Firetale (8 page)

“
I’m flattered, Mr. Louis. But
I’m not sure I have any outstanding talents. I’m good at English,
my French is tolerable, and I love to read, that’s probably
it.”

“
And you cannot be killed,” Louis
said cheerfully.

Lazarus went cold inside. His
companion
’s
tone was playful, but he didn’t seem to be joking.

“
My presence in that morgue was
some absurdity. The doctor who examined me must have been an
amateur. In a city like New Orleans, any accident can
happen.”

“
You are right, Mr. Bernardius.
And the first attack on you was accidental indeed. But I had to
arrange the second one.”

For a moment, Lazarus thought he
had misheard. His head was spinning. He was fighting fear,
distrust
, and
resentment. He stood up from the table.

“
I do not know why you called me
and gave me clothes. Your jokes are bad, and you are a swindler,
Mr. Louis. I’m not going to tolerate your bullying,” Lazarus said
loudly, but he was surprised to note that none of the other diners
turned their heads in his direction.

“
Sit down, Mr. Bernardius. If I
don’t want to let you go, you will not get out of here. Sit down
and listen to me.”

Something in
Louis
’s voice
made Lazarus change his mind. He suddenly felt like a fractious
child with whom an adult was talking in a strict and confident
tone. He sat down.

“
Mr. Bernardius, when you came to
New Orleans, you were attacked. Some backstreet boy saw the robbers
hit you on the head with a bat and stick a knife in your back. This
boy stole your shoes, making sure you were dead. But he had the
decency to report the attack to the police. However, when the
coppers arrived, you suddenly returned from the dead, scaring the
blazes out of them.”

“
Returned from the dead? You
speak as if I was really dead,” protested Bernardius.

“
That’s right, Mr. Bernardius.
But I still had to verify this. That’s why I organized the second
assault on you.”

“
What? Why?”

“
My goal was to ascertain if
there was any chance your first resurrection was the fantasy of an
urchin or the daydream of a copper wearied by his service. I had to
know for sure, so the blow was aimed to the heart, Mr.
Bernardius.”

Lazarus winced. He recalled
how
only a
few hours ago, his chest had been on fire, his head had been in a
whirl, and his lungs had been ready to explode with a single
breath. Yet when he came to life, only a small strange-looking scar
reminded him of the assault.

“
You would kill a man,” muttered
Lazarus. “Just to prove some stupid theory?”

“
Mr. Bernardius. The city is rife
with tales generated by dreamers, people who are crazy or just too
sensitive. If it hadn’t been you, my people would not have paid
attention.”

“
Your people? What do you
mean?”

“
A lot of people work for me.
They watch all the oddities that take place. Some they discard as
nonsense, some they check.”

“
And why did they pay attention
to me?”

“
I’m sure you know that you
weren’t the healthiest child. A couple of times your father hastily
ordered a small coffin. But you survived. And when the man who had
escaped death as a child befooled it again, my people told me. And
I told them to check on you.”

“
Check on me? To kill me! You
ordered them to kill me.” Lazarus felt as if he were on the edge of
hysteria.

“
Mr. Bernardius, as we can see,
you are alive. You even dined.” Louie Louis’s derisive tone had
returned.

“
Only a dastard can joke like
this. I was lucky to survive. But what if your people were wrong?
What if someone else had been in my place? You’re not just a
dastard, Louis! You’re a fiend!”

Louis laughed. “Come now. History knows no
ifs.”

“
If I had not survived, you would
have just shrugged and your sleep would have been
undisturbed.”

“
Mr. Bernardius, everything has
ended up in the most beautiful way for both of us. Do not find
problems where there are none,” said Louis in a weary tone. “I want
to offer you a job, and your immortality is the very quality you
need for it. If you are still interested in my offer, follow me.
Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt you. Besides, we both know it is
impossible to kill you, so you don’t need to worry about anything.”
With these words, Louis stood up and left the table. Lazarus was so
amazed by Louis’s aplomb, which bordered on arrogance, that he
wanted to show his backbone and remained seated. Thoughts swarmed
in Mr. Bernardius’s head. Louie Louis had ordered him killed, but
had also revealed his extraordinary abilities. Immortality, a gift
available only to gods. But he didn’t know if he could trust Louis.
On the other hand, Mr. Bernardius told himself, Louis treated
everyone and everything with a grin, but something in the way he
acted implied that he was not a charlatan. Perhaps his affairs took
place in the shade, but Lazarus felt no lies in what Louis had
said. New Orleans had been rejecting him, he had no way back, and
his father’s business partners had turned away. The only person
interested in Mr. Bernardius was Louis.

Mr. Bernardius jumped up and ran
to catch up with Louie Louis
, who was slowly walking toward the exit of the
restaurant. Lazarus thought his musings had lasted only a few
moments, but during this time Louis had almost reached the door.
Bernardius had to run to catch up with him, dashing among the
tables. He ran into a waiter, apologized for his awkwardness, and
caught up with Louis as he was getting into the carriage that Mr.
Star had used to take him to the Horns & Hooves.

“
Wait a minute, Mr. Louis,”
Lazarus called. “I changed my mind, I’m going with you.”

“
Changed your mind, huh? I
thought that you agreed ab ovo,” said Louis with a smile, and he
gestured for Bernardius to climb into the carriage.

There were three of them in the
carriage
,
Lazarus, Louie Louis, and Mr. Star. The windows were curtained, and
when Mr. Bernardius pushed the curtain aside to see where they were
going, he saw only darkness. It seemed a long time since the
carriage had left New Orleans. Lazarus was delighted by the comfort
of the carriage, which rode smoothly down a country road, as if
there were no rises or dips or holes. The doors of the carriage
protected them from the sounds of the outside world. For a moment,
Mr. Bernardius thought they were in the womb of the stars, flying
through the universe. The whole world had shrunk to the limits of
his equipage, and he felt his head clearing. For the first time
since moving to New Orleans, he was strangely calm, his thoughts
streamlined and easy. He lost his sense of time. Sometimes it
seemed to him that the equipage was rushing through the darkness
for only a minute, other times it seemed as if they had been riding
for several days. Lazarus was surprised to find that it did not
bother him at all.

“
Let’s get back to our
conversation, Mr. Bernardius,” said Louie Louis. “I chose you
because you have a very rare gift. But the fact that you do believe
in God, and you have read dozens of books on religion, also has
meaning for me. You believe in God, don’t you?”

“
Of course,” said
Lazarus.

“
And the Devil?”

“
I think he exists. But to
believe means to trust, and I never trusted the Devil.” What
Lazarus said somehow amused Louie Louis, and Mr. Star chuckled
condescendingly.

“
It seems as if your mind is
saturated with books, but lacking discernment,” Louis said. “Give
me your hand.”

Lazarus held out his hand,
thinking that thi
s would be his first, if belated, handshake with
Louis.

Barely touching
Louis
’s skin,
Lazarus felt the world changing around him. The carriage began to
fade, and there was nothing beyond it: no roads, no trees, no
stars, no sky. Only darkness. It was as if the world was woven from
the finest fabrics, and now some invisible monster of unimaginable
proportions had ripped it to pieces in a fit of madness, crumpling
the torn shreds and throwing them into the darkness. The darkness
beyond the world was alive, Lazarus could sense it. There were no
visible signs of its life, but he felt it watching him.

The world kept disappearing
piece by piece. Only the lowe
r part of Mr. Star’s face was left, with the
eternal smile on it, and in next moment even it had gone.
Everything vanished with a deafening roar. Lazarus felt something
trying to break him and pull him back into the darkness. But Louie
Louis held his hand, and he was safe. Louis stood in the darkness,
clearly visible, smiling, proud, and full of strength. Finally, the
last piece of reality had been destroyed, and the two were
surrounded by the darkness. The humming abated, and in the next
moment Lazarus was blinded and deafened by a flame that superseded
the darkness. In exhaustion, he fell to his knees. Fear seized
them, but Louie Louis still gripped his arm. Fire engulfed
Lazarus’s body, and he felt his hair and muscles burning and
melting, but after a moment he realized that the fire seemed to be
waltzing around him, without penetrating his skin, not burning him
from the inside. In horror and awe, Lazarus looked up at Louis. He
should have known before. Louie Louis. What a ridiculous name. A
jest about people who were not accustomed to seeing beyond their
own noses and believing what their books claimed.

Lucifer.
Lightbringer.

The flames began to subside.
Fire retreated from Lazarus
’s body. Lucifer was still holding his hand.
Lazarus looked around. Behind the diminishing flames, he saw thin
gray spires of towers that seemed to be piercing the gray sky. The
towers looked like melted candles. Lazarus tried to see what they
were made of but couldn’t. Something weightless touched his cheek.
He put his hand to his face, and it slipped on something soft,
destroyed by a single touch. Lazarus looked at his fingers, which
were black. Ash. The buildings were covered with ash, making it
impossible to figure out what they were made of.

The ash
rain increased. Gray and black flakes
fell to the ground, covering it with a layer that grew thicker with
each passing minute. Ash had reached to Lazarus’s mid-thigh. He was
kneeling, and when he tried to get up, he couldn’t. The ash assumed
extraordinary weight, and Lazarus couldn’t move his legs. Mr.
Bernardius panicked. The ash grew so thick that he could see
neither the sky nor the spires. With every moment, black and gray
flakes covered Lazarus, first up to his waist, then his chest. When
the ash reached his neck, Lazarus screamed. The flakes flew at him,
flew into his mouth, and impeded his breathing. It sealed his eyes.
Mr. Bernardius began to choke. He tried to swallow the ash, but it
was useless. The ash rain grew stronger, and Lazarus did not have
enough time. He could not see a thing, but felt the weight of the
ash on his face. The weight would not let him rise from his knees,
would not even let him clean his face and mouth.
I’m
dying
,
thought Lazarus.

Louie Louis, who was holding
Lazarus
’s
hand, yanked it. Lazarus thought he was rising abruptly from the
depths of the sea or from a very deep grave. The weight pressing on
him became lighter, and he saw in the distance a spot of light that
was coming to him at incredible speed, developing from a tiny point
into the whole world. He flew into the source of light, and the air
instantly filled Mr. Bernardius’s lungs and cleared his eyes so he
could see again.

Lazarus sat in the carriage
racing
through the dark. Louis no longer held his hand. Mr. Star
was still grinning. And for a moment it seemed to Lazarus that his
face was the same as it had been in the morgue, curved, with a huge
mouth full of sharp teeth.

“
I could have introduced myself
in another manner, but I’m afraid you’d have thought I was crazy,”
Louis said. Bernardius looked at him with eyes full of fear.
Lazarus knew what he had seen, knew it was not a dream.

“
Mr. Bernardius, I understand
your shock, but I hope that the knowledge you acquired in your
father’s library and Mr. Abernathy’s schooling will help you cope
with it.”

“
You know about
Abernathy?”

“
I thought that after the things
you have just seen, such details would not surprise you, Mr.
Bernardius.” Louie Louis seemed almost annoyed. “You do realize who
I am and what kind of things are subject to me?”

“
You are Lucifer, the highest of
the demons of Hell. A fallen angel.”

“
It is true, Mr.
Bernardius.”

“
All the more, I don’t understand
why you need me.” Lazarus was baffled. But his training, the hours
and days spent in the library, helped him cope with his feelings.
At heart, he had always been sure that everything he had read was
true.

“
Mr. Bernardius, you haven’t just
read the Bible and theologists’ work. You lived among slaves, who
trusted God much less than the Devil. You studied the books on
which the official church prefers to remain silent or deny their
existence. Goetia grimoires, scientific works of apostates. From
these books, you should know that the structure of Hell is much
more complicated than it might seem to an unenlightened mortal. We
have enough trouble outside of your world, despite what your
churchmen say and do. Mr. Star and I are rarely out of Hell. But on
the ground, things happen that require our observations and
sometimes interference. So I need you.”