Our Lady Chaos, page 52
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
“You could see us? Using that corner-of-your-eye trick?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Interesting,” said Shannon with an exhausted sigh.
“Yeah, okay. Once I saw you that way, the illusion no longer worked.”
“Even more interesting.”
“Come on, Sean. My patient is getting tired. Let’s get her home.”
“Right, sure. Okay.” Sean started the car and drove on.
10
As twilight fell, the storm began to abate. The pavilion still stood, though the entrance was flooded by drifts of golden sand. Toby filled the dipper with cold water and slaked his thirst, but there was nothing to mitigate his hunger.
It’s time to decide, he thought. I can’t sit here waiting for a demon who may never return. On the other hand, I can’t leave my only water source behind.
He stooped by the water barrel and wiggled his fingers around its base, trying to find purchase. But a band of slick copper wrapped the bottom of the barrel, and he couldn’t shift the barrel far enough to slide his fingers underneath. If she had left rope or had the pavilion been one of canvas rather than silk, he could’ve fashioned a sling and carried the water barrel on his back—heavy or not.
He put his shoulder against the barrel’s lip and pushed, rocking the barrel onto its rearward edge. He slipped his fingers underneath and tried to lift the barrel using only his arms and shoulders. He could move it, but picking it up so he could walk wasn’t going to happen.
I could call her. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not an admission; it’s not a pledge to serve her. Toby pulled his fingers out from underneath the barrel and slowly lowered it back to the ground. I should just do it and be done with it.
Yes, do it. What could it hurt?
11
Dan flew in a circle above the driveway. He’d adopted the look of a sparrow, and since the hunter was otherwise occupied half a world away, he could afford to fly out in the open.
Out on the road, a car slowed, then turned into the gravel track that led to the asphalt pad near the garage and house. He peered at the driver but didn’t recognize him.
In the house, someone whooped, and the front door banged open.
12
As Sean turned on the twin-rutted track that led to Toby’s mansion on the cliff, the front door of the house slammed open, and Benny came sprinting out. “Shannon!” he cried. He sprinted up the drive to the car and ripped the back door open. “Shannon!” He dropped into the seat next to her and made as if to hug her but pulled back at the last minute. His gaze zipped here and there, cataloging her injuries while Shannon grinned at him.
Mike came to the front door and looked out, his shoulders slumped and a dour expression on his face.
“Drive on, Sean,” said Shannon. “I have to talk to Mike.”
“Right, yes.” Sean pulled up in front of the house and killed the engine. Benny jumped out and ran around to Shannon’s side, opening the door for her and offering his hand.
Kristy watched for a moment, then turned and punched Sean in the shoulder. “You never do that for me!”
“Get mauled by a demon and I will.”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Uh-huh, okay. Not funny. I take it back, O mysterious powers of the multiverse.”
Shannon gestured toward Mike, and Benny helped her hobble to the door. She held out her good hand, and Mike took it.
“I’m happy to see you, Shan,” he said.
“I saw him, Mike. I made them take me to him so I could see him with my own eyes.”
Tears sprang into Mike’s eyes. “And?”
Shannon squeezed his hand. “It’s touch and go. He…” She chewed her lip and winced as she pulled one of the lacerations. “He had an aneurysm that they had to repair, and he’s still unconscious.” She turned her head. “Doctor Walker can tell you more, but he’s alive, Mike.”
Mike nodded soberly, his gaze locked on the couple as they got out of the car. “Is that…”
“Sean and Kristy Walker,” said Shannon.
“From Oneka Falls. Yeah. I knew Sean, and everyone knew Kristy. Come on in.” Mike turned and led the way to the living room. “Do you know about Scott?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Scott?”
Benny sucked his teeth. “Scott’s gone, honey.”
“Gone?”
“What do you remember?”
“The demon.” Shannon shuddered and leaned closer to Benny.
“Right. The demon charged you, and Greg tore him off. He was struggling to hold him when Mason Harper came up behind him and…” Mike slumped into a recliner, shaking his head and wiping at his eyes.
“Scott ran to help. He shot Mason, then shot the demon attacking you.” Benny helped her onto the couch and sat beside her. “The demon turned on him and—” Benny’s voice hitched, but he took a deep breath and went on. “And it killed Scott, honey.”
“Oh, my God,” Shannon murmured. She looked around with tears blurring her vison. “Where’s… Don’t tell me Toby…”
Benny shook his head. “We don’t know. Do you remember the two new ones?”
“The two new whats?”
“You were in and out of it. Two new, super powerful demons joined the fight, and we had to run. One of them took Toby right out of the driver’s seat of the Suburban. Mike and Eddie kept us from crashing, but only just.”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah. Eddie and Amanda Mitchell. Eddie’s been haunted by one of the new demons—the one made of golden fire—for all of his life.”
“Since I was seven,” said Eddie from the top of the stairs.
“Sure, okay. And you owned the lamp?” asked Sean advancing toward the stairs as though he wanted to sprint up them and interrogate Eddie.
“I did. I still do, I guess.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Sean’s one of our researchers,” said Shannon. “He’s found something.”
All eyes turned to Sean. He blushed under the scrutiny and looked out the picture windows at Lake Erie.
“He’s also got a neat trick for seeing the demons. Could come in handy since Toby’s missing. If we can learn how he does it.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said Benny. “Both Eddie and Amanda can see them, too.”
13
He had dithered most of the evening away, first arguing against calling Lily’s name, then switching it up and supporting it. And now, with the moon directly overhead, he had only a few hours to travel. He still had no way to carry the water barrel, and still he could not determine the best direction in which to walk.
She had come for him last time. She had come in time to save him from dying of exposure, and she’d given him water without forcing him to ask. Perhaps if he set off, she’d come again, save him again.
Don’t be an idiot. She’s an archdemon, a demi-goddess, feared by the demons in Oneka Falls. Why in the hell would she care whether Toby Burton lives or dies?
Toby shifted his weight from foot to foot, staring at the long shadow the pavilion painted on the sand in the moonlight. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so torn by a decision. “Oh, this is ridiculous!” He’d always taken pride in the fact that he could make good decisions quickly, but it seemed that ability had abandoned him as surely as Lily had. And now, I’m talking to myself aloud. Perfect.
He stepped out of the pavilion and climbed the dune that had sheltered him from the worst of the sandstorm. At its peak, he turned a full circle, his gaze darting from dune to dune, following an unbreakable line that marched toward the horizon. “Which way do I go?”
For a moment, that spooky dirge he had first heard when Lily had kidnapped him out of the moving Suburban came to him on the breeze, but it died with the dying of the wind. An odor wafted toward him. A scent that filled his mouth with saliva.
He turned and dropped his attention to the pavilion below him. He couldn’t see into the silk structure from the top of the dune, but he didn’t need to. The red silk tent was lit from within, and it glowed like a bed of coals.
Lily was back, and she was cooking him dinner.
Toby tried not to acknowledge her, tried not to sprint down the face of the dune into her presence.
He tried and failed.
14
Benny relaxed into the sofa, his eyes glued to Sean Walker as the man repeated what he’d already told Shannon at the hospital. Shannon sat at Benny’s side, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“And as I told your beautiful wife, the phrase occurs in the ancient texts and legends of Akkad, Sumer, and Babylon. The name Lilitu seems to be used interchangeably with the name Ardat Lili.”
“This is fascinating, but I don’t see how it—”
“A few more minutes,” said Sean. “That’s all I ask.”
Benny tilted his head to the side and stared at Sean for the time it took him to draw three deep breaths. “Okay.”
“Yes, okay. Right. The legend goes all the way back to Akkadian mythology. It seems Lilitu was the wife of a demon named Lilu, and the pair were somehow tied to a disreputable priest. Lilu disappeared, but references to Lilitu appear even in the Judeo-Christian belief system, though they name her Lilith.”
“Okay,” said Benny.
“Oh, that’s not the best part.” He opened his phone and swiped through his pictures. “Take a look at this.” He held out the phone, and on the screen was the photo of an ancient pottery bowl. The inner surface was crowded with something written in a strange language, but the figure at the bottom of the bowl drew Benny’s undivided attention. It depicted a woman.
A woman wearing a black dress. She had bright red hair and orange eyes.
“Holy shit,” muttered Benny.
“Yes, exactly. The language is Aramaic, and it dates back to the sixth century.”
“What does the inscription say?”
“It’s an incantation against evil.” Sean looked at each of them. “An evil named Lilitu.”
“And that’s who took Toby?” Shannon asked.
“Yes.”
The room started to spin, and Shannon grabbed Benny’s hand. “I feel sick.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the spinning, but it was no use. She fell into Benny’s lap, and everything went black.
15
“Ah! The intrepid explorer returns,” said Lily as Toby burst through the entrance of the tent. Her eyes twinkled, and one side of her mouth curled upward.
Toby stood just inside the entrance, panting from his exertion of slogging through the loose sand and staring at her. The eerie melody was back, though at low volume, like mood music at an upscale Manhattan restaurant.
“Cat got your tongue?” Lily’s voice lilted with amusement. “Come in. Sit down. We have much to discuss, but we can do that while I cook.” Tilting her head, she peeked up at him. “I assume you won’t say no to more goat?”
Toby’s jaw worked, but he said nothing. The truth of it was that he felt immense gratitude that Lily had returned, and he didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want her to know anything about it.
The volume of the dirge increased a little, one ethereal strain following the next. Toby shook his head from side to side. “Where is that music coming from?”
“Do you like it? No human has played my melodies for thousands of years, though some have heard it.”
“It’s terrible.” Toby thought she might be offended, that he might anger her with his blunt assessment, but Lily only smiled.
“It is great and terrible, but the music is also steeped in power. My power.”
“Can you make it stop? I find it…distracting.”
Lily’s smile grew broader. “Can I make it stop? Of course I can, but that isn’t your question.”
Toby sank into a crouch and arched one eyebrow at her. “No?”
“No. Your question is: will I make it stop. And so far, it seems the answer to that is in the negative.” She glanced down at the grill and turned the skewers of meat roasting atop it. “Come closer, Tobes. Sit next to me. Sit close enough to brush against my flesh.”
Toby found it incredibly difficult not to rush to her side, to stop his hands from racing across her form.
Lily took another quick peek at him, then chuckled, and her clothing disappeared. “Tempted?”
Toby’s jaw worked, and once more, he didn’t trust himself to speak. My God! She is beyond perfect! Her skin is like cream and her proportions… If ever a woman could embody perfection, that woman sits naked in front of me cooking my dinner.
Lily threw him a wink. “Ay, que chulo, papi. I’ve made you speechless.” She stood and faced him, letting the light from the grill dance across her flesh.
Lust was like a physical thing within Toby, like a wild tiger refusing to be contained. Without meaning to, he crawled a step closer, his gaze riveted on the candy-red triangle of hair below her navel.
“Come to me. Do it, habibi. Take what you so clearly want. Come to me and take me.”
Her words danced across his mind like a brush fire, burning as they went, and leaving charred remains behind. Half of him wanted to leap across the distance between them and bury himself in her, but the other half… The other half knew better. Even so, it was a struggle to keep himself from dashing to her.
She looked at him and waited, her expression solemn. No further words were needed, no further enticement could top what she’d already offered. As the seconds ticked by, she cocked her head to the side, and her bright orange eyes seemed to twirl and twirl and twirl. The mournful lament that she claimed as her own music grew louder and louder.
Toby had been to the beach once. He had stood just past the line where the water met the sand and luxuriated in the feeling of the sand being sucked from under his feet. Kneeling in the tent, with Lily six feet away, naked and waiting, felt much the same. He felt himself slipping away and was as unable to resist her pull as the sand was able to resist the tide.
Ever so slowly, a bright, sunny smile spread its wings on Lily’s lips. She lifted both arms, her hands open, welcoming.
Toby fought with everything he had, used every trick he learned throughout his mostly celibate life to defeat the urge within him.
“You’ve denied yourself for so long, Tobias,” said Lily, and it was as if she spoke directly into his brain, foregoing the air between them. “All those years…the decades during which you refused to allow anyone to get close, during which you refused to allow yourself to even think of a lover.” She beckoned him with both hands, arms still held straight out as if to pull him in. “It was such a needless sacrifice.”
Toby tried and tried to turn away from her gaze, but it was as if her eyes were magnetic and his own were cast from iron. He commanded his head to turn away, but his muscles refused to obey him. He pushed with his arms, trying to force himself back, to leave the tent, to leave her temptations behind, but his hands didn’t even twitch where they lay on his thighs.
Lily opened her lips a minuscule amount, and the creepy little elegy grew in volume yet again. The countermelody and the melody continued their eternal dissonance, filling him up from the soles of the feet to the crown of his head. She winked, and Toby began to hear voices buried in the music. They chanted and sang in a strange sounding language that was as unlike anything Toby had ever heard as Lily was as unlike any woman he’d ever known.
The vocals bombarded him, swirled around his head, infiltrated his ears, and wormed their way into the core of him. He felt…different…unwound, somehow.
Lily’s eyes flashed as she brought her arms to her sides, and her face and neck flushed as she brought her hands up to cup her breasts. “Oh, please come to me, Tobias.”
The urgency in her voice rumbled through him like an earthquake, reducing his wall of self-control to rubble. His shirt came off with a mere flick of his wrist, and Lily’s smile turned warm and inviting. He crawled to her on his hands and knees, and he thought it correct to go to her that way.
She reached for him, and her blood red fingernails trailed across the skin of his chest. For the first time, Toby noticed her nails were filed to sharp points, but he no longer cared about such things.
She wrapped her arms around him, and he was lost in her scent, the feel of her, the delicious red of her hair. She angled her head, and his lips sought hers.
16
Shannon awoke with difficulty as though cotton encapsulated her brain, impinging on her ability to think, to choose, to act. She groaned, and a hand rubbed her shoulder. She cracked open one eyelid and found Benny leaning over her, catching her eye.
It’s okay, Shan, Benny said in her mind. Rest all you need to.
She tried to push herself into a seated position but to no avail. She felt horrible—nauseated, woozy, and weak. The demon’s comprehensive attack had taken its toll, and her body demanded more rest.
“Shouldn’t she go back to the hospital?” asked Benny. “She seems so fragile.”
Shannon groaned and mumbled her disapproval.
“No, she’s fine. She’s no doubt exhausted from the long trip from Rochester,” said Kristy. “To assist her healing, she needs rest—peace and quiet—and you can’t get any of that in a hospital.”
“And you’re sure?”
Shannon heard the worry in Benny’s voice and wanted to comfort him, to tell him she was okay and would improve by morning. She longed to do all those things but didn’t have the energy.
“Yes,” said Kristy.
“If she needs rest—real rest—and the quiet to do it, she should be in our bedroom. Can I move her?”
As she tried to muster enough power to send her thoughts to him, she descended into unconsciousness once again and dreamed Toby was lost in the desert.
Chapter 4
Tuesday
1
The odor of broiling meat brought Toby awake. Outside the tent, the sun baked the golden sand, and the desert smelled of flint and dust and sage. He turned his head and pushed himself up on one elbow. Lily knelt in front of the grill, her back turned. A pang of guilt stabbed through him, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
