Dirty Eden (33 page)
“
No form of vengeance ever comes without consequence.”
--
“I HAVE TO SAY,” said the Devil, “I thought you had it in the bag, but I should’ve known.”
I raised my head and looked out across at the black smoke billowing from over the tops of the trees in the distance. But things were different. I was not myself. I was not the same Norman Anthony Reeves I was when I first met the Devil here in the park. My briefcase was next to me on the ground, but I knew that something was different about it, too. The clothes I wore. The way the air felt on my face.
“I’m not in that apartment building anymore, am I?”
The Devil laughed lightly and spread his arms out across the back of the bench.
“Nope.”
I waited.
The Devil shook his head. “No, you successfully screwed yourself on that one. I have to hand it to Him; my confidence in you people is seriously misplaced. But He on the other hand, knows that all of you have evolved far out of your senses.”
I smiled. “Not completely,” I said. “I’m not standing in an alley with Eve and the twins in place of Tsaeb as Tsaeb was the replacement for Henry. In fact, I feel a hundred times better than I did before. I wonder why that is.” My comments were tinged with sarcasm and the Devil noted this.
“I know, I know,” said the Devil. “But you’ll regret it later when the deal you made with Lilith comes back to bite you in the ass.”
“How so?” I wasn’t really worried. Maybe only a little.
“Because everything I told you before was true.” The Devil crossed his legs and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket. Thumping on the end with the side of his hand, a single cigarette shot halfway out. It was between his lips and lit seconds later. “It wasn’t a trick,” he went on. “What I sent you to do was real and valid. You could be living in paradise right now. Quite literally.” He puffed on his cigarette.
“But I wouldn’t know that it was paradise,” I said, still watching the smoke from the building, “so that’s a moot point. I could sit and dream all day about what paradise might be like and feel all wonderful and fuzzy inside, but that’s a desire and once I’m actually there, living it, I’ll get no satisfaction or fulfillment knowing that my desire was real because I won’t remember it.”
“Yes, and you wouldn’t remember your mom or your dad, or your childhood friends.” The Devil blew out a stream of smoke. “But you seem to have completely forgotten one important detail.”
I looked over at the Devil now. “And what detail would that be?”
“That paradise is ultimately only one of two places you can go in the End.” The smile the Devil displayed sent chills down the back of my neck.
I swallowed my arrogance quickly.
The Devil stood from the bench and dusted off his clothes. The half-smoked cigarette shot across the sidewalk and landed in a crevice.
“But you did make things more interesting,” said the Devil. “And since you made a deal with her instead of me, that sort of makes you my enemy, too.”
“I guess it does,” I agreed.
We stood in the same position, looking out in the same distance. Both entities were in extremely confident skin. One much younger than the other, but clever and with firsthand experience in being a man under his belt.
We looked at one another and nodded.
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” I said.
The Devil tipped his imaginary hat and walked away.
~~~
In the following days, I had to do a few things before I began carrying out the duties of my new existence. My first stop was the mental hospital.
“How’d you do it?” said Tsaeb sitting with the girl he liked so much with the checker towers. “I mean I’m still dead to this world, and a demon, but it has its perks.”
Tsaeb caught on quickly that I was changed. “Wait, you’re not human,” he added.
“Not quite,” I answered with a subtle grin. I was not flaunting my authority. Only Lucifer would feel the need to flaunt, really.
“Ah,
shit
,” said Tsaeb. “I go from being his pawn to yours.
Great
!”
“Would you rather spend the rest of your time in an alley, or next to a public toilet?”
“You have a point,” said Tsaeb. He reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “Alright then, boss, but how’d you pull it off?”
“Lilith”, I began, “presented an offer I could not refuse. If I ate of The Fruit, everything would go back to the way it was. You’d get to keep your human form instead of the boy, the snake people and the creatures in the Forest of the Cursed would go back to being what they were before and I...” I paused, “...well, I am Lilith’s Left Hand, her understudy.”
“Wow,” said Tsaeb, “that oughta piss Lucifer off bigtime!”
“Yes,” I agreed, “and that was Lilith’s intention. Though I don’t hold the keys to Hell and I’m not on the same level as Lucifer, I am not human and I am immortal. Most of all, I can do one thing Lucifer cannot.”
Tsaeb grinned. “Move in and out of Creation whenever you want, I take it?”
I smiled.
~~~
My next stop was Hugh Bastardi’s office, where I stayed long enough to whisper a few words in his ear. Tsaeb was allowed to do whatever he wanted, but his orders to haunt Hugh Bastardi in the mental hospital for the rest of his life was his one priority, and Tsaeb did it with pleasure.
I went to Creation to visit Sophia, unsurprised about what I found when I got there.
“I owe you a debt,” Sophia said.
“As do I,” said Taurus, holding the youthful young woman who was once an imp wearing the guise of a little girl, close to him.
Another part of the deal was that Taurus would get back his eye.
They were an inseparable pair, Taurus and Sophia. Lovers. The gentle giant and the tender woman who would always have the temper of an imp. But the two balanced each other and whenever Sophia was on the verge of a murderous rampage, Taurus was there to calm her down and save a life or two. He was the only person who could ever truly tame her.
Amanda, my ex-wife, ended up wealthy, like she had always wanted. I managed to influence her lottery numbers. Rich overnight, with enough money to feed a small third world country for a few years, but not a dime of it did she give to charity. Amanda was Amanda: greedy, hateful and addicted to sex. A different man in her bed every night, sometimes a woman. Plastic surgery was to her like rum to an alcoholic. But she was a miserable woman. I made sure of that. Not only did I give her what she wanted, but also I gave her what she deserved.
There was one last stop I had to make.
I sat at my usual table at Lou’s Coffee, close to the south window so that I could see Kate. She was as beautiful as ever and nothing like the image of her in Creation. She was the real Kate, soft and sweet and full of bright welcoming smiles, though they were fake. If she really felt that way about me, the way her duplicate expressed, I could not tell. I still wanted Kate; nothing much would ever change that.
I walked right up to the counter.
“Did you want something else to go?” Kate said so sweetly.
“As a matter of fact,” I began, “I thought I’d take you with me.”
Kate looked surprised at first and then giggled with a blush in her cheeks. “That’s sweet,” she said, “but I have a boyfriend.” She was trying her best to let me down easily.
I casually leaned over the counter towards her.
“Are you sure about that?” I whispered.
Her smile lingered for a moment and then shifted to a flirty grin.
It was too easy.
I was living the life, but I always knew that like all things it would not last forever.
And so one day I presented a deal to God.
