Beyond Paradise

Before Billie reached the door of the shop, it burst open with a crash and Jabril stumbled through, panting and disheveled, followed by Aden and Sabeil. They looked nervously over their shoulders, back toward the main square, bodies quivering with tension.

"We've been looking for you--come on!" Jabril rasped hoarsely. He looked down at the guitar in Billie's hands, and for a moment he froze, the expression on his face unreadable. When he lifted his eyes to Mischa, they brimmed with unspoken pain. "Hurry! They're coming!" he urged.

By now, Billie knew not to waste time asking questions. He slung the strap over his shoulder and twisted the guitar around behind him. With a last grateful look toward Mischa, he followed the boys out the door and down the street toward the warehouse at a run. When they passed the building where he had spent the night, he slowed, thinking they were headed inside, but the boys kept their pace, and he had to sprint to catch up with them.

The hissing noise had returned, and it was close behind them. Jabril made a sudden turn into a narrow alleyway, so small Billie could touch the walls on both sides, and skidded to a halt in front of a dented, rusting trash bin. He lifted the lid, and Sabeil leaped inside with feline grace. Motioning Billie to do the same, he nodded to Aden, who turned and ran back toward the street, lifting his hands out in front of him as if he were pressing against an invisible wall.

Inside the dumpster, to Billie's astonishment, was a set of metal steps, leading down into a dim hallway. He crept slowly down the stairs, barely able to see in the darkness. A thud behind him told him that Jabril had clambered inside as well, and the faint light vanished as he pulled the lid shut behind them.

Their feet had no more than touched the floor below when a huge roar exploded above them. The steel lid rattled on its hinges, and Billie could see tiny tongues of flame licking under the edges. The sound went on for seconds that seemed like forever, and he cringed against the wall, his face buried in the crook of his arm. He could only imagine the agony Aden was suffering as his skin was burned to a blackened crisp.

Jabril grabbed his sleeve, pulling him away from the staircase and into the shadows. "Don't worry," he shouted as he ran, "he'll be okay." Billie followed reluctantly, the guitar thumping against his shoulder blades, and Sabeil's footsteps echoed behind him.

The hall opened out into a larger room, lit only by the yellowed glow of gaslight lamps set into the wood-paneled walls. Around the perimeter sat dozens of battered old filing cabinets, the drawers of which were stuffed so full that some would not close, and spilled out their contents like worn feather pillows. Behind a large wooden desk sat a scrawny, balding old man, his owlish eyes peering out in surprise from behind bottle-bottom glasses. Spread out before him on the weathered wood were several large, leather-bound ledger books, and all around him on the walls were hung clocks of every imaginable shape and size, all set to exactly the same time, all ticking in precise unison.

"Jabril, my boy, what in the world brings you here?" he said in a thin, wavering voice. "Sabeil, I haven't seen you in some time. Keeping those rats under control?"

"Max, I'm sorry we came unannounced, but we need your help in a hurry," Jabril explained. He introduced Billie Joe, and told the old man everything that had happened in the past two days. He explained their flight from the pawn shop, and finished with words that chilled Billie's blood.

"Stroud isn't just after his talent this time," Jabril went on, deliberately avoiding Billie's eyes. "We barely made it in here after the Zieleter chased us right through the middle of town."

"What does that mean?" Billie asked, his throat tight.

Jabril and Sabeil were silent, refusing to meet his gaze. Max laid his pen down, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Who stayed behind?" he asked, his expression serious.

"Aden. He was our best chance," Jabril answered.

"Good. They won't stay away forever, but it should buy you some time," he nodded solemnly. "They don't like fire. I guess it reminds them where they came from."

"Goddammit, will somebody please answer me?" Billie asked, the anger once again driving the ragged edge of fear out of his voice. "It's my ass that's on the line, and I think I deserve to know what's going on!!"

Max carefully took off his glasses and laid them on the desk. "I can see why Stroud is so interested in you, Billie Joe. You have fire inside you, and strength that he can only imagine. He has none himself--he's as lifeless as a corpse." He motioned toward a rickety chair that sat beside him, but Billie shook his head stubbornly.

The old man chuckled. "There you have it. I wish I still had some of the piss and vinegar you have. Maybe I'd be out making love to beautiful women instead of rotting away here with these old books." His wrinkled, age-spotted hands lay limply on the ledger, like old dogs tired from the chase.

He lifted his gaze to look steadily into Billie's eyes, and the smile faded away from his face. "Jabril has explained to you that this man wants your gift, your music, has he not?" He spoke softly, and Billie had to strain to hear him.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me."

The old man waved a bony hand toward the cabinets. "These files, they are the records of others he has stolen from. Some had poetry inside them, others were able to paint or draw. Many singers and musicians rest there--he has a great fondness for music. There were still others, who were swift with numbers or skilled with their hands. Some never saw this place--they simply let go, through apathy or lack of confidence, and when their ability fell by the wayside, he was there to snatch it up. But all have this in common--they were either unwilling or unable to hold on to the talent they possessed, and now it belongs to him."

"What does he do with all of them?" Billie asked, staring at the mute paper folders and trying to imagine the people they represented, people who had been left empty and hopeless, with no spark to drive them. People like him.

"That's the greatest tragedy of all. He cannot use them for himself, and so he hoards them like gold, keeping them but letting them lie dormant. And so they are wasted, and those from whom he stole are left to exist, without truly living."

"Then why? Why do something so cruel? It's like he's made some kind of deal with the devil, but never cashed in on it!"

Max nodded sadly. "You're right, more so than you know. The ability to do this, to rob those precious gifts away from their owners, was something that he bargained for, and paid a dear price for it."

"Huh! It must have been his soul, the coldhearted bastard, because he sure doesn't seem to have one."

The old man looked at him meaningfully, but didn't answer.

"You--you mean that's what he did? Traded his soul so that he could have the power to be--"

"To be the best at whatever he chose. Exactly," Max nodded. "And now the bitter irony is that he finds it was all in vain. Gifts like these are not learned, they aren't memorized or written in books. They come from deep within, from the heart and spirit of the bearer, and the two cannot be separated without both slowly dying. Without a soul, they are useless to him, like a guitar without strings."

Billie sank slowly into the chair, stunned by what he had heard. So it was all for nothing, and all these people had suffered for no reason, not even the most evil and selfish. Jabril crouched beside him, looking up at him earnestly. "Do you understand now why he brought you here?" His eyes were intense, agonized.

Billie looked helplessly back and forth between Max and Jabril. Understanding was slowly dawning in his mind, and the horror of it made him shake his head back and forth. "Those things that were chasing us, the Zie--Zie"

"Zieleter," Jabril finished for him.

"What are they?" he asked. His voice was a tiny thread now, his throat closing in protest against the words. He didn't want to know.

"It means 'soul eaters'," Max answered. "They are his creation, an abomination that he has conjured from his madness and from the darkness in his heart. They exist only to tear the spirit from the flesh, and leave the body an empty shell, capable of nothing--not love, not joy or anger. Nothing."

"No...no...it's not...he can't--" Billie stammered numbly.

"He can," Max said gently, as though he were talking to condemned man. "And he will."