The Devil You Know

It was almost impossible to aim, to focus. My hand was a balloon sculpture, nerveless and fragile; it wouldn’t do what it was told. It wavered and wobbled, the lower jaw of the cutters finally catching on something at least, but I didn’t know what, and now she was pulling me upright again. If I struggled against her this time, my whole face would come off. In my head I uttered a prayer that didn’t even have words, and I squeezed the cutters closed. There was a slight but audible clack as the blades met.

Then I was lifted, Juliet raising me without effort to her own shoulder height, her hands cupping my head like a goalie about to punt the ball past the centerline. My feet flailed but found no purchase as she drew me close, her mouth open, her hypnotic pupils so wide she had no irises.

But her lips didn’t close over mine. She just held me there, dangling uselessly, an inch from my death and damnation and so much in her thrall now that I even felt slightly aggrieved that it had been postponed.

She was looking down, staring fixedly at the ground. No, at her own left foot. She was holding my head completely immobile, and my eyes couldn’t traverse that far, but I could see Damjohn and Gabe. They were also looking down, and a kind of sick horror spread in slow motion across their faces. Gabe’s first, because he had the summoning spell down word-perfect, and he knew exactly what he was looking at.

Juliet let me go, and by some supreme effort of will, I got my balance as I fell so that I only staggered back and slammed against the wall instead of taking yet another pratfall.

For a moment, the cabin was a frozen tableau. Damjohn, Gabe, Weasel-Face, the two anonymous heavies, even Rosa with her one good eye all were looking at Juliet, hushed, expectant, as if she was about to propose a toast. Her shoulders slightly bowed, Juliet flexed her ankle experimentally. The broken chain slid off and tinkled to the floor.

“H-hagios ischirus Paraclitus,” Gabe quavered without much conviction. “Alpha et omega, initium et finis . . .” Juliet swiveled from the hip, without undue haste but still moving almost too quickly to see, and kicked him in the stomach. He folded in on himself with a sound like water going down a partially blocked drain. From the floor, in a defensive crouch, I could hear him trying again to frame a word, without any breath left to force it out. Juliet stamped down on his neck, and it snapped audibly. It had all happened inside three seconds.

Both feet back on the ground, Juliet drew in a deep, lingering breath. For a moment, she closed those exquisite eyes; her face wore the sensual calm of someone who was about to enjoy themselves on a very deep, very visceral level. Then her eyes opened wide again; she flexed her long, elegant fingers once, twice, and turned to face Damjohn.

“Do as you’re told,” Damjohn snapped, pointing across at me. “Finish him off.” He knew damn well that this was a kite that wouldn’t fly, of course, but his whole life had consisted of outraging the natural order in various indefensible ways. You lose nothing by spinning the wheel. Except that this time he did. There was a sound like silk tearing, and he lost his look of contemptuous superiority, a surprising amount of blood, and what looked like a loop of his entrails. Again, Juliet didn’t even seem to have moved. She licked a trickle of blood from the heel of her hand and laughed a throaty, appreciative laugh as Damjohn fell heavily back onto the couch with a grunt of unhappy surprise.

There was a clattering of booted feet on planking as Weasel-Face Arnold tried to run. The other two guys drew a knife and a gun respectively, but Juliet walked through them with her arms flicking to left and right, and blood blossomed as they fell. Arnold was lucky enough to be looking the other way when she got to him. He was trying so hard to get the door open that he didn’t see her come, and his death as she smashed his face forward—into and through the bulkhead wall—must have been mercifully quick.

Then she turned back to stare at Damjohn. The expression on her face told me everything I needed to know. She hadn’t left him alive by carelessness or accident or whimsy, she was going to take her time with him. She even smiled in unholy anticipation.

With what little volition was left to me, I staggered over to Rosa, stumbled across her, and shielded her with my own body. I kept my own eyes firmly shut. It was one thing to be caught up in Juliet’s feeding and mating ritual, quite another to have to watch it. Damjohn’s whimpers and sobs went on for a very long time, until eventually they faded, Juliet’s sighs of satisfaction drowning them out.