Speaking in Forked Tongues

Morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen blinds, casting a nimbus around Mrs Nash’s frail body. She slid a dinner plate into the sink and began scrubbing. She said, “You’re up late this morning. Did you oversleep?”

Jacob Cleeves rubbed his jaw. “Late night. I thought I might take the day off.”

“Oh?” Her scrubbing missed a beat. “I hope Mr. Halpin isn’t working you too hard.”

“No, Mr. Halpin is a very generous employer.”

“Really? I’ve heard he can be as tight as a duck’s arse. Watertight!”

“Heh. Not with me he isn’t.”

She tossed a takeaway carton over her shoulder. It entered the waste bin without touching the sides.

“Nice one, Mrs Nash.”

“Easy-peasy, Mr Cleeves. Anyway, you take a day off. A young man shouldn’t spend too much time working. He needs his energy for the bedroom.”

Jason’s swallowed hard. “Yeah? D’you reckon?”

“Dear, dear. You young ones think you have a monopoly on the old rumpy-pumpy.” Mrs Nash turned her head sharply, her dentures distending her bottom lip. “But it’s we oldies that invented it. Why, only last week Mr. Nash and I tried doing it …”

Jacob downed the coffee in four gulps, said his byes, snatched up his jacket from the back of a chair and ran out of the front door. He shuddered as Mrs. Nash shouted something about needing a neck brace for three days afterwards.

He slid a hand into an empty pocket. “Damn and blast!” He spun on his heels and barged into the old woman.

“You forgot these.” Mrs Nash handed him a set of car keys. “Watch out, Jacob. Things are afoot. Expect the unexpected, and always, always be on your guard.” Clouds crossed her cornflower-blue eyes.

“Have you been reading . . .”

“What? Have I been reading what, Jacob?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

Gravel crunched beneath his expensive leather soles as he wandered over to his car. He paused in the act of spinning the keys around his index finger. Mrs. Nash had not only pre-empted him with the keys, but had managed to dry her hands and remove her apron too. He glanced back over his shoulder, but she had gone.

He climbed into his car a troubled man.

***

Mrs. Nash watched Jacob leave through the dimpled door roundel. She grinned, hitched her skirts and took the stairs three at a time.

Jacob’s bedroom had an unmistakeably masculine smell to it. Of stale breath and lingering curry farts. She pointed a finger and a casement swung open. A stiff breeze billowed the curtains.

Mrs. Nash touched her ear and linen sheets flew off the bed, snapped, folded and tucked their edges under the mattress. Pillows plumped, rotated and settled. She made a circle with her left thumb and a feather duster began to flick over the windowsills.

“Easy-peasy.”

She sat at Jacob’s desk and gave it a commanding glare. The solid wood shimmered and became insubstantial. Settling into a chair, she plucked Jacob’s not-as-secret-as-he-liked-to-think journal from a locked drawer and began to read.

I thought I was awake, and sitting up in bed. Something moved in the darkness, something white. I thought I was seeing a ghost, but then this angel stepped forward. He has the silk gown and feathery wings, a golden halo, the lot. He really is the most striking bloke I have ever seen. He has this pale oval face and startling silver eyes. It’s strange, but when he speaks, his lips aren’t in synch with the words. It’s like watching a dubbed foreign film. He said that this is because he is speaking in tongues and has to be translated for me. Whatever, it’s surreal. He said his name’s Lucidus. I asked him if he really was an angel but he just smiled, said I must trust him, and disappeared!! I woke up for proper then, sweaty and scared. The weird thing was, I’d swear I could still smell him. Lilies.

Mrs. Nash snorted. That had been just the first visit of many from Lucidus.

Lucidus told me last night that he had visited this realm once before. The Lord had given him a flaming sword and a divine edict to stop the terrible carnage that was taking place here on Earth. He manifested at the appointed hour above an immense, crater-pocked field of mud where men were facing each other in combat. He had been told to wave the sword about and make it obvious to the soldiers below that God was angry that they should be taking lives, that He was the One to judge. The soldiers misunderstood Lucidus and set about each other with even more venom, believing that God was on their side. Lucidus railed at them and held the sword higher, threatening to bring down heavenly retribution, but the soldiers just cheered and fought all the harder.

I told Lucidus that it sounded like the Battle of Mons in WWI, where legend has it an angel appeared in the sky to give heart to the British troops as they faced the Germans. He shook his head and said it had all gone horribly wrong. When I said that I thought I was only dreaming this, dredging stuff up from my subconscious, he just asked that I trust him and slowly faded away.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Mrs. Nash turned a page.

God had been terribly cross with him, saying it was all his fault. Lucidus told Him and the Archangels that it was hardly his fault that the stupid mortals had not taken the hint. But God laid all the blame on Lucidus. It still upsets him even now, his eyes were filling up as he was telling me and he blew his nose on his gown. The worst part is that he lost his job in the Administration Dept., a good job in the Celestial City by all accounts. He is now at the bottom of the career ladder.

I asked him if he would be coming again, because I always felt confused when I woke up. I’m still unsure if these are dreams or not. He said that he was sorry about that, but I had to trust him.

Mrs. Nash came to the entry Jacob had penned the previous night.

I awoke in a terrible state again tonight. As usual, I’m writing this as soon as possible so that I can be as accurate as I can. Like before, I ‘awake’ sitting up, and Lucidus walks to my bedside and sits down. I even feel the bedsprings settle slightly under his weight, the dream is that realistic. There was some preliminary chat which I forget now but he got round eventually to telling me how I could help him. At first I felt really chuffed that he thought I could be of assistance, but when I realised what it entailed, I was less keen.

Basically, Lucidus reckons that he could get me into Heaven -- or the Celestial City as he prefers it -- as a personnel manager. Lucidus tells me this is a very good posting and about as high as a new soul can expect to go. Once there, I could sneak Lucidus his old job back.

He was really excited about the proposition. But I don’t want to die, which is the bottom line. I told him I needed time to think about it. I think he thinks that I am not looking at the bigger picture. It broke my heart to see him look so downcast. He told me that I must trust him and faded away. I expect him back tomorrow. What do I say? The rational part of me knows Lucidus is only a dream, but even so, I am afraid.

Mrs. Nash snapped the journal closed and sucked on her dentures. In the same drawer as the journal was a envelope of photographs. She’d seen the pictures enough times already. Or perhaps not. She picked them up again and flicked through them, clicking her tongue. Jacob was such a bad boy.

***

Leaving the staff carpark Jacob strolled towards the hardware shop where he worked as floor manager. As he passed the windows he saw Martin the new boy wrestling with a display of garden forks. Wotcha mate, Martin mouthed. He made a chopping gesture across his neck.

Jacob shrugged: Wanna bet?

Above the door was a sign proclaiming that he was entering Halpin Hands Hardware. Michael Halpin’s idea of a joke, but the pun set Jacob’s teeth on edge. He wondered if the sign writer had been tempted to add [sic] after Halpin.

A bell dinged as Jacob put his shoulder to the heavy shop door. Claire in gas bottles and paraffin heaters looked up and then quickly away. Roseanne gathered an armful of candles and disappeared into a storeroom. Then Jacob saw Halpin coming down the stairs. He relaxed then. Halpin would be a fool to cross him.

“Aah, good morning Mr. Cleeves. So good of you to join us.” Halpin made a show of looking at his watch. “And to what do we owe the pleasure, hmm?”

Jacob could think of no suitable answer to such an asinine question and so settled for a blank expression. It wasn’t difficult in the circumstances.

“Listen here, Cleeves, you are not going to keep sauntering in here as and when it suits you.” Halpin leaned in closer; close enough for Jacob to detect the other man had eaten eggs for breakfast. “You are making this impossible!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s bad enough that you’re holding me to ransom without undermining my standing with the rest of the staff.”

Through this one-sided exchange Jacob stared at Halpin’s handlebar moustache and the bad acne scarring it was meant to hide. “Finished?” he asked.

Halpin bristled.

“Because of that little tantrum,” said Jacob, “I’m knocking a day off. You’ve got till Friday now.” He gazed nonchalantly into Halpin’s eyes and gave a knowing wink. “Now, piss off.”

Jacob glanced around at the other shop assistants, who had suddenly found things fascinating under counters, on ceilings and out of windows. He could hear Halpin hissing like a burst tyre. He could imagine the veins standing proud on his forehead the way they always did when he got mad.

“See you later,” murmured Jacob, and strolled away in the direction of the staff-only washroom.

Cool, calm, collected. I am in control.

Once inside the washroom he braced himself against a sink and hung his head. He had nearly retaliated with Halpin, blurting out something he would later regret. But had remained calm enough to realize that to let the cat out of the bag at this late stage would be to lose the game. Two more days. He sighed listlessly. Two more days of this unbearable tension. Why couldn’t Halpin just acquiesce to his demands and let them go their separate ways? Surely he realized he couldn’t possibly win?

Jacob ran a tap and splashed cold water on his face. He spun round as the door swung open. “Oh. Hi Martin.”

“What the hell did you say to Halps? He’s going apeshit!” Martin’s face shone with admiration. Jacob wondered if he would be so impressed if he knew how he got away with taking such liberties with their employer. The lad was idealistic, as most kids were before life dealt them the full deck.

Had he been like that once? He probably had, he reflected. Martin was a nice enough lad, but still a bit wet behind the ears as his mother would have said. And what would she have said about Jacob if she were around to see him now, blackmailing his employer for yet another hundred thousand pounds?

***

Michael Halpin sat behind his desk, staring at the phone and systematically snapping pencils, imagining them to be Cleeves’s neck. He lifted the receiver off its cradle and punched in a number. It was only three digits and the number six figured predominately.

The answer was instantaneous. A sibilant masculine voice: “Customer Liaisons. Who is this?”

“Um.” The abruptness always caught him off guard. “It’s Halpin. Michael Halpin.”

“Your account number?”

Michael gave his number. He could hear keys being tapped as he spoke, accompanied by an unpleasant scratchy sound as though the typist had exceptionally long nails. He started as an ear-splitting shriek emitted from the receiver. It seemed to go on for a long time before being cut off as abruptly as it started.

“Sorry about that. A new arrival. Now, Mr. Halpin, how can I help you?”

“It’s Cleeves. I thought you’d have sorted him out by now, this has been dragging on forever.”

The line went silent but for the mournful howling of a distant wind blowing through the wires.

“There was no need for that,” the voice ground out finally. “May I remind you that we don’t use the f-word here.”

Michael apologized. Profusely.

“But it is taking an awfully long time, and he is threatening to deliver those damned photographs to my wife any day soon! I paid him the last time but he still didn’t hand them over, the bastard.”

“Mr. Halpin, as it would no doubt have been explained to you when the contract was drawn up, we have to get Jacob Cleeves’s trust. That is the Protocol. Trust is the keystone of our business. Where would we be without trust?”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that, bu--”

“But me no buts, Mr. Halpin. Our field operative’s most recent report suggests that the matter is ready to be brought to a close. He believes that he will get Cleeves’s consent this very night as long as there is no interference from the other side.”

“Tonight?” Michael Halpin let out a breath. “My, that is good news.”

The voice sounded mollified. “We run a tight operation here. Don’t you forget that.”

***

Jacob thumped his pillow irritably, a terrible restlessness building up inside as though his body was a vast pressure cooker. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and paced across to the window to let in some fresh air. Racing clouds brightened as they crossed the moon. Streetlights cast pools of sallow light on the road. A drunk weaved down the pavement with a traffic cone on his head. A normal suburban scene, a normal night.

Welcoming a yawn, Jacob let the curtains fall back across the window and returned to bed.

An hour later found him squirming in the darkness, the sheets wrapping around his legs. The room was warm and stuffy despite the open window and he couldn’t stop his mind from working overtime. The pillow felt lumpy under his head.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep.

There was a silent rush of air that made his ears pop. Trembling, he stared hard at the corner of the room and watched as a million points of light swirled and coalesced into a familiar figure. The ivory drape scarcely concealed the very hard, muscular body within. Jacob swallowed as Lucidus padded forwards like a panther stalking its prey -- slow, stealthy, feline. He radiated as though he basked in golden evening sunlight. Jacob had never seen Lucidus like this before. He was aware of his own vulnerability, of his nakedness between the sheets.

“Good evening, Jacob,” Lucidus purred, easing himself on to the bed. “Have you given any thought to my proposal?”

Had he given it any thought? It wasn’t everyday an angel wished to claim his mortal soul to further his own career. And stated as baldly as that, it wasn’t the most attractive proposition.

“I have thought about it Lucidus, but--”

“But you won’t help me?”

Jacob flinched. “I want to, but--”

“Shut it, you snivelling little turd.” Lucidus’s eyes flashed silver in the darkness. He twisted his body and forcibly straddled Jacob. “You know something? I’m tempted to screw the Protocol and just take your soul anyway.”

“Except you cannot ignore the Protocol, Lucidus. Can you?”

Lucidus’s head swivelled at the sound of the new voice and then back at Jacob.

“Who’s this old bitch?”

“It sounds like Mrs. Nash, my cleaning lady.” Feeling that this was somehow an inadequate explanation, Jacob added, “She’s very thorough and only charges five pound an hour.”

The angel eased off Jacob’s chest and stared hard at the frail old woman in the doorway. “What do you know about the Protocol, hag?”

“The Protocol means you cannot take a mortal’s soul without his compliance. You don’t trust Lucidus, do you Jacob?”

Jacob couldn’t answer, an icy cold band of fear was restricting his breathing.

Without moving from Jacob’s chest. Lucidus lashed out, his arm stretching like warm plasticine. Mrs. Nash was backhanded off her feet, the force of the blow knocking her flying through the open door.

Lucidus turned back to Jacob and licked his lips. With a growing sense of unreality he saw that the tip of the angel’s tongue had a cleft, and that there were altogether too many teeth between those cruel, cherry-red lips. Something warm and heavy pressed on his chest, and that definitely hadn’t been there before.

“Now, where were we?” Lucidus hissed, tracing a line over Jacob’s throat with a beetle’s carapace fingernail.

Mrs. Nash staggered back into the room. “Thou art a foul demon of the pit. I say to thee, Begone!”

“My, is she for real?” Lucidus rolled his eyes. “You don’t know when to give up, do you?”

Mrs. Nash stood her ground and matched Lucidus’s stare. “I’m taking back what doesn’t belong to you, Lucidus.”

The room darkened. The angel dimmed. He looked like a tawdry Christmas tree fairy. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Mrs. Nash began to glow. Her wrinkles coursed with photons. Light coalesced in the air around her frail body, and then poured into the corners of her eyes, her mouth and her ears; into the neckline of her cardigan, the cuffs and buttonholes. The light fed her like sherry feeding a dry fruitcake. She began to fill out . . .

“Oh, bugger!” Lucidus crawled off the bed and backed away.

Mrs. Nash’s grey hair receded into an expanding scalp and flaxen tresses issued forth. Her clothes seared on her body and fell as ashes to the bedroom carpet. She shrugged her shoulders in an elaborate reverse orbit. Silver-scaled wings swept the air behind her.

Mrs. Nash made an imposing sight as a seven-foot tall angel. She put a finger to an eye and removed a small cornflower-blue contact lens, and then, just as carefully, removed the other. Blinking silver eyes, she placed the lenses on her tongue and swallowed.

Lightening-quick she lashed out and grabbed Lucidus by the throat. Jacob whimpered at the sound of grinding bones.

Lucidus raked his nails down her face. White light sprayed briefly from four parallel wounds before they sealed.

He gargled curses as the colossus broke his back across an immense knee and dashed him to the floor. A glowing pit of coals opened to receive the false angel and he vanished, screaming obscenities. The hole closed with a whoosh, leaving no trace of its existence but for the faint stench of sulphur lingering in the air.

Mrs. Nash turned slowly and fixed Jacob with a stare. He felt her searching his soul, weighing it for gold.

She sighed. “Do you know why he was after your soul?”

Jacob shivered and cupped his fear-shrivelled genitals.

“Because of these, Jacob.” She plucked a packet of photos from within the desk as though the solid wood was fog. “When you stoop to blackmail, you send out ripples, tremors like a fly in a spider’s web. Lucidus was sent to enrol you in Hell’s nefarious army.”

Jacob wiped away tears. “I didn’t know. I thought he was an angel. He told me he was the Angel of Mons, that he had been discredited in Heaven. He lied to me!”

“That is the Lord he serves, Jacob -- that is what he is. Just as it is the Lord of Lies you serve when you blackmail people with photographs like these.”

Jacob took the proffered photographs. They were of Michael Halpin cavorting with a bondage queen. Screaming erections, studs, leathers, whips and chains featured rather heavily. All arranged and secretly photographed by Jacob. If Halpin didn’t dance to his tune, the photographs were going to Mrs. Halpin; or posted on the staff notice board, the Internet, the local paper, whatever it took to get Halpin to part with his cash.

“Halpin paid up the first time, but this time he’s just being stubborn. Um. That is, I meant I won’t do anything like this again.” Jacob whimpered like a smacked child. “I promise.”

Mrs. Nash took back the pictures. They glowed briefly before igniting in her palm. She dusted her hands, spilling white ash to the floor.

“I shall wake up in a minute. This is a stupid nightmare.”

The angel stood, resolute and immovable. “Then wake up, Jacob.”

Jacob screwed shut his eyes and went rigid.Wakeupwakeupwakeup. When he opened his eyes the angel was staring at him implacably.

“You are on the far shores of dream, beyond any state of sleep or wakefulness. Lucidus brought you here to try and tempt you from your own, more familiar realm.”

Jacob smelled smoke. He peeked around the huge body of the Mrs. Nash to see yellow wisps of smoke curling up from the bedroom carpet. As he watched, a circle of glowing coals widened and burned brighter. A black-clawed hand rose and clamped over the lip of the pit with a muffled thump. Another followed it. Thwack!

The minion of Hell hauled himself over the lip of the hole. He was halfway to showing his true form. He twisted his head, horrendous grinding noises sounding from tortured vertebrae. His mouth yawned and his lips peeled back to reveal bare jawbones. Writhing ropes of dark pink flesh spewed wetly from his open mouth and anchored themselves to his face, remoulding cheeks and remodelling his brow. Sinew advanced down his neck and shoulders, building, bonding and reinforcing his slender frame. Jacob winced as bones broke and splintered, cracking like rifle reports.

The creature’s skull cracked like an egg, and Jacob experienced an unpleasant loosening in his bowels as twisted scimitar horns emerged from Lucidus’s head. They gouged lumps out of the frescoed ceiling.

Muscle and skin continued to flow from his maw, criss-crossing his body, giving it immensity and strength. The dark viscera flowed, blackened and solidified.

Lucidus snarled. Fire dripped from his extremities. Small tongues of straw-yellow flame danced over his black-tar hide.

Jacob screamed. “Do something about it! Quick,”

“He may be too powerful for me in this form, Jacob. We must take our leave. Please, take my hand.”

Jacob placed a hand in a cold white palm. He could see Lucidus approaching on his deformed hind legs, his leather wings flapping spasmodically.

“Jacob, I can’t . . .” Mrs. Nash said.

“What?”

“You don’t trust me!”

“What the hell are you on about? Of course I trust you!”

“Do you?”

Jacob looked beyond Mrs. Nash’s anxious visage to see Lucidus almost upon them -- a gin trap talon pulled back, ready to decapitate Mrs Nash. “I trust you, right? I BLOODY TRUST YOU!”

Silence.

Complete and utter darkness.

Then Mrs. Nash’s voice: “This was all an illusion. I’m just about to put everything back for you. You may experience a brief moment of nausea.”

Reality slurped him up through a bendy straw and belched.

Jacob looked down to see a vast scaly talon dwarfing his hand. His gaze followed a black, pitted arm up into the grinning face of a demon. It shrugged, almost apologetically. “Easy-peasy,” it said.

Behind it, lowering his arm as though he had been about to lop the monster’s head off was a man with a familiar pockmarked face. The moustache curled up as he smiled.

Jacob’s mind meshed mental gears. So Mrs. Nash was not a guardian angel, but a demon? And Lucidus had been . . .

“Mike?”

“Hello Jacob,” said Michael Halpin. “Surprised?”

***

A snake of blue light writhed in the demon’s scaly palm. Michael Halpin peered closely and then drew back. “Is that his you-know-what?”

“His soul? Yes, it is.” There was no trace of Mrs. Nash’s wavering voice, or the angel’s dulcet tones. Its voice was now akin to someone gargling with gravel. It tipped its head back and popped the soul into its red maw. It saw Michael’s sickly expression. “Just for safekeeping,” it said. The red glow in one lidless eye dimmed momentarily in what Michael took to be an approximation of a wink.

Michael nudged Jacob’s dead body with the tip of a toe; gingerly, as though he expected it to bite. “It all seems so final.”

“Nothing is ever final. There is always a ‘next’. When I return to Hell, Jacob Cleeves’s soul will enter the Furnace. How long he spends in there is up to him. He could be out in no time at all if he behaves badly. An enterprising young man like him could find himself racing up the career ladder in no time at all.”

Michael had a grotesque thought. “So if I was to come to, um--”

“Hell,” supplied the demon helpfully.

“Jacob would outrank me, be my superior?”

“That is correct.”

“But that’s monstrous!”

“That’s Hell for you. What did you expect? Despite what you may have heard, Hell is not being locked in a room for eternity with your friends. We may use subtle means to get you, but once we have you we prefer a more direct approach. Anyway, time for you to go home to Mrs. Halpin. See you again, sometime.”

Michael was too giddy on adrenalin to register the demon’s parting shot. “Just running Halpin Hands will seem quite boring after all this nightly excitement.” He noticed Jacob’s bedroom becoming indistinct. “I made a good Lucidus, didn’t I? I was such a damned good looking angel too. And playing him as a demon was even more fun. I don’t know how you can walk on those hooves, though, I nearly broke my ankle.”

There was what might have been an amused hiss.

Michael was hitting his stride. “But for future reference -- and I hope you don’t mind me saying this -- I had a job keeping my face straight with all that, ‘Thou art a foul demon’ spiel. It sounded so passé.” He felt a blast of hot breath on his neck. “But that business with the contact lenses, now that was pure class!”