Brüderschaft

       “It’s almost like in Baltimore around the year eighteen ninety-eight, right?” Alastor nodded to Rosie quite sincerely. The blood-red infernal sky might serve as a sunset. The scarlet light of the giant pentagram was mostly hidden by the trees and patio walls, and the bush around looked very much like oleanders and roses if you did not take a closer look at the dirty-white and livid pink flowers. And never smell them, seriously. Well, the Radio Demon could not be taken aback by any carrion fragrances. Besides, he lived on Earth a bit after Rosie’s favourite epoch and a bit farther down the map and social strata, so he was not an expert to get the discrepancies pegged. What he could claim to be authentic was the music. Certainly, an ornate radio set was still outside the epoch required, but it translated a perfectly genuine Boston waltz with the cosy sizzling of a phonograph record. “The picture and the sound are fine, and only the movement is missing,” he replied and put a delicate porcelain tea cup (if no one minded that instead of usual flowers, it had a gross inner world of Sinners painted on it) back on a delicate tea table. The good old microphone, taped up, remained lying on the same table when Alastor rose and engaged the overlady to a dance. Light as dry leaves, grey fingers lay into his right hand, perched on his left shoulder, and it was easy to forget that they can rip any flesh apart. Alastor kept that in mind but did not fear. He was capable of a lot by himself. And if both partners know each other’s abilities, there is no need to actually use them. A dance is as interesting and tricky as any fight. Her waist, cold and kind of clammy, yielded to the pressure of his hand. Even if Alastor remained faithful to his jazz era even beyond the grave, he’d gladly sacrifice a quarter of an hour for even more old-fashioned dances for the sake of a mutually profitable friendship. And a waltz was not bad compared to the tacky pseudomusical noises from that vulgar picture-box. “Alastor, you’re a darling,” Rosie purred with a well-measured, coy hundred-toothed smile. “You were sooo in time with a bit of distraction and entertainment, or that one, you know her, what was her name again…” “Susan.” “Right, Susan, she nearly drove me insane again; I was on the verge of pushing a teapot onto her badmouthed head.” Alastor squinted, acknowledging the praise, and stepped aside so that his friend didn’t knock down a string of... flowers; let it be flowers, with her giant hat. The plume on the hat swung. Sculls of Rosie’s favourite cat and hamster were rattling gently to the music. “Y’know, I think sometimes,” she drawled out dreamy-eyed, “what if we—" “No,” Alastor replied without skipping a beat. “Rosie, please do not spoil our wonderful friendship. I’ll never propose to you, not even as a joke. Nothing of that hand-and-heart stuff.” “Oh, don’t you worry, nothing of the kind,” she retorted in playful indignation. “A hand is good for soups only, when smoked, and a heart is a by-product not to everyone's taste. I know it first-hand. No, what I mean is friendship. What about eating a teeny-weeny piece of each other at a brüderschaft, so to speak?” Alastor didn’t trip by a miracle. The radio did trip, buzz, and switch to foxtrot for several beats. “That’s my long-nurtured dream,” Rosie cooed as if missing the halt. “When I remember my mortal life, the balls, the restaurants... Sure, I do my best to revive it all here, but something is subtly wrong all the time. Like, I’m beginning to forget the taste of venison, and it was such a delicacy in my age! Especially sirloin,” her hand slid from his shoulder down along his side, “…and tenderloin.” The Radio Demon shuddered. He tried to make his partner whirl, and she twisted around eagerly but was grabbing at him back in half a second. “A wee little piece,” Rosie added in haste to put him at ease, “about three or four ounces, just to have a taste. You are an overlord, you will recover in no time. You see, my ex-husbands were all Sinners, too, but they smelt mutton or chevon. The billy goat type, you know. You can’t swallow a piece without rosemary and balsamic vinegar! And as a widow and leader of cannibals, I had to eat them up, head to toe. But you are no vegetarian yourself, I have witnessed it on some occasions. And I am still at my ripest, not a dried fruit like our dear friend Zestial. I recommend the tenderloin. Or fingers, it is my speciality; it’s finger-licking good!” Alastor even failed to chuckle at the pun; he was too busy inventing appropriate excuses. Instead, his mind produced a picture of funny Charlie Morningstar visibly wreaking her brain to invent similar excuses and evade a deal with the Radio Demon. Sure, he whiffed a catch, but it was just that, a whiff; he could not fathom what it could be, and he certainly didn’t wish to refuse a plea of his old buddy flatly, without good reasons… That’s just common sense in hell, of course, not a wish to spare someone else’s feelings, he told himself. “Hmm. Rosie, I’m flattered, I’m immensely flattered, but it’s been so out of the blue. And besides,” in a second he knew a very plausible argument or two, as good as Charlie’s, “I’m not one of your folks, not a cannibal. I devour the idiots and weaklings standing in my way, imagining they are able to confront me. I cannot treat you like that; my attitude towards you is so very different, and I’d feel very awkward eating you. And as for a part of my flesh, well, you see, I arrived here as a result of a very unpleasant incident… involving dogs. Not the shiniest train of thought, my darling.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” Rosie said, bringing his palms to her chest. “Alright, I do not insist. But then,” she flashed her impressive teeth, narrowed the black pits of her eyes, “you owe me one more dance. I don’t mind if it will be one of your new-fashioned ones, the, what was it again? Like our princess, you know it…” “Charleston?” “Right. You always understand me.”