I always hated going by bus. Just the very fact that you are expected to sit still while dozens of strangers crowd about you left me with a bitter taste, it wasn‘t made better by the fact that one of the people always stank of booze, fish or just that distinct old man smell. This time however it was an odor quite different, it was something beyond common smells and the only thing I could compare it to would be death.
The man I whose smell I am describing was of a stature just as intriguing as his scent, he stood tall and at the very least was two meters in height if not more, he wore a coat that seemed so particularly old in style yet the thread-work was in remarkably good condition for its apparent age. I studied him further as the bus moved ever so slowly and as I watched my fascination only grew with each minute. He was lean and did give the appearance of having been starved in recent times with his cheeks fleeing back into his mouth. Altogether the skin on his body did not seem to suit him, it seemed stretched unnaturally in places. The stranger did not notice anything save for one woman whenever she coughed. He would turn to her, procure from his pocket a watch and look back to her. He did so with such alarming frequency that my imagination conjured up many an explanation. He had perhaps poisoned her, perhaps someone he knew was dieing and he was reminded of this each time the woman coughed, perhaps she bore a resemblance to someone he knew. And yet the reasonable explanations seemed altogether wrong a distant from the truth, something in my gut told me that this was no ordinary stranger.
I do not expect to be able to put into words the feeling of insurmountable curiosity, but I could not resist following the stranger as I saw him move towards the door at the next stop. I had jumped from my seat and made my way quickly to the door. Only once I had gotten out did I notice that I was in a part of town altogether unfamiliar to me. As the stranger approached me and looked at me with heavy eyes, that held a depth so frighteningly cold I could feel it on my skin. As his eyes looked me over I felt the weight of all my past deeds falling on my shoulders, every petty wrong I‘ve ever committed, balancing against the good I‘ve done. It will surprise no-one that this only drove my growing curiosity and I was frantically searching for something to say in my mind when he spoke methodically pronouncing with a hollow, dead voice as though this was a language he seldom used.
- Few are those brave enough to follow and indeed fewer are those perceptive enough to see. You are perhaps both, or perhaps just lucky. In either case, we shall see, in the meantime, can I have a cigarette ?
I produced a cigarette for both him and myself hoping that it would keep him talking. Instead he just nodded a thanks and walked away saying one last phrase in that cold, dead voice „Ask no questions, not until you see that which you recognize. It would be a shame if you went downwards“. I stood there his warning echoing in my mind, what could he have meant by it and what was downwards ? I looked at the bus schedule and the only bus whose route I could recognize was the one that had taken me here, one stood out, its direction being „Dante Station“ of which I had never heard. Still the encounter had left me with a taste of adventure and I resolved to make my way back home on foot, the city isn‘t that big and I could certainly do with a good walk. The night was young and a certain, mystery hung in the air.
While this was by no means my first time wandering around town with no particular goal in mind, after a while I had to conclude that I was in fact thoroughly lost. Never before had I encountered the particular buildings of this neighborhood with their odd oval balconies. It had been nearly an hour since I started walking and I could neither find my way back to the bus stop nor indeed find any other bus stop. I suppose I could have asked for directions but I wasn‘t feeling particularly chatty. Still I was running out of cigarettes and I resolved to kill two birds with one stone by asking a cashier for directions.
It was an odd little corner store that caught my eye. The sign was supposed to be glowing, not surprisingly it didn‘t. As I opened the door the smell of mold, dust and something strangely sulphuric assaulted my senses and I could not help but cough trying to expel it from my lungs. Yet in some morbid way I enjoyed the fact that this place was every bit as odd as the stranger I met. Behind a counter stood a woman so voluptuous she could have dragged anyone to bed with her, yet the rest of the store was in clear juxtaposition to her. The walls, the floors and even the ceiling were paneled with wood, it produced a monochromatic effect against which nearly everything stood out. I wasn‘t more then a step into the store when the woman spoke out.
- Hello, how can I help you ?
- Marlboro Red, please.
- I‘m afraid we do not carry those.
She made a motion towards the cigarette stand and as I looked it over it only incited my fascination. „Sulphurtide“, „Hornbow“ and the oddly normal „SilverStrike“ among a myriad other unrecognizable brands. I was about to raise an inquiry as to the others when my mind echoed the warning of that strange man and with a growing feeling of unease and danger I asked for a pack of SilverStrikes. The cashier grinned at me and as she did exposed her pronounced fangs in what one could only call a beastly smile. She tilted her glasses down and for the first time revealed her eyes, greenish in hue and slitted more like those of lizards then mammals.
My mind raced for what must have been only moments but felt like hours, what is this „woman“ who just stared at me, her smile slowly transmuting into a grin. She ran her fingers along her shapely body and as I felt my blood begin to heat up with a lust I knew I could not control I hastily payed for my smokes grabbed them from the counter and turned for the door, but her nimble hands were quick to catch mine and I felt a razor sharp pain run through my forearm from her touch. My hand jerked but I did not pull it from her grasp, something held me, I could not let go. Then she lazily pressed some coins in my hand a silently let go, sighing as I went, "Just another lamb" I heard her say. Still, I was not about to forget the warning that stranger left me with, the situation being as it was.
As I left the store I lit up a cigarette and took a deep breath and immediately after having done so I coughed and hacked until all that infernal smoke had left my lungs. That was the very word for it. Infernal, the entire visage of that cashier was one of infernal suggestion. My mind raced back to the stranger and his deathly pallor, his ancient stature and the stillness of the air about him. What was he and more importantly, where am I and for that matter what the hell is downward ?
A strange man dressed in rustic finery approached me not a few steps from the store and with a tip of his hat he made his greetings.
- Greetings sir, might I trouble you for a minute ?
- I suppose so, but I...
- Yes, we are aware that you must be lost, that is in fact the very matter which I have come here to discuss with you. You see, you have accidentally followed in the wake of one far greater then you to places you should not be. It is a terrible thing for a mouse to do to follow in the wake of a god. I suppose we can overlook this one transgression supposing you return to your own place and promise to never return.
It was then that he took his hat off to clean a dirty spot on it and then that I noticed the horns protruding from his head. I realize it must have been a pathetic sight, a confused young man standing around with jaw hanging low, silent. His eyes merrily remarked my confusion and he continued his monologue with renewed enthusiasm.
- In fact, we may be persuaded to help you on your way, provided we can have your promise of absence in writing. Would that be agreeable Mr. ?
- William...
That was a lie, but one does not freely give his name to horned strangers at the tip of a hat. His eyes narrowed to a slit as he cringed and pulled a velvet lined envelope from his jacket. He handed it to me and with a sniff I was quick to judge that this letter had been exposed to ungodly, pardon the pun, amounts of perfume as it emitted such a stench of lilac as one could not find in an entire field of the flowers would not have. With some hesitation I opened the letter, it was half a parchments worth of words and read as follows.
"I, Jacob Braumsfeld, hereby swear that I shall never again sneak in the trail left by gods. By the treaty of the ignorant I will hold myself back, be it by my efforts or those external, from any world save my own. I hereby swear to never invoke an avatar of passage or call upon the favor of a god to pass the barriers that keep us separate."
"I, Azazel, swear that by my power I will return the ignorant to his domain to lord upon it as he wishes unburdened by my requests."
As I finished reading I looked up to see the devil looking quite anxiously at me. He held in his hand a scalpel whose handle was facing me. How did he know my name, my real name. I thought of taking the scalpel and jamming it into Azazels' neck, but the curious look he gave me just as I thought it, the look of borderline amusement dissuaded me. This wasn't a man I was dealing with, this was something else entirely.
I knew not what to do and the puzzling warning I was given did not ease the confusion. Having quickly run through my options I decided to sign the contract. After all, at the very worse it seemed they merely wanted me to stop bothering them and go home, which at this point was starting to seem like a very desirable resolution to the situation. I took the scalpel from his hand and the sharp blade nearly painlessly separated my skin and as the blood swelled in my fingertip I put it to the paper. Having done that Azazel snatched the paper and the scalpel from my hands. He had already put it to his finger when a sudden rush of cold air chilled me to the bone and I saw the ghostly skin of that tall, lean man, who approached us as slow and as certain as winter.
- In many ways I've given to you more then I have taken Azazel, in many ways you have betrayed me in your lust for more. But greed betrays you adversary, this one, is, not, yours.
The final words came down like a hammer and I could feel their weight on my shoulders. Yet with a grin and a tip of the hat the devil did leave, offering no resistance, showing no dismay and handing to the man a velvet lined envelope as he passed him by. For a long uncomfortable minute the stranger merely looked at me in silence until I finally dared speak.
- Is it safe to ask a question now, since I do recognize you.
- It is safe, but is it wise ? To ask one whose answer you might not comprehend, yet you have earned an answer, ask away.
- Who are you ?
- I am the one you say takes souls across a silver river, the ferryman that plays with dice of dead mens knuckles, I have many names to offer, but I will give but one, Charon.
I had other question left to ask and rashness just enough to ask them, but whether trick or weariness or devils cigarettes had caused it I do not know, but with his last words so did my conscious mind go. I fell into dreams and remember only one last sight of that old man as he held me on his shoulder carrying us both past a howling tempest, shapeless and void. I screamed to him to visit me once more. But lost myself again before he answered.
I woke finally in my own bed. The room, just as it was left, save for the lilac scented letter, lying on my desk. On it I found a quick note written in a hand exquisitely elegant.
"Every thing alive has seen me once. And everything dead has seen me twice. Until next we meet. Charon."
