The Deal (12 page)

The hook had punctured his right
temple and burst through his eye socket, from which a stream of
crimson blood was now pouring. He quivered before me in fear, and I
couldn’t deny that it actually felt quite good. I used to feel like
shit for days at a time after a contract had been completed,
but
this time,
I felt excited, happy even. And the thought of
what I was about to do next began to put a smile on my
face.

‘
Slick. You really should have
learned to stop taking things that do not belong to you.’ I said,
and then the screams began as I twisted and turned the hook until
it was free of his head.

He looked up at me with his remaining eye.
Lips quivering and his body wracked with pain and fear. I couldn’t
explain why, but as I looked down on him I could feel nothing but
hatred and contempt, and something inside, the really nasty part of
me, was determined that his death was not going to be a quick
one.

I raised the bloody hook above my
head.

‘
Please…Please don’t kill me…I…’
It was too late to beg.

I brought the hook down hard, smiling as I
heard the tip of the blade break through the top of his skull and
bury its self in the soft tissue of his brain. My pleasure seemed
to grow as I pulled the hook free and watched the fat, greasy old
street urchin convulse violently on the floor. Blood poured from
his nostrils and mouth making him choke.

It took around fifteen minutes before his body
finally went limp and his soul was now safely in the possession of
the Grimoyles somewhere in Hell. I stood there looking down at his
lifeless body, a feeling of glee washing over me as I thought about
him being stuffed into a tiny cage and then racked to a torture
table each and every day for the rest of eternity.

What the fuck is wrong with
you?
Screamed a voice inside my
head.
You’ve just murdered a man and
you’re standing there on the verge of a hard on.

The voice was right. There was
something very wrong with this situation. I had never felt anywhere
near close to good when I had to take someone’s life and yet here I
was standing over a man I had just butchered with the biggest smile
on my face
possible
like I had just won the
lottery.

However,
the smile quickly faded when I
realized that even though he was dead, Slick still hadn’t told me
where the necklace was. Normally I would have started to panic, but
I felt certain that he still had it on him, and after a quick check
of the inside of his jacket I found not just one but three gold
chains.

I noticed, however, that only one had a small
gold pendant in the shape of a heart. On the heart was etched
flames licking at the sky above. That had to be the one I was
after. It seemed obvious, and going on previous experience, what I
was looking for always seemed to be the obvious choice.

‘
There’s nothing like watching a
man who enjoys his work.’ Came the unmistakable voice of Satan from
behind me.

As if out of instinct I closed my hand over
the chain I thought was the prize and left the other two dangling
over my open palm.

‘
I wasn’t expecting your company.’
I said bluntly, all feelings of happiness quickly dissolving into a
stagnant hatred for the beast posing as a man.

‘
Most people never are.’ He said
cheerfully. ‘I’m glad to see your playing by the rules Samuel. I
would hate to have to
void
our
deal
. Especially when our relationship
seems to be getting warmer.’

Yeah, it’s warmer than
hell.
I thought to myself as I offered my
open hand with the two chains for him to inspect.

‘
The one on the right is what
you’re looking for.’ I said, noting that both chains looked pretty
much identical
except
for
the one I told him to take
were
slightly thicker.

I watched as he snatched the chain
from my open palm and stuffed it into the pocket of
the white
suit he was wearing.

‘
Great stuff. The sinners’ heart
will sit nicely in a case next to my throne.’ He
said
still smiling, and I tried to hide my surprise that he didn’t
even take a moment to inspect the chain he had just taken from me.
‘I find it rather annoying when Humans try to take what doesn’t
belong to them.’

I looked down at the dead con man known as
Slick and shrugged my shoulders.

‘
Well, I’m pretty sure he has a
nice spot in your kingdom now.’ I said, tossing the remaining gold
chain
onto
the dead man’s body.

‘
Oh,
I have a very special place just for those who
try to steal from
me,
Samuel. I can assure you he will
never rest for eternity.’

‘
I’ll take your word for it.’ I
said, wishing he would just go away and leave me alone.

‘
I’m growing concerned about you.
I feel like there is a distance between us. Like maybe you’ll try
to find a way to get out of our agreement.’

I could hear the pleasure in his voice as he
spoke. He knew in a way just reminding me of the deal we made was a
form of torture.

‘
We’re both sticking to our end of
the deal so there is nothing to be concerned about.’ I said, trying
to find a way to avoid further the conversation, but it seemed he
was in a chatty mood.

‘
Come
come,
Samuel, at least
try and put a bit of energy into your work. You looked like you
thoroughly enjoyed hacking that man to death.
In fact,
it’s
the first time I’ve seen you that happy since the day you met your
wife Lisa.’

I closed my eyes and tried my best to contain
the rage that began to well up inside me. I already knew he was
going to bring her up in the conversation but I also he was doing
it to get a reaction out of me.

‘
Well, you’ve put her in a place
where she is at least safe from torture. That’s good enough for
me.’ I knew fine well that she may be safe from the Grimoyle’s but
she was not safe from the torture of her own mind, thanks to
Pertilius.

‘
Oh
Please,
Samuel. We both
know that’s not good enough for you. We both know you want her to
be released into Heaven.’ There was a gleeful tone to his voice
that I absolutely despised.

‘
Well we also know that you will
never let that happen, so what’s the point of talking about it.’ I
snapped, trying my best to keep my temper under control.

‘
Oh,
at last, a little passion. That’s what I was
looking for.’ He fell silent for a moment before saying: ‘I tell
you what. I have some business that I really need to take care of.
I’m going to need your help in a few days’ time. If you perform
well enough we’ll talk about setting
your
wife free.’

I spun round to face him, all my focus had
been on the dead man on the floor and how the police would describe
his murder.

‘
Is this some kind of a trick or
just more mental torture for me?’ This
time,
my anger was
gone and I could start to feel a fleeting sensation of
hope.

‘
No tricks or funny business. But
if I do agree to let her
go,
Samuel, it will you mean you remain
my servant for the rest of eternity. So have a long hard think
about that before you say anything more. I’ll be in
touch.’

And with those words he was gone. A cloud of
black smoke drifting upwards in the spot where he had been standing
only seconds ago.

With my mind reeling from what he had just
said, I decided I needed to get out into the open and as far away
from the abattoir as possible.

The small apartment I rented was ten blocks
away from where I had committed my latest crime, and although I was
tempted to hail a cab, I decided that a walk would probably do me
some good.

The streets
were
empty apart
from the occasional car shuttling by, and I felt pretty certain
there was nothing that could threaten my early
hour's
stroll
through one of the toughest cities in the world.

My thoughts began to come back together again
as I continued walking. Satan, unexpectedly, had a change of heart
about Lisa. He was now willing to let her go, and only after a few
weeks of my servitude.

That struck me as very odd for the lord of all
things hellish. He hadn’t budged an inch during the initial deal
making process and yet now he was willing to
re-negotiate.

One thing I was certain of was that it was bad
news for me. Whatever he had planned next was most likely going to
involve something he did not expect me to come back from and hence
he was simply trying to pacify me until that time came.

I
realized
as I strolled by a
rundown apartment block, that I was still clutching the gold chain
with the small heart pendant. I had been certain that it
was, in fact,
the real artefact Satan was after, yet he had
made no attempt to even look at the chain he snatched from my
hand.

Why?

Did he simply know it was the
right one and had no reason to double
check
or did he simply
not give a shit? If the latter was the case, then there was
definitely something much bigger on the horizon and that made me
feel very uneasy.

After about half an hour of
walking, I rounded the corner of a bodega which had been closed for
the night, its
graffiti-covered
steel shutters
protecting the valuable stock inside.

When I looked up I noticed I was approaching a
small, but old building with a children’s playground laid out
before its front doors. As I got closer I saw that the placard
screwed to the pillar of its gates stated it was St Helen’s
Elementary School and Kindergarten.

I stood at the opening of the derelict
building, my heart beginning to beat faster, as I soaked it in. The
playground equipment had long been looted for its scrap value. Its
windows were smashed and only partially boarded over.

Vandals had left their mark by spray painting
just about every wall they had come across and I noticed that the
front doors to the building had long been kicked in and there had
been no attempt to reseal it after the fact.

My legs decided to carry me towards the main
entrance, not entirely against my will, but my racing heart warned
me that something was very wrong with being near this
place.

You shouldn’t be here Sammy
boy.
Warned the voice in my head as I
approached the small set of steps just before the
entrance.

I stood there for a few seconds
staring into the darkness of the building. I could feel my skin
erupt in gooseflesh and suddenly I wanted to about turn and head
back to the street. My
body, on the other hand,
had different
ideas.

This is where Lisa worked Sam. Do
you really want to be here?

The voice in my head had a habit of raising
some pretty good questions.

Wasn’t this what I wanted? When
Pertilius had mentioned
the name
of the school I knew instantly
it had been the place where Lisa had once been a teacher. I wanted
to know about her life before she had met me. I needed to know what
the hell she did that was bad she ended up in purgatory for
it.

Despite my inner turmoil I had continued to
move forward without realising it and once I snapped back to
reality, or what I called reality, I found myself standing in the
darkened hallway which branched off on either side. The hallway on
the left would lead to the elementary classrooms while the one on
the right I was certain would take me towards the
kindergarten.

Tables,
chairs,
and sheets of
paper littered the hallways as well as the occasional jacket which
had been left behind by their owners. Despite how foreboding the
building looked on the outside and how vandalized it was inside, I
couldn’t detect a reason to feel the kind of fear I had done
outside in the playground.

Fortunately, just like the abattoir, the roof
of the building had been slowly disintegrating over the years and
rays of pale moonlight flooded inside to light my way, as I
continued towards the smaller rooms which were used for the
kindergartners

There was six rooms in total and the first
five that I came to had no doors blocking their entrance so I
peeked inside, not exactly sure what I should expect to see. I
actually felt a little let down when the rooms appeared to be
barren of anything. Most of the furniture that was worth using had
long since vanished and the rest dragged out into the hallways of
the school.

A few items of clothing had been
left behind and I noted in the far corner of room four there was an
old
mattress
with a dirty sheet crumpled on top. I assumed it
would make a natural shelter for any homeless soul in the area so
again there
were
no red flags there.