Free Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker Page B

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.
    “O Angels, hear me! I am in jeopardy of my soul—”
    I left her to it and, dressed in my purloined clothes, I strode out from behind the boulder and down the slope towards the field.
    So, now you know how I came to walk the earth. It’s not a pleasant story. But every word of it is true.
    So now are you satisfied? Have you had enough confessions out of me? I’ve admitted to patricides. I’ve told you how I fell in love, and how quickly and tragically my dreams of Caroline’s adoration were snatched from me. And I’ve told you how I kept myself from killing off the Archbishop’s daughter, though I’m sure most of my kind would have slaughtered her on the spot.
    They would have been right to do so, as it turned out. But you don’t need to hear that. I’ve told you enough. Nor do you need to hear about the Archbishop and the bonfires on Joshua’s Field. Believe me, it wouldn’t please you. Why not? Because it’s a very unflattering picture of your kind.
    On the other hand . . . maybe that’s exactly why I should tell you. Yes, why not? You’ve obliged me to uncover the flaws in my soul. Maybe you should hear the naked truth about your own people. And before you protest and tell me that I’m talking about distant days,