The Devil You Know

“You don’t believe in anything, Felix,” he said at last, composing his face into an absolute deadpan. “And that’s precisely why you shouldn’t have anything to do with the final disposition of human souls. You don’t know where you’re sending them, or by what authority, or how the power that God has placed in your hands works.”

“Whereas you’d like to slot it into a convenient schematic that has unbaptised babies going to Hell,” I shot back. “You’re in a pyramid-selling scheme—the biggest one in history. And maybe a thousand million people bought into it, but that doesn’t make you right.”

“Limbo,” said Matt. “Unbaptised babies go to Limbo. But you knew that.” He turned his back on me and crossed to the gaping window; Matt never did like staring contests. “Nobody in this world can know whether or not they’re right,” he murmured. “We see as through a glass, darkly. We can only do our best. But when the choice is between doing nothing and doing harm, surely nothing is the wiser option?”

I took a step after him, which was almost a serious mistake; I was still weak enough to need the bedpost’s support and solidarity. “The Gospel according to Cool Hand Luke? Sweet, Matty—and low-down. Because the alternative to freelance exorcism isn’t nothing. I mean, what your people do, that’s a sod of a long way from nothing, isn’t it?” I saw his shoulders tense slightly at that. “You think I don’t know that the Church has got its own exorcists? You think I don’t know there’s a recruitment drive on? Sorting out the sheep from the ghosts on behalf of Mother Church—I wouldn’t call that nothing. And the ones who meet your stringent quality standards—well, I assume they get the blessing, the whistle, and the wave. Fuck knows what you do with the others, but I’ve heard some ugly rumors, and it’s obvious you don’t want anyone to see you doing it. At least with me it’s one size fits all. I don’t pretend to be God—or to be on first-name terms with the bastard.”

I didn’t realize how loud my voice had got until I saw Pen standing in the open doorway—this time holding a tea tray with a single mug on it, and so looking less like Annie Oakley, more like one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s busty waitresses. In the sudden silence, Matt turned to face me, and there was a gleam in his eyes that could almost have been called threatening if my brother hadn’t been above such unworthy emotions.

“One size fits all is what the devil says, Felix,” he said in a tone of mild and sad reproof. “One size only fits all if you’ve got nothing to measure by. But you do have something to measure by. If you remember nothing else, remember dear Katie, God rest her. And your poor friend Rafi. Remember what you did to him. You see how dangerous it is when good intentions—”

The contents of the mug hit Matt full in the face. From the smell of it, it was gunpowder green tea laced with something herbal and potent. It was warm rather than hot, though, and it didn’t do much damage. The tray did; it smacked edge-on into his nose and made him stagger back. He turned to stare at Pen in absolute astonishment. She was standing with the tray gripped tightly in both hands, clearly ready to deal out more retribution as soon as he opened his mouth again.

Two thick trickles of blood were oozing from Matt’s nostrils to combine on his upper lip. He felt the bridge of his nose gingerly with one slightly shaky hand, still staring at Pen. She lowered the tray, suddenly self-conscious as the berserker moment passed. “Sorry, Fix,” she mumbled. “I’ll make you up some more.” She went out of the room, and a moment later, I heard her footsteps stomping heavily down the stairs.

I found that Pen’s act of cathartic violence had purged my own anger at Matt pretty effectively. “You shouldn’t talk about Rafi when she’s around,” I told him. “She was his—” I hesitated. There wasn’t an easy way to describe the way Rafi and Pen had circled each other, the intricacies of their sometime-never mating dance. “She loved him,” I said. “She still does.”

“And does she know what you did to him?” Matt snapped back, cradling his nose. It was already beginning to swell, the skin at the bridge not yet bruised but flushed dark red.

“Pretty much,” I said. “Yeah.”

Matt shot me one last look of exasperation, then followed Pen out of the room.

I got dressed, which was a complicated operation, because every move I made caused another set of muscles to report in unfit for duty. Mournfully consigning the remains of my many-pocketed greatcoat to the wastebasket, I shrugged on an antique trench coat that gave me an entirely misleading air of retro-chic.