A sharp popping sound pierced the air as a bottle of some bubbling spirit was uncorked accompanied by a civilised murmur. Inside Ruth was distracted by a dozen half-forgotten relations who she needed to laugh along with. This was going to be a long afternoon. Before long she had been bundled into a tight circle of stuffily dressed family members armed with glasses of cheap wine. Spotting this gathering from across the hall her mother saw her chance and slipped into the fray like a shark through still waters.
“How is everyone’s day going?” Sarah Lapham asked suddenly in that way of hers which demanded attention.
“Better now those protests are dying down.”
“Haven’t they been awful? I heard someone was shot.”
“If it stops that awful racket I can’t complain.”
Within this tight ring the voices seemed faceless, crowding in from all sides with that uniform hint of polite disdain. Before Ruth could make sense of this formal chaos the circle was already dispersing as new faces worked their way into the fray. For a moment she was adrift in the mob before Ruth felt a sharp tug on her arm dragging her to a secluded spot behind the staircase.
“We have not had a chance to talk. Not properly.”
It was her mother. Ruth blinked hurriedly as if trying to force herself awake. They were in a secluded spot where the hubbub was reduced to a low murmur; Sarah Lapham had found the perfect place to talk unnoticed. They were beneath one of the many angular staircases of a forceful concrete design slathered in just enough paint to be cheerful, casting a shadow over mother and daughter. Able to view the world but powerless to affect it, Ruth felt as if she were in a dream.
“Look at me,” her mother said sharply, “stop drifting off. This is important, dear. Who have you brought to our family gathering?”
In this narrow alcove Ruth could not see her friend. Noting the fierce look in the matron’s eyes she thought it best not to answer. Mrs Lapham sighed.
“I thought we were agreed,” she began with a familiar edge to her tone, “that you had moved on? I suppose it has been a long time since poor William… Ruth? Look at me.”
Indeed, it had been a long time since she had allowed herself to think about that. About poor William who had once been her husband for exactly twelve years, nine months and three days. She had counted each one with the ticking of the grandfather clock; the clock that had been a present from her mother. Was it true then, Ruth wondered in a clear moment, that Sarah Lapham was her horrid conscience made flesh? Always watching, always there, always present in that ticking clock across the hall. It was a hollow sound for a hollow house.
William was never a bad person. Far from it, when they had first been introduced while Ruth was still fresh from college, she remembered his warm smile. Never angry. Never vengeful. Ever caring; a good man. Too good for her.
It had been an empty marriage from the start. Ruth had consoled herself in the empty, silent white halls of their home that there was something there. She was silent and cold yet William remained faithful right up until the day he could take it no longer. Now, many years later, Ruth saw her tired face reflected in Sarah Lapham’s eyes and judged herself unworthy.
“There we go. It is all right, my dear,” her mother said seeing the change in her daughter, and held Ruth close with a sudden, tight embrace.
The sunlight grew bitter as the day drew to a close. For a few more hours the party dragged on as the last few guests slowly filtered out until the polished halls grew quiet with the last few murmurs of life echoing around the cavernous interior. As the sun set Sarah Lapham began stoking the building’s surprisingly old-fashioned fireplace, the coal bursting into raw flame that the remaining guests huddled around.
The nights were cold in Whitechurch.
Ruth had not seen Jennifer since she had caught a glance of her in the garden. Now the light was fading from that plastic green lawn as the children hurried to their parents leaving the turf deserted.
“Have you seen her?” Ruth whispered to her brother while their host was distracted. He turned to her with a distracted look.
“The elf? No. Maybe she ran off.”
Maybe she had. It would not have been an unreasonable reaction, Ruth thought as she looked up at the fading sky, what had she been thinking? Jennifer was one of those things best left alone. Everywhere she looked the world seemed to be watching her from the crackling fire to those few guests that remained. Watching with a steely eye that bored into the back of her skull. She had to get out of there.
“Yes, yes you may go,” her mother agreed with an air of mock indifference when Ruth asked to take her leave, “nobody stays for the afterparty anyway. Stay safe, dear. It looks like a storm is coming.”
Ruth nodded almost fervently.
A heavy rain was beginning to lash the horizon. Unlike the soothing shower earlier in the day this rain had a frigidness to it, weighing down on Ruth’s back as she stepped out into the darkening night. Already Jackson Street was recoiling even further into itself; blocking out those last few embers of light from the gleefully-painted windows until only the looming shapes of the buildings could be made out, flanking the road as if laying an ambush.
Ruth held herself for warmth and hurried into the dark. There was no thunder, no welcome flash of lightning to illuminate the city. Instead as Ruth snaked her way towards Browning’s Market a thick, green-tinted smog began to descend as if from the heavens, choking Whitechurch and clogging up its arteries. The buzzing life of the city had died. Even the protests had faded, not being able to withstand the biting cold that now tore at Ruth’s skin. As she wandered deeper into the city past where the demonstrations had turned violent there was almost no sign of that afternoon’s disturbance. Only a few scattered cans of tear gas and the odd dark shape lying prone in the streets gave any indication that this had been a battleground.
Ruth hurried on. Now she found herself in the market – that once bustling thoroughfare now silent save for the rain’s constant attack.
Thud-thud-thud-thud went the water on the shop roofs. Thud-thud-thud went the sound of Ruth’s footsteps as she stole into the street, looking around furtively for where she had left her car.
I had been following this lonely expedition. Following, watching, waiting. As I crawled along those slick cobbles and crumbling walls, I felt a strange sense of benevolence wash over me.
Here was my charge: lost in the great city where anything could happen. I could feel her beating heart, her flares of anxiety, of self-loathing, as if they were my own. Yes, this must have been how was is to be an angel, if such fanciful things existed; keeping watch over the world’s scattered souls yet never intervening except to save them from the wolf.
But I was that wolf, I had to remind myself, a thing of terror and destruction. That is what a demon is: to be fear, to feed off it. I was not an old construct. When the wizard had been sent to thrust me into forced confinement it was the first meaningful contact I ever experienced. It was when I became aware of myself, of what I was and what I needed to do. A kind of rapture. After being thrust into that concrete cell, I spent a long time thinking about what I would do, what I would do to her.
Burning, burning, always burning with emotion; that is how the world works. How it should work. Perhaps, I mused, the purpose of demon kind was to keep the world authentic by not allowing the base passions to die out. Indeed, my hunt for the wizard was a passion project, so that when I killed her it would not be alone in her study where nobody would life an eyebrow. No; it would be when she had the most to lose, when somebody cared about her enough that her death would be truly satisfactory. When it would create enough fear to embolden me for a lifetime.
I slunk through the shadows with that low clicking noise I make when moving in my true form, just out of Ruth’s sight as her body sank, defeated. She could find the car another day. For now, the important thing was to get home, where it was safe.
Of course, I had done my research. Unlike some demons I am no indiscriminate killer. For months I had watched Jennifer and this conflicted human going about their lives. Watching, learning.
The sharp rain washed my black hide clean as Ruth turned and headed for home. I was glad; this place set me on edge with its flashing lights and sickly smiles. For some reason I had an unshakeable feeling that, for once, the winds of fortune were at my back.
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