The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to the End of the World and Some Other Things)

Chapter 10

The FBI agents nodded respectfully to the men in gray suits and then cleared out of the room. Lights in nearby offices went dark, Ward B of the insane asylum grew quiet, and Lime was alone with his new visitors.

Lime was chained to a chair in a doctor's office. X-rays of the broken ribs he'd given a nurse still clung to the wall, backlit and displaying his good work for anyone who cared to look. It was definitely art, he decided, and far better than the puked up paint on the other walls, showing sailboats and sunflowers, the stuff comas are made of.

His new visitors talked amongst themselves outside the open office door before entering.

One of them was an old, black priest with snow white hair. His buddy was a big bruiser and looked too serious to breathe. Leading them was a confident man of about forty years, with good breeding and a wonderfully expensive looking haircut.

They entered Lime's room one at a time, surrounding him in a half-circle.

The rich man spoke. He had a French accent.

"My name is Jean-Paul Perrot. Do you know me?"

Lime's brain worked differently now, accessing memories that were not his own. He questioned if he spoke with his true voice anymore or if it was someone else working his tongue. He worried that none of these questions caused any semblance of concern.

"I killed your ancestors," Lime said. His nostrils flared. "I still smell their blood underneath my fingernails some days. They smell like cowardice, not atypical for the French, I think, but noteworthy nonetheless."

Perrot the Frenchman took a seat opposite Lime and the priest stepped up with a crucifix aimed at Lime's heart.

"What is your name?" the priest asked.

"You'll put someone's eye out with that thing," Lime said.

The priest said, "Speak your name, foul spirit."

Lime rolled his eyes. "Bored now."

The priest pressed the crucifix between Lime's eyes and thumped his chest with the Bible, as if expecting to use it as a defibrillator.

"I command you, demon, to exit this pitiful man's soul and-"

Lime spat a glob of red paste into the priest's face.

The priest fell backwards as the glob grew outwards, enveloping his face and choking him.

Perrot and the bruiser rushed to help the priest. They put their fingers into the red goo and tried to pry it off but to no avail.

The priest was suffocating. He needed to breathe despite the glop attached to his face-and so breathe he did.

He breathed in and sucked the red slime inside him in one big slurp.

Perrot and the muscle man stepped back as the priest sat up, his eyes now aglow with new, vibrant life.

Lime laughed as the priest started to pull his own hair out in big, bloody clumps.

"What'd you do to him?" the burly man asked.

"I'm just spreading the good word," Lime said. "If he can't take it, he can't take it."

The big man got down next to the priest and said, "Father, it's going to be okay. They got good doctors here and they can help you. I'll call Father Maguire and he can help, too."

The priest smiled at his friend and sank his teeth into the man's left eye.

The man screamed and tried to fight the priest off, but despite his larger size, he was quickly overwhelmed. The priest got on top of him and chewed a bloody path from his eye down to his throat.

Blood sprayed like a geyser. The priest stopped chewing long enough to bathe in it.

Perrot drew a revolver and put a hole through the priest's head.

Lime admired the brains on the wall but still thought his x-ray art was superior.

Perrot put the gun to Lime's forehead. Lime could feel his skin sizzling beneath the hot metal.

"They were good men," Perrot said.

Lime lowered his head and stared upwards at Perrot with a sickly grin.

"You're no ordinary demon," Perrot said. He nodded to the priest. "No regular demon can spread their essence while still possessing the original host."

"I am not ordinary. I am the King," Lime said.

"Lucifer."

"I've so many names, it's tough to keep track."

Perrot anxiously gripped the pistol in his hand. "You're a liar. What use would Lucifer have for an ordinary college student?"

"Lime is not ordinary either."

"His name?"

"Ronald Lime. He was going to change the world for the better with inventions both grand and impossible to imagine-but not anymore." The smile grew wider, revealing more of the red substance, stuck like festering plaque between his teeth.

"I work with the Gatekeepers," Perrot said.

"Did you think I didn't know that? I knew that. It makes little difference what resources you have, because I have Lime and I'm not letting him go."

"We have the very best exorcists-"

"And yet, I'm not afraid," Lime said.

The chains that held him melted away, turning into boiling, hot metal on the floor. Lime stood up from his chair, the gun barrel still pressed to his head, and glared at Perrot with eyes that slowly turned to flame.

Lime asked, "Are you afraid?"

"Yes."

Lime nodded. "That's a good place to start."

"I can't let you go," Perrot said.

Lime's eyes pulsed with a flash of fire, momentarily blinding Perrot. He used the distraction to snatch the gun from Perrot's hands and throw it into the disposal unit for used needles.

Lime said, "Try to stop me."

Perrot came at him with surprising intensity. Trained strikes flew past Lime's head and then Perrot switched to leg attacks.

Lime played with him for a while to avoid ruining the man's increasingly fragile confidence.

When Perrot landed a knee to Lime's stomach, the Devil decided that playtime was over.

Lime grabbed Perrot about the throat and threw him with such power that Perrot broke through the locked door.

Lime stepped over Perrot's unconscious body and started searching his pockets. He came up with three forms of currency, a driver's license, and most importantly, a home address.

For a fleeting moment Lime considered passing his gift onto Perrot, but decided it was best that Perrot suffer the deaths of his loved ones with his mind intact.