Mister B. Gone

in a baby's tongue.

I glanced down at the little blade and tossed it away. The youth looked puzzled.

'I don't need that little thing to kill you. I don't even need my hands. My tails can strangle you both, while I chew on my fingernails.'

Hearing this the youth sensibly dropped to his knees, and even more sensibly proceeded to beg.

'Please, sir,' he said, 'have mercy. I see the error of my ways now. I do! We both do! We shouldn't have been fornicating. And on a Holy Day!'

'What makes this day holy?'

'The new Archbishop declared it a holiday in celebration of the great fires which will be lit at eight to consume twenty-nine sinners, including — '

'The former Archbishop,' I guessed.

'He's my father,' the girl said, and perhaps out of some tardy respect for her parentage she did her best to cover her nakedness.

'Don't bother,' I told her. 'I couldn't care less about you.'

'All demons are sodomites, aren't they? That's what my father says.'

'Well, he's wrong. And how is it a man of the church has a daughter?'

'He has many children. I'm just his favorite.' She became briefly distracted, as if by memories of his indulgences. Then she said: 'You're not a sodomite?'

'No. My soul lost its one true companion but a few hours ago, in that forest. It will be days, perhaps even a week, before I recover the appetite to look at another woman.'

'My father would have you cut to pieces by children. That's what he did with the last demon that came here.'

'Children?'

'Yes. Tots of three and four. He gave them little knives, and told them there'd be sweetmeats for the one who was the cruelest.'

'He's quite the innovator, isn't he?'

'Oh, he's a genius. And much loved by the Pope. He expects soon to be raised to high office in Rome. I want so much for it to happen, so that I can go with him.'

'Then shouldn't you be at Mass, praying for some heavenly intercession, instead of hiding behind a rock with…' I glanced at the youth while searching for an appropriate word of contempt. But before I could finish my sentence the idiot charged at me, his head down, butting me in the stomach. He was quick, I'll give him that. I was caught off guard, and his blow threw me to the ground.

Before I could get up, he dug his heel into the wound he had made with that stubby little blade of his. It hurt, more than a little, and my cry of pain drew laughter from him.

'Is that paining you, little demon?' he crowed. 'Then how about this?' He drove his foot down on my face, grinding away while I continued to cry out. He was having a fine time. The girl, meanwhile, had started to offer up chaotic entreaties to any heavenly agent who might intercede on her behalf:

'Please Angels of Mercy, Virgin Mother, Martyrs on High, give me your protection, O God in Heaven, forgive me my sins, I beg you, I don't want to burn in hell.'

'Shut up!' I yelled to her from beneath her lover's heel.

But on she went: 'I will say ten thousand Hail Marys; I will pay for a hundred flagellants to crawl on their knees to Rome. I will live in celibacy if that's what you want from me. But please, don't let me die and my soul be taken by this abomination.'

That was too much. I may not be the loveliest thing the girl had laid her eyes on, but an abomination! No. That I was not.

Enraged, I caught hold of the foot of the youth, and pushed it into the air, shoving him backwards with all the force I possessed. I heard a crack as his head struck the boulder, and quickly got to my feet, ready to exchange further blows with him. But none was needed. He was sliding down the face of the boulder, the back of his head trailing blood from the place where his skull had burst against the stone. His eyes were open, but he saw neither me nor his lady-love, nor any other thing in this world.

I quickly snatched his clothes off the ground before his corpse sank down and bled upon them.

The girl had stopped her entreaties and was staring at the dead youth.

'It was an accident,' I told her. 'I had no intention of…'

She opened her mouth.

'Don't scream,' I said.

She screamed. Christ, how she screamed. It was a wonder the birds didn't drop from the sky, slaughtered by that scream. I didn't try and stop her. I would have only ended up knocking the life out of her, and she was too lovely, even in her hysterical state, to lose her young life.

I put the dead youth's clothes on as quickly as I could. They stunk of his humanity, his doubt, his lust, his stupidity; all of it was in the threads of his shirt. I don't even want to tell you what his trousers stunk of. Still, he was bigger than I, which was useful. I was able to curl up my tails and stuff them down the trousers, one against each buttock, which effectively concealed them. While his clothes had been too big for me, his boots were too small, so I was obliged to leave them and go barefoot. My feet were recognizable demonatic, scaly and three clawed, but I would have to take the risk of their being noticed.

The girl — do I have need to mention? — was still screaming, though I'd done nothing to make her fear me beside my casual remark about strangling her with my tail and accidentally smashing her lover-boy's skull. It was only when I approached her that she ceased her din.

'If you torture me — '

'I have to — '

'My father will send assassins after you, all the way back to Hell. They'll crucify you upside down and roast you over a slow fire.'

'I have no fear of nails,' I said. 'Or of flames. And your father's assassins will not find me in Hell, so don't send them looking. They'll only be eaten alive. Or worse.'

'What's worse than being eaten alive?' the girl said, her eyes widening, not with horror but with curiosity.

Her question tested my memory and found it wanting. As a child I'd been able to rattle off the Forty-seven Torments in ascending order of agony at such speed and so completely free of error that I had been considered something of a prodigy. But now I could barely recall more than a dozen agonies on the list.

'Just take it from me,' I said, 'there's much worse than being eaten. And if you want to save innocents from suffering, then you'll keep your mouth shut and pretend you never laid eyes on me.'

She stared back at me with all the sparkling intelligence of a maggot. I decided to waste no further time with her. I picked her clothes up from the ground.

'I'm taking these with me,' I told her.

'I'll freeze to death.'

'No, you won't. The sun's getting warm now.'

'But I'll still be naked.'

'Yes, you will. And unless you want to walk through the crowd down there in your present state, you'll stay here, out of sight, until somebody comes to find you.'

'Nobody will find me here.'

'Yes they will.' I assured her. 'Because I'll tell them, in half an hour or so, when I'm on the far side of the field.'

'You promise?' she said.

'Demons don't make promises. Or if we do, we don't keep them.'

'Just this once. For me.'

'Very well. I promise. You stay here, and somebody will come to fetch you in a while with this.' I lifted up the dress she'd so willingly removed just a few minutes before. 'Meanwhile, why don't you do some good for your soul and offer up some prayers to your martyrs and your angels?'

To my astonishment, she fell instantly to her knees, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes, and began to do exactly as I had suggested.