Thorn (8 page)

A knock at the door. Jackie again? No, Thorn’s followers had seen to her—Jackie’s boss had burdened her with an unexpected workload over the holidays. Madeline opened the door and found two men outside, one dark-skinned and one light. They wore semi-formal clothes and authentic, welcoming grins. The white guy had a demon whispering in his ear. Thorn nodded to him.

“Good morning ma’am, I’m John and this is Amir, and we just wanted to let you know about a picnic we’re having tomorrow at the community center next door. We’re inviting all our neighbors, and uh, that includes you. There’ll be grilled chicken and steak, all halal, and mac ‘n’ cheese, coleslaw, and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Our wives are great cooks,” Amir put in. They waited just a moment for Madeline to react, but she regarded them with silence and suspicion. Her frown at Amir suggested that his name was somewhat less acceptable than John’s. Thorn had trained her for this, so he just stood back and watched.

John continued. “So, uh, it’s at one p.m. and you’re welcome to come. Plenty of other seniors will be there too.”

Madeline tried an escape route. “I hope you didn’t invite Mr. Vensil next door. He’s a drunk, you know. Even in the daytime.”

“Oh, there won’t be any alcohol. We’re Muslims.” He hesitated before saying that last word, as if he knew in advance how she would react.

She didn’t disappoint him. Her eyes widened in bitterness as she recognized
them
. “Well I’m a Christian, and I don’t do that sort of thing.”

Amir was sympathetic. “Oh don’t worry, you’re welcome all the same. There won’t be any sermons or anything. It’s honestly just a get-together so we can introduce ourselves to the community.”

Madeline wouldn’t have any of it, of course. “Us versus them” was a staple of Thorn’s whispering to Madeline, and of much demonic whispering in general. The demons would isolate a group, be it religious or political, and convince its members that no opposing viewpoints were genuine—those
others
had never thought through their views as deeply as
you
had, and what’s more, they had sinister motives for believing as they did. Demons would urge the human to see only the others’ surface, and to conclude that those people must be dumb or crazy or intentionally evil. It all boiled down to, “Anyone who doesn’t think like you is your enemy.” The same trick worked on everyone.

After Madeline had closed the door on John and Amir and their demon, Thorn whispered to her about how alone she was. The world was full of bad people, and they were having picnics, no less! She was the only one who knew the truth anymore. Even her friends from God’s Grannies thought too differently for her to bear sometimes.

And then, so she wouldn’t use her loneliness as fuel to motivate herself, he turned her thoughts to her past. “Everything most people have to look forward to has already passed you by. Romance, sex, family, a rewarding career… all in the past. And even when you had those things, you made so many mistakes.” She’d never had the chance to reconcile with her husband before he died. Her community activism had kept her from knowing her children well as adults. Never mind all the happy years she’d spent with her husband or the thousands of people she’d helped with her activism. “For the wages of sin is death,” Thorn whispered to her. “And you’ve sinned quite a bit, Madeline.”

The closer to the end anyone thought they were, the less action they would take in the world and the more complacent they would grow. It was often good to suggest a vague anxiousness about the end to anyone who would listen, as long as it would spur them to inactivity rather than to action and a life well lived.

In this case, though, it wasn’t just a vague anxiousness; Thorn actually
was
working to accelerate her death—via a stroke or a heart attack, hopefully only a few days away. Briefly, he imagined himself standing over a dying Madeline just as Marcus had stood over him a few nights ago in the rain, and he felt strangely guilty. But no, he had to do it. “The wages of sin is death,” he repeated. “Is death, is death, is death…”

One of Thorn’s favorite privileges of demonhood was that he got to play both bad cop and good cop. “Don’t worry, though,” he told her. “God has forgiven you, and your suffering will end in heaven.” In other words,
stay inside until you die
.

It was the last Friday night before Christmas, and the Midtown streets came alive with hundreds of clubbers. All down Crescent Avenue and Thirteenth and Twelfth, girls in skintight dresses and men with loaded wallets laughed and stumbled between the flashy cars that inched along the crowded streets. Alongside nearly all of them floated their invisible demonic companions, shuffling their legs in that strange movement that mimicked walking but looked more like rollerblading.

According to one of Thorn’s followers’ reports, Amy should have arrived half an hour ago, but waiting thirty minutes for a human was nothing for a demon who had once waited billions of years. To pass the time, Thorn tested the ground with his foot. It went straight through like always. Seeing humans experience the joys of the physical world when Thorn never could had always been irksome.
What does pizza taste like?
he often wondered—more these days than he used to, it seemed.
What does the ocean smell like? Is learning an instrument as difficult as it appears? Does a cat’s fur feel any different than a dog’s? Is sex really that good? What is it like to love?
Most demons believed that they were no longer capable of feeling positive emotions. This was a source of pride to them, for it meant they had excised every good thought their Creator had ever given them. (“Good” as defined by the Enemy.) Others said He had stolen their ability to feel happiness. But Thorn knew that wasn’t true. He knew it from the laughter he sometimes shared with his brothers—often at a human’s expense, but laughter nonetheless. He knew it from his longing to feel droplets on his face whenever it rained. And he knew it from the Native boy…

So much time had passed since Thorn had been an angel that he’d forgotten how plainly, scrumptiously
good
some of the Enemy’s creation could be. But he hadn’t forgotten all of it. He could still hear, could still see the beauty of the world. Two out of five senses—or however many senses humans had—was enough to make him wish for more.

Pondering the world’s goodness in spite of its evil, Thorn stumbled upon a new potential course of action.
What if I just quit it all? I don’t have to defect or go into hiding. I could leave my pet humans, eschew demonkind and its savage competition, and live alone until the end of time.
Perhaps then Marcus wouldn’t perceive him as a threat, and would abandon his revenge fantasy. And Thorn still hadn’t seen all of planet Earth, especially in its modern state, so simple tourism could occupy him for ages.

But would he be able to abandon his comfortable dominion over his brothers? Would he be capable of swallowing his hatred for the Enemy and never again working to ruin His creations?

Xeres had tried it. Thorn had been by the great demon lord’s side for centuries before Xeres’s ego grew so great that he planned an assault on one of the Sanctuaries. Xeres had even gone in alone, and when he returned he was… different. He claimed he had been successful in slaughtering the Sanctuary’s humans, but he didn’t revel in his victory. He became uncommonly quiet, spending most of his days alone in forests. Before long, Thorn and Xeres’s other followers realized Xeres hadn’t whispered to a single human since his return.

One day, centuries ago, near a Cherokee town just ninety miles from where Thorn stood now, Thorn had summoned the courage to reproach his leader. Thorn had enjoyed as close a relationship with Xeres as demons could have; he’d felt bound to him ever since Xeres had raised him up from nothing. In retrospect, the height of Thorn’s power had been as Xeres’s right hand. His de facto bigwig position in Atlanta paled in comparison.

“You’ve lost your way,” Thorn had said to him.

Xeres, comically huge next to a flock of wild turkeys at the edge of the forest, just nodded meekly and turned away.

“I will not be ignored,” Thorn continued. “I mean to bring you back to sanity. Tell me what is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.” His voice was still deep, but shockingly soft: a mouse’s murmur where a wolf’s howl had once been. “For once, nothing is wrong.”

The serenity with which he said those words frightened Thorn far more than Xeres’s booming rages ever had. “This woman…” Thorn motioned at a woman picking berries nearby. “Tempt her. Whisper devilish thoughts of incest, or suicide, or anything. She need not even follow through with sin, but I must see you tempt her.”

Xeres nodded again and lumbered over to the woman. “You crave squash,” he said.

Thorn couldn’t help but laugh at that, as sad as it was. “No, you fool. Something evil.”

As the woman finished filling her basket and prepared to walk back to the village, Xeres considered Thorn’s command. With his eyes on Thorn, as if hoping he would retract the request, Xeres leaned toward the woman’s ear. “You crave evil squash.”

In spite of himself and the troubling events of recent days, Thorn guffawed and let the matter rest. Xeres smiled when Thorn did, but he seemed not to recognize his own humor. Had he not turned up dead the next day, Thorn might still have found it funny. Xeres’s body had been found suspended in the air above the thatch roofs at the center of town, his eyes glazed over. No one bothered to investigate the cause of death, but Thorn supposed that one of his bored followers had killed him so they could all move on. For a day, Thorn had exulted at Xeres’s death because it meant Thorn could take his place as the greatest demon on earth. But Thorn found himself unable to hold the group together. The massive horde of followers had disbanded, each member searching for his own glory, or for another leader to follow.

At least the woman did, in fact, eat some squash.

To this day Xeres’s demise haunted Thorn. What had happened to him? And was it happening to Thorn now? Xeres had broken neither of the Rules, nor even the Third, but his aloof demeanor was so taboo that he was killed, and no one but Thorn cared.

Thinking about such matters, Thorn realized he felt sorrier for Xeres now than he had when he’d died. He missed Xeres and his companionship.

“—my own party. Just because I’m having a good time doesn’t mean I want some ho recording me drunk. Seriously.” Thorn knew Lexa’s voice a hundred yards off. Amy was with her, dressed to impress, wearing much more makeup than usual, and sporting a skirt much too tight for comfort. She fidgeted with it constantly.

Disturbingly, Shenzuul drifted above her, whispering softly to her as she walked.
Is she truly
his
now?
Thorn hadn’t seen Amy since the day Shenzuul had confronted him in her room.

“Light it. Light it. Light it.” Shenzuul’s repetition made sense once Thorn saw the cigarette in Amy’s hands. Lexa was already smoking, so to fit in, Amy lit up and took a puff. She tried to downplay her coughing.

“Anyway, I’m glad the card got erased,” Lexa said. “I seriously didn’t want anyone to see me like that.”

Lexa’s expression soured when she saw Kelly approaching from a nearby parking lot. “Why didn’t you answer your phone when I called?” Lexa asked her, and popped a new stick of gum in her mouth.

“I was meeting with my professor.”

“Over break? Ha. Well, you should have answered. Amy, this is Kelly. Kelly, Amy.”

“Yeah, we met,” Amy said. She nodded at Kelly. “Thanks for the gym pass, by the way.”

Amy at the gym?
This was ludicrous.
What is Shenzuul doing with her?

Lexa was also taken aback. “What? How did you meet?”

“You introduced us? We had a whole conversation in the car a few days ago.”

“And then you met on your own and she gave you a gym pass? Why didn’t you go through me? Kelly is
my
friend.”

Amy opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t answer the awkward question.

Kelly jumped in to save her. “So we gonna be your wing gals tonight?”

“Hell yeah,” Lexa said. “Antonio Ellis is supposed to be here. He’s seriously one of the top casting directors in the south, and—” She giggled mischievously. “He’s hot, too. Not even forty yet. So if we run into him, you have to give me a minute to make an impression, ’kay?”

“Totes. Amy and me are gonna get some hookups too, right Ames?”

Amy politely nodded. Thorn would have had her half-ready to run home and cry by now, but Shenzuul pathetically said nothing. Thorn kept his distance as he entered the club with them.

A week ago, back when Thorn had been bolder, when every hole on the human body had opened at his whim—when he wasn’t so worried about being murdered by Marcus—he would have loved this place. Literally underground, it was S&M themed, and casual sex was everywhere: in the pulsing red lights, between the gyrating bodies on the dance floor, on Lexa’s mind.

“You think I could fuck him?”

Even Kelly didn’t know how to respond to that. She stammered a while before Lexa turned to Amy.

“Amy. What do you think? Should we go for it?”

Amy nodded to appease her.

“Awesome. Let’s go get drinks.” Lexa adjusted her ample breasts and pressed toward the bar.

Behind curtains in a private booth in the back, Thorn noticed a couple with their tongues deep in each other’s mouths.
Ah, hedonism.
It was simple and usually quite dull, but many demons used it as comfort food, just as Thorn used Amy. Plenty of debauchery-loving demons were here: in the booths, on the dance floor, at the bar.
Maybe if I play their game with them and get some girl drunk and date-raped, they’ll help me pry Shenzuul away from Amy.

His hopes vanished when he saw Marcus at the bar, watching him. The Scourge of the Congo loomed over two dozen of his own followers, who busied themselves with clubbers while Marcus regarded Thorn hatefully. Thorn reflected the enmity back.
Too many of my own followers are here. He wouldn’t attack me in public. Would he?

“Antonio Ellis?” Lexa found him sooner than Thorn had expected. “Oh my god, hi! I’m such a fan.” She introduced herself and flirted expertly, occasionally bringing Kelly into the conversation but ignoring Amy entirely.