“Yes. Version. But Papa Man put the dirty in her. He made it inside her, and when it came out she saw it was ugly bad. That was what she said, what Mama said.” Smyler was getting worked up again, his voice getting monotonous and rushed as though the words were carried along on a river of feelings too fast and deep to be reached or even looked at closely. “Dirty thing, dirty thing, and Papa Man left it behind like dirt on the floor. Like mud on her dress. Can’t beat the dirty out of it, that’s what Mama said. Can’t make it die because God has reason for it. God wants it in the world, no matter how ugly bad. No matter how ugly bad and mean and wrong . . .”

I almost wish I’d never asked. It had been unpleasant enough just knowing it was out there and wanted to find me, this vile thing, this monster that had killed so many innocent people. Knowing how it had become such a monster was worse. Much worse.

It told me its story in bits and pieces, in strands that at first seemed to have no connection but later proved to be bits of a larger web. In some ways the tale was depressingly familiar, the dreadful story of so many sociopaths and religious psychopaths, a child treated like an animal or worse, the name of God used as the excuse for torture, an existence with no safe place, no kindness, no love. It was almost like Smyler’s vicious, dreadful parents had done their best to make something even more terrible than themselves, and they succeeded.

But every time he had killed, at least during his mortal life, Smyler had thought he was sending something beautiful to Heaven, a gift for the angels. Even the name he had given himself, the name he had left at the scene of so many brutal crimes, was not meant to evoke Chaucer’s “smyler with a knyfe,” but because when she had finished beating him, or puncturing him with sharp things, or burning his fingers or toes or face with a hot iron, Mama would always tell him, “Stop crying. You’d better smile. Remember, God loves you.”

And that was how he thought of himself, how he still thought of himself, no matter how deep the blood and madness. He was God’s smiling little soldier.

The story trailed off at last in confusion, because Smyler himself still didn’t know what to make of me. His tunnel-vision idea of the world, the same crazy focus that had set him to murder and driven him to follow me all the way to Hell, was not able to easily absorb new information, and the new idea that I wasn’t some kind of demon pretending to be an angel had left him baffled and uncertain of what to do next.