Evil in Me, page 6
Mr. Rosenfeld was still droning on, but Ruby no longer heard him, transfixed by the eye. She thought she heard singing; cocked her head. There—a chorus of voices, barely audible, muffled as though coming from beneath the ground, and with it, a sudden compulsion to put on the ring.
She shook her head. No, hell no! Yet her fingers moved closer, hovering just above the ring, quivering. The eye, it opened, just a slit as though squinting at her. She caught a red glow, like a hot ember.
The voices, the chorus, grew a little louder, a little clearer.
Ruby leaned closer. The eye opened wide and a tiny black pupil locked on her, staring at her, into her. She wanted to scream, to throw the ring across the room, but she didn’t, instead, she touched it.
“No!” someone yelled, it sounded like Mr. Rosenfeld, it sounded a hundred miles away.
Ruby was falling, a swirling dimness engulfed her and from somewhere the chorus—hundreds of voices—singing a song, the most beautiful song, haunting and soulful, like angels in a deep cavern. The chorus swelled, the sweet voices filling her with bliss, a rapture like she’d never known. She wanted, needed, to join them, to sing this beautiful song along with them.
Words hit her, sharp, harsh words, each one cutting into the dimness like a slap to her face.
The song, it began to fade, to die.
No, Ruby thought, as the harsh words tore her away. No!
Ruby blinked, found herself on the floor. Mr. Rosenfeld stood above her, reading from some ancient-looking book, barking out a barrage of strange words, a chant of some sort.
“The song,” she groaned as a sudden longing seized her. “It’s gone.”
He stopped reading. Shoved his glasses back up on his nose and stared down at her, horrified. “Can you hear me?”
She sat up, rubbed her head.
“Can you hear me?”
She nodded, but it was the song, that sweet chorus, that she was trying to hear.
He blew out a loud sigh and sat the book down on the end table. “Did you touch it?”
“Huh?”
“The ring? Ruby, did you touch it?”
“The ring?” She tried to make sense of that.
He held up the bronze case. “You opened this. Remember?”
It came to her then, the case, seeing the finger … and yes, the ring—a simple gold ring. But the rest was a jumble, all except the song.
“Did you touch the ring?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Listen to me. You mustn’t touch anything here unless I say so. Understand?”
Ruby’s eyes were locked on the case.
Mr. Rosenfeld quickly shoved the relic back into the cigar box and out of sight, putting the box into the end table drawer.
Ruby felt a flash of anger, as though something had been stolen from her.
He studied her. “How do you feel?”
She blinked several times, noticed his hands were trembling, saw that hers were too. “What … what just happened?” she asked. “What were you chanting?”
“Ruby, I need you to do something for me. I need you to take me to Atlanta.”
“Huh?”
“Atlanta. Can you do that?”
Ruby thought she caught a faint echo of the song, and with it the desire to see the ring again. “Where did that ring come from?”
Frustration flashed across his face. He stood up, walked into the kitchen, returning with a tin. He slipped off the top and pulled out a wad of bills. He counted out five hundred dollars. “This is yours if you’ll drive me up there right now.”
“Josh, I don’t even have a car.”
“We can take mine. I have a pair of keys stashed away that Pam doesn’t know about.”
“Why … why,” Ruby found she was having trouble finding words; her head felt light. “Why doesn’t Pam take you?”
He let out a huff. “She’s too busy. Always too busy. By the time she’ll get to it, it’ll be too late.”
Ruby noticed that Mr. Rosenfeld seemed sharper now, that there was a clarity in his eyes.
“Too late for what?” she asked.
“Pam doesn’t take any of this seriously … the ring, the Baalei Shem, the demons, none of it. Can’t be bothered with it. Probably just waiting for me to get so senile that I forget.” His voice dropped to a mumble. “Going to wake up one morning and put that wicked ring on my own finger.” He rubbed his face. “Eight hundred, I’ll pay you eight hundred.”
“Holy cow. No, Mr. Rosenfeld, that’s too much.”
“It’s nothing. I have lots of money. I don’t need money. I need peace of mind.” He grimaced. “Look, I’d drive myself, but I can’t, just can’t do it. Can barely keep that car on the road. I’d end up in a ditch. I need your help, Ruby, dear.”
Ruby could see how upset he was, how much this meant to him. She clasped her head in her hands, trying to focus. “Okay, sure. But we’ll have to ask Pam first.”
“No, we don’t!” he snapped. “Pam’s not my warden. If I want to go somewhere, I sure as hell don’t need her permission.” He took a deep breath. “Listen, I might have my lapses, but I’m not as senile as Pam likes to believe. All I want here, is to go to Atlanta and give a few of these relics to a friend. Someone I can trust to look after them. Does that sound unreasonable?”
No, it didn’t. Not really, she’d driven him around before. Taken him to Dothan several times for his checkups. Where did Pam say she was going this time? God, it was just so hard to think. Colombia. Yeah, that was it. There was a number to call in case of an emergency. Was this an emergency? Ruby wasn’t sure what this was. But Pam wasn’t really the problem, was she? No, the problem was Ruby was still on probation, not allowed to leave the state. That was the problem.
“Let’s leave now,” he said. “Right now. We’ll be back late tonight. Pam doesn’t ever have to know.”
Pam or anyone, Ruby thought. Just zip up and back. What could go wrong? Only Ruby knew something always went wrong. Again, Ruby thought she heard a faint echo of the song, like a radio station fading in and out of range. She glanced uneasily at the end table and rubbed her temple; her head was beginning to hurt.
“Josh, I’m not feeling so well.” She stood up. “Think I need to go home for now.” She stumbled over to the door. “Tell you what, let me think on it. Okay? That be okay? We can talk more about it when I come by tomorrow.”
He watched her leave, his face solemn, like someone being left behind to die.
* * *
Flame.
Burning, searing heat.
The soul screamed and kept screaming as his flesh smoldered, blistered, broiled, then blackened. He clinched his eyes, but his eyelids burned away and then his very eyes were ablaze. All was fire, a lake of flame and he sunk beneath its surface, drowning, his throat and lungs scorched as he fought for breath, as he sunk ever deeper, and deeper. He burned until he was but a smoldering husk, and yet still he felt the flame, still he screamed.
The soul burned for a week, or maybe a month, perhaps a decade; impossible to tell as there is no sense of time in such pain, just pain, endless pain.
The flames receded, slithered away into the crags and hollows, revealing the black jagged walls of his pit, his prison. But the flames didn’t leave him, they coiled up within their burrows, flickering at him like a serpent’s tongue, taunting him with the promise of yet more suffering.
He lay crumpled upon a bed of sooty rocks and ash, staring at his hands, arms, legs. All charred, shriveled skin on bones, like something dragged from a funeral pyre. He tried to sit up, but each movement, each bend of his elbows, or knees, clutching of his hands, brought agony as his skin cracked and crumbled, flaked away like paint from rotting wood. So, he stilled himself, keeping a wary eye on the flames, his tormentors, his keepers.
The flames flickered and he felt a presence approaching, pushing dread before it as it floated toward him. The soul struggled to crawl away, but the flames blocked his path and he could but huddle against a stone and wait. He heard its breathing, that of the presence, and understood it was in the pit with him. He found it, a shadow within the shadows. He clung to the stone, listening to its slow, deep breathing.
“Say my name,” the presence whispered, the sound so light, yet still it reverberated up the walls of the pit, fading into the darkness above.
Name? What name? The soul struggled to find it.
Two serpents of flame slithered to the presence’s side, licking at its hands like loyal hounds. A woman, at least in shape, was revealed in their orange glow, her skin and long hair the blue-gray of ash. She stood like a queen, hands on hips, surveying the soul. A thin panel of shear white cloth hung from a wide neck ring made of tiny bones. The cloth flowed down the middle of her wiry frame, to the ground. Thorns twisted out from her hair and forehead like a tortured crown; they appeared to have torn through her skin, as though driven from the inside out. A thin rivulet of blood drained from each. The wounds revealed a hint of scaly hide beneath, as though her skin were but something she wore, something to cover what was beneath.
The soul saw that the woman, the creature, had but one remaining eye, and it glinted at him as a cut ruby. Within the adjoining socket, an open wound glistened where her second eye had once been, a tiny spark glowing from within. A trail of bloody tears trickled down her cheek. The woman’s face appeared unbearably sad, but not for him.
“Say my name,” the woman commanded, her voice cutting.
The soul flinched, struggled to recall. He knew it, or at least had known it. He looked fearfully at the flames. “I … I cannot remember,” he stammered. “Forgive me.”
She smiled then. “I am not in the business of forgiveness.” She stroked one of the flames; it rubbed up against her leg. “I am Lord Sheelbeth … your savior, your master.” The flames flared as she spoke.
“Master?”
“Yes, now say my name.”
The soul hesitated, some instinct telling him not to, that names were like spells, giving and taking power.
“Perhaps you wish to return to the fire?” she asked.
One of the flames slithered over, hovering before him. He felt its heat, its promise of torment, and shuddered. “Lord Sheelbeth,” he said, and when he did, she was there, in his head, it was as though he’d opened a door for her. And he saw it, the ring, with its legs like a spider and an eye set in it, an eye just like this Lord Sheelbeth. God, how could he have ever forgotten that dreadful ring? “The ring … it is yours?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“It is more than mine, it is a part of me.” She tapped her empty socket. “When they stole my ring, cutting it from my very hand.” She lifted her hand so that he could see that her ring finger was missing. “They stole my eye. But not my sight.” She smiled thinly. “It is time to reclaim what is mine. Time to punish those who would meddle in my affairs. To put an end to them for good.” Her one eye flared, her malice palpable. “Now, let us find out what else you remember.”
Lord Sheelbeth drifted toward him, floating, gliding, her toes, with their long black curling nails, dragging through the soot. Her face caught the light and the beauty of it surprised him. Her black lips and dark red eye against her ashen skin gave the impression of a painted lady, somehow both ghastly and alluring. She drifted closer. “What is your name?”
My name? What is my name? The soul looked down at the ash, not wanting to meet her eye, afraid of what she might show him next.
“Come now, surely you have not forgotten your own name? Your memories, where are they? Have the flames burned them all away, or are you just hiding from them?” She leaned over, her lips inches from his ear, her breath smelling of burning coals. “You are Beel.”
The name, his name, hit him as though struck by a blow and he reeled, almost falling over as it burrowed into his mind, his soul, digging into all the dark places where his memories hid. He heard them then, the screams, followed by faces full of horror, one after another, so many. He felt them, every one, felt their terror, their confusion, their loss, their overwhelming sorrow, felt it as though he was them, because …
“Because I was them,” he groaned.
The wailing turned into a chorus, a song of unbearable suffering, at once beautiful and chilling. He knew this song too well. He tried to turn from it, to hide from it, but couldn’t. It was as though they were right here, right in the room with him.
Lord Sheelbeth pulled aside the front of her gown, revealing the pale flesh of her chest, but where her stomach should’ve been was an open wound, running from her sternum down to her lower abdomen. Within that wound were red worms, hundreds and hundreds of them.
Only Beel knew they were more than worms, because he could see their accusing faces staring out at him, actually recognized some of them. And well he should, they were the faces of souls, souls he’d stolen.
“Stop!” he cried. “Please … make them stop.”
But the worms didn’t stop, their lamentations grew, filling the chamber.
“You failed me before,” Lord Sheelbeth said. “Do you remember? You failed me because you forgot who you are. What you are. But this time I will see to it you never forget.” She put a finger under his chin and lifted his head.
“You are the possessor, the soul thief … you are the sheid.”
“Sheid,” he whispered, the word bringing with it a sense of despair.
“Yes, one of the shedim … one of God’s unfinished people. You belong nowhere, an abomination before all. They hate you, the people, the angels, even the devils, they all despise you. And God? You are nothing to God, nothing but his castoffs, his leavings, his dross and dregs … his failure. A reminder that he is not perfect after all. That even God makes mistakes. That is why he condemned you here, to this purgatory, to be forgotten by all.” She was quiet a moment. “You and I both.”
Beel shook his head as old memories, old feelings assaulted him; tears began to run from his lidless eyes.
“We were going to change all that,” she said. “Do you remember? It was within our grasps. So close.”
Beel saw the burning synagogue, the rabbi smoldering in the snow, his eyes but bloody sockets. The man, Adam, holding the knife, sobbing.
“Your work was done, the wizard, the Baal Shem, dead. It was time to move on, to find the others. To finish the last of them. We were so close.”
Beel watched as the man, Adam, slit his own throat, and Adam’s soul, it was … was what? Drawn, pulled, sucked into the ring? Yes, all part of Lord Sheelbeth’s design. And then … Beel should’ve been free. Because, when the man died, when any host died, Beel could no longer stay within the body, that was the way, to be cast out, to roam, a shedim in search of a new body. Only he wasn’t set free. Why? It took him a moment. Because the ring … I am shackled to that wicked ring. There is no escape for me. He relived being drawn back into the ring—once again its prisoner.
The vision took on a ruby cast and Beel realized he was no longer seeing from Adam’s eyes, but now from the eye set on the ring, Lord Sheelbeth’s lost eye. The ring sprouted long spidery legs, and even as the police stared with slack jaws, it scuttled away, darting for the bushes, the shadows.
“You betrayed me, Beel. Betrayed us both. Why?”
The bird, Beel recalled, a beautiful mourning dove. The ring spooked it from its roost and up it flew into the snowy night, circling round and round as it drifted away from the fire, the sirens, the blood. “I wanted to watch the bird,” he said, only he knew it was so much more.
“A bird,” Lord Sheelbeth spat, her voice sounding genuinely hurt. “Why did you throw everything away over a bird? How could you betray me so? Betray us both so?”
Beel felt the struggle as he fought with the ring to watch the bird. It was madness, as he was all but powerless against Lord Sheelbeth. Then why? Memories of what he was tumbled over him, the spirit that lived in so many bodies, not just humans, but animals of all sorts. Running through the forest as a fleet deer, swimming through the emerald depths as a shark, and flying, yes, flying through the clear blue sky as a bird, so many birds, eagles, swallows, owls, and on and on. And that night, in that moment, it was everything to him to dream of being that bird, dream of flying away from his hell, his torment—to taste freedom again. And if that was insanity, then let insanity be his escape.
And that was where he was, lost in his madness, lost in beautiful memories of flying freely through the sky, when the man, the wizard’s novice, snuck up on them. Just a flash of his face before he hit the ring with some substance, some powdery potion. Whatever it was, it stunned the ring. There was a bronze box, a finger lay within, the man put the ring on the finger, spoke a spell, and snapped the box shut, locking them away into darkness. Then Beel was falling, sliding down some convulsing throat of flame, downward, ever downward into where? He looked around. “You put me into the fire.”
Lord Sheelbeth nodded. “Yes, the fire, I am sorry. But you left me little choice. You had become confused, lost to madness, and the flame … it was the only way for you to find yourself again, your true self. We have both suffered so much, lost so much, so many hard lessons. This pain and loss, it is what bonds us.” She nodded as to herself. “But let us not tarry on the past when there is such hope ahead.” Her one eye lit up. “A vessel awaits. A girl who is far too curious for her own good.” Lord Sheelbeth’s voice rang with excitement. “Do you remember the novice, the one who captured the ring? I caught a glimpse of him, enough to see he is old and feeble now … no match for us. And the girl, it is too late for her, she has touched the ring. She is mine. It is but a matter of time.”
Lord Sheelbeth waited. “Why are you not smiling, Beel? Here is your chance for redemption. We will take her, make her kill the old man, the last of the Baalei Shem, and … and, we shall finally be free. Do you hear me? Free! Think of it, after all these centuries.”
Beel said nothing.
