingly, in strips torn from an old shirt of mine. I was aware, all the while, of his eyes returning again and again to my face, of the anxiety he could not conceal. Finally, when he was done, he released me and stepped back, his gaze fixed on my face with such a naked look of pleading that I could not meet his eyes.

  The pain had cleared my head; at least for this moment, I could both be with Ivo and think about him. I said, “What are you?”

  “Kyle, beloved, please.” He tried to smile. “I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “What are you, Ivo?”

  I saw then that he would not answer me. Before he could choose his lie, I turned and walked past him, out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, out into the living room, buttoning my shirt with stiff, trembling fingers as I went.

  “Kyle?” He followed me. I realized that I could hear the click of his toenails on the parquet floor, like a dog’s. “Kyle? Where are you going? What are you doing?”

  I found my shoes, my coat, my keys. “I need to think,” I said, without turning back to look at him, and I left.

  I walked for hours through the empty, night-haggard streets of the city. I neither noticed nor cared where I went, and if I had happened to fall in the river, I would have been glad of it. Perhaps because it was night, I found that I could remember Ivo, could piece together isolated, stranded thoughts that I had been having and forgetting for weeks: his eyes; his nails and teeth; the fact that I had never seen him either blink or sleep; the scent of viburnum that always surrounded him; the heat that he could only imperfectly control; the way he watched me, as if I were the only thing in the world that existed; the way I had become – I flinched from the word, but I knew it for truth – addicted to him. I remembered that after the first time I had seen him, my hands had dragged down the Demonologica from my shelves. And I knew.

  Had I, I wondered, ever not known?

  I stopped at last, in one of the city’s many small parks; I sat on a bench and wept as I had not wept since I had been caned at the age of thirteen for mourning my mother. It felt as if, not only my heart, but my mind and soul and spirit were broken, lying in shattered pieces around my untied shoes. For a long time it did not seem to me as if I would ever find the strength or the courage to leave this bench, and it did not seem that there would be any point in any action I could take after I stood up. There was no point in anything.

  But I knew what had to be done. I had read Wells-Burton and everything he had to say on the subject of incubi. The fact that I would rather have ripped my own heart out of my chest and left it for the crows was not relevant. I reached down with fingers that felt like dry twigs and tied my shoes; then I stood up and walked home.

  Ivo was waiting in the living room. He had been crying; his eyes looked raw and hollow. “Kyle!” he said, coming toward me. “Kyle, you came—”

  “You aren’t here, Ivo,” I said, hanging up my coat. “You never have been.”

  He stopped where he was, his hands still outstretched, his eyes widening with horror. “Kyle, what are you talking about? Kyle, don’t you—”

  “I know what you are, Ivo. You aren’t here.”

  I walked through into the bedroom. He trailed after me. “Kyle, please, what are you saying? You know I love you. You know I’d do anything for you.”

  “You aren’t here,” I said again. It was almost four o’clock. I took off my clothes, put on the pajamas I had not worn since I had invited Ivo into my apartment and my life. I dragged the covers back and lay down on the bed, on my back, as stiff and comfortless as a medieval Christ. I stared at the ceiling. I could hear Ivo crying, but he did not come near me.

  We stayed that way until seven o’clock, when I got up. I showered, shaved, dressed. My burns were already healing, thanks to Ivo’s ointment, but I could see that the scars were going to remain with me for the rest of my life, as sharp and pitiless as a morgue photograph.

  Ivo followed me from room to room, weeping. His control had slipped further during the night; his eyes were inhuman, without whites, the unearthly blue of marsh fire. His hair looked less like hair now, more like an animal’s rich pelt. He did not try to speak to me, but I left without making any move toward the kitchen. I could buy something to eat later, if I had to, though I could not imagine being hungry.

  As I was opening the door, I said again, “You aren’t here, Ivo.”

  In the museum, in the daylight, I did not remember him. I did not know why I felt so ill and strained, why, on my lunch break, I slipped down to the basement and wept for half an hour, huddled for comfort against a bad Roman copy of a Greek nude. I did not remember him until I opened my door to the scent of viburnum.

  “Kyle, please, I’ll do anything you want, I’ll be anything you need me to be. I don’t care what it is, if it’s wicked or depraved or perverted, please, I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, just don’t do this to me. Kyle, please.”

  He was not as solid as he had been; I could see the wall through him, and his voice was faint. Only his eyes were still vivid, still fully present, and the terror and wretchedness and need in them tore at me like cruel teeth. For he did love me; to him I was the world. The fact that his love would infallibly kill me, leeching my essence away to feed his, as his previous lovers had fed him, was no desire of his. And when he had killed me, he would go on to his next hapless victim, his prey, whom he would love and destroy just as he loved and was destroying me.

  “You aren’t here, Ivo,” I said.

  He was weaker. Light hurt him now. I turned on the lights in every room in the apartment, pretending that I could not hear his cries of pain, driving him eventually into the bedroom closet, where he huddled like a beaten child, sobbing, only half visible against my suits. I stayed in the living room that night, sitting with Wells-Burton’s Demonologica by the fire, as I had sat on that other night, the night after he had chosen me, staring at the engraving that illustrated the chapter on incubi and succubi: a smiling youth with the teeth of a beast.

  By morning, the scent of viburnum was fainter. I made myself ready for the day. When I looked in the mirror to shave, I could see him reflected behind me, a smear of gold, a smudge of blue against the white wall. I knew that if I concentrated I would be able to hear him, that by now all he would be able to say was my name. I did not try to hear him; I was trying with all my might to forget him, to bring that daylight oblivion into the night kingdom where once Ivo had ruled.

  When I left, I said again, “You aren’t here, Ivo,” and this time I could feel the silence that answered my words, as if what I had said were true. When I returned that night, I could not smell viburnum.

  That was effectively the end of it. There were still nights when I would wake in the middle of the night to the faint sweetness of viburnum, a feeling that there was almost weight on the mattress next to me, and I would have to get up, stumbling through the rooms of my apartment to turn on the lights. But as time passed those nights came further and further apart, and within six months they had ceased entirely. Ivo was truly gone, and now I cannot remember, even in the darkness, exactly what he looked like or how his voice sounded. Even in dreams, I cannot see him clearly, and although I know that is for the best, I know I do not want him back, yet I still miss him. I will always miss him – although I know that soon I will forget him entirely – for he was the only one I have ever known who loved me for what I am.

  And the Angels Sing

  Kate Wilhelm

  Kate Wilhelm’s story poses an interesting question: As a member
of the media, what do you do when you find an otherworldly creature in need? Written slightly before the internet and mobile phones with photo and video capabilities were common, Wilhelm’s story is still an evocative contemplation of the question. As for today’s Fifth Estate – which includes, for better or worse, plenty of amateur reportage – a quick online search will deliver videos of “real” angels and demons on YouTube with millions of viewers.

  Eddie never left the office until one or even two in the morning on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The North Coast News came out three times a week, and it seemed to him that no one could publish a paper unless someone in charge was on hand until the press run. He knew that the publisher, Stuart Winkle, didn’t particularly care, as long as the advertising was in place, but it wasn’t right, Eddie thought. What if something came up, something went wrong? Even out here at the end of the world there could be a late-breaking story that required someone to write it, to see that it got placed. Actually, Eddie’s hopes for that event, high six years ago, had diminished to the point of needing conscious effort to recall. In fact, he liked to see his editorials before he packed it in.

  This night, Thursday, he read his own words and then bellowed, “Where is she?” She was Ruthie Jenson, and she had spelled frequency with one e and an a. Eddie stormed through the deserted outer office, looking for her, and caught her at the door just as she was wrapping her vampire cloak about her thin shoulders. She was thin, her hair was cut too short, too close to her head, and she was too frightened of him. And, he thought with bitterness, she was crazy, or she would not wait around three nights a week for him to catch her at the door and give her hell.

  “Why don’t you use the goddamn dictionary? Why do you correct my copy? I told you I’d wring your neck if you touched my copy again!”

  She made a whimpering noise and looked past him in terror, down the hallway, into the office.

  “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” Fast as quicksilver then, she fled out into the storm that was still howling. He hoped the goddamn wind would carry her to Australia or beyond.

  The wind screamed as it poured through the outer office, scattering a few papers, setting alight a-dance on a chain. Eddie slammed the door against it and surveyed the space around him, detesting every inch of it at the moment. Three desks, the fluttering papers that Mrs Rondale would heave out because anything on the floor got heaved out. Except dirt; she seemed never to see quite all of it. Next door the presses were running; people were doing things, but the staff that put the paper together had left now. Ruthie was always next to last to go, and then Eddie. He kicked a chair on his way back to his own cubicle, clutching the ink-wet paper in his hand, well aware that the ink was smearing onto skin.

  He knew that the door to the pressroom had opened and softly closed again. In there they would be saying Fat Eddie was in a rage. He knew they called him Fat Eddie, or even worse, behind his back, and he knew that no one on Earth cared if the North Coast News was a mess except him. He sat at his desk, scowling at the editorial – one of his better ones, he thought – and the word frequancy leaped off the page at him; nothing else registered. What he had written was “At this time of year the storms bear down onshore with such regularity, such frequency, that it’s as if the sea and air are engaged in the final battle.” It got better, but he put it aside and listened to the wind. All evening he had listened to reports from up and down the coast, expecting storm damage, light outages, wrecks, something. At midnight he had decided it was just another Pacific storm and had wrapped up the paper. Just the usual: Highway 101 under water here and there, a tree down here and there, a head-on, no deaths . . .

  The wind screamed and let up, caught its breath and screamed again. Like a kid having a tantrum. And up and down the coast the people were like parents who had seen too many kids having too many tantrums. Ignore it until it goes away and then get on about your business, that was their attitude. Eddie was from Indianapolis, where a storm with eighty-mile-perhour winds made news. Six years on the coast had not changed that. A storm like this, by God, should make news!

  Still scowling, he pulled on his own raincoat, a great black waterproof garment that covered him to the floor. He added his black, wide-brimmed hat and was ready for the weather. He knew that behind his back they called him Mountain Man, when they weren’t calling him Fat Eddie. He secretly thought that he looked more like The Shadow than not.

  He drove to Connally’s Tavern and had a couple of drinks, sitting alone in glum silence, and then offered to drive Truman Cox home when the bar closed at two.

  The town of Lewisburg was south of Astoria, north of Cannon Beach, population nine hundred and eighty-four. And at two in the morning they were all sleeping, the town blacked out by rain. There were the flickering night-lights at the drugstore, and the lights from the newspaper building, and two traffic lights, although no other traffic moved. Rain pelted the windshield and made a river through Main Street, cascaded down the side streets on the left, came pouring off the mountain on the right. Eddie made the turn onto Third and hit the brakes hard when a figure darted across the street.

  “Jesus!” he grunted as the car skidded, then caught and righted itself. “Who was that?”

  Truman was peering out into the darkness, nodding. The figure had vanished down the alley behind Sal’s Restaurant. “Bet it was the Boland girl, the younger one. Not Norma. Following her sister’s footsteps.”

  His tone was not condemnatory, even though everyone knew exactly where those footsteps would lead the kid.

  “She sure earned whatever she got tonight,” Eddie said with a grunt and pulled up into the driveway of Truman’s house. “See you around.”

  “Yep. Probably will. Thanks for the lift.” He gathered himself together and made a dash for his porch.

  But he would be soaked anyway, Eddie knew. All it took was a second out in this driving rain. That poor, stupid kid, he thought again as he backed out of the drive, retraced his trail for a block or two, and headed toward his own little house. On impulse he turned back and went down Second Street to see if the kid was still scurrying around; at least he could offer her a lift home. He knew where the Bolands lived, the two sisters, their mother, all in the trade now, apparently. But God, he thought, the little one couldn’t be more than twelve.

  The numbered streets were parallel to the coastline; the cross streets had become wind tunnels that rocked his car every time he came to one. Second Street was empty, black. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t wanted to get involved anyway, in any manner, and now he could go on home, listen to music for an hour or two, have a drink or two, a sandwich, and get some sleep. If the wind ever let up. He slept very poorly when the wind blew this hard. What he most likely would do was finish the book he was reading, possibly start another one. The wind was good for another four or five hours. Thinking this way, he made another turn or two and then saw the kid again, this time sprawled on the side of the road.

  If he had not already seen her once, if he had not been thinking about her, about her sister and mother, if he had been driving faster than five miles an hour, probably he would have missed her. She lay just off the road, face down. As soon as he stopped and got out of the car, the rain hit his face, streamed from his glasses, blinding him almost. He got his hands on the child and hauled her to the car, yanked open the back door and deposited her inside. Only then he got a glimpse of her face. Not the Boland girl. No one he had ever seen before. And as light as a shadow. He hurried around to the driver’s side and got in, but he could no longer see her now from the front seat. Just the lumpish black raincoat that gleamed with water and covered her entirely. He wiped his face, cleaned his glasses, and twisted in the seat; he couldn’t reach her, and she did not respond to his voice.

  He cursed bitterly and considered his next move. She could be dead, or dying. Through the rain-streaked windshield the town appeared uninhabited. It didn’t even have a police station, a clinic, or a hospital. The nearest
doctor was ten or twelve miles away, and in this weather . . . Finally he started the engine and headed for home. He would call the state police from there, he decided. Let them come and collect her. He drove up Hammer Hill to his house and parked in the driveway at the walk that led to the front door. He would open the door first, he had decided, then come back and get the kid; either way he would get soaked, but there was little he could do about that. He moved fairly fast for a large man, but his fastest was not good enough to keep the rain off his face again. If it would come straight down, the way God meant rain to fall, he thought, fumbling with the key in the lock, he would he able to see something. He got the door open, flicked on the light switch, and went back to the car to collect the girl. She was as limp as before and seemed to weigh nothing at all. The slicker she wore was hard to grasp, and he did not want her head to loll about for her to brain herself on the porch rail or the door frame, but she was not easy to carry, and he grunted although her weight was insignificant. Finally he got her inside, and kicked the door shut.

  Then he took off his hat that had been useless, and his glasses that had blinded him with running water, and the raincoat that was leaving a trail of water with every step. He backed off the Navajo rug and out to the kitchen to put the wet coat on a chair, let it drip on the linoleum. He grabbed a handful of paper toweling and wiped his glasses, then returned to the bedroom.

  He reached down to remove the kid’s raincoat and jerked his hand away again. “Jesus Christ!” he whispered and backed away from her. He heard himself saying it again, and then again, and stopped. He had backed up to the wall, was pressed hard against it. Even from there he could see her clearly. Her face was smooth, without eyebrows, without eyelashes, her nose too small, her lips too narrow, hardly lips at all. What he had thought was a coat was part of her. It started on her head, where hair should have been, went down the sides of her head where ears should have been, down her narrow shoulders, the backs of her arms that seemed too long and thin, almost boneless.