Firetale (14 page)

People saw him
as beautiful, but
demionis saw the real Zaches. Among them was Greg. The magician
came to the circus after Zinnober, but immediately began bullying
him. He made up insulting nicknames for Zaches. One-eyed Mess,
Cyclops, Swamp Thing, Mirror Breaker. Only Lazarus’s intervention
cooled Greg’s imagination, but even then their relationship did not
improve. The worst was that both worked in the advance team,
visiting towns ahead of the circus to tell people about the show
and paste up posters. Zaches’s life was awful, until Martha
appeared.

Whenever he was near her, he did not think
so much about his ugliness. In addition, she was the only one who
saw his true face and did not feel disgust. She always looked at
him and smiled. Sometimes she would touch him, patting his head or
cheek, and on those days Zaches felt happy and did not smash
mirrors. He would do anything for Martha. But she had chosen Greg,
the narcissistic fire mage with the manners of a troubled
teen.

Before he
joined the circus, Zinno knew
women. He did not even have to make an effort to win them. They
were fascinated by his beauty, his voice, his eyes and body. He
could easily get the most beautiful girl in a bar, leave in the
morning without saying goodbye, and she would be still happy. But
it did not give him satisfaction. Sometimes after sex, he thought
about what would happen if a woman saw his true face. Would she
love him? Or would she just turn away in disgust and take a dig at
him? Lying in bed, he got worked up more and more, until he was
convinced that all these girls who wanted intimacy with him were
just mindless meat carcasses with beautiful shapes, stupid and
incapable of feeling. He was terrified to the core. What if the
girl woke up in the middle of the night and saw him like this? That
never happened, but the fear of being uncovered firmly settled in
Zaches’s soul. He feared and hated all these women who were seduced
by his beauty. Fog shrouded his mind, his heart was ready to break
in his chest, and his hands would frantically look for
something.

Most often it was a pillow.
He
would
cover some girl’s face with it and wait until she stopped moving.
Then he was overwhelmed with pity for the victim, feeling guilty
that he had deprived the world of a little beauty. Then he took his
camera and photographed the girl. In his gallery, which he
exchanged for Pietro’s services, were girls both dead and alive,
but the archivist had no clue, believing the dead girls were
sleeping. Sometimes guilt did not come, only rage. And then Zaches
used his knife. Those girls he did not photograph.

The police could
never find Zinnober.
Even if somebody had seen him with the dead girl, the witnesses
gave conflicting descriptions of the killer—tall but short, young
but mature, white but black—and Zaches continued to live his life,
hanging out at bars and enjoying the girls’ attention. This lasted
until Mr. Bernardius found him. Or rather came for him, sent by
Astaroth. Zaches did not know whether Lazarus was aware of the
murders, but the fact that he came with Blanche and Black meant the
tentmaster was ready for trouble. Lazarus could see Zaches’s true
nature, and so could the brother ogres.

Bernardius offered Zinnober a
job in the circus. And in return
, protection. Not from the police, who
would be unlikely to find Zinno, but from people far more terrible.
From people who roamed the world in search of creatures like him
and like the ogres, and even like Lazarus. They found them and
killed them. These hunters were much smarter than the police and
were not burdened by the need to comply with laws. Of course, said
Bernardius, the dwarf would have to forget about any relations with
the outside world, and any movement outside of the circus Zinnober
would perform under supervision. Tiny Zaches was scared. The dwarf
always killed without hesitation, not covering his tracks, but he
was not afraid of the police because no one could identify him. But
in the circus he met beings who knew his true nature and his
crimes. He looked at the giants, who had come with Lazarus, and
could not imagine any other creature more frightening than them
anywhere in the world. If these men had found him, they would not
go to the police but would decide the business on their own.
Zinnober agreed to Mr. Bernardius’s terms.

Life in the circus was like an
exile
, only
in a small space and with constant monitoring. Even when scouting
some town ahead of the circus, Zaches was under Greg’s supervision.
Greg eventually stopped insulting him but otherwise did not treat
him any better. The dwarf missed the girls. Whenever he saw their
eyes, either during a show or working as part of the advance team,
he was full of desire. But he knew that his past was now known not
only to him, and if he made a mistake, Lazarus or those from whom
Bernardius harbored him, would punish him. Life was crap. Until
Martha showed up. For her he’d be brave and ask Astaroth to give
him a normal appearance. Then he’d convince her to run away from
the circus with him, away from Greg, away from Lazarus, away from
Astaroth, away from those mysterious assassins.

When everyone in the circus was asleep,
Zaches peeked out of his trailer and hobbled away from the
encampment. The dwarf walked along the road, his short crooked legs
quickly becoming tired and tangled. He had not brought a
flashlight, for fear that the light could expose him, and he now
regretted it. He walked more than an hour, his goal an
out-of-the-way cornfield where he would open the jar. He pressed
the dolium to his chest, and he felt as if it could sense his
desire to open it. It radiated heat, burning the dwarf’s skin and
making him sweat.

After reaching the field, Zinno went as
deep as possible into the rows of corn, which rose above him to the
height of two adult men. He knelt down, took out the jar, and
looked at it. The ancient signs again began to turn into insults.
He read them, and every word crawled into his very soul and began
to torment him, to nibble at him, poison him, and tear him to
pieces. Zaches blinked, took a breath, and opened the
lid.

There was a roar, and
then a burning
smell, and then the stench of rot and decay. He heard heavy, evil
breathing. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in the
middle of a scorched circle with a radius of five meters. The corn
that had been there was burned at the root, as if it had been cut
with a huge fiery knife. Standing before Zinno was a huge figure.
The demon’s body was incredibly gaunt and covered with sores. Only
the demon’s enormous genitals were unaffected by rot. Instead of a
human head, the fiend had the head of a black donkey, and its face
wore a menacing grin. From his back, huge wings extended, like the
wings of a dragon or a bat, and his clawlike hands were covered
with feathers.

“
Why do you summon me?” thundered
the demon. He spoke as if thousands of screams, groans, and growls
in different tones were mixed up in his voice. “I come when I
wish.”

“
I know, my master. But you told
me to keep an eye on everything that happens in the circus. And I
learned something.”

The demon’s tail, made of three snakes,
impatiently beat on the ground. The snakes hissed and reared their
heads towards Zaches. Astaroth bent his face to Zinno’s. The
demon’s eyes were full of anger and impatience, and his breath was
so foul that Zaches barely mustered the courage to not look
away.

“
I know Greg’s secret! The
magician. He violated the Pactum, violated the Pactum!” In his
fear, Zaches thought that he whispered, but in fact he almost
cried. The snakes from the demon’s tail dropped to the ground and
crawled to the dwarf. One slithered onto his chest, the other onto
his face, and the third wrapped around his neck. Their cold touch
frightened Zinno, and their hissing terrified him. The snake on his
face twirled around his neck in a tight coil, and the dwarf began
to gasp.

“
Tell me,” ordered
Astaroth.

“
He … he ... Greg uses magic
against mortals. He not only shows tricks, he kills people!” Zaches
voice had risen to a thin squeal. The snakes hissed and crawled all
over him. “I saw it with my own eyes, saw Greg burn a man. He
burned him alive!”

The snake
around his neck loosened its
grip. The demon looked pensive, almost human. Zaches decided that
his moment had arrived.

“
I have served you, master. I
deserve a reward.” Zinno tried to steel himself, but his voice was
timid and scared. “As you promised.”

Astaroth
’s roar stunned Zaches. The demon’s
leg twitched, and before the dwarf knew what was happening, it
pinned him to the ground. A weight pressed on his chest, crushing
his ribs, making it difficult to breathe. Zaches thought he was
going to die. The demon’s huge genitals hung above him, and its
stench enveloped him. He wet his pants and thought that such an
ugly death would match his ugly life.

“
Do not dare ever to ask me
anything, dwarf,” growled the demon in a thousand voices. “I’m your
master. I have saved you. You’re alive only because you’re useful
sometimes. What you saw is of no value without evidence. But
despite the fact that you insulted me with your requests, I will
spare your life.”

“
Yes, master,” croaked Zaches in
response.

“
As if you have a choice, scum. I
will choose the next town for a performance of your damned circus.
And you, when you go to glue the posters, will find a man there and
give him an invitation to the show. I hope your pathetic brains are
enough to do such a thing. And remember, alraun, you’re one of only
a few of your kind. One in ten of your kind makes it through
childhood, and one of those ten survivors does not go crazy. If you
think you’re exceptional and no one else can be my eyes and ears in
Bernardius’s circus, think again, and don’t overestimate yourself,
mongrel. I can kill you at any moment.” The demon pressed harder on
Zaches’s chest, and when the dwarf thought he heard the sound of
his own ribs crunching, the silence around him stunned
him.

He was lying on the field in the center of
the burned circle. The demon was gone, there was no more stench, no
more snakes. Only his pants, stuck to his hips, reminded him of the
meeting with Astaroth. He felt his ribs and found a note on his
chest with instructions from his master.

In the chambers of his infernal
palace
,
Astaroth pondered what Zaches had said. He did not like to take the
form of a monster, but those were the rules. If a mortal summoned a
demon, then the hell dweller had to show up in his most disgusting
appearance. This was a divine curse to turn people away from the
inhabitants of Hell.

Hell. Astaroth
was weary of this
place without time and space. He looked out the window, and the
dull gray landscape added anguish and pain to his heavy thoughts.
He knew that mortals imagined Hell as nothing but fire. Many years
ago, it was so, and it did not matter what the flames burned, the
flesh of man or his soul. But Hell was so old that there was more
ash than fire in it now. Black and gray ash covered everything
outside the palace, the towers, the spires, the roads, even the
skin of small demons lacking permanent shelter.

Astaroth
’s apartments were clean and
spacious. High white walls shone like polished black furniture, as
if made of darkness itself. His favorite colors. Black and white
chambers and a gray landscape outside the window. How ironic,
thought Astaroth. Once his world had been far more vivid. He went
to his desk and opened a silver casket. He stroked what was inside.
Feathers. Feathers of the wings of angels. They might even have
once belonged to him. He didn’t know. He just picked them up after
the Fall.

The Fall. It
had been many years, but the
memories of it were still unpleasant. Because of Lucifer’s pride,
they were expelled from Paradise. Then they, all the angels who had
rejected God, supported their rebellious leader. Lightbringer they
called him. They were with him now. Except one. Astaroth grew tired
of Hell. He had repented. He wanted to go home. God had banished
them, but if Astaroth could prove his repentance, God would take
him back.

He stroked the feathers
again.
He
thought about the never-ending flight through the darkness,
occasionally split by bolts of lightning, and filled with the
desperate cries of his expelled brothers. Feather by feather, he
lost his wings, white and delicate, till there were only the bones.
Like the others, he eventually grew a new pair of wings, black and
gray as the ash that covered everything, and leathery, like a
dragon’s wings. But they could not compare to what he had had long
ago. Perhaps the feathers in the box were not from his wings, but
they served to remind him of his long-lost home. His home, where he
was going to return, even if he had to betray Lucifer.

The magician from the
circus
had
violated the Pactum, had killed a man with magic. If Astaroth could
prove it, and also prove that Lucifer had given protection to a
mongrel such as this fire mage, perhaps God would forgive the
repentant demon. Astaroth closed the casket. It was not the time to
indulge in dreams.

“
Who’ll love the devil, who’ll
sing his song?”