Chapter 4: The Magician
“You’ve been burned by my lighter.”
Kyuss, “Thumb”
Greg’s life in the circus had its advantages. No documents, no credit cards, no insurance. No address, no office. To the world outside the circus, Greg existed only during performances. That world did not entice him; it was too predictable, too gray and cruel. Lazarus would have never believed it, but Greg liked it in the circus much more. He had Martha. Since he had met her, it was easier to restrain his dark passion. He did not know why Martha had that effect on him. Martha gave him the peace that had eluded him his entire life. As far as he could judge, in Martha’s presence everybody could be a little bit better than they were.
Greg could not remember his parents. He remembered very little of his childhood. When he tried to force himself to remember something about his distant past, the wall of fire rose before his eyes. He was a teenager the first time he released his inner fire. Some hobos bothered him in the bunkhouse. He did not know what they needed. It might have been his clothes or money, which he did not have, or his body. They hit him. When he realized that this could be the last night of his life, fear and rage overtook him. They hit him a few more times before the flame grasped them. What happened then, that first time of the fire fury, Greg remembered only vaguely. He woke up on the other side of town in an abandoned building, naked, covered in ash and soot, but in one piece. He tried to examine himself by looking at his reflection in a pool of water, but the water started boiling at his approach and steamed away.
After a couple of days, Greg saw the news story about some hobos who had been burnt alive. The press assumed something unnatural, even supernatural, in their deaths, as in Stephen King’s Fire Starter. But the police swept the investigation under the carpet, attributing it to an accident.
As he grew older, Greg’s flashes occurred more often. If you’re a teenager living on the street, you have reason enough to be angry. Greg spent many years learning to control the flames. He eventually understood how to use his abilities, but he did not understand why they had been given to him. He vowed never to use them to harm people. He firmly kept the promise, hopscotching around the country. And then one day, in some small town, he witnessed a group of men beating a girl. They told him to fuck off. And first, he obeyed, but then a thought came into his mind and devoured him. I’m stronger than they are. I can fix it. And he fixed it the only way he knew. He burned them alive. The girl did not thank her savior. In a panic, she ran away before Greg could tell her she had nothing to fear.
Greg tried to lead a normal life, but the thought I’m stronger than they are allowed him no peace. A normal job was not for him, and he could not stay long in one place. Something inside him made him move constantly, as if he were searching for something. When he ran out of money, Greg arranged for street performances. He breathed fire, melted coins, made harmless levitating flames that kids could touch.
In one of the towns, he encountered Lazarus and his circus. The townsfolk were whispering about some strange guy who knew how to do different “things” with fire, and Mr. Bernardius had no trouble finding him.
The tentmaster told Greg that the circus wasn’t only touring with freak shows and circus performers, but also was looking for unusual people and creatures, to whom Lazarus gave shelter. Bernardius invited the magician to join the troupe, and he agreed. Greg immediately realized the tentmaster knew that all his fiery wonders were not mere tricks, but Greg’s unusual abilities did not frighten the circus manager, and this impressed the magician.
Greg’s life took its course. New towns, new shows, new tricks. Slowly, the fire inside Greg calmed. One day, while working on a trick, he found black candles and a crystal ball among the props. He checked the records of the archivist Pietro and learned that no such props were mentioned in them. Greg kept the candles and the ball to himself, not saying a word to Lazarus. After a while, the magician discovered their true purpose. The memory of his own strength returned to him, and he thought about it more and more.
The candle was burning in Greg’s hand. The night was chilly, and the few passersby on the outskirts of the small town threw suspicious glances at the stranger wearing a T-shirt and jeans in such weather and carrying a candle in his hand. Greg did not care. At this hour, the streets held only loners who preferred not to mess with strangers, and a drunkard who would wake up tomorrow and barely remember his own name. Besides, Greg didn’t need any more clothing. The inner fire warmed him. The street was dark, half its lights out. And of those that gave some light, most were dim, and one flickered and hissed as if it was ready to blink off at any moment. A cheap area on the outskirts of a sleepy town.
It’s just like my old damn life, thought Greg. But he chased away that thought. I’m not like Berry. I don’t kill good people. At the end of a row of houses was an old but well-kept one-story building, gray. The candle flame flared up to the size of a fist and abruptly extinguished. Only the smooth oily black candle continued to shine in the unsteady light of the street lamps.
In one of the windows was a light, but the house was quiet as a grave. Nearby buildings were slightly more bustling. The magician heard the sounds of gunfire and hoofbeats from a house next to him. Someone was trying to appease his insomnia with midnight westerns. From across the street Greg heard muffled curses.
“Excellent. Someone watching TV too loud, someone else keen to fight,” Greg murmured to himself. The magician made sure there were no dogs or other animals that might suddenly make a fuss. Not surprisingly, the area was quite poor, and pets were reckoned as a waste of money.
Greg walked around the building, checking if Berry was home. The candles never lied, but the house was strangely quiet. Greg walked quietly onto the porch and tried to open the door. Locked. It was unlikely that someone like Berry would have left the key under the mat, but Greg had his own way to open doors. The magician tensed for a moment, concentrating on what he called his inner flame. The forefinger and middle finger of his right hand turned into flames, burning blue, as if from a blowpipe. His fingers touched the wooden surface above the lock and it instantly turned black with smoke. Greg began to slowly sink his fingers in the wood, burning it until his fingers had passed through the door. He started to make a circle around the lock with his right hand. When the circle was complete, he pulled the lock out of the door with his left hand and carefully placed it near the entrance.
Greg opened the door and entered. The hall light was off. But even in the darkness it was obvious that the house, which from the outside was indistinguishable from others on the block, bore little resemblance to a normal person’s home. There were no pictures on the walls, no books or magazines on shelves, no vases or figurines. It contained only the most necessary items, a table, a sofa, a TV set. The house was clean, tidy, and empty. It was as if the old tenants had just moved out, and new ones had not yet had time to bring in their belongings.
A light was on in the kitchen. Greg moved there, trying to make as little noise as possible. Now his entire right forearm was covered with a blue flame. There was no one in the kitchen or in any of the other rooms. Greg was sure Berry was in the house. The magician decided to go back to the entrance and start exploring again.
He heard a clanging sound coming from below the floor.
There was a basement, but Greg had missed the door to it. He was angry at himself for such carelessness. The flame burning inside became stronger. It seemed that if he did not give it a way out, it would burn him alive. In his anger, he momentarily lost his concentration, and the flame on his right hand gripped his arm up to the shoulder, scorching the sleeve of his shirt. Greg forced himself to calm down and regained his self-possession. “Do not be distracted,” he whispered to himself. “You need to find the door to the basement.”
He found the cellar door behind the kitchen. It was locked.
Calmly and silently, Greg burned the lock the way he had on the front door. The magician went down the concret
e stairs. There was a wall on one side of the stairway and a high bookcase holding various implements on the other side, which hid him from view. When he had not quite reached the bottom of the stairs, Greg sat on a step and peered around the bookcase.
In a corner of the basement, a girl of seven or eight was chained to the floor. She was lying on an air mattress and was either asleep or unconscious. Her mouth was gagged, and the gag had traces of blood on it. Beside her lay a bowl of food. Berry towered over the girl. He was completely naked. In the weak yellow light of a single bulb illuminating the cellar, his flabby body seemed made of wax. He stood in a winner’s stance, with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. He shifted his gaze from the girl to the wall, humming quietly and cheerfully. On the wall hung a case for tools. It held hammers, saws, screwdrivers, and wrenches.
Berry went to the stand and picked up a hammer. He turned it over and then put it aside. Returning to the body of the girl, he stood over her and touched his flesh. His breathing became deep and frequent.
Greg had killed many people. The ball had always shown him only killers. Maybe there were other sins in their souls—robbery, violence, drugs, who knew? But his victims all shared one trait: they were murderers. They took people’s lives, and Greg took theirs. He believed he was doing good deeds, using his strength to fight these abominations. He never thought about what pushed these men to commit murder. Quarrels? Gambling debts? Mafia orders? To Greg, murder was murder. Seeing Mr. Berry, Greg thought that some murderers were more heinous than others. Greg had no doubt that the girl on the floor wasn’t Berry’s first victim. Among those whose lives the magician had taken, perhaps there were other such maniacs, but Greg had never had evidence of it. Looking at Berry, he lost his concentration again.
The wave of heat hit Berry in the back with a loud noise. He fell face down, and before he could scream, someone turned him over and sat astride him. It was not a man. It was a devil, a fiend from the belly of hell, wrought by fire. The demon raised his fiery hand and slid it into Mr. Berry’s mouth.
The maniac did not have time to scream. Greg closed his fingers around Berry’s tongue and burned it. Instead of a mouth, there was a gaping hole with scorched edges. Berry’s eyes filled with tears. He could smell burning flesh and feel a wild pain. He tried to shake off the fire monster, but his hands clutched only flames, sending more pain shooting through him.
Berry’s resistance annoyed Greg. The magician grabbed the maniac’s shoulders, pressed them to the floor, and squeezed hard. Berry’s moaning became louder. He tried to move his hands, but couldn’t. The maniac shook his head, trying to figure out what was wrong with his hands, finally realizing that they were no longer attached to his arms. The inner flames were devouring Greg. He wrapped his arms around Berry’s head. The magician dug his thumbs into the killer’s tear-filled eyes and pressed. Berry’s eyeballs melted and began to sink into his skull. Berry was thrashing around under Greg, trying, in a last desperate attempt, to throw him off. The magician pushed harder, and his fiery fingers broke through the last resistance and entered the maniac’s brain.
It was over. Greg’s inner fire began to subside. He got off Berry’s body and lay on the concrete floor of the basement, utterly drained. Greg’s clothes had burned off him, and the floor was cooling down against his back and hips. “Bastard, scum,” Greg muttered. He wondered when he had last had such a flash. Only his first time, he realized. He knew he had to stand up, reminding himself that not everything was done. He approached the girl. She was still unconscious, but she was alive. Greg melted the chain and removed it from the girl’s neck. The magician examined Julia. There were no wounds on her body, and her clothes were still intact. It seemed the blood on the gag was Berry’s. The girl had most likely bitten his hand as he tried to shove the gag in.
He didn’t do it, Greg thought. Gently, he took the girl’s tiny body in his arms, carried her upstairs, and set her on the sofa.
Greg considered burning the house down but dropped the idea. It would be too big an event for such a small town. Local wags would make jokes about a fire magician from a traveling circus who had performed a trick with a man whose house had subsequently burned down. It would be safer not to leave any traces. Greg knelt over the body of the killer. The magician’s hands turned into fire again. He knew that physical contact of the body with the heat would be more devastating, but he could not overcome his disgust. He passed his hands over the body, taking care not to touch the skin, heating it up and burning it to ashes. When Mr. Berry had become a pile of ashes, Greg swept them into a garbage bag and went upstairs.
He took some clothes from Berry’s closet. The idea of wearing the maniac’s clothes was revolting, but there was little choice. It was either that or leave the house naked. And he still had a couple more things to do before returning to the circus. After he got dressed, he wrapped the girl in a blanket, took the bag containing Berry’s ashes, and left the house. He threw the bag into a trashcan near a house a few blocks away from Berry’s. Then he put the girl on the porch of a house a couple of streets away, rang the doorbell, and disappeared. He did not know where the local hospital was, and he did not have time to look for it. But he was sure that the people in the house where he had left the girl would take her to a hospital or to a doctor. Now there was only emptiness in Greg’s head. He felt lousy. All he could think of was that he wanted to see Martha.
Zinnober followed Greg from the circus. He had to prowl through the town, but Zinno did not care. His gut told him that something was very odd. Whatever Greg did during his absences apparently ran counter to the rules established by Mr. Bernardius, otherwise the tentmaster would not have allowed Zinno to leave the circus. Yes, it was very, very serious. Perhaps Zinnober could use it to benefit himself.
When Greg went into the house, Zinno hid in the shadows on the other side of the street, just below the building where people were quarrelling, and watched. What Greg did in the house was unclear, but when he came out, he was dressed differently and was carrying something. Zinnober followed the magician, hiding his stooped figure in the shadows, until Greg got back to the circus. Then the dwarf walked back the same way he had come and found the trash bag Greg had dropped a few blocks from Mr. Berry’s house. Many, especially the magician, underestimated Zaches, and he knew it. Greg sometimes called him an asshead right to his face. But Zaches was, in his own way, clever and cunning, and he was clever enough to understand what had happened at Berry’s. Oh yes, it would certainly disappoint Mr. Bernardius. If, of course, Zinnober decided to tell him.
The Beauty & the Goat-man
Record made 03/04/1877
Archivist: Faulkner
Tonight after the show, some drunken loggers offered us information about a strange creature in exchange for a few dollars. One of them said it was a demon, the other that it was a ghost, and a third even called it a demon ghost. This creature, like an ungodly cross between a goat and a man, lived under a railway bridge somewhere in Louisville and by night attacked tramps, young couples looking for privacy, and daredevils who wanted to debunk the myth of the deadly ghost. The loggers promised to say in what city and under what bridge the monster lurked.
Mr. Bernardius did not give them a penny. We already knew about the goat-man but were not planning to go after him. Unhappy, distraught Derek. He will never set foot over the threshold of our circus and, I’m afraid, will finish his days at the hands of some village ruffian or a Judge’s silver bullet. I had no doubt that the monster under the bridge, which pushed people onto the rails, was Derek. Once he was a fine demionis, intelligent, open, and responsive. But a year ago, everything changed.
Derek was a satyr, and when he came to us, I immediately warned Mr. Bernardius that the boy would not be easy to deal with. Satyrs are conscious demionis; they think and talk. But at the same time, their half-bestial mind causes them many problems. Wild satyrs, devoid of communication with humans, quickly degrade to the animal state, in which they are guided by instinct r
ather than reason. Derek came to us very young and was more receptive to learning. Thanks to Mr. Bernardius’s custody and my lessons, he soon was little different from a human child. Externally, today’s satyrs have not changed since the days of ancient Greece, when they were portrayed as goat-hoofed creatures with horns that grew bigger as they aged, sometimes reaching impressive sizes.
Derek was agile and strong. He was probably twice as strong as an adult, despite his young age. He was indispensable during the installation and dismantling of the tents. Even better, the young satyr played the flute and danced. I think it is no exaggeration to say that our entire circus adored Derek. What can brighten up a long day or a tiring journey better than a good song? The satyr knew a lot of them. Audiences also were crazy about his performances. They especially liked sikkinis, the dance of the satyrs. In this dance was something unusual, something available only to a demionis with an amazing flexible body, a move that combined high jumping on goat legs with smooth, soft hand movements. No man could dance the sikkinis.
Dancing Derek and his songs always amused audiences, but before the show in Kentucky, I never thought about exactly how. After that show, a man with a girl approached Mr. Bernardius. The man, who introduced himself as Mr. Ridby, was terribly flustered, crushing his wide-brimmed straw hat in his hands. He began to talk about how much his daughter had enjoyed the performance. The girl’s name was Eleanor, and, as Mr. Ridby explained to us, she had suffered from melancholia for more than a year, ever since her mother died. Eleanor was eleven years old but did not like to play with other children. She never smiled and spent most of her day in silence. Poor Ridby was terribly upset by his daughter’s condition. To treat Eleanor’s melancholy, doctors had recommended that Ridby beat the girl more often, deprive her of sleep at night, and wash her in ice-cold water. But Mr. Ridby was a gentle man and could not do such things to his daughter.
On the day of the show, Ridby told us, a genuine miracle happened. Watching Derek perform, Eleanor had smiled. Almost in tears, her father asked us to stay in the city a little while longer so that Ellie might speak with Derek. Mr. Ridby expressed the hope that talking with our boy would once again give Eleanor her zest for life. In any other situation, Mr. Bernardius would have adamantly refused. But Ridby’s heartfelt pleas so touched the ringmaster that he could not deny him. I can testify that I had never seen such somberness and detachment from the world as I had seen in Eleanor that day. Meanwhile, it had long been reported that there was information about the new demionis from Astaroth, information we had to find.
Mr. Bernardius agreed to stay in town for a few extra days, and he told Mr. Ridby that the girl could come to the circus and play with Derek. Lazarus’s only condition was that Eleanor come alone, because our circus seeks to preserve our trade secrets from outsiders. I was not worried that a human child would be in the camp for several days in a row. I like children. I believe that in some sense, their minds are much more open to everything unusual. The rarities of our circus would be a miracle for Eleanor, but for an adult, a dangerous deviation, an anomaly. On the other hand, who would believe the girl when she discovered that Derek’s legs and horns were no makeup?
The news that Eleanor would visit him for a few days filled Derek with excitement and joy. He was a teenager, and though he liked to entertain us with his pranks, the satyr clearly had been missing the society of age mates. We told Mr. Ridby that we would allow Eleanor to come to the circus in the afternoon every day for five days, and Derek would entertain the girl. Mr. Bernardius promised Ellie’s father that the children would be supervised, because the circus, although it looks from the outside like a place of entertainment, contains many dangerous pieces of equipment and decorations behind the scenes. Mr. Ridby agreed, and the next day at the appointed time Eleanor came to us.
Derek entertained the girl as he could. The satyr clearly felt like the emperor of a country in which a lovely guest had mysteriously appeared, whom he tried to impress in every way. He talked in detail about the circus, explained how to raise the tents, listed all the cities he had visited on tour, and, of course, also danced and sang. The young satyr’s efforts were not in vain. Between the tents could be heard a ringing girlish giggling and Derek’s loud laughter. The two teens obviously got along, and their first day was a breeze. When Mr. Ridby came for his daughter at sunset, she did not want to leave.
Impressed with the changes in Eleanor’s mood, her father could barely choke back his tears. Before he left the circus, he thanked Mr. Bernardius and young Derek profusely. Ellie’s first day at the circus was great. So were the second, third, and fourth days. Each evening the father took home a cheerful and lively Eleanor, and on the way, she sang the songs Derek had sung for her and tried to demonstrate the satyr’s dashing dancing capers. On the evening of the fourth day, the two youngsters reluctantly parted. They had only one day left, and the faces of both showed the sadness of their upcoming farewell, which overshadowed the joy of that day’s adventures. That night, Derek was not himself. I saw him sitting, illuminated by moonlight, on a barrel in the backyard playing an unfamiliar sad melody on his flute. I felt for him. Only then did I get the idea that he might be more attached to Eleanor than she was to him. Having recovered from her melancholy, she would be able to find friends among her peers. But Derek would remain a lonely teenager.
Ellie’s fifth day at the circus began as usual. Holding hands, the children ran to the backyard, discussing how they might have some fun. Their exemplary behavior, I must admit, had dulled our vigilance. We were punished for our carelessness. Mr. Bernardius began looking for the girl before sunset, when her father would come to pick her up. When he could not immediately find her, we enlisted the entire circus to help, but we did not find Ellie. When Mr. Ridby came, we were forced to admit that we had lost his daughter. The distraught man thought it was some trick meant to surprise him. When we heard Ellie’s voice coming from the backyard, he was even more convinced that her disappearance was some prank. But when we saw Eleanor, her hair was disheveled and her clothing was stained with grass and earth. Her dress was torn and missing a sleeve, and her hands were covered with bruises and scratches. Ellie told us what happened.
She played with Derek as always. The satyr told her that their last day had to be special. Derek invited Ellie to climb onto his back, and when she did, he galloped away from the circus. The satyr promised her it wouldn’t take long, and no one would even notice their absence. At first the girl loved being carried at a tremendous speed on the back of the satyr. She felt like a princess from a fairy tale but became worried when she could no longer see the big top on the horizon. The girl realized with horror that she had never been so far away from the town. Derek began to calm her, stroking her head and cheeks, saying there was nothing to fear. The satyr hugged her and soothed her, but his palms were strange, not like her father’s when he calmed Ellie after a nightmare. Derek’s hands were hot, and they were trying to penetrate Ellie’s clothing. The girl demanded that he stop, but the satyr did not listen. He hit Eleanor so hard that she fell to the ground. Derek tried to rip off her dress, but she resisted as best she could. She was screaming and scratching, biting and calling for help. She felt a stone on the ground and hit Derek with it. The blow sobered him. He wiped away Ellie’s tears, and asked for forgiveness, begging her not to say anything to Mr. Bernardius. Ellie ran back to the circus. She did not know what happened to Derek, but as she ran, she heard him crying and bleating.
We were all shocked by Ellie’s story. Lazarus apologized, but Mr. Ridby would not be mollified. His expression, usually a bit confused and miserable, changed. Ridby was angry and threatened that none of us would get away with this crime. I realized we couldn’t parley with this man. He left the circus, promising us a proper punishment. I knew what he meant. Within a few hours, the news about a circus freak attacking a local girl would fly around the town, and we would have to deal with an angry, bloodthirsty mob. We had no choice. We began to dismantle the tents and h
oped Derek would return before we left town.
The satyr did come back, dirty and tearful, with clotted blood in his hair and on his face. In my heart, I hoped that the incident was not quite as Ellie had told. But I knew too well the unbridled nature of satyrs, and, to my great regret, Derek repeated the girl’s story almost word for word. The wailing satyr asked us to forgive him and give him one last chance to see Eleanor, to explain himself. Of course, this could not be considered. We hid him in one of the vans, under rags and bits of baggage, and began to break down the circus. Our circus was still very small, and without Derek’s help, dismantling the tents could take a long time. We almost made it. We were about to leave when the mob arrived.
It was headed by Mr. Ridby and the local priest, Father McKenzie. Behind them, it seemed, were all the men of the town, armed not with pitchforks and scythes, but guns. I was more worried about their torches. A devilish spell makes our equipment impervious to breaking, but I didn’t know if it could survive fire. Ridby and Father McKenzie could not decide who they wanted. Ellie’s father demanded that we hand over Derek and then leave town, but the priest called our circus a devil’s den that must be put to the torch. They would have bickered all night, if not for Derek appearing. The satyr said he was the only one to blame for the incident, and to punish others for his offense would be unfair. The crowd was thrilled. People were screaming, and someone fired a shot into the air. This shot was the signal. Derek pulled away from the angry mob and took off on his goat legs at an incredible speed. The locals were confused, not sure which prey they wanted more, us or the fleeing satyr. Mr. Ridby, unexpectedly, was more persuasive than the priest, and the crowd rushed after Derek. Father McKenzie, left alone, looked at us contemptuously, spat on the ground, and then turned and followed the others.
Mr. Bernardius wanted to try to catch up with Derek, and I had to use all my eloquence to dissuade him from this idea. Derek’s run gave us a chance to save the circus, and we could not miss that chance. The ringmaster reluctantly agreed with me, and we left town and soon left Kentucky, a state we long shunned. Poor Derek remained there, becoming a local legend.