A demon has been walking the earth for several centuries – always hunting for black souls for his master’s army. But then he falls in love… As an exercise, I translated my novel “Dämon ist ein Höllenjob”. Here is a sample.
Helmut Barz
Demon is a Job from Hell
Excerpt of a Novel – translated by Helmut Barz
Killing 101
“The doings of mine are toil, a heavy burden their existence.
On their shoulders alone rests the fate of the world.”
Apocryphal writings: The Revelations of Sebastian, 3.14
I never liked killing people. Still (or therefore), over the last 216 years, I have become somewhat proficient in the art of separating body and soul. My weapon of choice is the knife: fast, quiet, and reasonably clean—if you know how to use it.
Place the hand over the target’s mouth and nose and pull the head into the neck, then follow through with a precise stab through the soft tissue below the chin, diagonally upward through the tongue muscle. The tip of the knife hits bone. A little more pressure. A dull crack, as the blade punctures the base of the skull.
Now move the blade back and forth like a lever. It severs the basilar artery, irreparably cutting off blood and oxygen supply to the brain: instant paralysis—death in a few minutes.
Then pull the knife out of the wound and let the target’s body slide onto the plastic tarp spread on the floor.
Now you just need to wait. It may take a while for a body to realize that its services are no longer required. Medical experts refer to this as the “final phase.” Ordinary people call it the death struggle—a struggle lost right from the start.
The physical shell of my current target understands quickly: The limbs twitch a few times, then they remain still; the muscles relax. It’s over.
I wait another minute, just to be safe. Then I put the knife away and take the hollow steel sphere out of my jacket pocket. I push the locking slide with my thumb, let the sphere snap open, and hold it under my target’s right eye. Their soul trickles into it. Viscous like crude oil. Jet black.
Another push of my thumb. The sphere snaps shut again. Done.
“Done? No grand entrance? No final confrontation? I’m disappointed.” Maria leans over my shoulder to read along. Her turquoise eyes reflect in the display of my notebook. Her bare breasts press against my back; her long, soft, red hair tickles my cheek.
“What do you think I should have said? ‘Fear not, for I bring you great joy’?”
“Now, that would be what I call an entrance.”
“Why bother? Dead is dead.”
Maria frowns. “What are you doing there anyway, Eshr’el?“
The name sounds so gratuitously familiar that it makes me angry. “Don’t call me that!“
“Sorry, Ludwig. Ludwig Ziffer! You couldn’t think of a more original alias?” Grinning, she leans back. “So? What are you doing, Ludwig?”
“I’m writing the story down.“
“What’s the point?”
“It passes the time.”
“I may have a few better suggestions.” Her hand wanders to the back of my neck and tickles my hair.
I shake her off. “For a higher being, you’re quite oversexed, aren’t you?”
“Higher being?” Maria’s laugh sounds dirty and hollow. “Not us. We are Malakhim. Foot soldiers. Expendable.”
“You may be a Malakh. I am not! Now let me work in peace. And put some clothes on already.”
I forgot to mention: Maria’s real name is Azach’el, and she is an angel. I am not speaking metaphorically, but it is also less impressive than it sounds. Angels are, by and large, not particularly likable.
She followed me from Frankfurt to Namibia. Earlier tonight, she knocked on my bungalow door. I opened it; without so much as a greeting, she pushed past me, stripped off her clothes, and demanded to have sex. I declined with thanks. Nevertheless, Maria is still naked—except for embroidered silk panties.
“You don’t even know what you’re missing.”
“But I do. You have described it rather vividly: 2,500 years of experience.”
“Professional experience.”
“Oh, right, I forgot: you work as a prostitute.”
“Such an ugly word. It hums and grinds like a faulty vibrator.” Maria moves to sit on my lap. “Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious about my lovemaking skills.”
I roll my chair so close to the desk that there’s no room for her. “No, I’m not. Now please get dressed.”
“But it’s hot in here.”
“Does that surprise you? We’re in the middle of the desert.”
“We could at least turn on the air conditioning.”
“I don’t like air conditioning. Deal with it or rent your own bungalow.”
“I can’t afford that. And I’d rather stay here.”
“Then shut up and let me write.”
“All right.”
So, let’s try this again. But I’d better start from the beginning.
The Queen of the Night
“The way of mine is hidden,
their kingdom is not of this world;
and people will misjudge them.”
Apocryphal writings: The Revelations of Sebastian, 3.15
Her soul is red.
“Red? That’s interesting.”
“Weren’t you going to let me write in peace?”
“Spoilsport.” Maria looks at her fingernails, pouting. “What soul are you talking about, anyway?”
The soul of the Queen of the Night is red.
Or is it an optical illusion?
“It wasn’t.”
Maria’s constant interruptions start to become exhausting. “So, her soul is really red? And, of course, you know what that means?”
“I have a theory.”
“So?”
“Oh, it’s just too hot for theological explanations.” Maria drops backward onto the large bed.
“You are not helping.” I turn back to my notebook, scrolling through what I’ve written so far, waiting for the right words.
“Why won’t you sleep with me?”
The question slams into my back as I gather my thoughts. My hands fall limply onto the keyboard, leaving a tangle of letters on the screen. I delete them before turning to Maria.
“That would be a stupid idea.”
“Because of Chloë?” The question sounds innocent. But Maria could just as well have sliced open my belly with a can opener.
No, I won’t cry. Not in front of her. I squint.
Not a good idea: Behind my eyelids lurks Chloë. Hanging upside down. Flayed. Her skin neatly spread out on the floor. The long blonde hair is soaked with blood. The jaw, the tongue of her naked skull try to form my name: “Uh . . . wee. . . .”
I rub my face to chase away the images.
Maria’s hand helplessly strokes my shoulder. “I’m sorry about what happened to Chloë. If I could have stopped it . . .”
“You could have stopped it.”
“No, I could not! Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Do you mind? I am trying to work here!” My tone is sharper than intended.
Startled, she lets go of me. I turn back to my notebook. Willing to write. But then I see Maria’s mirror image in the display.
She sits on the bed, holding a pillow in her arms, rocking back and forth like a sad child. “Don’t even think I don’t understand you.” She continues to rock—back and forth, back and forth. “Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”
Him. Maria’s great love. She has threatened to rip my head off if I even mention him.
I sit down next to her. “Even after two thousand years?”
Maria forces the corners of her mouth into a sad smile. “Well. We angels never forget. Our blessing and our curse. Wouldn’t it be good if we could just wipe our minds clean?”
“No. I want to remember Chloë.” Even as I say it, I feel like a liar.
“Well, that’s how I feel about him. But forgetting would be better. For our souls.”
For a moment, we sit next to each other in silence. I think about taking Maria into my arms. But we are not that intimate.
“Say, you want something to kill time?” I put a metal case on the bed. “Here. There’s a PlayStation 4 Pro in there.”
Scowling, Maria opens the suitcase and flips through the game discs. One title piques her interest, even her enthusiasm. “Cool. Thanks.”
A few minutes later, she is immersed in the game. The soundtrack comes out of the headphones as a soft chirping. Angels: easily distracted by flashy objects. Maybe I can work in peace now.
Where was I? Oh, right.
A red soul? Really?
I don’t have a chance to check. Her eyes—and thus her soul—are hidden behind sunglasses again.
“The Queen of the Night!” Murmurs and whispers from all corners when she entered the warehouse: Detective Chief Inspector Lily Prinz—the rock star of the Kriminaldauerdienst at Frankfurt Police Headquarters.
On duty around the clock, the Kriminaldauerdienst is only supposed to secure the crime scene and keep the investigation going until the “real” investigators find their way out of bed.
Lily Prinz, however, has made it a habit to close cases quickly and leave the files neatly tied up on the desks of the officers in charge before they report for duty in the morning.
“So? Did you find anything?”
She must have asked me before. But the unusual color of her soul has confused me so much that I have completely forgotten to answer. Moreover, the Queen of the Night’s appearance is not conducive to putting thoughts in order: as if the Terminator had fathered a daughter—with a supermodel. Six feet tall; short blonde hair, almost a buzzcut; her even features rarely show signs of emotion. The leather motorcycle jacket emphasizes her broad shoulders.
“Are you mute?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Now, did you find something or not?”
“Tire . . . Tire tracks.”
She squats down to look at the indentations I just photographed.
“Not from a car. Too small. Three wheels. Any idea what that is?”
Of course I have an idea. As a matter of fact, I know exactly what I am looking at. I would prefer to keep my discovery to myself, though. But I really don’t need trouble with the police. Especially not with the Queen of the Night. She doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being overly forgiving.
“From a mobile tripod, I would say.”
“Tripod? For what? Lighting?”
“More like a . . .” I’d rather keep it to myself.
“Just say it.”
“A camera.” Better a little truth before she bans me from the scene entirely: The impressions indicate a heavy camera tripod on a dolly with thick, air-filled tires. Professional equipment. Judging by the tracks, the perpetrator drove the tripod around the hall and carefully selected their camera angles. Not a snuff film, to be enjoyed at home with some lotion and a box of tissues. The artist documented his work.
“What artist?” Maria lowers her game controller.
“Weren’t you going to be quiet?”
She raises an eyebrow, then returns to her game. “Okay, okay. But I don’t understand anything right now.”
I scroll through what I have written so far. Maria is right: it is incomprehensible. Let’s try this again. But from the beginning.
On that day, I had just returned from Hamburg. In the Hanseatic city, I harvested the Black Soul of a former senator who spent a little too much energy promoting active euthanasia. In his international bestseller Selbstbestimmt leben (Living Self-Determinedly), he calls on generation 70+ to take a final bow and step down from the stage of life of their own free will, thus clearing the way for the following generations and relieving the burden on pension and state coffers. Incidentally, he collected a million-euro advance for the second book, Life in Freedom.
He probably would not have been a candidate for my master’s army if his thoughts had remained friendly suggestions between book covers. But he also insisted on putting his philosophy into practice: he convinced nursing home residents of the benefits of an early departure to the afterlife and provided them with the means to do so—in exchange for an appropriate financial donation. In his defense, he offered sodium pentobarbital for this purpose—“for a gentle sleep into a better world.”
But that’s in the past. The senator has fallen victim to the very suicide machine he touts—his latest coup courtesy of Dr. Kevorkian—on his website: “The disabled-friendly way to leave the pain behind.”
A functional test, the obituaries have said. But the syringes, labeled “saline,” contained the lethal doses of thiopental and potassium chloride that the ex-senator recommended as a gateway drug into the next world. A tragic accident, a state funeral, a little grief, a little gloating, another hollow steel sphere filled with an oily Black Soul.
But I digress.
Upon entering my apartment, the first thing I do, as always, is turn on the police radio. The state of Hesse is proud of its “tap-proof digital radio,” but “tap-proof” is a relative term, especially if you, like me, own a considerable share of one of the companies supplying the necessary technology.
The message comes in while I am still unpacking: bodies found in the Norsck warehouses in Frankfurt-Fechenheim. At first, there is talk of eight dead, then the number is revised downward. Four bodies: still enough for my hunting instinct to kick in.
Logistik aus Tradition—Logistics by Tradition: this lettering spans the gate to the Norsck company premises in sweeping forged letters. Just as well, the inscription could read Arbeit macht frei—Work Will Set You Free: The unholy halls served as a temporary storage facility from which Frankfurt’s Jewish population was loaded onto the trains. Not the first crime on the premises, not the last.
The tradition ended—at least as far as the Norsck company is concerned—with expansion. More precisely, with a failed expansion attempt that broke the company’s neck after almost 130 years. Since then, the halls in the listed architectural style of the Wilhelminian period have stood empty while the various creditors have argued about what to do with them.
A good place if you need privacy: nominally, there is a security service, but its officers don’t put much effort into guarding the dusty warehouses. That the facilities have not long since been overrun by homeless people, taggers, and others is due to the almost three-meter-high wall around the site and the sturdy iron gate. The police officer guarding it waves me through without a word as I identify as a crime scene photographer. He is pale, and I can smell vomit on his breath.
The cab drops me off in front of one of the rear halls, among patrol cars, fire trucks, emergency vehicles, several dark silver vans from the medical examiner’s office, and half a dozen civilian cars: Criminal Police and Forensics. I pay the driver, tipping him generously. Nevertheless, as soon as I am out of the car, he drives off, tires squealing. I can’t blame him. The icy aura of a Black Soul creeps up my spine as I approach the hall entrance.
The fire department has set up floodlights; they bathe the large hall in glistening, shadowless light. Those present—almost all of them wearing the white overalls of the forensics team—move reverently. When they dare to speak, they only whisper. The smell of fear and disgust mixes with the exhalations of a violent crime: coppery coagulated blood, cauterized flesh, urine, feces.
As if a spell has been cast, no one ventures near the monstrosity in the center of the otherwise empty warehouse.
I, however, am more fascinated than repelled. The human mind is capable of so much—both good and evil. In its brilliance, the work of art that I am slowly circling is proof of this:
Eight steel cables hang down from the struts of the ceiling structure. They end in eight butcher’s hooks. Hanging upside down from them—no, not eight corpses, though it looks like it at first glance. Four bodies. Stripped naked down to the muscles and tendons. Neatly flayed.
Between them hang their skins.
The eight objects are tied together by their hands with cable ties: an upside-down round dance worthy of the apocalyptic art of a Bosch or Breughel.
I circle the ensemble several times and snap a picture now and then, pretending to do my job as a crime scene photographer, but in truth, I admire the ensemble.
Without a doubt, the work of an experienced, inspired artist: The cuts are carefully executed, almost tenderly. Under the flayed skin, the artist immediately cauterized the blood vessels to prevent rapid bleeding. The procedure must have taken hours, not counting the later arrangement and the careful clean-up and covering of traces. With drugs and infusions of saline solution—so the forensic medical report will enlighten me later—the victims were kept alive and conscious.
In a pompous final act, the artist himself called the police from the hall’s emergency telephone: They were supposed to find the bodies that way. A work of art. Not of beauty, but of cruel grandeur. Intended for the eyes of the public.