By Al Bruno III
March 20th: I tried and I tried and I tried to find a way to meet up with Ashley Fowler, but I couldn't get my foot in the door. When local blogger Brian Foster asked for a chance to interview her for his blog, her staff refused. When college student "Nathaniel Blades" asked for a chance to talk to her for his thesis, he was sent a copy of her autobiography, *Statements That Soothed Me Then*. And as for what happened when I tried to pose as a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation? The less said about that, the better.
So you can imagine my surprise when I started complaining about it while Cousin Roy and I were knocking back a few at Blue Valentines, local dive bar, and he said, "Ashley Fowler? I know her."
At first, I chuckled, absolutely sure the fourth Corona was giving me auditory hallucinations.
"What?"
"Ashley Fowler. I know her."
"No, you don't."
"Yeah, I do." Cousin Roy raised a hand and called the bartender over for another round, but she pointedly ignored him.
"Ashley Fowler?" I said again. "The local millionaire, car wash magnate, and acquitted murderer?"
"That's the one."
He whistled.
The bartender still ignored him.
"Red hair? Beauty mark? Says she's the Devil?"
Cousin Roy's voice rang with exasperation. Whether it was directed at me or the bartender, I had no idea.
"I'm in her biography."
There was no way for me to confirm what he was saying. *Statements That Soothed Me Then* by Ashley Fowler was sitting on my kitchen table in mint, unread condition.
"How?" I asked, suddenly a little worried.
Cousin Roy always turned up his nose and rolled his eyes at my stories of the supernatural. He didn't believe in gods or monsters. Of course, he didn't believe in evolution, either.
His voice was matter-of-fact.
"We were at camp together. We totally banged."
I took a long time to consider that statement. Then I called to the bartender and was immediately given a Corona. I handed it to him.
"Yeah," he said with a rueful smile, shaking his head. "We're Facebook friends. We don't talk much, but she always sends me a hello on the anniversary of the big night."
"Wow."
Just wow.
I sat drinking quietly. This was my only chance to save Sara, or at least the only chance on my radar. There had been no incidents of sleepwalking or clown sightings, but how long could our luck hold out?
Originally, I wanted to save her because it was the right thing to do.
But now?
Now?
Well, let's be honest.
I was falling in love.
"Can you get me in touch with her?" I asked.
"I dunno." He pounded his fist on the bar, startling the patrons near us. "Can you get this bartender to bring me another fucking beer?"
"Yeah," I said. "But maybe you wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't offered to pay her thirty bucks just to smell her feet."
###
…The Chop House of the Rising Sun was on the border between Schenectady and Albany. A decade earlier, it had been one of the largest toy stores in the tri-state area. Before that, it had been one of the few houses left on Central Avenue. It was a ranch house with a huge basement that had once held overstock action figures and off-brand bicycles. Now it was occupied by freezers, coolers, and stressed-out staff hiding from the customers for a few peaceful minutes.
All in all, it was a nice little place, with atmospheric lighting, soft instrumental music, and a friendly staff—at least the ones who weren't hiding in the basement, anyway. I'd never actually eaten there. I'd almost gone once, but the menu prices posted on the door—and the dress code—had been enough to send me elsewhere. Now? Now I was in my best suit, freshly ironed by Sara and sporting a thick wad of bills thanks to the kindness of Mrs. Vincenzo.
Yes, I know. Ashley Fowler invited me here, so technically they should've been paying. But millionaires don't become millionaires by paying for dinner. They become millionaires by convincing everyone else it's their turn.
Speaking of Ashley Fowler, she was already waiting for me in the private dining room normally reserved for large parties and corporate events.
"Brian Foster!" She stood and shook my hand. "Come on, have a seat. I ordered already. A sushi platter and warm sake. You can never go wrong with sushi and warm sake."
"Thanks."
I made my way to the opposite end of the long boardroom table and took a seat. It seemed absurd that a room big enough for twenty executives had been reserved for just the two of us.
"I like your hat," she said with a grin.
I looked up, almost forgetting I was wearing my straw pork-pie. I admit, for some reason I always felt a little braver with a hat on.
"Thanks." Plus, branding is everything these days.
“It’s new, isn’t it?”
"Uhm... errr," I said.
Less than a minute into our meeting and she already had me on the defensive. I set my hat on the table, shifted in my chair, and hoped she didn't notice the iPhone tucked into my jacket pocket, recording the conversation. Sneaky and unethical? Absolutely. But if Ashley Fowler really did turn out to be the Devil—which she wouldn't—it'd be one hell of a scoop.
"I was so excited when Roy told me you wanted to see me."
She popped a piece of sushi drowning in wasabi into her mouth before continuing.
"I've been following your work for some time."
“Really?” I narrowed my eyes.
“You are the talk of the town… in some circles.”
Yeah, circles of Hell. Very clever.
“I can’t imagine he told you what I’m here for.”
“He said it was an interview for your blog,” she said. “But I assumed it was more than that. After all he and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”
Bittersweet memories of high school romance flashed through my mind, “I’m sorry to hear that but you were just kids.”
"Kids?"
She stared at me.
"We were both almost thirty."
“But he said-” So there I was, not even ten minutes into the conversation and completely floundering. I downed my cup of warm saki. It tasted soft and sweet and started to go to my head almost instantly. “-he said it was at camp.”
“A rehab camp. Adderall and sangria do not mix… well I mean they do mix but if you’re like me you might go around starting fires.”
She curled her perfectly manicured fingers into claws.
"Evil!" she growled with theatrical menace.
This might have been a charming conversation if she'd blinked even once during the entire exchange. I decided my sake cup was looking dangerously empty. "So... a rehab romance. Very post-modern."
“I don’t think a little anal counts as romance.”
Real spit takes are rarer than television would have you believe. I was happy to demonstrate one for her.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Now that you've composed yourself, why don't you tell me what you need?”
What choice did I have? She already seemed to know everything else, so I gave her the lowdown on everything that had happened since the Graveyard Game.
“You’ve lost your heart to a girl in danger. I love it! Clichés are the Devil’s shorthand.”
She popped another piece of sushi into her mouth. It was reddish, vaguely tentacled, and unlike anything else on the platter between us.
Then again, it was probably just sushi.
Probably.
Because if it wasn't, Ashley Fowler had the strangest tongue in recorded history.
“She played the Graveyard Game... I mean, I let her play it. Now there is something after her, something called the thousand faced moon.”
Ashley nodded as she refilled my saki cup, “"Gorgo. Mormo. Luna. And their pet witch. Three dying goddesses hiding out in the Mire of Nix, desperate for a reinvention. You know the place I think?”
"Yes."
My voice came out flatter than I'd intended. I remembered my fool's errand into the Mire of Nix with Osric Langhorne and Johnny Disko. I remembered who we lost. I remembered what we brought back. When I spoke again there was no hiding the desperation, “What do I do?”
“Gorgo for the gorgon, Mormo for Hecate, Luna for Lilith who birthed all the world’s monsters. That girl of yours is in a lot of trouble. Drink up now.”
I did drink up, mostly to be polite, “And there are these things chasing her, these clowns...”
“We’re in the state capitol Brian, we’re overrun with clowns.”
I asked again, “Then tell me how to save her.”
“Poor Brian, desperate to finally save someone. The real question is what are you willing to do?” She stood. I hadn't realized how tall she was until the horns curling up through her fire-red hair scraped softly across the ceiling.
For some reason I giggled, “You can’t be the Devil so you can’t have my soul.”
“You’re half right anyway,” she walked towards me and raked her long black fingernails across the tablecloth. Wherever her nail passed, the cloth blackened and smoldered. “But don’t worry, I don’t need those old hags getting underfoot. I want them gone just as much as you do.”
My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, but I kept my focus. I didn't care that the room seemed to be burning around us or that the remaining pieces of sushi had become squirming souls of the damned.
"Let me save her," I said.
Ashley looked bigger now, impossibly bigger, her skin glowing an angry red. Her voice was distorted and deep. “What else? You burn their temples, you defile her holiest of holies, you scatter her faithful.”
“But where...” I began, “But how...”
Before I could say anything else I collapsed, the last thing I saw was a cloven foot raised high above my head...
###
...I woke up hours later on the floor of the restaurant's private dining room. There was no fire. No screaming souls of the damned.
Both you and I know she had to have drugged my drink. That's obvious, isn't it? When I tried to listen to the playback of the conversation on my iPhone, I discovered that all my audio files had been replaced with Kajagoogoo’s greatest hits.
Thankfully, she'd left me something more useful than an existential crisis: a text message containing a four-item to-do list. Three addresses that belonged to Gorgo, Mormo, and Luna. The fourth was where I was supposed to find whatever I needed to undo them.
You know what else she left me?
The dinner check.
I fucking knew it.
