By Greg Bullard
Welcome to part four of the nine part fiction series “Immortal Blues” by Greg Bullard. In the latest installment blues music reappears and leads the way to a discussion of why a demon might kill you. If you need to catch up, here is Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
Call it hubris.
I was feeling pretty pissy. It’s bad enough someone arranged to have a junkie take a shot at me, but providing him with a .357 Magnum loaded with cold, wrought iron bullets was crossing a line.
I was stomping along in a huff, not particularly caring who took notice of me, which was silly considering it was the middle of the afternoon. As you can imagine, I was carving a wide berth down the sidewalks of the Lower East Side, people were crossing the street or ducking into nearby doorways and shops to avoid me. To them, I must have looked like a loon – a tall loon, dressed in black head to toe, stomping along in a huff. I’m a world class huff stomper, trust me.
I’m not sure how long I’d been hearing the sing, song back and forth guitar notes of W.C. Handy’s, “The Memphis Blues,” before it struck me what I was hearing. Like a blood hound on a scent I threw my head back and turned slightly to the left and right, drinking in the sound, zeroing in on the direction.
My eyes caught the subway entrance cattycorner to me and my gaze and my hearing locked on that spot. Like a sweet miasma I could almost see the notes playing on the stale subway air, pouring forth from the otherwise dank concrete hole.
The last time I heard a great blues guitar, a guy tried to kill me. That’s enough to give someone pause, make them warily approach possible danger – normally. Remember that hubris thing I mentioned? I took the stairs two at a time, to hell with caution.
The subway station crowd was the typical mix of businessmen, teenage miscreants, housewives loaded down with shopping bags and otherwise un-noteworthy inhabitants of Manhattan, both savory and unsavory. As quickly as my vision fell on these people, I dismissed them; none were the one I sought.
Closing my eyes to mere slits to block out the distractions, I tried to follow the music, but the echo from the tile and concrete made it tricky. For longer than I wanted, I stood stock still, an island in a steady stream of humanity parting around me.
The song was coming to an end, and with every note my desperation grew. As the last chord of Mr. Crump’s song played out, hovering in the air, I finally caught the aural scent. With long, quick strides, I reached the edge of the platform and turned to look down the track.
In the distance the darkness was broken by light spilling forth from a maintenance corridor. In that puddle of light sat a figure, clutching a guitar to his chest. As I watched, the figure stood and turned into the corridor, out of my sight.
Rushing forward, I leapt to the bottom of the small set of stairs leading down to the track area and that’s when I sensed it. Even as I skidded to a halt, my foolishness, hubris and rash behavior all collided with what little wisdom I had, giving me ample reason to kick my ass over it later – if I lived to see later. I had blundered into a deadly situation.
A large figure shifted in the deep darkness near the bottom of the stairs. As it shifted, an acrid odor wafted off of it, stung my nostrils and started my eyes watering. I knew that stench.
I blinked away the tears before they could really start and shifted my vision to adjust to the darkness. My eyes met those of the demon, our gazes locked and together we paused.
Now, it’s important to know that a demon will kill someone for a variety of reasons. He could just want to for personal reasons (yeah, demons have personal reasons, what?), he could be summoned and a killing could be bargained for, or, if someone’s capable of doing so, the demon could be summoned and compelled to kill someone – not an easy thing to accomplish, powerful magic.
Also, I’m not just any someone. If it was personal, he would have brought friends and picked a better spot. Besides, if it was personal, I would have known about it. You don’t build grudges like that without knowing what you did right or wrong.
As to bargains, any demon which had struck a bargain to kill me, would know instantly at the sight of me that he had bargained poorly. I don’t care what anyone tells you either, they’re not bound to those deals. It is honor that binds you to a deal, and demons don’t have any. The only deals they go through with are the ones in their favor.
In that instant, outside time, when my pair of eyes locked with his four pair of eyes, we both did the equivalent of whipping it out and measuring. I dropped any glamours masking my true aura. I let him see me in full.
All of the shadows swaddled around me fell away to pool at my feet in ready service to my needs. I stood exposed, revealing my true, glorious form. I wasn’t some simple Wee Folk set about the city for mischief and games. I am a Sluagh warrior, a Prince of the Unseelie Court, a Dark Sidhe loose in the world. I led the 100 in battle. My swords appeared in my hands by act of thought alone. The blades were forged from the metal bones of the old gods and quenched in the blood of my enemies.
The very air around me danced with the power of my presence, the light bent and flickered near me, creating an army of shadows ready to serve my whim. Waves of power rolled off of me, crashing into the world around me like the surging tide lashing out at the beach that eroded before it.
This is the point where any demon having accepted a bargain to kill me would say, screw that and flee. He didn’t flee. He had been compelled to kill me. I think I wet myself a little.
The instant was over. The demon bunched himself, readying a charge. Dozens of people were about to witness something that would leave half of them drooling incoherently for the rest of their lives. The other half would just suffer nightmares until they gave up sleep and later gave up living. I threw my head back and screamed, but it’s not what you think.
The full power of my unmasked voice rippled through and echoed off of the flat stone surfaces of the subway station. Most of the people hearing my scream were instantly knocked unconscious; the few who weren’t were thoroughly stunned. The lights of the station held out for a split second before the glass shattered, plunging the station into utter blackness. My swords flashed in that dying light before the curtain of dark descended over us. I rushed forward to meet the demon’s charge.
About Greg Bullard:
Greg currently resides in Austin, TX, trying to do his part to Keep Austin Weird. While his wife, Julia, and daughter, Emily, both work hard to keep him on his toes, it is Julia’s red editing pen that does the most work. When he is not muddling his way through some fiction, he usually writes about What Greg Eats.