your fucking chance, Al. I wanted something, and you wouldn't give it to me. Charles can. And will. And he really loves me. And he can make love to me like a real man, unlike some people I know."
Laughter drew my attention. A pair of pool-players - the tall, muscular, rather masculine woman with the professional caliber game and the immense fellow with the long beard, cowboy hat and rattlesnake-skin case for his pool cue - tittered their way toward the door. My grip loosened around Nicole's wrist. She calmly let her arm fall to her side, pushed down her sleeve and returned to Charles.
From outside, I watched her kiss him hard on the lips with great ardor. Upon breaking from her embrace, Charles turned and looked at me through the glass door. For the first time, he smiled.
****
There can be little doubt that jealousy provided at least a modicum of motivation for my following course of action, even if this Charles fellow was clearly a menace and had to be stopped. However, that did not mean I could not enjoy myself in the process.
Finding and stalking Charles proved to be of little difficulty; for such a would-be creature-of-the-shadows, he maintained a reasonably high profile, his presence ubiquitous all overMadison 's near east side, easily recognizable, always wearing the same black shirt and trousers. Did he not possess any other garments?
On a night when Nicole worked, I decided to take action, following him home from the Crystal Corner to his apartment onJohnson Street above Mildred's Sandwich Shop, a small restaurant quite popular with my fellow drivers.
From across the street, I watched electric lights snap on one by one, then off one by one as candlelight illuminated his apartment. Through the open window, his head and shoulders were visible in the flickering amber light as he sat, his chanting audible to my ears.
Listening to whatever psuedo-occult gibberish he was chanting, I dematerialized, then rematerialized inside his apartment, next to a crude altar fashioned from a wooden crate and strips of unvarnished pine before which Charles knelt. Cloying incense hung thickly in the air, unsuccessfully masking the stench of pestilence.
Charles gasped loudly. He lunged for a bloody dagger that lay on the altar next to a gutted hamster and jumped to his feet. Holding the dagger with both hands, he stepped back a couple paces. "Stay back, Al," he said, his voice wavering.
"Shocked to have actually succeeded in summoning forth a demon, Charles?" I grinned broadly at him and took a step forward. Despite my anger, I fought to maintain a most sardonic tone of voice.
He took another step back, then stopped, his face twisting with irritation. "She's mine. You can't have her." He edged toward me, anger dissolving his fear, giving him resolve.
"Pathetic fool," I replied. "Nicole is her own person, not for you, I or anyone to possess."
Charles lunged at me. I turned away from his thrust, grabbed his wrist and squeezed until his grip loosened. The dagger to slid easily through his fingers. I shoved him until he was pinned against the wall, then took a pensive moment to study the dagger. It was lovely - high carbon steel with a pewter hilt of three intertwining vipers. And sharp too. With a short thrust along the top of his arm, a line of blood came to the surface. I licked the blood off his quivering flesh, then flung the knife at the poster of Aleister Crowley that hung on the opposite wall beneath a jagged pentagram of dried blood. The knife struck the number 666 in the middle of the magi's forehead. Laughter escaped my lips as a recollection of meetingCrowley crossed my mind. The fellow, so revered by bewildered youths like Charles, was little better than a snake-oil selling flimflam man; this was clearly obvious.
"Beer and whiskey," I said, releasing him, spitting the blood onto the carpeted floor, amidst the collection of dried stains and splotches. "You had best be careful, Charles. Summoning demons while intoxicated is quite the dangerous endeavor. If they appear, it is only because they know they can take advantage of your altered state." I backed away from him and took a seat in the wing chair next to the alter. A sharp kick to the apparatus scattered plywood splinters all over the room.
"What the hell do you want?" He glared at me, his anger an expression of false bravado, for whatever pallor he actually possessed had been flushed from his face.