The Devil's Dog

Then I'll wander, some instinct taking me to wherever I need to be for next Halloween.

The prospect of another year alone drags at my guts. I'm heart-sore, close to genuine grief when I think about it. A drink would be welcome, a proper drink, something hard to smash the melancholy that's gripping me.

Poppy is giggling, her high heels pecking the parquet floor. Then she's all over Sid, her tongue in his mouth while he paws her buttocks, his hands under the very short pleated kilt the girl has on.

"Is this the audition?" Poppy asks as she unzips Sid's suit trousers. "'Cause I'm ready if it is." The girl squirms and throws a look at Lucie. "Are you okay with the old bloke?"

The blonde glances at me and pouts. "How old are you?" she asks.

At that moment I'm feeling every year, the burden of the decades a heavy weight. "Fifty-one," I lie, knowing that's about right as far as Lucie's eyes are concerned.

"An older man," Lucie says, nodding. "I like that."

But she doesn't know just how old I really am. There are days I can't believe it myself.

Poppy interjects with, "I want this one first." She has Sid out in the open now, her hand working at him. "But..." she adds, winking, an eyelid dropping onto one cheek, a gesture so lascivious I'm astounded at how bold she is.

I wonder, vaguely, if they've always been so depraved. When all this started for me, I wonder if the girls were so debauched. Or is it solely in my mind? Surely they haven't always been so easy?

"...I think we should get together later, Lucie," Poppy adds. She smirks at me and continues with, "I suppose you've got a camera somewhere? I wouldn't mind a go with you, too, granddad. The four of us can have a right laugh, can't we?"

Then Poppy turns her attention to Sid and says, "How about you and me have some fun first, lover? Get ourselves all worked up for it."

Then she's on her knees, sweater pulled up to show off her little breasts. But before she can take Sid into her mouth he hauls her to her feet, dragging her away by one wrist, her heels clattering. Sid pulls the giggling girl to what I assume is a bedroom. The door slams shut and I'm suddenly all alone with Lucie.

"We've got to go," I tell her. "Now," I add, with the urgency of it hot in my chest.

***

I'm sitting on the beach. It's the first day of November, early, with the day just coming on. The temperature suits the time of year. I'm shivering, the suit no protection at all as the cold bites me. I can feel my toes are all shrunk inside my socks, my blood pooled at my core to protect the vital organs.

Ahead of me the Channel sucks at the pebbles, timeless waves drifting in, the swell of the water like beaten pewter. The skeletal frame of the old West Pier sits out there like a spider from the water, the charred spars somehow surviving each year and all the elements can throw at it. It's grey overhead, a heavy blanket of cloud that sits low and gloomy, although the morning isn't anywhere nearly close to being as dismal as I'm feeling.

Terror spikes when I hear the crunch of feet on the pebbles behind me. Despite knowing he leaves when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, if I turn, I'm certain I'll see Sid standing there.

I don't want to acknowledge the presence I know is there, but I'm going to have to confront it sometime.

"Hello," he says, the man standing with his hands thrust deep in the pockets of a ratty parka.

At first I mistake him for some homeless stray that's going to scrounge a quid off me. He's hollow-eyed and lean, the angles of his face stark beneath the stubble. He's got a woollen beanie-hat pulled low, black to match the colour of his heart. To complete the look, he's carrying a rolled up sleeping bag, a dog next to him, the animal reminding me of someone I've met.

It's uncanny, but when I look into the cur's face...

"You," I say to the man, recognising him.

"Who else did you expect?" he asks.

I shrug, knowing it's hopeless. If he's here, I'm doomed.

When I make no reply, just sit there with my arse on the beach, torso twisted so I can look back, he says, "You took the girl away. You ran with her."

It's a statement of fact, not a question.

I nod, knowing he knows anyway. Then I face the sea again.

I hear him move and see him settle next to me, the dog squatting by his feet.

"Are you going to kill me now?" I ask.

He chuckles and strokes the brute's fur. "No."

The relief is so great I almost sob. It's a huge bubble rising inside me.

He lets me fool myself for a few seconds and then hits me with it. "I'm going to take the girl next year," he says. "You can have that time to think about it."

The dog wags its tail and looks at me with pale-blue eyes.

That's when I realise just who the animal is.

"Sid..." I say.

The man nods. "That's what you call him."

I think then that the dog eats them. I find the girls for him and he bites their flesh and crunches their bones.

It sickens me. I'm horrified.

"Why don't you just kill me?" I ask, hoping he will.

His reply is inevitable. He hasn't killed me yet means he has something else in mind.

"Because you won't suffer if I do. Instead," he adds, "I'm going to tell you what you've been doing all these years."

Despair is a bottomless pit. I've lived for over a hundred and eighty years since he arranged for me to walk out of gaol. I've learned so much, adapted and seen the world change to something I couldn't have imagined in 1829.

"You're a murderer," he reminds me.

That's true. It was in a tavern that I caught up with the man who owed me winnings from a bet. He had a knife and so did I. I was just quicker when the steel glinted from his fist.

"So?" I say, pointless bitterness rising.

"You took a soul. That's why I could use you. And you've done well. I did think Woodhouse would have been better, that's why I asked him first." The Devil shrugs. "But you've kept..." He pauses and uses my name for the beast at his feet. "...Sid well fed, I'll give you that."

"Fed?" I ask, the horror engulfing me again. I don't want to know but need the confirmation, no matter how awful. "He eats them...?"

Satan chuckles. "No. What he does is puts his seed in them. It's the child's soul he feeds on."

I'm dizzy with it, the roaring in my ears like so much water pouring over me.

"That's what you do for me. You feed my dog. You move between him and the girls. He changes form and then you make it possible. He sires some bastard and then the soul sustains him." The Devil pauses once more and then goes on. "That soulless child grows into something malignant that roams the Earth in torment. Serial killers and despots, you've visited them on the world. The girls," Satan informs me, "aren't harmed physically..."

I didn't want to know any more, but he was going to tell me anyway.

"...But they're damaged," he says, as casual as you like. We're just passing the time of day, jawing on the beach. "Their lives are ruined. Some end up as suicides, which is always good for me. Others go insane with the grief they can't shift.

"Sid lives on with them for years. They're haunted by the memory of a few hours in his company. He isn't gentle with them.

"You've fed him well. I'm so grateful," the awful bastard finishes, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

There's a silence between us, an eternity.

Then he tells me, "You're done, too. Your tenure is over. I'll find another broker. These days it's simple." He gives me a smile like a cot-death. "There are so many to choose from, so many nasty men in this world."

The Devil leans in close, a foul stench coming off him.

Sid growls, hackles rising all along the ridge of his broad back.

"You'll stay immortal," Satan says. "And next year he'll have the blonde girl. Don't imagine I won't find her for him. You can have perpetuity to think about it all. You can roam free and ponder on the evil you've propagated."

He leaves me there, bereft. I'm sobbing into my hands because there are things worse things than death.