"He."
Clap.
"Doesn't."
Clap.
"Love you."
Clap.
I was not getting my point across. As I stood in front of Bishop, who sat at the end of his twin bed of room we shared, clapping and waving my hands, a car alarm was going off outside. It had been going off repeatedly throughout the day. That, the confined conditions, and the fact that we were lodged in possibly the most disreputable motel in the city had us at each other's throats. Okay, it had me at everyone's throat.
"You are kind of an asshole, Koke," said Bishop. "Why won't you just let us be happy together?"
I gave a frustrated honk. "He is trying to take your soul!"
I looked at Asmodeus, who was resting at the headboard. He had pulled an old and battered copy of Larry Niven's Inferno out of the Waning and was flipping through it, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose.
"Let's settle this once and for all," said Bishop. He glanced behind him. "Do you love me, Asmodeus?"
"Absolutely," said the demon without looking up from his book.
"See?"
"He's lying!" I cried.
I couldn't take any more of this. I stomped around in a circle. Why wouldn't he listen? I walked to the flimsy wooden door, unbolted it and flung it open.
"Fine," I said. "You deserve what you get."
I walked out into the cool night amidst the chatter of crickets and crack addicts. The breeze sweeping in felt good on my temper reddened face. Across from the motel was a small building dubbed "The Recreation & Senior Center", and beside that an ancient looking gas station no longer in operation.
As I started down the stairs, Asmodeus popped out of the room and called, "Get us some food while you are out,"
Bishop's debit card hit me in the back of the head. Grumbling, I picked it up and eventually took the sidewalk where it picked up at the corner of the block. In the street the gutters were clogged with broken Styrofoam cups and snack wrappers. A stray cat picked at a bag of McDonalds smashed in the center of the road. I passed two nail solons and a homeless man in an orange hat shouting passages from the book of Revelations. The entire block smelled like burnt hair.
I walked on in autopilot, ignoring the taunts of acne caked boys when I wandered to close to their corner and easily avoiding the lure of cheap phones at the mobile phone booth set up in front of a fried chicken restaurant. When I saw a sign for Chinese struggling to complete a rotation on its pole across the street, I gravitated towards it. A corpulent man in a dirty apron was smoking out front and when I went in, he followed me with a loud sigh.
Knowing I was the only one of us three who liked spicy food, I spitefully ordered three spicy dishes and sat down to wait as the man in the apron prepared them. When they were done, I ate mine, standing next to a trash can outside. I felt I had a lot of new feelings as a human-all of them as terrible as the last. But food really did go a long way to restore some sanity to the situation.
Eventually it began to sprinkle. Light drops of rain licking my neck and sticking in my hair. Retracing my steps wasn't easy. I was less angry by the time I got back to the motel, and a little more determined to drive a wedge between my traveling companions. I slid my key card into the lock and pushed the door open.
The first thing I noticed was the sound of the shower running. The motel was old and the pipes groaned laboriously under the pressure of the water. I could also hear Asmodeus humming along with Natalie Imbruglia's Torn from the bathroom. I closed the door, glanced at the bed and dropped the Chinese on the floor.
Bishop sat against the headboard now, his head hanging forward slightly with his dark hair hanging in in his blank, unseeing eyes. His wrists were bound tightly to the corners of the bedframe with a pair of long black socks. A Twizzler protruded just slightly from his mouth. He was definitely dead.
I ran to his side, momentarily conflicted on whether to pull the Twizzler out or untie him first. I pulled out the candy. And though I slapped his wet, slimy face, I knew it was far too late. Once I got him untied, I pulled him up into my lap and pounded on his chest. Someone was yelling, "No no no no," and belatedly I realized it was me. I'd just told him I would protect him, and now he was dead. How betrayed he must have felt in those final moments.
Asmodeus came out of the bathroom, dressed, with a towel wrapped around his head.
"What have you done?" I yelled.
The demon looked genuinely shocked.
I dropped Bishop to the bed and ran at him. "You killed him. You son of a bitch. What did you do?"
"He's... dead?"
"You tied him to the bed and shoved a Twizzler down his throat! Of course, he is dead!"
Asmodeus seemed to reflect on that a moment then looked at me with guilty eyes. "I forgot they breathe out of their throats."
"How could you forget that, you moron?" I screamed.
He sat on the floor near the bed and pulled Bishop's body into his lap, folding it up in his arms. "I'm sorry, small one."
"You did it on purpose," I said. "You took his soul and killed him. Now give it back."
"I don't have it."
"Liar!" I pointed my finger in his face. "Thief!"
"I don't have it," he yelled. "I only have half of it. And it's as useless to me as it is to him."
I felt myself go cold with dread and anger.
"You really have half his soul? But he'll never be at peace. He'll never come back," I said.
The demon raised an eyebrow.
"What do you think happens to the other half of his soul?" I asked.
"I imagine it will move on to Mana, while I absorb the other half, unable to enslave it for my dark intent."
"Yes, Mana, and maybe if he was only missing a little bit, he could heal and be reborn. But missing half a soul? You've damned him to the darkest depths of The Haunt. To utter despair forever," I said.
"Oh," he said while patting Bishop on the head. "Well, it wasn't intentional."
The demon made a face as the body started to drip on him. He wrapped it up in one of the fuzzy green blankets from the bed, carried it in to the bathroom, and set it in the shower before turning on the taps. I followed close behind, but stopped instead in front of the sink and looked into the mirror.
The mirror!
I fished around in my back pocket. It was still there.
Never had I attempted to contact a Spirit Walker before but I'd been summoned by one through the mercury mirror. And while I wasn't even sure my magic would work on it, I had to try.
I unfolded it and called upon Hashut.
Nothing happened.
I tried again.
Again nothing.
"What are you doing?" Asmodeus asked.
"I don't know." I admitted. "Maybe if we can get a Spirit Walker to just listen to us, they'll bring him back or something."
He snatched the compact out of my hand and asked who I was trying to summon. After biting down on his finger, he dropped the blood into the mercury which swallowed it greedily.
"Hashut, you decadent pile of celestial shit, get here now," he said.
An astonished face appeared in the mirror a second later then, began to warp as it was pulled through the small glass with a sucking sound. The lights in the room dimmed, as Asmodeus through the mirror to the floor near the toilet. Hashut rose from it. When he was completely formed, he ran his hands over his robes and gave Asmodeus a displeased grimace.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"Bring him back," Asmodeus said, pointing to the shower where cold water was running out onto the floor.
Hashut nudged past us in the small bathroom and looked at Bishop's corpse for a long moment. Then said, "Absolutely not."
"Please. He only had half a soul when he was walked over," I said.
"It is unfortunate he chose to make his bed with a devil," said Hashut.
"He was... Exceptionally lonely." I said.
As I said it, I realized how true it was. Why else would he have put up with a demon? Why else would he have put up with me?
"He nearly damned himself," the angel was saying. "He is lucky to be in the bogs of The Haunt and not slave to this demon here like he deserves."
Asmodeus glared.
"But of course," said Hashut, now smiling. "If the demon wanted to give his half a soul back, I couldn't argue with that."
There was a spell on his lips as Asmodeus raged, "Never! I won it fair and square. That is my soul. I am never giving it back. You can't have it, you big wingy bag of limp dicks. It's mine!"
Then his face went unnaturally calm. He closed his eyes and held out his arms with one palm facing upward and the other down. He began to chant. "In with the good air. Out with the bad. In with the good air. Out with the bad. Serenity grounds me."
"Is that supposed to be a spell," Hashut scoffed.
"No. I'm meditating," said Asmodeus, eyed still closed. "Alright. I will do it. I will give it back. That's what I want to do."
I think Hashut was as surprised by this turn of events as I was, but he wasn't nearly as thrilled.