Casey didn’t know what sex the baby was going to be so we tried to stick to neutral colours and patterns on the baby-grows we picked out. We also purchased tiny, tiny socks and bibs and little knitted hats. I had never seen Casey so elated as she rushed round like an excited child, looking at the baby clothes on their tiny hangers, exclaiming in delight over some item or other. Perhaps it was just the first time that she had viewed her own pregnancy as anything other than an unmitigated disaster. She really was quite huge now, emphasised all the more by the fact that she had a small figure to begin with. It couldn’t be much longer now. I even wondered whether she was carrying twins, she seemed to be so big.
There was far too much to carry by the time we were done so I paid extra to have it sent back to the apartment the next day. Casey voiced concerns again about the cost of everything, but I waved them away. To my utter astonishment, I heard a slight tremor in her voice as she said quietly, ‘I’ll find some way to repay your kindness one day, Gabriel, I promise. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me.’
Kindness? How could this be kindness when I was simply making myself happy? She made me happy just by being near me. Already I loved her so much that it hurt. But perhaps I was kind. After all, I was doing kind deeds — that must surely make me a kind person? I am a good person, aren’t I? Look at all the good things I’ve done.
After the Luxus Department Store, we went to Gerbeaud’s, the famous patisserie on the northern side of the Mihaly Vorosmarty Square, and enjoyed coffee and pastries in the sumptuously rich interior made all the more splendid for the many Christmas angels and golden ribbons with which the patisserie was decorated for the holiday season.
It was the best day of my life. My time spent with Stephomi seemed to pale in comparison. Truly those days had been nothing to this one. To know that I had been responsible for the smile on Casey’s face; to know that I was the one responsible for lifting some of the sadness from her eyes… was utterly priceless to me. She would have been so miserable without me. She needed me. And I trusted her in a way I knew I would never be able to trust my more scholarly, evasive friend.
As we sat there in the warm, bright patisserie with golden chandeliers hanging from elaborate cream and gold ceilings, and alternating green and red velvet drapes sweeping to the floor from archways, I felt that even if my future was filled with one disaster after another, this day, this moment here with Casey, would provide me with enough happiness to last me until I died.
We were in the middle of a conversation and I had glanced down at my coffee cup for only a moment, but when I looked back up, the aura around her that had been soft with golden beauty only a second before had once again changed to thick, swirling clouds of black — the smell of burning flesh horribly pungent once again. Just the sight of it chafed horribly at my senses, instinctively warning of danger and the terrible potential for hissing evil…
‘What is it?’ Casey asked, gazing at me, clearly quite unaware of the malevolence that clung about her.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said quickly, and tried to continue with the conversation.
But I hated to have to look at her when the aura was this colour. It seemed to freeze my eyeballs in their sockets. And the sight was a crushing and brutal reminder, shattering the illusion that I had been so enjoying up until that point. We were not safe at all. This was not a warm and happy place, as it appeared. And I had just spent the whole day buying baby supplies for Casey for a child who was the focal point in an ancient War; a child who might grow up to be the next Hitler and inflict unendurable suffering upon hundreds of thousands of people in a battle that would last almost thirty years. And I one of the few people — really one of the only two people who could do anything about it — I was sitting here eating pastries and doing nothing.
‘I, er… just have to go to the bathroom,’ I said, needing a moment to collect myself.
The bathroom was empty when I got there, so I ran the tap and splashed some cool water on my face. I had told Stephomi sharply that the child would belong to Casey once it was born. But now, in the face of the burning black aura that clung about the teenager’s body, I found myself beginning to doubt those words. What good would a demon child bring Casey? All day I had been telling her how happy she would be once the baby came, but what if that thing brought her nothing but further anguish? What if my decision was not being loyal to Casey at all? Suddenly, I wished I had not spent all day getting her so excited about her unborn child. Christ, what the hell was I doing here?
I looked up at the sound of the bathroom door opening. I expected the man who walked in to go over to the urinals, but instead he walked over to the sink next to mine and started washing his hands.
‘I always wash my hands before eating,’ he remarked conversationally.
I jumped severely at his voice, and fear shot through me when I looked at him. I recognised that American drawl and those heavy lidded eyes. It was the Judge. The Judge from the nightmare I had had several months ago in which I had been found guilty of witchcraft in Salem and been dragged outside at this man’s command to be burned at the stake by a bloodthirsty mob.
‘Hand me a towel there, would ya, fella?’ the man said, indicating the paper towels by my side.
Wordlessly, I handed him one. He showed no sign of recognising me whatsoever. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ I asked suddenly.
The Judge looked at me for a long moment before shaking his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said with a smile.
‘We never met in… Salem?’ I persisted.
The Judge laughed. ‘No, I’ve never been to Salem, son. My family’s from there, though.’
‘Oh.’ I looked at him doubtfully. He didn’t seem like he was lying, but it was definitely the same man. It was definitely him. If someone else walked into the bathroom right now, I wondered… would they even be able to see him? Or would it just look like I was stood here talking to myself?
‘We’ve never met before, then?’ I asked again.
The Judge smiled good-naturedly. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Perhaps I was just getting myself wound up about nothing after all. With a puzzled frown, I turned to go and rejoin Casey, but as I did so, the Judge’s hand brushed my arm. And at his touch, flames shot up all around me, roaring with a frenzied heat. I could feel the stake at my back and the blisters around my wrists where the rope bound them together, and beyond the flames I could see the mob shrieking with pleasure as my clothes caught alight. I screamed, somehow managed to free one arm, and beat frantically at my clothes where they were smouldering, the acrid smoke stinging my eyes and making them water.
And then suddenly the fire was gone and I was in the bathroom of the patisserie again, panting, sweat running down my face. I wondered if I’d screamed aloud or just in my head. From the expression on the Judge’s face, I guessed I’d screamed aloud. But the strange thing was that now he barely looked like the Judge at all. Perhaps there was a very slight physical resemblance, but it most certainly wasn’t the same man.
‘Jesus Christ, Mister!’ the American exclaimed. ‘What the hell is your problem?’
And he backed away from me and out the door, clearly glad to escape. But this doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything at all. I felt in my pocket for the rosary beads Casey had given me, and quickly recited the Lord’s Prayer through once to make sure. I… I think I might just have… overreacted.