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Gabriel approached Victory Hills around eight thirty on Friday night. He parked on Girard and removed the magnetic pizza delivery banners from both passenger doors.
Then he walked the rest of the way, smelling the metallic scent of a butcher’s bone in his backpack and the rush of a cold breeze. It was a close call.
He’d been playing that detective like a fish on a line, wanted to see how far he could go without being caught. There was a fifty-fifty chance those sharp black eyes had the license number of the van.
“You better hope it was too dark,” Demon said.
Gabriel stood at the west end of San Rafael Avenue, looking east toward a glazed hump of a mountain range, peaks capped in snow. It was the police unit parked half-way up the street that caught his eye, the only thing that marred his sense of peace.
“Always a cop when you don’t need one,” Demon muttered.
Gabriel stood beside a one-level home, white brick with a gray tiled roof. A corner lot with a five foot wall that faced Girard and curled around to San Rafael. Hauling himself over the wall, he scanned the back yard and the lots beyond. Judging by the block walls between each property, Gabriel only needed to scale about four of them to get to the back of number 5507 without being seen.
It was easier than he imagined. The homeowners who hadn’t drawn their blinds were glued to the TV, never saw him bolting across their yards.
When he arrived at the house, Gabriel saw the dog before it saw him, lips drawn back to receive a shank bone he’d bought from Keller’s meats. It was like a big spotted Labrador with a wagging tail, didn’t take much to coax it to the back corner of the lot where the thing had dug a crater-sized hole out of boredom.
The back door was locked, Gabriel could see the shadow of a bolt between the frame and the latch. The doggie door was his best bet, a large white frame that took up nearly half the bottom panel. He removed his backpack, pushed through a wide vinyl flap and crawled into the kitchen.
The remains of a medium-sized pizza box lay on the kitchen table with sprinkles of parmesan on the floor. She had staggered into the living room where he found her sitting on a wheel-back chair, groaning and hunched over a desk.
He unzipped the top pocket of his backpack and took out what he needed. If Zarah heard the rustle of cord as the ball hit the floor, she wasn’t quick enough. Arms and torso already bound to the chair, there was barely a scream out of her open mouth before it was silenced with a strip of packing tape. Two legs thrashed under the desk, but only for a moment.
Gabriel saw the frown, read the expression on her face and twisted the chair around to face him. “That doggie door’s way too big. The wood’s as rotten as your heart. May I?”
He sat on a blue floral easy chair and smiled. “You’re probably wondering where we’ve met before.”
Zarah blinked a couple of times, chin sinking to her chest. Her head was inclined slightly, ear pressed against one shoulder.
“Remember the time you won Miss Coronado?” He emphasized the word with two index fingers. “It was raining... hailstones, I think. Pinged off the cars and made dents in the paintwork. You were so happy. You and your crown, and your long mermaid dress all covered in sparkles. I complimented you, said you were beautiful. Only, you said I was stick thin. No, wait... you said I was a scraggy pile of bones. Then you threw pizza at me. You and all of them.”
Gabriel saw the hint of recognition and then it was gone behind narrowed eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, it can’t be. Didn’t think I could look like this.”
Zarah shook her head. It was all she could manage.
“I should be dead by now.” Gabriel dredged up that same nudge of pain from somewhere deep inside and his eyes began to water. “Do you know what it’s like to be laughed at... hated for something you can’t help? Do you?”
Zarah shook her head again, eyes glistening. There was a look on her face that scared Gabriel for a second. At first he thought it was terror, and then he realized what it was. Resignation. Zarah Thai knew she was going to die.
“Asha’s already dead. And buried,” Gabriel whispered, watching a pair of eyes that darted back and forth. Maybe Zarah was looking for a weapon, wondering how it would end. “She didn’t suffer. Died with all the dignity of a concert pianist, only without a couple of fingers. Can’t have her playing up there when I die. Drive me nuts.”
Gabriel finished off a glass of wine that had been sitting on the coffee table and poured himself another.
“The way I see it is this. Each time I rid this town of a demon, I get a little credit. And you are a demon with your cold, cruel heart and your fake smile. I know what you did out there in the parking lot. Oh, it was just a quick fondle, nothing to worry about. As long as Alice Delgado didn’t find out. As long as she didn’t know how many of you had the hots for her boyfriend.”
The coughing started then, the panting, the puckered face. “Not so pretty now, are you Zarah? If you really want to know I cancelled your order and brought something better. Homemade with a dash of rat poison. And you’re so careful with your food. Stomach’s probably lost its lining from all that throwing up to stay thin. It won’t take long, a few seizures... I mean, you’ve got to die of something. Might as well die like a rat.” Gabriel leaned forward a little. “Think I’m joking, don’t you?”
That seemed to make Zarah whimper and fret, tears leaving glossy trails down her cheeks. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t run, just sat there jerking for a time until her eyes became glazed and her head rolled forward. As the minutes turned to hours, the coughing behind the tape grew still and so did her body.
Unless she was faking it.
Gabriel poked her a few times. Definitely out cold. “Probably regretting the day you spat on me. Said I was evil... I’ll show you evil.”
Gabriel left her there, didn’t want to lose the last traces of a such a memory, the scents, the sounds, the flavor. It was all in his mind, all in his past, and he refused to leave it all behind.
The bedroom barely had room for a queen-sized bed and on the dressing table was a large tub of moisturizer. He opened the lid, poked a gloved finger in the center and scooped enough cream to smear all over his face. Then he carved another name in the kitchen door frame, one inch below the hinge.
Estheri.
He climbed out the same way he had climbed in; the dog flap was large enough for a slender man. Peering through the garden gate at the road, he saw the cop on the phone eyeing the front of the house with a yawn.
Probably thought everything was OK, like the pizza delivery van that had eased up to the curb a few hours ago and left a tasty treat on the doorstep.
Gabriel kept to the back of the house, scaled a block wall and dropped into next door’s yard. He counted four more yards until he found the main road and that faithful old van. It was getting harder to start now, barely turning over in the cold weather. On the way home, he thought he saw a little Honda Accord in the rearview mirror, but all white cars looked the same and who in New Mexico didn’t favor a white car to keep the sun off?
There was a puddle of oil on the narrow lane where he always parked. The van might not start at all tomorrow, he thought, feeling a twinge of grief in his gut. Might not live to see another sunrise.
He walked through the cornfield to the back of the house, unlocked the door and took a deep breath. He peeled off his clothes in the kitchen, rammed them into a trash bag and stood naked in front of the mirror. Gray skin shimmered under the fluorescent lighting, belly speckled with sweat. He was uglier than he had ever been.
“I am evil,” he reminded himself as he peeled off the wig. “I am dead.”
He would have turned away then, only today he stared at that reflection, repulsed by what he saw. Filthy. Dirty. Rags.
Gabriel had seen it in a dream. The growth, a tumor, an ugly sore getting bigger and bigger, fusing to bone and brain, a gradual death from the burden of his pain. He almost laughed because he imagined he had put it there himself.
Then he cried, because he knew he had.
The name of the growth was Demon. Everyone had one. Some came and went, some just got bigger and bigger. And then there were those who took their own lives before that growth ever had a chance to reveal itself.
He stared at his body one last time, knew what changes had to be made, what colors he would choose. He’d had enough of being held captive in a prison he didn’t want, praying for harmony that never came. Sometimes it was better to be what God made you than changing it all for the sake of perfection. Or, in his case, for the sake of shame.
Why aren’t you like her? Not even an atom of likeness. You did it, didn’t you? It had to be you. Shame... shame... shame.
The memories. The whip. He could imagine it high over his head now, the long gray tail falling... falling. He tried to call out. “No... please!” But the whip struck him on the back and the pain made him gasp.
Those marks were still there, all the way down the back of his legs if he cared to look. They were there all those years ago when he was undressing at school. Gabriel had no idea what to say, how to tell all those enquiring mouths that life had been hell.
He was struck by the one dizzying notion that the only person he had ever trusted had been himself. And when himself was gone, there would be no one.
“There is a way,” Demon murmured.
Gabriel took shallow breaths of warm air as he stood under the shower, scrubbed his body and head until they were both raw. Watched trails of muddy water slinking toward the drain like a trickle of tree roots.
He remembered the detective’s face, the clenched jaw, the evasive black eyes. He was observant and cautious, and yet there was a profound calm about him Gabriel rather liked. A handsome man, shrugging on a coat over solid shoulders and arms corded with muscle. Gabriel had seen stronger men, but nothing quite like this.
He toweled himself dry, wiped a fist over a cloudy mirror and paused half a second. The face was the one he remembered, pink skin and eyes whiter in the corners than a fried egg.
He propped open the door with a small antique iron, watched the steam as it drifted toward the kitchen, felt the chilled air against his naked flesh.
He was excited, longing to make that call. Not just for the Smarts, but because he knew the dealer wanted to get high together.
On the mattress were jeans, shirt, boots and a brown leather belt with a single pronged buckle engraved with the first letter of his name; a memorable detail. Athletic, clean-cut, sparkling... no sense in calling too much attention to himself.
He smiled in his in-between world, marveling at how his brain had suddenly re-wired itself, how it enhanced the senses he had. He inhaled slightly, refocused his mind on the sudden stir of air under his nose, and listened.
