Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five (42 page)

“Billy, you'll be a ghost one way or another. Hurts a lot less choosin' to be one than having someone else make the call.”

III.

Billy Purgatory had almost taken Mudder's orders to heart and left immediately. It wouldn't be until he thought about it later that it would strike him as to why. Billy wasn't afraid of demons — just sounded like another monster to him. If every cop in the lower forty-eight and Scotland Yard all had APB's out for him, so be that too. Billy Purgatory wasn't scared of much that anyone could speak of.

The only thing that terrified him was sitting in that chair at his father's bedside.

There were tubes and wires everywhere. There didn't seem to be a part of Ulysses Purgatory that didn't have something connected to it that ran into one big machine or other that Billy didn't understand the use for. Pop wouldn't have liked this at all had he been awake, and he'd have told Billy to pull all those tubes out of him and pour a beer down his throat.

He had grabbed his skateboard and it sat in his lap as his fingers ran over the lines and grooves in the deck.

Billy's eyes drifted over the tubes that carried Pop's blood out of his body and into a dialysis machine. Billy could hear it whir and saw it turn, just like a strawberry slush machine at a soda fountain.

He let his eyes drift back to his skateboard deck and picked at the grip tape. “Pop, I don't guess you can hear me.”

Billy cast his eyes up for a moment. Pop's own eyes were closed, and he had a mask over his nose and mouth that was helping him to breathe. Ulysses didn't move beyond a slow rise and fall of his chest.

“I went up to the cabin looking for you. I should have come looking for you sooner…I guess none of this would have happened.”

Slow rise and slow fall.

“I read some of the pages out of your book. I guess that's what a manifesto is, huh — a book? I can't really say that I understood a lot
of what you were trying to warn the world about.” Billy leaned back in the chair. He found it much easier to keep his eyes focused on the skateboard and not on the quiet face of his old man. “I think I know what you're feeling though, and why you wrote all that stuff. I feel it too. I've felt it for a long time.”

Billy really wanted Pop to say something, but he and Pop hadn't had a real conversation about anything since he had been a boy.

“Pop, I made a big mistake. I took you for granted. You said in your book that you had tried your best to raise me and you didn't think you'd done a good job.”

Billy found it hard to focus on the wood grain and tape that he stared at. His eyes twitched, and he watched the tear fall from his face and impact the skateboard deck in a splash like slow motion.

“I always thought that you were the smartest man in the whole world, but you shouldn't have said that, Pop. You shouldn't have said that you weren't a good father to me, because you were. You were the best father that any kid could ever have.”

He looked up and wiped the back of his arm across his eyes. “You shouldn't have said that, Pop. You should know better, because thinking like that doesn't make you smart at all. It makes you pretty dumb.”

Billy crossed his arms and looked into his father's lifeless face. “Talking like that makes you just as dumb as I was. I thought that I was supposed to go back and fix things, but they weren't broken. I thought that you and I needed Mom around, but you did just fine without her, and I did just fine too.”

Red blood flowed through tubes at Billy's feet. Back and forth.

“If you could wake up for a second — if we only had a few words we could say to one another before…”

Billy reached over his skateboard, and he closed his hand over his father's hand.

“I'd beg you to take that back.”

Billy stood from the chair, and held his board by the wheels as he leaned over his father's body and kissed the old man on his forehead. “I'm sorry that I wasn't a good son.” Billy whispered and kept his face close to Pop's ear. “I'm sorry that I ran off and broke what wasn't broken in the first place. I'm sorry that you were looking for me and that you got yourself in this shape.”

Billy rose as he ran his hand over his father's cheek. “Get some rest, Pop. Don't worry, I'm gonna fix all the wrong stuff that I did.”

He turned from his father's bedside, carefully walking over all the tubes and wires that were doing their best to keep Billy's Pop alive.

“I have to say I'm sorry one last time for one last thing before I go, Pop.” Billy stood at the halfway point, but didn't look back.

“Even though you're not talking, I know what you'd say — and I'm sorry in advance for not listening to you.”

Billy wiped the last tear from the corner of his eye.

“Because I'm gonna hunt down and kill those last four Satanic sons'a'bitches that put you in that bed.”

IV.

Billy had tried to walk past Anastasia when he left his father's hospital room, but she grabbed him by the arm. He looked at her, but he wasn't in there. Anastasia had never seen him look so sad, yet so determined.

“I just…”

She wouldn't let go of his arm. “Billy…”

“I just need to be alone, okay?”

“Then we go?” She considered loosening her grip and letting him get away from her.

“Then we go, yeah.”

Anastasia let him loose. “I'll sit with him.”

Billy didn't say anything, and Anastasia had no idea where exactly the suggestion had come from. He dropped the skateboard to the ground before him and sailed down the hallway on it.

She watched him skate towards the way they'd come. Anastasia wasn't sure if riding that thing was the only way he could think, or if it was the only way he could effectively shut off his brain so as
not
to.

She decided it was a bit of both and turned into Ulysses Purgatory's room. She was immediately disgusted by how the humans pretended
to understand anything about the true inner workings of their bodies and by their definition of living and dying.

“What are they hoping to accomplish with all of this?”

She sank into the chair at his bedside and looked over him. She could hear his heartbeat and breathing perfectly well without the use of the readouts of their machines. It was strong, and had a steady rhythm. She found that curious and wondered why exactly he needed all of these machines?

Looking over her left shoulder, Anastasia regarded the dialysis machine with some interest. One of these machines would have done her sisters and their dirty followers well in cleaning up the mess of their own blood.

She decided not to stare at it much more, as it would just make her hungrier than she already was. She was going to have to find some time to hunt tonight, and missed having a familiar.

“Margot definitely had her uses, little blood-ba…”

Anastasia found herself staring at Ulysses Purgatory's open eyes. Her own eyes widened a bit, and she started to push herself out of the chair and go after Billy. Ulysses raised his finger to her, and with his other hand pulled the oxygen mask off his face.

“Don't.”

Anastasia let her arms relax and sank back into the chair. “He thinks you're dead.”

“Dying.” Ulysses let the mask rest on his chest. “He doesn't need to know I'm not as dead as he thinks I am.”

Anastasia leaned forward. “Dirty trick, old man. Why?”

“He won't ever leave if he thinks that I might make it.”

“But, you won't make it.”

Ulysses exerted some effort to sit up just a bit and turn his face to Anastasia's. He looked deep into her, like his eyes weren't searching her outsides, but were looking within.

“So.” He strained to speak. “You're her?”

“Her?” Anastasia found his gaze uncomfortable — devoid of malice, but uncomfortable just the same.

The old man smiled. “You're the one.”

“I…”

“I always figured she'd have dark hair. I liked dark hair too, but somehow ended up with a blonde.”

Anastasia looked over the machines. The old man, filled with more life than Billy had thought he had in him, was not long for this world.

What use would it be explaining the nature of her relationship to his son be to him?

Anastasia just nodded.

Ulysses closed his eyes for a moment, perhaps thinking about Billy's mother. Definitely so, Anastasia thought, if he held the same nostalgic streak that his son did.

“I'm happy that he found someone. I'm sorry that he's such a dumbass hellbat. I only had so much influence.”

Anastasia placed her hands on her knees and looked down to the floor. Yards of tubes filled with Billy's father's blood.

She looked back up to him. “No apology necessary.”

Ulysses stretched out his hand towards Anastasia; he opened his fingers and nodded. Anastasia reluctantly let her hand leave her knee and her fingers intertwine with his.

His hands were colder than hers were. “Listen, please…”

He closed his eyes again and gripped tighter with his hand, to him it must have seemed as though he was exerting a lot of strength.

“I'm sorry, what's your name, darlin'?”

“Ana.” She stopped before she said her full name. It just seemed easier and proper.

“That's a pretty name. Please listen, Ana, things are gonna get really desperate. I'm not gonna be around to help him through any of it. “Ulysses raised his other hand and made a circle around the room with his finger. “All this ain't gonna save me for much longer.”

Anastasia quietly nodded.

“He's gonna need someone to be by his side, or he's not gonna make it. I didn't have anyone to help me through it, and you see where I ended up.”

“He's very strong…”

Ulysses gripped her hand with more force. Anastasia was shocked with how much strength he had conjured, and wondered from what well inside him he had pulled it from.

“Don't lie to me, please. Do you love him?”

Anastasia stared into the face of the old man, she couldn't believe the words that had come out of his mouth. She didn't know
why any of it was relevant to someone who was dying, and surely had much more pressing issues than his son's loves and hates.

“I don't know…”

Ulysses pulled himself up from the bed and leaned towards Anastasia at an angle that would be dangerous to him if his strength suddenly gave.

“If you don't love him, you need to leave now. You need to leave this room and walk out the door of this place and forget you ever met him.”

Anastasia wasn't sure if it was Ulysses not letting go of her hand or if it was her not giving in that kept them joined.

“I know it's going to be bad. You don't know how bad it's already been.”

“No Ana,
you're
the one who doesn't know how bad it's already been. You have to make a choice.”

“I'm with him now, doesn't that mean anything?”

“Negative. I'd like to tell you that it does, but it doesn't. When this started to go wrong, she left.”

“The Sword Witch.”

Ulysses smiled. “Yeah, that's her. Sword Witch.”

“I saw her.”

Ulysses grip loosened, but it would take a lot more than that to untie their fingers from one another. “You saw her?”

He had a look on his face like he wanted to believe, but was too tired and too broken to.

“I saw her, I swear to you. She's still out there.”

“You didn't tell him, did you?”

“He knows, Ulysses. He's seen her too.”

Ulysses head fell back into his pillow, and just the hint of their fingertips remained touching. Anastasia was afraid that the old man might just die right then and there.

But he didn't.

“Do you love him?”

Anastasia had her head turned towards the door. Three steps for her and so fast that he'd never see her go. She could run — she should run. This was all going to get worse and worse, and the pain she had just witnessed on this old man's face was nothing compared to the pain which was sure to come.

The hallway called to her.

The night and the hunt…she watched the machine over her shoulder, soaked in Billy's father's blood, churn to keep someone alive who had died long ago.

The blood spoke to her as an angelic choir would urge a fool forth.

A broken, lovesick fool.

Anastasia closed her hand tightly into Ulysses and she squeezed. “Yes, old man, I love your son.”

His eyes were closed again and he spoke no more. Anastasia listened as his breathing and his heart slowed and she felt a little more life leave him.

But she knew better than anyone that Ulysses Purgatory was not quite dead yet.

~34~

H
OOF
S
CRATCH

BILLY PURGATORY DID TRICKS in the empty parking lot behind the VA clinic. He had called them tricks, but it was more like pacing if you were a normal person. He'd skate from one end of the parking lot to the other, jump up, flip his board, catch it, then slam it down and land on it. Then he'd skate back to the other end of the parking lot.

He wasn't sure how long this went on before he found the girl sitting on the loading dock all by herself watching him. Billy didn't know who she was and tried to ignore her, but that only lasted for a couple of passes before something familiar about her struck him.

He kicked up his board one last time, landed and then found himself gliding across the parking lot towards the girl.

It wasn't until he got closer and saw the dark skin and the scars across her face that made the “X” that he spoke. “Your name is Chimera.”

“It is.”

“You were at the house that Mudder brought me too when I was a boy. He'd rescued me from vampires.”

“That is true.”

Billy stopped his roll with his foot and kicked his board up into his hand. She sat on the loading dock with her legs hanging over the side. She wore jeans, biker boots, and a purple sweater. There was a leather coat sitting on the dock to her left with a pair of riding gloves sticking out of the pocket.