SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“I could probably do it if you held hands with her, and if you phrased it just right. ‘ I Demand That You Make Us Young And Hale Again, Pestilent Creature,’ something like that.”

“But you still need a sacrifice, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone else to give you.”

Baxter rolled onto his back, hoping to elicit more belly rubs. Malachai looked down at the old dog, then back up at Lydia.

“…you can’t think of anyone ?”

The office was massive. A wall of windows looked out over a sparkling city. The spotless desk was made from brushed platinum; the desk chair was upholstered in premium tiger leather. Several overstuffed armchairs were poised around a coffee table made from interlocking elephant tusks. A man in a white suit stood facing a towering fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. In the fireplace, a sheet of ancient parchment smoldered and crackled. On the panda-skin rug, his captive writhed, struggling to free herself from her bonds before she was to be sacrificed. The man turned as he finished the invocation, prepared to face the demon. He would dominate it. Bend it to his will. He would own this city. He would own the world .

Smoke (steam) billowed through the room. A peal of thunder sounded from somewhere near the brushed platinum desk, and a bolt of lightning split the ivory table in two. The hounds of Hell snarled their rage and wuffled their interest in belly rubs, and the man in the white suit could hear the creaking of their iron chains as they strained to tear his soul from his body with monstrous, gnashing teeth.

A figure appeared in the smoke.

No—two figures.

“ I am the Great and Ominous Malachai, Devourer of Miscreants, Archduke of Nightmares, Usurper of Souls, Master of the Hound of Chaos!”

The man in the white suit cowered. A dark stain spread across the front of his slacks.

The Hound of Chaos farted softly.

“Baxter, damn it. You—sit. Baxter. Sit .”

The man in the white suit coughed. “Uh, Please, O Ye Harbinger, I Beg Your Mercy.”

The Hound of Chaos sat and thumped his tail against the platinum desk. The Devourer of Miscreants fed him a treat and clicked a little metal tab before rounding on the man in the white suit.

“Frail Mortal! Do You Know The Covenant Which You So Foolishly Invoke At Your Own—Baxter, down . No, don’t pet him, he needs to learn not to jump up on people. Baxter, sit .”

Malachai gave up. The Hound of Chaos was well on his way to being a suitable companion—but he had no sense of theatre at all. The Archduke of Nightmares let out a sigh as the man in the white suit rubbed the Hound’s velvet ears and repeatedly affirmed his status a Very Good Dog.

It had been worth it, though. It had been worth it to see Lydia and Deborah holding each other. That had been his first time seeing mortals weep with anything other than terror, and it had been worth the farting and the crotch-sniffing and the endless, constant shedding.

And, besides, Malachai thought. Even if Baxter lacked a sense of theatre, he really was a Very Good Dog.

Originally published in Fireside in March 2016

Content note: This story explores themes of domestic violence.

The children grab each other when they walk past me. They dare each other to run up and touch me. Bring back proof, they say . Something from inside.

When he came inside, he kept his shoes on. That was my first clue. She took her shoes off, and looked around like she was standing in a cathedral. He rapped his knuckles hard on a wall, and I flinched.

“Old houses like these, Marthe—you never know what might be in the walls. Rats. Fungus. Dry rot.”

I was indignant. Aghast. Fungus?

But she ignored him. She crouched right down and spread out her fingers on the floor. She pressed them to her nose, inhaled the spicy smell of oak and beeswax. She curled her bare toes and smiled at the floor before looking up at him.

“This is it, chèr . I can feel it.”

I felt it, too.

He rolled his eyes and clomped across the floor. Dirt fell from the soles of his shoes, dulling the sheen of the wood, making me shudder.

I should have known right then.

Marthe screams at night. Cries. Stands at the windows and twitches the curtains. I try to wrap myself around her, to comfort her, but I don’t think she can feel me anymore. She just paces the halls, remembering what happened to her over and over again. Making me remember.

The first time he hit her was devastating for both of us. The plaster trembled with the echoes of Baptiste’s hand striking her face, and my walls continued shuddering long after she’d retreated to the bathroom. She clutched the edges of the sink as she sobbed. The porcelain warmed under her fingertips. I remember.

It took her a long time to stop crying. He cried, too. He apologized. He said it would never happen again. He said he needed help. He said he was sorry. He said he was sorry again and again and again .

Perhaps he was sorry. It’s hard to tell, in hindsight.

A few kids from the neighborhood—I still think of them that way, although I suppose they’re grown-up enough to be drunk now—force the front door. They’re dressed for going out, not for coming in, but it’s late enough and they wobble enough that I suspect this incursion was not part of the original plan. They have a camera. They film me from lots of different angles, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I try to tell them to go away, but the only result is a whisper of wind down the chimney that makes them shriek and clutch at each other before dissolving into laughter.

It’s not long before Marthe appears. She’s trying to ask them a question—I can’t make it out, but I know her very well by now, and her howls are not of protest or fear. She’s confused. She doesn’t know why they’re filming her.

They lock themselves in the bathroom, thinking they can shut her out. They don’t realize that the bathroom is hers more than any other room in the house. When they realize that they’re trapped in there with her, they break the window and climb out.

The broken window lets the cold in, and the rain. The wall starts to mildew. I remember the accusation of fungus, years ago. I think Marthe must remember it, too, because she runs untouching fingers across the mottling plaster. The sound she makes would be terrifying to someone who didn’t recognize it as weeping.

It took about a year before he stopped saying he was sorry. And once he stopped being sorry, everything fell apart.

It was a little thing that killed her. Baptiste got home from work and dinner was on the table, but it wasn’t quite warm, and that was all it took. She saw the fury in his face, and she tried to lock herself in the bathroom—but he was too close behind her, and he pushed his way in.

He always kept his shoes on. I should have known, just from that. He treated the wood on the floors the same as he treated the dirt outside, the same as he treated his wife. Marthe, though, she always took her shoes off, and let her toes pick up the imprint of the woodgrain. She stroked the bricks of the lintel with her fingertips. She let her hand warm the wood on the banister for a moment after her feet landed on the bottom stair. She loved me.

Fallen, half-rotted figs mixed into the soil as he dug the hole; her grave was sweet-smelling, ant-infested. The ants never crossed the threshold, never came inside, but they had the run of the yard. They built a new anthill over Marthe’s barefooted corpse, and they ate the figs that fell before the sticky-sweet juice could drip through the soil to her parched lips.