Our Lady Chaos, page 58
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
“Psst!”
Sean darted a glance in their direction and gave a minute shake of the head. A grimace settled on his features, and he tossed his phone at Kristy’s feet.
She scooped it up and looked down at the screen, then showed it to Shannon. She led Shannon into the study and closed the door behind them.
“This might be our only chance,” whispered Kristy. “Can you tell Benny?”
Shannon chewed her lower lip. Benny? We need the lamp! She listened with all her worth, but if Benny replied, she couldn’t hear it.
16
Hurry, Mike! Lamia is catching on to my little tricks. Shannon says we need the lamp to have a chance.
Mike scrambled aboard the speedboat tethered to the floating dock. The engine fired at once, and Mike let it warm up at idle while he dealt with the mooring lines. As he pulled the last of the ropes aboard, Lamia appeared at the top of the stairs and hissed at him.
After putting the boat in reverse, he gunned the throttle, and the boat sprang away from the dock. If you can hear me, Benny, I’m on my way.
17
Abyzou paced toward Amanda, her gaze locked on the woman’s face. Her smile grew as she drew closer, and hatred burned in her eyes. She flexed her hands, then folded them into tight fists. “We never got to finish getting to know one another.”
Amanda backed away, matching Abyzou step for step. “I know you well enough,” she said.
“So catty!” said Abyzou with a laugh. She glanced over her shoulder and winked at Eddie. “I bet she’s a wildcat in the sack, too.”
“You’ve always wanted me,” Eddie said. “Leave her alone, and you can have me.”
“Oh, Eddie. How little you understand me,” said Abyzou. She turned her gaze back on Amanda. “Besides, this will be fun.”
As she sprang, an invisible force batted her away. She squawked and slammed into the wall hard enough to smash through the sheetrock.
“You stop that,” Naamah hissed at Benny, taking two quick strides to slap him hard.
In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Eddie sprang at Abyzou.
18
As Mike approached the parking area of the You Lock It Tight self-storage lot, he scoured the place with his gaze and grimaced at the demons loitering in the yard. A slow grin spread across his face as he drove past.
You were right, Benny. Again.
He skidded to a halt in front of a non-descript warehouse a mile up the street. The rollup door squeaked as he opened it, letting the afternoon light bathe the safe inside. But before he could pull the car inside, his phone chirped with a message from Shannon.
19
“You stop that,” Naamah hissed at him. She took two quick steps to Benny and slapped him hard enough to drive him to his knees.
Ears ringing, Benny shook his head to clear it and focused on Naamah, sending a wave of force at her as he had back in the parking lot. She staggered back, hissing with anger. Her face contorted, and the flames that made it seemed to burn brighter.
She set her feet and shoved back, slamming Benny into the wall. A malicious grin decorated her lips as she advanced on him, applying more and more pressure until it seemed sure that Benny’s spine would snap.
20
“Those foolish girls! They’re going to ruin everything!” hissed Lily under her breath as she gazed to the west. She turned her attention to Toby and snapped her fingers. “No more time, Tobes. Make your choice.”
“I…” Sweat beaded on his upper lip, his brow wrinkled. “You said you would take me home if I—”
“And so I shall! Now, answer me!” she snapped.
“Take me back to my friends, so I can tell them my decision,” he said, blinking rapidly and staring at his feet.
“Does that mean—”
“Let me tell them in person. Help me to make them understand.”
Lily smiled wide and snapped her fingers.
21
Mike flung open the safe. The lamp glowed and pulsed, its shade flickering from blue-black to red and back again. He didn’t want to touch it, didn’t even want to look at it.
He ran to the metal table in the rear of the warehouse bay and grabbed the welder’s insulated gloves and his goggles, then put on the gloves and grabbed the lamp, carrying it back to the table. He wanted to smash the thing to bits—but Shannon had been specific. He needed to do things in the right order, or it wouldn’t matter.
He lit the acetylene torch and fed it oxygen, then dipped the bright blue flame to cut the lamp in half. As the bronze body of the lamp grew soft and started to run, Mike read the words from the glowing screen of his phone.
“Ereshkigal, anīna!” he chanted.
He felt foolish speaking the gibberish aloud, but he did it anyway. The blue flame from the torch danced on the surface of the bronze, as if hungry to devour the lamp.
“Ereshkigal, aiālu mar mazzikim!”
The air in the storage bay grew oppressive, burdensome, and smelled of flint and sage. He opened his mouth to speak the next line, and the thick, flint-flavored air rushed down his throat as if to choke him.
“Ereshkigal, aššunu ina irkalla naḫāsu!”
He fought to get the words out, struggling against a wave of pressure as though he were speaking underwater. As the blue tongue of flame cut through the body of the lamp, the ground rumbled as if warning of an impending earthquake.
22
They appeared on the terrace of his house on the shore of Lake Erie, and the humidity in the air jarred him after his time in the desert. Toby raised his eyebrows at the smashed French doors. “I guess they started the party without us,” he said.
Lily said nothing, only squinted into the house. She stepped closer, cocking her head as if to eavesdrop.
“Mistress!” said Lamia, coming up from the steps leading to the dock. “You have returned.” Lamia’s cold gaze settled on Toby. “It worked, then?”
“Yes,” said Toby, returning his gaze to the house.
23
Benny groaned, sinking deeper and deeper into the wall while Naamah glared at him. “You killed my father,” she hissed, her expression crumpling with murderous rage. She lifted him by the front of his shirt as if he weighed nothing, smashing more sheetrock with his head.
Eddie jumped on Abyzou’s back, wrapping his legs around her middle. She screamed in rage and spun in ever-tightening circles, trying to dislodge him. She swatted at him over her shoulder.
Dan Delo lay on the floor in front of the Juliet balcony, his muscles twitching and jerking as though seizures wracked him. The ground rumbled, and he sat up straight, shrieking as if on fire.
Humans and demons alike froze in the middle of whatever they were doing, then turned to stare at the purple beast.
Delo sprang to his feet, but his legs didn’t hold him, and he collapsed forward on his face, screaming. He thrashed on the ground, his hands and feet flopping uselessly.
When he disappeared with a pop, Naamah turned on Benny once more and growled. “What have you done?” she demanded.
24
Mike pointed the torch at the lead holding the pieces of glass into the shade. The lead melted much faster than the bronze, and colored glass rained to the floor. Mike squinted at his phone, then nodded to himself.
“Lamia, anāku kāšim qirītu pašāṭu!”
More glass fell to the floor, shattering on impact. I hope this hurts, McBride. I hope it hurts a lot, you meddlesome bitch!
“Lamia, anāku atta ašāpu!”
Again, the ground rumbled as if in warning of things to come, but Mike forged on. The air seemed oppressive, though it was neither hot nor cold.
“Lamia, ina irkalla naḫāsu!”
With the shade cut apart, he turned the flame on the chunks of glass, heating them until their color was lost to the glowing gold of liquid crystal.
“Lamia, anāku atta ašāpu!”
25
Lamia shrieked and grabbed her head as if it were about to explode. Her wide eyes stared at Lily as the djinn began to froth at the mouth. She tried to speak, but Toby couldn’t make anything out of the hodge-podge of nonsense syllables.
“No!” hissed Lily.
With her black-scaled tail twitching, Lamia fell to her side with a crash and began to convulse.
Lily dropped to her knees next to her but stayed well back. “I won’t abandon you, Lamia. I won’t rest until you are back at my side.”
Lamia disappeared with a loud, wet ripping sound, and Lily turned an enraged expression on Toby. “What have your friends done?”
Toby could only shrug.
26
Naamah stood close to Benny—close enough that each breath he took smelled of her. She held him by the neck, his feet kicking uselessly in midair. She stared into his eyes, anger brimming in hers. “And Lamia?” she asked. “Mother will be cross with you, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she does to you.”
Summoning what saliva he could, Benny spat in her eye, smiling as she jerked her face away. “Your mother might be next!” he shouted. “Or maybe you, yourself, you insufferable cow!”
“Maybe so,” she said in a reasonable voice. “But I’m not gone yet.” With that, she flung Benny into the corner across the room, then lurched after him to grab him again. “Which bones should I break first?”
“Good God, demon. You and your lot are as bad as a bunch of James Bond supervillains!”
“What? What did you say?”
“With all your talk, talk, talk. Always explaining what you are going to do before you do it.” Benny scoffed with a bravado he didn’t actually feel.
“Of course!” she said with a chuckle. “We don’t feed on your pain, Benjamin. We feed on your emotions—fear being one of them.” She shook him like a ragdoll, and his teeth snapped together on his tongue. She lifted him high over her head and threw him as hard as she could.
27
With most of the glass melted into incongruous puddles, Mike turned back to the bronze, this time attacking the upper body of the lamp with the torch’s blue tongue.
“Abyzou, anāku kāšim qirītu pašāṭu!”
The lump of bronze writhed between shapes, at one moment looking like the body of a snake, then the trunk of a tree.
“Abyzou, anāku atta ašāpu!”
The ground rumbled, and thunder pealed overhead. A hard grin spread across Mike’s face.
“Abyzou, ina irkalla naḫāsu!”
He had no idea what the words meant, or even if he were pronouncing them correctly, but maybe it didn’t matter. Perhaps his intent was what mattered.
Not that he really cared. If the shaking ground meant what he thought it did, he would dance naked in the mall to keep it happening until all the demons in the world were roasting in the pits of hell.
“Abyzou, anāku atta ašāpu!”
28
What had begun as an attack to distract Abby from Amanda had turned into a bronco ride. No longer even thinking of trying to hurt the demon, Eddie hung on for dear life. Amanda tried to help, tried to stop her from spinning, but Abby brushed her aside.
Then the ground rumbled for the third time, this time accompanied by a harsh, ugly peal of thunder, and Eddie fell to the ground. Amanda rushed to his side.
“NO!” roared a basso voice on the terrace.
He snapped his gaze to the hole where the French doors once stood and thought he saw a flash of red.
29
Mike played the torch across the bottom half of the lamp, melting it even as it tried to shift from snake’s tail to tree stump and back again.
“Naamah, anāku kāšim qirītu pašāṭu! Naamah, anāku atta ašāpu! Naamah, ina irkalla naḫāsu!” He chanted the incantation as quickly as he could.
The ground thrummed with the power of the incantation, and when thunder sounded again, Mike thought he heard a scream along with it.
“Naamah, anāku atta ašāpu!”
30
Naamah stalked across the room, staring daggers at Benny. A visceral hatred pounded within her, coloring everything she saw, every noise that reached her ears, every breath she took.
Lilitu rushed into the room and grabbed her. “Not you! They can’t send you—”
The ground began to shake, and Naamah threw back her head and wailed.
“No!” screamed Lilitu. “I FORBID IT!” The volume of her cry rattled the windows of the house.
Behind her, Toby stepped through the broken doorway in time to watch Naamah fade away into nothingness.
31
This last part is the most important, Mike thought. He flipped the mass of melted bronze over to expose the maker’s mark. She said there can be nothing left of this.
“Lilitu, anāku kāšim qirītu pašāṭu!”
He drew the tip of the flame across the line of cuneiform, heating the metal until it glowed.
“Lilitu, anāku atta ašāpu!”
The words now sounded familiar, as though he’d always known them but had forgotten them. Despite their familiarity, they grew harder and harder to speak.
“Lilitu, ina irkalla naḫāsu!”
He dipped the torch closer to the bronze base, painting the cuneiform with its blue flame, watching the edges of the engraved words growing soft and beginning to run.
“Lilitu, anāku atta ašāpu!”
32
Lily stood with her shoulders slumped. Her expression was filled with sadness, with grief, and with anger. Her flesh seemed to fade in and out, pulsing with the passage of each breath. The speed of the pulses increased until she flickered like a loose light bulb. Then, the woman he knew as Lily was gone.
In her place stood a creature built from black smoke and shadows. The structure of her face bore a resemblance to her human features, but any similarities ended there. She stared at Toby in silence.
“This doesn’t have to be the end.” She raised both chrome-taloned hands to Toby, as though beckoning him for a hug. “It’s not too late, Tobes. You can come with me.”
Toby dithered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. A part of him wanted to go to her, to be enveloped by her presence, to join her, yet another piece of him was terrified by the prospect. Even so, he found himself inching in her direction.
Do it, Toby. Do it, do it, do it. Memory whispered the words in his mind, and Lily smiled.
“Don’t do it, Toby!” cried Shannon.
“Don’t do it,” echoed Benny in a wisp of a voice. Don’t do it.
Toby squeezed his eyes shut. “In 1979, I listened to a little voice that cajoled me to ‘do it,’ and it almost cost me my life. Herlequin couldn’t hold a candle to you, Lily. He was as an ant in the path of a charging lion.”
“Then—” Lily took a ghostly step forward.
He shook his head and lifted his hand like a traffic cop commanding someone to stop. “No, let me say this. You are magnificent in almost every way, and there will always be a part of me that is sad that I had to turn you down.”
The room was silent for a moment, then Lily hitched a sob and turned away. “So be it,” she muttered in a voice devoid of humanity. “Perhaps you were right, back there in the desert. This place…” She raised her hands to encompass the world. “It breeds unhappiness.” She turned back and stared into Toby’s eyes. “I will go then. But I will come back one day. There is always someone willing to pay my price in exchange for my favors. Someone will call to me across the void. Someone will offer me a place here.” She dropped her gaze and stood with her arms hanging at her sides. “If…” She swallowed hard. “If you change your mind, there’s a place you can go, Tobes. It’s in New York, near Genosgwa. You needn’t find it with any precision, just being in the right area will suffice. It is near your new friends’ house.” She gestured at Eddie and Amanda as she faded to translucence, her eyes growing wild. “Enter the circle and call to me, motek. Ask me to come, and I will.”
She looked Toby in the eye, her expression flat and lifeless. She held that position for the space of five heartbeats, then an unfelt wind ruffled around her indistinct edges, pulling curls of smoke away. This time, instead of the smoke rejoining her body, it faded into nothingness.
Toby shuffled to the upended recliner and set it to rights. He stood in front of it for a moment, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing. Finally, his knees unhinged, and he sat. He buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t bear to watch her go.
When Toby raised his head, Lilitu was gone, and the world was free of its last demon.
33
They gathered at Eddie and Amanda’s house three days later. The group already felt like life-long friends, and it was to be a celebration—after a final ritual.
Down in the basement, Eddie had already jackhammered a large hole to expose the black soil beneath. Mike had to carry Greg down the stairs, while Eddie brought his wheelchair, but Mike didn’t mind in the least. Greg was alive and getting better every day.
“Are you sure this will work?” asked Benny.
Sean Walker nodded. “Sure, uh-huh. I can show you the research if you—”
“I’m sure you are right, Sean,” said Benny. “It’s just jitters.”
Sean nodded once and set the box he was carrying on Eddie’s workbench. He peeled back the flaps and exposed the clay bowl. He lifted it out and showed it to everyone. The exterior was plain, undecorated, but the interior was full of cuneiform inscribed in a circle down to the bottom. In the center was a hand-painted image of Lilitu.
“And you’re sure the cuneiform is correct?”
“Benny,” said Shannon in a tight little voice. “Cut it out.”
“Sorry,” Benny murmured, squeezing her hand.
Sean grinned at him and nodded. “It’s correct.” As Benny nodded, he stepped down into the hole Eddie had dug. He held the bowl up over his head as if offering its contents to the rest of them. “Make a circle,” he said. “You’ll have to say it with me, so Kristy has notecards for everyone.” He met each of their gazes—all except Toby, whose gaze was on the ground. “Once we start, we can’t stop until we are finished, so if you have second thoughts, say so now.”
No one said a word.
“Toby?” Sean asked quietly.
