Firetale (3 page)

Mr. Berry was quite satisfied
that nobody ha
d taken notice of him. He might have been just another
loser whose career and personal life had not worked. To avoid being
considered a weirdo, Mr. Berry sometimes told people about his
imaginary family, offering as proof a photograph of a woman with
two children that he had stolen from a frame in a supermarket a
dozen towns ago. Sometimes he said the family had died in a car
accident and he left his hometown because he could no longer live
in a house once filled with his children’s laughter. Sometimes he
liked to add a little drama, claiming that his wife learned he had
cancer, divorced him, and put him out of the house to avoid paying
the bills for his treatment. Then his listeners’ eyes filled with
tears, and they muttered words filled with righteous anger. Mr.
Berry was always amazed that people so easily believed such
nonsense.

Mr. Berry was lucky with his
professorial face. People looked in
to his big sad eyes behind the glasses and
believed his every word. Outside of work, he tried to be clean and
tidy, and he avoided controversy and arguments.

Until the
age of thirty-two, Mr. Berry’s
life had been as in a fog. He worked as a manager, selling used
cars. He even had a girlfriend. But Mr. Berry’s head was always
muddled, and he could not concentrate on his work nor on his
romantic relationship. He was a mediocre employee and a boring
boyfriend.

And then he killed a hooker. It
happened four months after Mr. Berry had been dumped by his
girlfriend
,
who had found a more interesting man. It was the first and last
time Berry paid for sex. It made him confused. He was overwhelmed
with doubt and shame. The prostitute started to taunt him because
of his meager manhood. Berry was a timid man, but he could not
tolerate such insults. The fact that the woman was drunk was even
more offensive. The murder occurred by chance. He shoved her, and
she fell, hitting her neck on the edge of the bathtub. To his
surprise, Berry was not afraid. He was excited, and the fog in his
mind had cleared. Ever since then, he’d had a goal.

He never again paid attention to
whores. Their filth, their lust, their flabby thighs and
painted faces
disgusted him. He realized what he was once afraid to admit. Sex
with older women did not clear the fog in his head, but only made
it less thick. They had too much rot, too many lies, too much
hatred. Children, on the other hand, were innocent and trusting.
Their skin was clean, and their scars healed with incredible
speed.

Berry had to leave the big
cit
y. In big
cities, everybody was much too concerned about children’s safety.
The schedules of some children looked like those of top managers in
big corporations. If a child was an hour late from school, parents
would call the police and every friend and relative in town. The
bigger the city, the more dangerous for a child, they
claimed.

In small towns,
everything
was easier. Children knew who and what they needed to keep
away from. Who could harm a kid in a town where everyone knew each
other? Police in small towns dealt with domestic quarrels, shooed
teenagers holed up in their father’s car at the roadside, and
booted out long hitters from bars. When a child was lost, they
interviewed the parents, friends, and teachers and checked the
lakes, rivers, and forests. Mr. Berry was unconcerned. By the time
the fruitless, wasteful search was over and panic had begun to
spread, Mr. Berry would have hidden all the evidence.

In this town, Mr. Berry noticed
too late the girl in
the white dress with red polka dots. By the time he saw her
among the other children walking with their parents to a traveling
circus, he had already chained another girl to the floor in the
basement of his house. Her name was Julia. He had stalked her for
more than two months. He had watched, learning her daily routine so
that he could calculate when she would be alone and not at home. He
wrote nothing down, lest documents incriminate him if something
went wrong. Now that his life had a meaning, his brain worked much
better, and it was easy to memorize all the necessary details. On
Fridays, Julia left school before her girlfriends. Mr. Berry
kidnapped her when she went to pee in the bushes on the way
home.

Still
, the girl in the polka dress was so
pretty that Mr. Berry had followed her to the circus to enjoy
watching her a little more. But he reproached himself for it. He
was late for the show because he hadn’t bought tickets in advance,
and he couldn’t see the girl in the polka dress from his
seat.

He didn
’t watch the show until the
appearance of the trapeze artist. He remembered her name—Martha. He
had long been indifferent to women, but this one caught his
attention. He thought about her pure childlike skin, her innocent
eyes. No, Mr. Berry did not feel the excitement. Looking at the
gymnast he felt shame, and for a moment it seemed that someone in
the audience would look at him and recognize him as a maniac. He
wanted to stand up and confess right there, under the big top, to
all the terrible deeds he had done. Later, when he thought about it
at home, shivers ran down his spine. He forced himself to calm
down. He knew how to get rid of the anxiety. No, he was not going
to do anything to the girl in the dotted dress and patent leather
shoes, he would not break his “one city, one killing” rule. He just
wanted to dream a little. Though he would not be with her, he could
turn his dreams into reality with Julia.

“
You’ve been burned by my
lighter.”

Kyuss
, “Thumb”

Greg
’s life in the circus had its
advantages. No documents, no credit cards, no insurance. No
address, no office. To the world outside the circus, Greg existed
only during performances. That world did not entice him; it was too
predictable, too gray and cruel. Lazarus would have never believed
it, but Greg liked it in the circus much more. He had Martha. Since
he had met her, it was easier to restrain his dark passion. He did
not know why Martha had that effect on him. Martha gave him the
peace that had eluded him his entire life. As far as he could
judge, in Martha’s presence everybody could be a little bit better
than they were.

Greg could not remember his
parents.
He
remembered very little of his childhood. When he tried to force
himself to remember something about his distant past, the wall of
fire rose before his eyes. He was a teenager the first time he
released his inner fire. Some hobos bothered him in the bunkhouse.
He did not know what they needed. It might have been his clothes or
money, which he did not have, or his body. They hit him. When he
realized that this could be the last night of his life, fear and
rage overtook him. They hit him a few more times before the flame
grasped them. What happened then, that first time of the fire fury,
Greg remembered only vaguely. He woke up on the other side of town
in an abandoned building, naked, covered in ash and soot, but in
one piece. He tried to examine himself by looking at his reflection
in a pool of water, but the water started boiling at his approach
and steamed away.

After a couple of
days
, Greg
saw the news story about some hobos who had been burnt alive. The
press assumed something unnatural, even supernatural, in their
deaths, as in Stephen King’s
Fire Starter
. But the police swept the investigation under the
carpet, attributing it to an accident.

As he grew older, Greg’s flashes
occurred more often. If you’re a teenager living on the street, you
have reason enough to be angry. Greg spent many years learning to
control the flames. He eventually understood how to use his
abilities, but he did not understand why they had been given to
him. He vowed never to use them to harm people. He firmly kept the
promise, hopscotching around the country. And then one day, in some
small town, he witnessed a group of men beating a girl. They told
him to fuck off. And first, he obeyed, but then a thought came into
his mind and devoured him.
I’m stronger than they are. I can fix it.
And he fixed it the
only way he knew. He burned them alive. The girl did not thank her
savior. In a panic, she ran away before Greg could tell her she had
nothing to fear.

Greg tried to lead a normal
life, but the
thought
I’m stronger than they are
allowed him no peace. A normal job was not
for him, and he could not stay long in one place. Something inside
him made him move constantly, as if he were searching for
something. When he ran out of money, Greg arranged for street
performances. He breathed fire, melted coins, made harmless
levitating flames that kids could touch.

In one of the
towns
, he
encountered Lazarus and his circus. The townsfolk were whispering
about some strange guy who knew how to do different “things” with
fire, and Mr. Bernardius had no trouble finding him.

The tentmaster told Greg that
the circus wasn
’t only touring with freak shows and circus performers, but
also was looking for unusual people and creatures, to whom Lazarus
gave shelter. Bernardius invited the magician to join the troupe,
and he agreed. Greg immediately realized the tentmaster knew that
all his fiery wonders were not mere tricks, but Greg’s unusual
abilities did not frighten the circus manager, and this impressed
the magician.

Greg’s life took its course. New towns,
new shows, new tricks. Slowly, the fire inside Greg calmed. One
day, while working on a trick, he found black candles and a crystal
ball among the props. He checked the records of the archivist
Pietro and learned that no such props were mentioned in them. Greg
kept the candles and the ball to himself, not saying a word to
Lazarus. After a while, the magician discovered their true purpose.
The memory of his own strength returned to him, and he thought
about it more and more.

The candle was burning in
Greg
’s hand.
The night was chilly, and the few passersby on the outskirts of the
small town threw suspicious glances at the stranger wearing a
T-shirt and jeans in such weather and carrying a candle in his
hand. Greg did not care. At this hour, the streets held only loners
who preferred not to mess with strangers, and a drunkard who would
wake up tomorrow and barely remember his own name. Besides, Greg
didn’t need any more clothing. The inner fire warmed him. The
street was dark, half its lights out. And of those that gave some
light, most were dim, and one flickered and hissed as if it was
ready to blink off at any moment. A cheap area on the outskirts of
a sleepy town.

It’s just like my old damn
life
, thought
Greg. But he chased away that thought.
I’m not like Berry. I don’t kill good
people.
At
the end of a row of houses was an old but well-kept one-story
building, gray. The candle flame flared up to the size of a fist
and abruptly extinguished. Only the smooth oily black candle
continued to shine in the unsteady light of the street
lamps.

In one of the windows was a
light, but the house was qui
et as a grave. Nearby buildings were slightly more
bustling. The magician heard the sounds of gunfire and hoofbeats
from a house next to him. Someone was trying to appease his
insomnia with midnight westerns. From across the street Greg heard
muffled curses.

“
Excellent. Someone watching TV
too loud, someone else keen to fight,” Greg murmured to himself.
The magician made sure there were no dogs or other animals that
might suddenly make a fuss. Not surprisingly, the area was quite
poor, and pets were reckoned as a waste of money.

Greg walked around the building,
checking if Berry was home. The candles never lied, but the house
was strangely quiet. Greg walked
quietly onto the porch and tried to open
the door. Locked. It was unlikely that someone like Berry would
have left the key under the mat, but Greg had his own way to open
doors. The magician tensed for a moment, concentrating on what he
called his inner flame. The forefinger and middle finger of his
right hand turned into flames, burning blue, as if from a blowpipe.
His fingers touched the wooden surface above the lock and it
instantly turned black with smoke. Greg began to slowly sink his
fingers in the wood, burning it until his fingers had passed
through the door. He started to make a circle around the lock with
his right hand. When the circle was complete, he pulled the lock
out of the door with his left hand and carefully placed it near the
entrance.

Greg opened the door and
entered. The hall light was off. But even in the darkness it was
obvious that the house,
which from the outside was indistinguishable from
others on the block, bore little resemblance to a normal person’s
home. There were no pictures on the walls, no books or magazines on
shelves, no vases or figurines. It contained only the most
necessary items, a table, a sofa, a TV set. The house was clean,
tidy, and empty. It was as if the old tenants had just moved out,
and new ones had not yet had time to bring in their
belongings.

A light was on in the kitchen. Greg moved
there, trying to make as little noise as possible. Now his entire
right forearm was covered with a blue flame. There was no one in
the kitchen or in any of the other rooms. Greg was sure Berry was
in the house. The magician decided to go back to the entrance and
start exploring again.