Exercises in Free Will

The sun had been setting for half an hour. Already the dusk was stealing in to lengthen the shadows of the old tombs that lay to the east of Via Aurelia. Clustered thickly together on the ridge above the river, the tombs were strange mounds of earth and stone. Locals of Tarquinia whispered to one another that restless spirits lived in the mounds, and so most sensible people avoided the area after sundown.

Paoli Bonate had always thought that they looked like beehives, and who could be afraid of beehives? Besides, he had no time for such superstitions. He was a God-fearing man who always carried with him a clutch of saints' medal­lions. Each small silver disc was embossed with the image of a saint, and on the reverse was inscribed a prayer. Bonate knew them all by heart and would spend an hour every evening reciting each one; his fingers as busy with counting off each medallion as his wife's were on the rosary.

Bonate whistled for his dog as he left the road and climbed the slope towards the ancient necropolis. He had decided to take the long way home, hoping to postpone a confrontation with his wife about the cost of their daughter's wedding garments. He doubted Lucia would see sense. Bonate was of the opinion that women, including his wife and daughter, seemed to prefer pretty gowns, hair ornaments and new shoes to the more practical gift of a piece of land just outside the village.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the dog bark­ing madly. Bonate glanced around at the tombs but could not see the animal anywhere. "Seneca!" he called, and he heard the dog whine nearby.

"Seneca, come on, now." He bent down to retrieve a pebble from the path between three tombs and knocked it against the circular wall of the tomb in front of him. His dog was a foolish creature and loved to chase stones. Usually the rattle of a few pebbles brought Seneca running, but this time the animal stayed away.

Still holding onto the stone, Bonate wandered around the tombs. He called the dog's name a few more times, his unease growing. It was getting dark in the necropolis, dark and cold even though the sun still lingered in the sky. He pushed through the overgrown grass that obscured the path and climbed up onto the ridge.

"Seneca! Seneca!"

He thought he heard a faint woof to his left, and so scrambled back down amongst the tombs; talking aloud the whole time, more for his own reassurance than for the dog: "There's a good boy, nearly got you—bad dog, running off like that! But no harm done, we'll go home, and Daddy will give you the mutton scraps…"

He heard a whine and a sharp yelp from just ahead of him, and he hurried forwards. Then, as he rounded a corner, he saw a terrible sight.

Seneca lay on the ground outside the open door of another tomb. The dog's legs were still twitching, but Bonate thought—prayed—that the animal was already dead. Its belly was slit open and the entrails spilled out so that the blood soaked into the earth. Crouched above the dog was a creature the like of which Bonate had never seen before… and that he never wanted to see again.

It was taller than a man, blue-skinned and ugly, with an upturned nose and big, black-rimmed yellow eyes. It wore gold jewellery: hoops through its ears, armlets and anklets and bracelets tight around its limbs. It had bright red hair and a beard, and from its back sprouted dark, soft-feathered wings. In its hands it held an axe, from which Seneca's blood slowly dripped.

Paoli Bonate did what most sensible men would not—with all his might, he flung the stone he held in his hand directly at the blue demon.

The demon glanced up at him and then bared its teeth. It stepped over Seneca's torn body and came towards Bonate, hefting its axe.

"God save me!" he shrieked, grabbing for his saints' medallions. The clasp of the chain that held them together broke, and the silver discs rained down into his outstretched palms. He caught them clumsily, and without thinking he hurled them at the approaching demon.

"Back!" he shouted, "get back!"— and then he did what most sensible men would do: he turned tail and fled.