Clive Barker - Mister B. Gone

I called to Quitoon as I approached him, but he didn't respond. I halted a little distance from him, and tried to rouse him from this distracted state. I was uneasy about those furnace eyes of his. Until some sign of Quitoon himself returned to cool those fires, I was by no means certain that I was safe from the power he had called up. So I waited. The grove was silent, except for the tapping sound of blood as it dripped from one leaf to another, or down into the already sodden ground.

There were noises coming from beyond the grove however, as was a smell that I knew all too well from childhood: the stink of burning flesh. Its pungent presence made sense of the two kinds of cries that accompanied it: one, the agonized shrieks of burning men and women; and the other, the appreciative murmur of the crowd that was witnessing their cremations. I've never had a great fondness for human meat; it's bland and often fatty, but I had not eaten since taking Cawley's bait, and the smell of the cooking sodomites wafting from Joshua's Field made me salivate. Drool ran from the corners of my mouth and down my chin. I raised a trembling hand to wipe the spittle off, an absurd touch of fastidiousness given my general condition, and while I was doing so Quitoon said:

"Hungry?"

I looked up at him. The blaze in his head had been extinguished while my mind had wandered off to Joshua's Field. Now I was back, and so was Quitoon.

His pupils, like those of every member of the Demonation, were slits, his cornea rays of burnt umber flecked with gold. There were hints of gold too in the symmetrical arrangement of turquoise and purple patterns that decorated his body, though if they had ever been flawless many years of scarring had taken their toll.

"Are you just going to stand there staring or are you going to answer my question?"

"Sorry."

"Are you hungry? I'm so starved I could even eat fish."

Fish. Disgusting. Fish was the Nazarene animal. I shall make you fisher of men, it was writ. Ugh. It was no wonder I'd choked on a bone both times I tried eating it.

"All right, no fish. Bread and meat. How's that?"

"Better."

Quitoon shook himself, like a wet dog. Flecks of brightness, remnants of the power he'd unleashed that had been lodged between his scales, now flew off him and died in the sunlight.

"That's better," he said.

"I… should be… no, I mean, I am… very…"

"What?"

"Grateful."

"Oh. No problem. We can't let this human trash kick us around."

"They made quite a mess of me."

"You'll heal," Quitoon said, matter-of-factly.

"Even if I got two knives in my heart?"

"Yeah, even then. It's when they start dismembering you that things become difficult. I doubt even Lucifer could have grown himself a second head." He thought on this for a moment. "Though now I come to think of it nothing's impossible. If you can dream it, you can do it." He studied me. "Are you fit to walk?"

I tried to be as casual as he was being. "Sure. No problem."

"So let's go see the Archbishop cook."

Fires. They've marked every important moment in my life.

Are you ready to light one last fire then?

Surely, you didn't think I'd forgotten. I got a little carried away by the story, but all the time I've been telling it I've been thinking about how it'll feel when you do what you promised.

You did promise, don't say you didn't.

And don't say you've forgotten. That'll only annoy me. And I'd have every right to be annoyed, after going to all the trouble I've gone to, digging through my memories, painful many of them, and sharing what I dug up. I wouldn't do that for just anybody, you know. Only you.

I know, I know, it's easily said.

But I mean it. I've opened the doors of my heart for you, I really have. It's not easy for me to admit I've been as wounded and weak as I have or foolish or as easily duped. But I told you because when you first opened the prison door and I saw your face there was something about it I trusted. That I still trust.

You're going to set fire to this book very soon, aren't you?

I'll take your silence as consent.

You have a slightly puzzled look on your face. What's that about? Oh. Wait. I get it. You're expecting everything to be wrapped up neat and tidy, yes, like a story. This isn't a story. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.

This doesn't work like that. It's just some scraps of memory, that's all. Well no, that's not really right. I've told you things that were very important to me, because those are the things I've remembered. The Bonfire, The Bait, Killing Pappy, My First Love (though not my last), What Happened on Joshua's Field, Meeting Quitoon, and How He Saved My Life. That's about it.

But I can see from your expression that isn't what you expected. Did you think I was going to be telling you about the Great War between Heaven and Hell? Easy answer to that: There wasn't one. All papal propaganda.

And me? Well, I survived my wounds obviously, or I wouldn't be sitting in these pages telling you all this.

Huh. That makes me wonder — the idea of me telling you makes me wonder. What do I sound like in your head? Did you give me the voice of somebody you've always hated, or someone you love?

Oh wait, do I sound like you? No, do I? That would be weird, that would be so weird. It'd be like I didn't really exist, except in your head.

I, Mister Jakabok Botch, presently residing inside your skull…

No, I don't like that. I don't like that at all, for obvious reasons.

What reasons? Oh, come on, don't make me spell it out for you, friend. If I do, then I'm going to tell you the truth, and sometimes the truth isn't pretty. I might bruise your tender human feelings, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

On the other hand, I'm not going to start telling you lies now, not when we're so close to our little book-burning.

All right, I'll tell you. I'm just saying that I don't think anybody in their right mind would think of your head as prime location, that's all.

Your head's a slum. I've been here long enough to see it for myself. You're up to your skull lid with dirt and desperation. Oh, I'm sure you fool your more gullible friends and relatives with little tricks. I've seen them on your face, so don't try to deny it. You'd be surprised at how much I've seen looking up at you from these pages. The smile you put on when you're not sure what's true and what isn't. You don't want to show your ignorance, so on goes this little smile to cover up your confusion. You put it on when you're reading something you're not sure about. I bet you didn't know that. You put that little smile on for a book , believe it or not.

But you're not fooling me. I see all your guilty little secrets scurrying around behind your eyes, desperately trying to keep out of sight. They make your eyes flicker, did you know that? They jiggle back and forth really quickly whenever the conversation we've been having has moved on to something you're uncomfortable about. Let's see, when did I first notice it? Was it when I was talking about the family fighting and me picking up a kitchen knife to use on my father? Or was it when I first talked about the corrupt priest, Father O'Brien? I can't remember. We've talked about so much. But take it from me, your eyes put on quite a performance when you're nervous.

I can see right through you. There's nothing you can hide from me. Every vicious, corrupt notion that passes through your mind is there on your face, for all the world to see. No, I shouldn't say all the world. It's just me, really, isn't it? I get the private view. The only one who maybe knows you better than me is your mirror.

Wait, wait. How did I get on to talking about your mind. Oh yeah, me being resident inside your skull, your slummy skull.