The Devil's Duet: Chapter Five

This novella contains scenes dealing with violence, profanity, sexual and drug abuse, which may cause some readers distress. Please be warned. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. It is a work of cautionary fiction.

Dante Must Die | (The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil — Ecclesiastes 9:3)

Chapt 4 | Contents | Chapt 6

ehind the establishment of the Black Lion there lay a network of narrow Victorian alleyways. At one time, during that era, the kegs of barrels that were the lifeblood of any publican's house were delivered by horse and cart.

Nowadays, deliveries were made to the front of the buildings in the city's main street by truck, and the labyrinth of cobbled path and narrow walls were usually empty. Access had been blocked with security doors and bollards decades ago, but some store owners would still line the top of their walls with broken glass as a deterrent.

Cillian was not one of them. He knew neighbouring cats liked to frequent the back, and he didn't want them to cut their paws on anything he'd placed there.

"Hey, fella," he called out softly to one of those welcome guests, placing a saucer of milk by the far wall. He had noticed the purring feline while stacking some empty crates, and it looked like it could do with a good drink.

The cat knew Cillian from his previous generosities, and bounded over to him without any of its usual caution. It rubbed the side of its face against Cillian's hand.

"There you go," he said, and left his friend to it, while he went back to his crates.

He knew what it was like to go hungry and thirsty well enough. Better than most. He'd been lucky enough to survive the streets back in Ulster. The Church was a solace if you had faith, but he'd lost his years before. Cillian had run away to hide from himself, and if it weren't for his Ma and Da never giving up on him, searching until they'd found him, he didn't think even being Dara's friend would have helped him towards the end.

The longer you were unwanted, the longer you went unseen. The longer you were on the streets, the more it took of you. Making you even more invisible. And if you weren't willing to give, then it would take and take until there was nothing left. But with Dara's help, he realised he had wanted to be seen again, to see his parents again. While they could still recognise him.

He also remembered all the walls lined with glass. Glass of every variety, and some unseen like the homeless; although the owners didn't need to put anything down for you to know you weren't wanted. When you were on the street, every wall was there to keep you out.

He didn't blame them. It was a desperate measure against a desperation they didn't want to see. But he didn't want to do the same now. When he saw the desperate and the homeless he welcomed them round the front. He'd installed the latest, wireless surveillance and security system, reinforcing with steel the old wooden entrance to the old loading yard, for the rest.

As he walked back into his pub, he figured that it would be enough to ensure that no human paws were able to scale his walls, undetected.

And yet, two such cats of the large human variety, dressed from head to toe in black and with the aid of a wireless blocker, went in and out of the pub's yard without being seen after he left.

Like the silent shadows of the darkest night.

ara made his way back to the pub, a few hundred yards behind Dante.

It was as though the episode in the park hadn't phased the little man at all. He had been threatened, and come near to a fatal assault, but walked out of the park as though nothing had happened.

Dara stopped to allow some distance to come between him and Dante, as the Sicilian walked past Cillian's pub.

He flexed his muscles, and popped his neck to alleviate the sudden tension that had built in him. His honed instincts told him there was a subtle change in the air. He sniffed as though he were trying to catch the scent of an approaching storm.

He saw Dante had sensed it, too, because he stopped outside Cillian's pub. Then, as quick as lightning, Dante ran in, coming out only seconds later carrying a bemused Cillian over his shoulder. He had never seen man or beast move so fast.

Before Dara could figure out what the little man was up to, Dante had placed Cillian behind a car on the other end of the street. He was about to make his way back to the pub, when a blast ripped through its doors, shattering its glass windows. The force of it lifted some of the closest cars a few inches above the ground.

Dara instinctively bent down as the explosion roared to a thunderous end, which in its aftermath brought a long moment of eerie silence.

When he could hear again, he heard the blasted bits of brick and glass as they came crashing down, scattering and smoking across the pavements and road. He heard the car sirens begin to holler their alarm.

Then he heard the screams.

Of surprise. Of protest. Of fear.

ante ignored him, as Dara asked, "How did you know?"

"Are you alright, Mr Hayes? I did not hurt you, I hope?"

"Hurt me? Bejesus you saved my fucking life! Sorry- I mean thanks."

Dante shook his head. "None are necessary. But I need to go and see if others are alright. I was too slow."

Too slow? What the fuck did he mean, too slow? Dara watched incredulously as Dante crossed the street, and after checking that no passerby had been injured, promptly entered the pub, which was still breathing out black fumes like a furnace.

More sirens sounded in the distance. The paramedics and the city's cavalry, no doubt, Dara thought. When it came to the police, England and Ireland were the same.

Dara looked back at Cillian, who wore the same expression of incredulity he had a moment before, and couldn't help but ask, "Who the fuck is that guy?"

"I met him at the Church. That's all I know, really." Cillian shifted his eyes away from Dara. "But he's someone I like a lot."

Dara understood. It was the unspoken reason his friend had really left Ireland. He had been surprised to hear he had gone back to the Church over here, but now he knew why. "Aye, I see that," he said.

Dante came running back. "Mr Hayes, please was there anyone else in your inn? I cannot find anyone, but I must be sure."

Cillian shook his head. He placed his hands on the car that had shielded them from the blast, and stood himself up. "No, thank God, I was just locking the doors to do an audit."

Dante breathed a visible sigh of relief. "That is good," he said. "Very good."

"How did you know?" Dara asked again.

This time Dante acknowledged his existence. His dark, elegant eyes bore inelegant holes into Dara's soul.

Dante answered softly, "How did you know, Mr Dara?"

Instinct. A change in the atmosphere. Of something waiting.

When Dara didn't reply, Dante turned back to Cillian, and said, "I am very happy you are alright, Mr Hayes, but I am sorry about your establishment."

"Well, I'm insured but, I'm very happy too that I'm alive!" He smiled, and without warning, Cillian placed his hands on Dante's shoulders. "And please, don't you think it's about time you called me Cillian? After all, you just saved my life."

Dante looked at him, solemnly. "I did not save your life, God's grace did." Then he raised his own hand to touch Cillian's cheek. "You are a good man. And I have met only a few. I am glad I was able to keep you here with the grace of God."

Dara suddenly felt embarrassed, as though he were intruding on a private scene. He turned to look away, towards the site of destruction.

He thought of his home of Blacklion.

His hot blood ran cold.

aleb was struggling to get the drugs from out of Danny B's backside.

When they'd heard the explosion from the park, both of them had run into the abandoned public toilets out of fear for their lives, leaving the other two loyal knights to fend for themselves.

Both needed a fix badly.

"Why the fuck do you keep these up here?" Caleb asked, irritated.

"The pigs, why else?"

Caleb stood up at that. "They're on our side you idiot."

Danny B turned up to look at him, on all fours, his crack looking like a wrinkled, pursed up mouth. "Aye, but force of habit, I reckon."

Caleb gave a tut of indignance, and bent fowards again, examining the exposed hole with all the seriousness of a rectal examination.

"How the fuck are you so tight, anyways?" He asked, as he dug his finger deeper in to Danny B's crevice.

Caleb was amazed at just how tight he was, and a little jealous, although he wouldn't admit it. Hadn't the geriatric fucked him with the zimmer frame, then?

"Owee. Watch what you're doing will, ya? It's not the freakin' Watford Gap like yourn. I do me kegel exercises, I do, regular like."

"Your fucking what?" Caleb resisted the urge to stand up again. He started to giggle.

"Aw shut up, will ya. Keep your mind on the job at hand. I leave a little part of the plastic wrapping out. All you gotta do is pull. Ouch!"

"Oooh, right!" Caleb found it and pulled at it, hard. The wrapping came away in his hand, empty.

"Oh, what you done, Caleb! You split it. It's all inside me you feckin' ejit!"

Caleb began to giggle louder.

"I feel funny," Danny B said. He began to roll his eyes, the crack going into his system bottoms up for the first time in his life.

Caleb felt himself go hard. He wanted some of what Danny B was having.

And for the first time in his life, he slid his cock into another's hole, hoping Danny B would give up his payload.

As they both began to giggle and grunt, high on the effects of the drug, Caleb realised he hadn't done this before.

Not even with his old man.

Suddenly, he found he enjoyed sex like this. Wide awake and consenual. Well, almost.

There's a first time for everything, he thought.

ara and Cillian stood and stared as the fire crew cordoned off the blast site. No one was going back in there until they had determined the cause of the explosion. But Dara had a sense that Cillian knew more than he was letting on.

"So, what gives?"

"I've lost my livelihood, can't you see?"

"Come on, Cillian, we're far too old friends for that. What's this all about?"

"I don't want to involve you in my troubles," he said, finally, kicking out at a bit of debris.

"Looks like someone involved me. Who's going to pay for my shit going up in smoke?"

"The whole city is going up in smoke."

Dara looked at Cillian, and understood. "Is this a protection racket?"

Cillian nodded, slowly. "More than you know. We got crack heads running the streets now. The police won't do anything about it."

"When have they ever? You should've called me."

"I'm a big boy, Dara, I can handle me own problems."

"Aye, man, you can. But what is a friend for? If not at times like these?"

Cillian looked as though he wasn't sure whether to tell him or not, before saying, "All I know is some crack heads came round last month, causing a nuisance over Dante."

Dara had bristled at the mention of drugs. He hated all kinds of it, and all the kinds of suffering it caused. But at the mention of Dante's name, he look surprised. "What's he got to do with it?"

"They told me not to let him in my pub, and not to accept his pastries. They made up all sorts of vile lies about him. When I refused, one pulled a knife on me."

Dara grinned, suddenly. "And how did that work out?"

Cillian couldn't help grinning back, despite himself. "How do you think? A Catholic boy growing up in Ulster? So, I guess this is payback for that."

Dara didn't ask what they could have said about Dante. He knew. He had read the brief.

"Why didn't you do as they asked? Was it worth losing your pub over a Sicilian?"

"Who just saved me life, man!" Cillian looked offended. "What are friends for, right?"

"Calm down, man. I was only asking how sure you're about him."

"You know, this all comes from that hellhole they call Downland. Dante is about the only one who won't follow their lead. They nicknamed him the Devil. Dante ain't no Devil, Dara."

He didn't reply. He wasn't sure what Dante was.

Cillian went on, "He's the nicest, kindest person I've ever met. He's my friend."

Dara nodded, "Aye, I see that even clearer now."

Dara saw a lot of things clearer now. He had been hired by a drug cartel to kill a single man who had said no.

So, that was why Dante had to die. And seeing the little man in action, he now knew why they had hired the best.

Dante must die for my track record to stay clean, he thought. It was a necessary evil that came to everyone in the end. Some sooner than others, but death visited every soul, Dara knew all too well, and it always came to stay; it was his trade, after all.

Life and Death. It was a divine duet composed by He who composed all things.

He missed his music room. He missed it badly.

Then he remembered his ceremonial bowl, his water from the Jordan River, all the tools of his trade lying under the rubble that used to be his good friend's pub. He would have to come back later tonight and retrieve them.

What a Class A fuck-up this was turning out to be.

He touched the black crucifix around his neck and wondered if it were a sign from the Almighty himself.

aba Mamba looked up at Derek's kitchen.

It was a Thursday night. The kitchen light was on. He hadn't been invited.

He heard footsteps from around the corner of the intersecting alleyway behind him. He turned around, as he always did, very slowly. But he opened his puffa jacket slightly.

"Hey, Baba." It was the Queen of Sheba. And she looked the worse for wear. More than usual.

"Where you been hiding, Shantel?" He said, letting his jacket close.

"B-been up to see my kids. They let me see them now."

"You needing any?"

She shook her shaking head. "Nah, I'm off it," she said. "For my girls."

For the time being, he thought. They always came back. Like Caleb up those stairs, tbe desperate always came creeping back.

"What you doing, then, Baba? You hear about that pub getting bombed?"

"The whole fucking city heard it," he said, his eyes going back up to Derek's kitchen window. "And I'm looking at the mischief."

"What you mean?" She asked, not looking in the same direction as him. "I've not heard you talk like that before."

He looked at her. "These are unusal times, or haven't you heard?"

The Queen of Sheba was about to reply, when she looked stricken with terror, and asked hoarsely, instead, "Who the living fuck is that?"

Baba Mamba turned his head, slowly, to see. A huge figure, casting a giant shadow, was making his way towards them, equally slow.

Although they hadn't met yet, he recognised the Bull of Blacklion. It was difficult not to, he thought, the fucker don't look like he's from this planet, let alone these parts.

"You don't want to know," was all he said.

He raised his head higher, as the Bull neared.

"You're Baba Mamba?"

He nodded. "I don't need to ask who you are," he replied.

Dara stretched out a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you," he said.

Baba Mamba took the offered handshake, a little unwillingly, but the Bull's grip was friendly. He wasn't used to shaking hands, but he knew how it was done.

"When I asked a few people about you on the street, they spoke well of you. That you feed them. Give them shelter."

Baba Mamba raised his head a little higher. "That was Dante's influence. He won't speak to me no more, and I don't blame him."

"Are you telling me not to do what I was brought over to do?"

"Dante is strange, but he ain't no Devil. He's just different. He ain't done none of the things Caleb says."

"H-Hi. I'm Shantel," the Queen of Sheba whispered, open mouthed, before Dara could respond. "You are a big lad, aren't you?"

"Aye, so it's been said, ma'am. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. And it's true about what they did to Dante. And much worse. He won't speak to any of us now."

All three stood there in silence, then, and Baba Mamba felt like he and Shantel were in the land of the giants.

Baba Mamba asked, suddenly, "You here for the gathering at Camelot?"

"Camelot?"

He indicated Derek's window with a nod. "It's what I call it. Sitting up there at the round table. King Arthur, his Queen and his boy magician, Caleb."

Dara looked like he recognised the name. "Is that the boy at the park with the brick?"

Baba Mamba didn't hide his surprise. "Now, how did you hear about that? I thought the fools would have some shame."

"I was there. I saw it," Dara said, "and he doesn't look much like a magician to me."

"You're still new around Downland. All he has to do is wave his old man's staff, and poof," Baba Mamba said, raising a hand from his lips to the air, "and he can make the truth disappear."

"Can he, now?"

"But for people, it looks like they still need help. Well, for Dante."

Dara understood.

"Well, we're going to see about that," he said, and strode purposefully up the steps.

Published 13 May, 2026

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