When Rufus woke, it wasn’t Jezebel he found. It wasn’t Rekesh or Azriella, or mommy or daddy. It was no one he knew. It was no one. But it was someone nonetheless, though it scared him to admit so. The man sat by his bed on a little chair and smoked a cigar. He held it between his fingers so loosely it should have fallen into his whiskey. His suit was velvet and dark like his skin, although the suit was red. He had a little goatee and smelled of wine even though he only drank whisky from a small glass shaped like a diamond. Rufus should have cried. He should have begged for mercy. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He knew the man, even if he had never seen him before. He was there from the moment he was born. He would be there to take him away the day he died. He was life. He was death. He was everything, and nothing at all. His wrists and fingers were spiraled with tattoos. Strange words in strange languages. His shoes were polished so brightly that the darkness of the room seemed to fall on them and slip down to the floor. He smiled at Rufus and didn’t say a word. Some part of him wished he could reach out and touch the man, free himself. But he knew he would never dare. The two of them watched each other in a dreadful silence for a long time before Rufus’ eyes let out and he fell back into sleep.

“Wake.”

Rufus’ eyes fluttered open and pierced around the room, threatening to close immediately again if he did not get out of bed and rub them until they turned red.

The Angel was gone and Rufus’ chest stung and burned as soon as he stood. But it was less painful now. And it was bandaged, too. Rufus wanted to sleep more. There were no windows in the room and no clocks either, but he could tell that it was still only morning.

His room was extravagant and beautifully decorated. He didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep. To close his eyes and give into a feeling of numbness that he enjoyed so much.

So he walked to the restroom and washed himself in the bath that had been drawn for him already, most likely by the Angel Rekesh. And he cleaned himself as thoroughly as he could; even getting the areas between his toes and behind his ears, like a good boy. Then he took a leak and went back to his room.

The whole bedroom smelled of lavender when he opened the door to the bathroom. A puff of hot air followed him out and into bed and lingered about him as he dropped his head into the pillow and closed his eyes.

Some part of him wanted deeply to cry. But he was far too tired to cry. So he just dreamt.

Mommy was in his dream. Rufus remembered this day as soon as he saw her. She was standing in the living room and daddy was there. He had come to get his belongings so that he could leave them forever. But he left forever very often, and his forevers always seemed very short.

“Please. . .” she begged him and fell to her knees. “Please. . . don’t go. . . don’t leave me.”

His face was bitter and lines of hatred seeped across it like veins. He walked away and stuffed another object into his bag. Daddy hadn’t done as much as look at Rufus.

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“Please. . .” mommy begged again. “We can leave the child . . . just the two of us. . .”

“The two of us?!” Daddy snapped and threw something or another on the ground. “The two of us and that bastard you’ve been fucking?! How long did this go on, huh? How long have you been with him?!”

Mommy stumbled to her feet and a look of terror passed over her face. “Before you!” she said. “Before you! I was with him before we got married! I promise!”

“And you’ve given birth to his filthy demonic child. You whore!”

Mommy tried to grab his arm and he tried to pull away from her. She didn’t let go and suddenly, without even daddy himself really expecting to do it, his hand flew back and then across her face. It was the first time. The first time, the first time. It would not be the last.

She gasped and fell back, her hand clutching her cheek, her lips painted with blood the way that they used to be painted with lipstick before she and daddy would go out on Saturdays. She was bent over, her mouth wide and her lips shaking. Her whole body shook, really.

And daddy shook too. In shock, they were. Then he hardened his face and stormed out, the door closing so hard that the whole house shook along with mommy.

She was still frozen. A droplet of blood gathered at the base of her bottom lip and then slowly fell through the air and splashed on the off- white carpet.

“This. . .” she shook and pulled herself up. “This. . . is your fault. . . you slimy demon. . .” she moved with speed and grabbed Rufus by the shoulders. Her face was stricken with horror and rage and blood and a mark of daddy’s hand.

“Your fault!” she screamed and shook him hard, spit flying out of her mouth. Why was mommy being so silly? Rufus asked himself. Why was she being silly and crying?

Because she was crying now. Sobbing into his face, screaming at him and shaking him.

“You made him leave!” her voice was cracked and broken.

Rufus tried to pry her fingers off of his shoulders, because she was hurting him. Then she hit him on the head. One time. Another time. Another time again. And one time more.

And then she thrust him with a shove across the room so that he fell, panting, onto the floor and lay there, motionless.

And she fell to the floor also, and cried into her hands. And she screamed at him, to his confusion; “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” and then “It was all your fault! You made him leave!”

Then her face melted off and was replaced by a huge, smiling face, like Satan in church. His face was gnarled and rooted like the trunk of a tree and his smile stretched from one ear to the next. Rufus tried to run away, but a great hand wrapped around his body and lifted him up to the tree- man. He looked into eyes that were hollow and showed fire and death and people screaming for their lives. He looked into those eyes and the voice chided; “My son. Rufus, my son.” And then tilted him forward and swallowed him whole, like a bird catching a fish in the ocean. He slipped down the gaunt throat, rolling in blood, his skin loosening over his bones until it began to slide off. He saw Jezebel as he rolled; crucified, screaming. He saw people he didn’t know; a boy wrapped in chains, carrying a dead body. . . a pregnant woman with knives all around her and blood pooling between her legs. . . A boy falling from a cliff, like him. . . falling, falling.

And then Rufus landed in the tree-man’s stomach. His skin was gone and he was dead. He lay there for what seemed like forever. He saw flies walking on the stickiness of his eyeballs and crows pulling clumps of brain from his head.

It was after his corps had rotted to aches that he finally woke again.