The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)

by Kyle Warner

  Taking Lime out of the equation gave the Devil a window of opportunity, but delivering a blow to the Gatekeepers was now his main objective.

  The Order had grown too powerful and with power came ill-advised boldness. They had killed too many demons and thwarted too many dark plots. They had tugged on the tiger’s tail too many times without getting bit. A lesson was required. Lime meant to bite back.

  There were three men at the top of the Gatekeepers: Jean-Paul Perrot, the money. Dominic Friend, the operations leader. And Father Maguire, the religious consultant and the only one who had the Pope’s ear.

  Lime would start by killing their families. When their spirits were broken, he’d kill the men, too.

  When the job was done, he’d kill himself.

  The papers would never connect the international crime spree, but the Gatekeepers would know. Then they’d cower in their manmade caves and think twice about testing the Devil’s will to act.

  Lime almost kicked open the front door before testing the lock.

  Unlocked. Bless the French.

  He stepped silently into Perrot Manor. It smelled strangely like pumpkin and he was left to wonder if that’s what all rich French houses smelled like nowadays.

  Lime tapped the smiling faces in family portraits and walked through the house like an art aficionado admiring a museum full of masterpieces.

  He found a maid and cook working in the kitchen. They smiled at him uncertainly, as they were not in the position to ask if he belonged or not.

  “Might I help you, sir?” asked the maid.

  “Where’s the lady of the house?” Lime asked.

  The maid pointed upstairs. “She’s reading to the little one. Shall I alert her to your arrival?”

  Lime smiled. “No.”

  He chose to kill the maid first because she looked like a screamer.

  He picked up a meat hammer from the kitchen counter and slammed it into her left temple. She went down twitching.

  Momentary shock slowed the cook’s reaction time. When the cook finally went for a knife to defend himself, Lime had already picked out an even bigger knife.

  He stabbed the cook in the heart and watched the life leave his eyes.

  Lime waited for them to go still, then dragged their dead bodies out of the kitchen and dumped them in the garage next to a red Bugatti.

  His clothes were stained with blood now. He couldn’t wash it away, so he stripped his shirt and pants and reentered the mansion wearing only his boxers.

  Lime ascended the stairs, oblivious to the blood dripping from his fingertips.

  Perrot’s wife was reading to a five year old girl in a pink bedroom full of unicorns and princess dolls.

  It took the mother a long time to detect his presence in the doorway.

  She turned and screamed, then clutched her young daughter close to her bosom.

  Lime said, “Bonjour.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  April met Yoshio Ichikawa on the flight to France. He sat alone, cleaning his rifle and occasionally glancing out the window to check on the storm clouds.

  Ichikawa was in his late thirties and carried a sort of, ‘Don’t fuck with me’ attitude. Talbot spoke with him briefly when they first boarded the personal jet, but Ichikawa had not taken the time to introduce himself to April.

  Talbot slept across the aisle from April. She wanted someone to talk to. The world had just been split open with delirious new details of supernatural powers, monsters, and the potential for the divine. She felt giddy and the long international flight was harshing her buzz.

  April took off her seatbelt and came to sit down across from Ichikawa.

  Ichikawa looked up from his gun. April smiled at him.

  “My name’s April,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. Your name’s Ichikawa, I think. Did I pronounce that right?”

  Ichikawa put his rifle in a black cloth and set it aside. “Do you have a gun?” he asked. He spoke English very well, but a noticeable Japanese accent still remained.

  “No,” April said. She almost laughed at the thought. “I’ve never even held one before.”

  Ichikawa frowned at her. “What are you doing here, then?”

  April pointed her thumb back to Talbot sleeping away. “He brought me.”

  “You’re just a trainee,” Ichikawa said. He blinked hard and scowled at Talbot.

  “Yeah, just got signed up yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  April wondered if Ichikawa was hard of hearing or if he was slow on deciphering English.

  “Yep,” April said. “I met Haagenti. Though he looks awful intimidating, he’s actually a fairly even-tempered guy. . . demon. . . monster guy.”

  “Yesterday,” Ichikawa said again.

  “Is there something wrong?” April asked.

  “We’re not hunting gundat,” Ichikawa said.

  April shook her head. “Yeah, no. I don’t know what that is.”

  “We pursue the Devil himself and Talbot brings a trainee.”

  April’s excitement died in a flash. She took a deep breath, trying her best to interpret what he’d just said. She decided that Ichikawa was exaggerating, and was probably a bit of an alarmist, and allowed herself to worry less.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, giving him a chance to clear up the confusion.

  “Ronald Lime,” Ichikawa said.

  April’s heart sank.

  Ichikawa said, “We received a call from a colleague who went to investigate reports of a potentially possessed young man in Indiana. The young man was not possessed by any normal demon, but rather Satan himself. He identified himself as Ronald Lime. You know him. I know you know him because that’s why you’re here. I just never imagined this was your first week with the Order.”

  “Is Lime in trouble?” April asked. She had never cared for Lime. Sometimes she felt sorry for him, but even that wasn’t always easy. The thought that she had seen something around Lime and not been able to help him troubled her, though.

  “Ronald Lime’s body has been used to kill many people,” Ichikawa said.

  April put a hand over her mouth. The reaction felt silly and clichéd, like something she’d seen an actress do in a bit of melodrama, but there it was. Despite her willing it to go back to her side, the hand refused to move, as if stuck there for fear of worse reactions to come.

  “We have reason to believe Lime is going to our colleague’s family home in France. He has a head start and we fear the worst.”

  “I’m sorry,” April said for lack of a better thing to say.

  “You’ll need a gun,” Ichikawa said.

  “I told you, I don’t even know how—”

  “You’ll have to learn.”

  Ichikawa pulled a duffle bag from beneath his seat. He unzipped it and took out a pistol and a couple spare magazines. He gave the gun and the bullets to April.

  “He may have the power of Satan,” Ichikawa said, “but his body is still that of a man’s. Shoot him in the head. Shoot him in the heart. Kill the man and be rid of the beast.”

  “I can’t kill Lime,” April said. She stared at the weapon in her hands as if it represented death, cold and unfeeling death. “I can’t kill anybody.”

  “Then why are you here?” Ichikawa asked.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lime tied the little girl to a chair. To comfort her he set a bloodstained princess doll on her lap. He tied Mrs. Perrot to the kid’s bed but hadn’t defiled her just yet.

  He circled the kid’s room. Spread out between the childish fantasies of unicorns and pink-colored royalty, there was evidence of the family’s religion.

  Lime plucked a portrait of Jesus Christ from the wall and curled his lip, as a predator might when faced with equal competition.

  “That’s Jesus,” the little girl said.

  “I know,” Lime said.

  “He’s going to beat you up,” the girl said.

  “He’s not Superman, stupid c
hild.”

  Lime dropped the portrait, letting the glass break on the floor. It felt good. Freeing. He took down a crucifix and some rosaries and tossed them in the trash. He knew that God was watching, not unlike the poor mother tied to the bed, but unable or unwilling to act.

  Mrs. Perrot spoke to him for the very first time. “You’re possessed, aren’t you? I’ve seen what this is like. I know people who can help you.”

  “I’m not possessed,” Lime said. “I am the possessor.”

  “My husband—”

  “Is very far away, I know.” Lime sniffed the air and came closer to the bed. “How long has he been gone?”

  “Keep away from me,” Mrs. Perrot said.

  “You’ve not been satisfied for some time. Maybe even when good Jean-Paul is here, you’re still not satisfied. . . Shall I satisfy you?”

  “Please, don’t.”

  Lime sat down on the bed next to her. “This isn’t my face, you know,” he said, touching his lips, his chin, his eyes. “Even my real face isn’t the face I was born with. Horned and ugly, God made me like that. He didn’t have to, but God never has to do any of the cruel shit that He does. He gets off on it. I do, too. I’m not self-righteous like Him. I can admit to being a bastard. I used to be beautiful, though.” He smiled at the little girl. “Beautiful and innocent like her.”

  “Don’t you even look at her.”

  “Should she survive the day—and it’s not a given either way, as I’m still two minds on the subject—what do you expect her future to be? Will she be good? Will she even join up with her father’s crusade and hunt down demons like me?” Lime laughed, then sighed. “I think she’ll be a whore.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” Mrs. Perrot said.

  The little girl turned bright red. She whined, “Mommy,” and rocked back and forth in her chair.

  Lime ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “I went too far.” He touched the mother’s leg. “I’m sorry.” He smiled at the little girl. “I’m sorry, child.”

  “Please let us go,” said the girl. “I promise not to tell anyone.”

  Lime got up from the bed and paced the room.

  He wondered if he should kill them now or leave it till later.

  Something about doing it now didn’t feel right. It felt too quick.

  The emotional cloud in the room had shifted against him. The murder plan gave him bad vibes. It had to be perfect. Cutting them open now wasn’t right.

  Lime left the kid’s bedroom before he spoiled it for himself. He only got to the staircase before he started crying.

  I am not who I am.

  This wasn’t right. Not just the timing, but the entire murderous plot. It wasn’t moral. It wasn’t him.

  I am not who I am.

  Lime collapsed in the stairwell, clutching at the railing to stop him from tumbling.

  “Get out of my head,” he said, quietly at first, then louder, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

  Dark fingers tightened around his ankles and dragged him down the remaining steps. His chin hit every step and he was spitting blood by the time he reached the bottom.

  Lime looked up to see the Devil standing over him with a disapproving frown.

  “Leave me alone,” Lime said in a tiny voice, more of a request than a demand.

  “I’m trying to save you,” Satan said. His horns seemed to shine in the shadows.

  “Don’t make me kill them,” Lime said. He pulled a loose tooth from his mouth and whimpered.

  “If they live, you must die. If you die, they can live. Fair trade.”

  “There’s nothing fair about that.”

  The Devil nodded. “Fair trade.”

  “Why me?”

  “Your mind is special. The world is more interesting with a wasted talent gone silent than another dead prodigy. I would prefer to let you live.”

  “Live as your slave,” Lime said. His lip trembled.

  “It’s fair,” the Devil said.

  “And what about them?” Lime asked, pointing up the stairs.

  “It’s not about them, it’s about Daddy,” Satan said with relish, apparently enjoying the sound of the word ‘Daddy’ coming from his lips.

  Lime backed himself up to the stairs, foolishly thinking he was blocking the Devil’s path. “I won’t let you kill them,” he said. “You can kill me instead.”

  “It’ll hurt.”

  “I can take it.”

  “It’ll be slow,” Satan said as he revealed his hands, tipped with sharp talons.

  Lime gulped on bloody spit. “I won’t be a part of this. I still know who I am. I’m not you.”

  “You’re the vessel.”

  “I’m Ronald Lime.”

  The Devil grinned. “I’m your friend.”

  Lime shook his head. “I don’t have friends.”

  “Very well.”

  Satan plunged his clawed hand deep into Lime’s chest and ripped out his bloody heart.

  Lime coughed up blood and jerked as his body slowly shut down.

  His eyes dimmed. His final vision was that of the Devil standing over his still-beating heart.

  Lime closed his eyes when the heart stopped pumping. He didn’t want to see anymore.

  Light enveloped him and Lime was stepping out from death onto an immortal plane.

  He felt warmth. He felt good and loved. He was content.

  The warm light started to lose some of its vibrancy. A cool breeze rolled over the back of his neck. He was being pulled backwards, away from love and freedom, back towards his corpse at the bottom of a staircase in France.

  Lime awoke with the Devil’s hands still inside of him. The heart was back in place, given new life by the power of darkness.

  Satan pulled his clawed hands from out of Lime’s chest cavity and sealed up the bloody wound. He checked Lime’s eyes and slapped him across the face to raise him.

  “I changed my mind,” Satan said. “It was not a fair trade.”

  “I died for them,” Lime said.

  “I wanted you to live.”

  Lime started weeping.

  “They die and you live,” Satan said. “Fair trade.”

  Lime started gagging on his own wails of pain and torment. The Devil comforted him with a reassuring hand.

  “It’s not your fault,” Satan said. “You never had a choice. I only gave you the illusion of choice because I was curious what you would do with it. They have to die and you have to serve me. That’s the best possible future.”

  When Lime had finally stopped crying, he opened his blurry eyes and looked around to find himself alone.

  He got up from the floor, but not by choice. His feet led him upstairs, but it wasn’t the direction he would have chosen.

  I am not who I am. I am blameless. I am the victim as well.

  It comforted him, but just barely.

  In the back of his head, belonging to an alien thought process, he realized that this was the missing ingredient to make the murders worthwhile.

  Murder the Perrot family and kill Lime’s spirit with them. Make him crumble and obey forever after. Make him only a shell of a human being. Perrot’s suffering would be shared by Lime. The crime would have them intertwined, almost like family.

  Lime picked up a shard of broken glass from the portrait of Christ.

  It was going to be beautiful.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They met Perrot ten minutes after their flight landed in France. He had apparently drank too much on his flight and had continued to drink in a sidewalk café while waiting for his support to arrive. He cursed Talbot’s jet for taking too long, said that he should have gone ahead without them.

  Talbot tried his best to reason with the distraught man, but didn’t want to kid him either. Perrot’s family was in grave danger. It was decided that they should arrive at the mansion in full force, instead of letting Perrot go ahead alone. Perhaps they should have let him go,
though, as he would probably only endanger others in his current condition.

  April and Ichikawa kept some distance as Talbot paid Perrot’s tab and led him to a waiting car. Talbot put Perrot in the backseat but kept the door ajar, then ran up to April and Ichikawa.

  “He’s drunk,” Talbot told them.

  “I noticed that,” Ichikawa said.

  “Get the bags from the jet,” Talbot said. “I’m riding with Perrot. I want you to take a second vehicle.”

  Ichikawa said, “Ride up on the Devil in a taxi? This is your plan?”

  Talbot pointed at the jet. “Get the bags.”

  Ichikawa nodded and turned on his heels to return to the jet.

  April awkwardly remained standing right where she was. She asked Talbot, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Talbot said, “This is going to be a bad day. I’m sorry I asked you to come. You’re still so young.”

  “I’m not that young,” April said. “I’ve lived a lot for my years.”

  Talbot smiled. “I bet you were real young once.”

  From the open car door they heard Perrot’s wails as he threatened to break down and tear apart the car’s interior like a crazed dog.

  “I have to go,” Talbot said. “Hail a cab and follow our car.”

  “What if you get too far ahead of us?” April asked.

  “The mansion’s not hard to find. Any self-respecting cabbie knows Perrot Manor.”

  Talbot wanted to say more, but the beckoning screams of Perrot called him away. He hurried to the car and shut the door, keeping the screams just to himself and Perrot’s driver.

  “Homeward,” Talbot said.

  The driver pulled away from the curb. Once safe from curious onlookers, he sped up and they were out on the country roads racing towards the mansion.

  Perrot yanked open a hidden bar in the back of the car. He uncapped a bottle of Scotch and put a good dent into it almost instantly.

  “Stop drinking now,” Talbot said.

  “If I had known who he was,” Perrot said, “I would have never stepped into that room. He knew me, of course.” He drank more, spilled some on his already stained tie, then drank even more. “How did he know it would be me that came to investigate him?”

  “He didn’t,” Talbot said.

  “Of course he did. This entire operation was aimed directly at me. It’s all about me.”

  “Stay focused.”

  “I’m as focused as a laser, Talbot.” He drained the remaining Scotch onto the floor and dropped the bottle. “We have to kill him.”