Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

When William touched her arm, she started, blinked, then followed him over to the booth.

William had described Robert Lonnie as an old hoodoo man and Staley decided that even if he didn’t know a lick of the kind of mojo she was looking for, he still knew a thing or two about magic-the musical kind, that is. Lord, but he could play. Then he looked up, his gaze locking on hers. It was like a static charge, that dark gaze, sudden and unexpected in its intensity, and she almost dropped her fiddlecase on the floor. She slipped slowly into the booth, took a seat across the table from him and not a moment too soon since her legs had suddenly lost their ability to hold her upright. William had to give her a nudge before she slid further down the seat to make room for him. She hugged her fiddlecase to her chest, only dimly aware of William beside her, the rabbit in its bag on his lap.

The guitarist kept his gaze on her, humming under his breath as he brought the tune to a close. His last chord hung in the air with an almost physical presence and for a long moment everything in the bar held its breath. Then he smiled, wide and easy, and the moment was gone.

“William,” he said softly. “Miss.”

“This is Staley,” William said.

Robert gave her considering look, then turned to William. “You’re early to be hitting the bars.”

“It’s not like you think,” William said. “I’m still going to AA.”

“Good for you.”

“Well,” William said. “Considering it’s about the only thing I’ve done right with my life, I figured I might as well stick with it.”

“Uh-huh.” Robert returned his attention to Staley. “You’ve got the look of one who’s been to the crossroads.”

“I guess,” Staley said, though she had no idea what he meant.

“But you don’t know who you met there, do you?”

She shook her head.

Robert nodded. “That’s the way it happens, all that spooky shit. You feel the wind rising and the leaves are trembling on the trees. Next thing you know, it’s all falling down on you like hail, but you don’t know what it is.”

“Um…” Staley looked to William for guidance.

“You’ve just got to tell him like you told me,” William said.

But Robert was looking at the shopping bag on William’s lap now.

“Who’ve you got in there?” he asked.

Staley cleared her throat. “We were hoping you could tell us,” she said.

William lowered the cloth sides of the bag. The rabbit poked its head up, raggedy ear hanging down on one side.

Robert laughed. “Well, now,” he said, gaze lifting to meet Staley’s again. “Why don’t you tell me this story of yours.”

So Staley did, started with Butch dropping her off on the county road near her trailer late the night before and took the tale all the way through to when she got to William’s apartment earlier that morning. Somewhere in the middle of it the barman brought them a round of coffee, walking away before Staley could pay him, or even get out a thanks.

“I remember that Malicorne,” Robert said when she was done. “Now she was a fine woman, big horn and all. You ever see her anymore?”

William shook his head. “Not since that night she went off with Jake.”

“Can you help me?” Staley asked.

Robert leaned back on his side of the booth. Those long fingers of his left hand started walking up the neck of his guitar and he picked with his right, soft, a spidery twelve-bar.

“You ever hear the story of the two magicians?” he asked.

Staley shook her head.

“Don’t know what the problem was between them, but the way I heard it is they got themselves into a long-time, serious altercation, went on for years. In the end, the only way they were willing to settle it was to duke it out the way those hoodoo men do, working magic. The one’d turn himself into a ’coon, the other’d become a coonhound, chase him up some tree. That treed ’coon’d come down, ’cept now he’s wearing the skin of a wildcat.” Robert grinned. “Only now that coonhound, he’s a hornet, starts in on stinging the cat. And this just goes on.

“One’s a salmon, the other’s an otter. Salmon becomes the biggest, ugliest catfish you ever saw, big enough to swallow that otter whole, but now the otter’s a giant eagle, slashing at the fish with its talons. Time passes and they just keep at it, changing skins-big changes, little changes. One’s a flood, the other’s a drought. One’s human, the other’s a devil. One’s night, the other’s day…

“Damnedest thing you ever saw, like paper-scissors-rock, only hoodoo man style, you know what I’m saying? Damnedest thing.”

The whole time he talked, he picked at his guitar, turned the story into a talking song with that lazy drawl of his, mesmerizing. When he fell silent, it took Staley a moment or two to realize that he’d stopped talking.

“So Mr. Rabbitskin here,” she said, “and that other thing I only caught half a glimpse of-you’re saying they’re like those two magicians?”

“Got the smell of it to me.”

“And they’re only interested in hurting each other?”

“Well, now,” Robert told her. “That’d be the big thought on their mind, but you’ve got to remember that hoodoo requires a powerful amount of nourishment, just to keep the body up to fighting strength. Those boys’ll be hungry and needing to feed-and I’m guessing they won’t be all that particular as to what they chow down on.”

Great, Staley thought. She shot the rabbit a sour look, but it wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“Mr. Rabbitskin here,” she said, “won’t eat a thing. I’ve tried carrots, greens, even bread soaked in warm milk.”

Robert nodded. “That’d tempt a rabbit, right enough. Problem is, what you’ve got here are creatures that are living on pure energy. Hell, that’s probably all they are at this point, nothing but energy gussied up into a shape that makes sense to our eyes. They won’t be eating food like we do. So far as that goes, the way they’d be looking at it, we probably are food, considering the kind of energy we’ve got rolling through us.”

The rabbit, docile up to now, suddenly lunged out of William’s lap and went skidding across the smooth floor, heading for the back door of the bar. William started after it, but Robert just shook his head.

“You’ll never catch it now,” he said.

“Are you saying that rabbit was feeding on me somehow?” William asked.

“I figure he was building up to it.”

Staley stared in the direction that the rabbit had gone, her heart sinking. This whole situation was getting worse by the minute.

“So these two things I called over,” she said. “They’re the hoodoo men from your story?”

Robert shrugged. “Oh, they’re not the same pair, but it’s an old story and old stories have a habit of repeating themselves.”

“Who won that first duel?” William asked.

“One of ’em turned himself into a virus and got the other too sick to shape a spell in reply, but I don’t know which one. Doesn’t much matter anyway. By the time that happened, the one was as bad as the other. Get into that kind of a state of mind and after awhile you start to forget things like kindness, decency… the fact that other people aren’t put here in this world for you to feed on.”

Staley’s heart sank lower.

“We’ve got to do something about this,” she said. “I’ve got to do something. I’m responsible for whatever hurt they cause, feeding on people and all.”

“Who says it’s your fault?” Robert wanted to know.

“Well, I called them over, didn’t I? Though I don’t understand how I did it. I’ve been playing my music for going on four years now in that meadow and nothing like this has ever happened before.”