The Killing Room

THREE

As an icy draft knifes across the basement, the young man sits rigidly on a wooden chair. He is naked: Adam banished to this bleak and frigid garden. There are myriad whispers here, the last pleadings of the faithless.

He has been here one full day.

She looks at him, sees the bones beneath his skin. This is a moment for which she has waited all her days. In her fingertips now lives an ancient magic, a power that gives her dominion over the thieves, the fornicators, the usurers.

‘It is time,’ she says.

The young man begins to cry.

‘You must tell him what you said. Word for word. I want you to think carefully. It is very important.’

‘I … I don’t remember,’ he says.

She steps forward, lifts his chin, looks into his eyes. ‘Do you want me to tell you what you said?’

The young man nods. ‘Yes.’

‘You said: “I would do anything not to get AIDS. I would even sell my soul to the devil.”’

The young man does not respond to this. No response was expected. He glances at the opening into the other room. ‘I can’t look at him. When it happens, I can’t look at him.’

She removes her coat, folds it gently onto the altar cloth on the floor.

‘Your name has meaning in the Bible,’ she says. ‘Did you know that?’

He shakes his head. ‘No.’

‘Your name means “God is my judge.”’ She reaches into her bag, removes the hypodermic, prepares it. ‘According to the Word, Daniel was brought to Babylon. It is said he could interpret dreams.’

Seconds later, as the first drop of blood falls, as it did that terrible day on Calvary, she knows that the screams of the children of disobedience will soon fill the city.

All contracts are due.

The devil has returned to Philadelphia.