The Fourth Whore, page 29
“Prove it,” Lilith said.
The knife was suddenly in his hand. He glanced down at it and back up to Lilith. Daisy struggled against her. A snake wrapped across the woman’s forehead and upper arms. Lilith had a handful of Daisy’s blonde hair pulled back so that her throat was offered to Henry.
“Prove that you have what it takes to save Kenzi. Show us that you are man enough to do what must be done.”
“What are you talking about? No! No way.”
Daisy squirmed but the snake used her movements against her and squeezed tighter. Hoarse whimpers vibrated the exposed flesh.
“Kill her. Slit her throat!” Tituba yelled.
Daisy could no longer move, and it was apparent that she could barely breathe. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. Lilith caressed her face and kissed her ear.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You’ve done well my darling, and you’ve suffered so much for me. But now your task is complete, and I have no further use for you.”
“Now, do it,” she ordered Henry.
He did nothing.
“Do it!” she screamed.
“I can’t! I saved her!” he cried.
“Then give me the knife, you coward.”
Lilith snatched the knife from his weak grasp and sliced Daisy’s throat in one quick motion. Blood arched out, spitting in Henry’s face. His knees buckled. He hit the floor in time to feel the thud of Daisy’s body as it crumpled. Panicked, he searched for the snake that was no longer holding the dead girl. Lilith wore it once again. It was nothing more than a tattoo decorating a nude body.
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
She smiled. Walking around him, she stopped to wipe the knife off on his back.
“Did you know that thirteen women were hung during the Salem Witch Trials and oh so many thousands more were killed world-wide. And why was that, Henry? Because they were forward thinkers, because they believed they were just as smart as men and had just as much to offer. And who found them guilty, Henry? Who hung them, who pressed them, who raped them and then called them whores?” She faced him again, so close he could hear her jaw muscles tensing as she finished her speech through clenched teeth. “Men. Men who feared anything they did not understand. Men who wanted to believe they were more potent than women and that The Creator had bestowed that right to them.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “Men died too. Men were accused of witchcraft you know?” It was a stupid thing to say, instigating her like that.
“Yes, but who has history vilified? Who do they still call witches?” Tituba asked.
Lilith put her hand on his head, smoothing his hair. “History, religion, men in charge—don’t they always vilify us? We’re witches and whores and demonesses sent to corrupt men and take away their power. So, isn’t it time we lived up to their expectations of us?”
“But that’s not me. Not all men are like that. I would never…” Henry blubbered still sitting in Daisy’s blood pool.
“Are you certain, Henry? Are you a good man?” Lilith asked.
“Stand up, Henry,” Tituba said. She wrapped her arm around to steady him and helped him to his feet. He wanted to believe they were giving him a second chance.
“Kenzi needs you; I need you to be a good man,” Lilith said, caressing his face. She was so close he could smell her breath. It was cool and vegetal like his grandfather’s root cellar.
The scent brought him home to the cottage. He let her lead him. He could hear his bees buzzing, he could almost make out words. They were whispering to him, chanting. They told him to obey her. Follow the goddess, do as she says, and then, he could go home.
“Be a good man, Henry,” Lilith repeated.
“I want to. For Kenzi.”
“Then be a man for her.”
The bees chanted. He turned to look for them but there was only the priestess Tituba. She carried the silver cup. It was full of honey or maybe it was blood or something far worse, more foul. Something familiar about this. A sense of déjà vu overcame him. He should know what it was, but he couldn’t think anymore. It was time to go home. Home to Kenzi and his bees.
“Be a man, Henry,” Lilith said and slipped something over his head.
The priestess with the voice of a hundred bees sang and painted him with the contents of the cup. A star perhaps, on his forehead. She sipped from it and handed it to Lilith who did the same.
“Be a man,” they sang in unison.
They were beneath him now. Was he on a hill or were the women sinking back into the earth? Tituba held the cup high above her head and he took it in both hands.
The taste was tart and thick but not unpleasant. It made his head spin. He felt drunk and giddy. Tituba saw his unsteadiness and took the cup from him.
“For Kenzi,” they said.
“For Kenzi,” he whispered
Lilith kicked the chair from beneath him and he dropped. It’s like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, he thought.
Chapter 52: Book of Kenzi 15
Kenzi’s arms flailed. Her body reeled, still feeling the fall. Her hand brushed the ceiling. Only it wasn’t the apartment. It was cold and gritty, some of it packed under her fingernails. She lost balance and stumbled backward, hitting her head on a cold, musty wall. Pebbles or something dropped from above and landed in her hair and on her shoulders. The debris wriggled and creeped like bugs—or worse—worms. She screamed and smacked at herself blindly, making sickly, inhuman noises as the phobic shivers overwhelmed her.
In the chaos, she hadn’t realized that she could see once more, though the light was dim. Gloria stood motionless like an anemic wax version of herself.
“I guess we’re here, Glo. This is Sheol. It’s safe here. It’s also super gross but I don’t think anything evil can get in.”
Gloria grinned, showing her teeth, many more teeth than Kenzi had ever seen. It was an odd grin but then, she’d begun to think that maybe Gloria had some brain damage. This place would be perfect for her godmother to recuperate but Kenzi would have to help her past the Nods. They’d go to the tree room. It was warm and cozy there.
The path to the cavern felt narrower. Walls seemed to be closing in on her. The arms reaching out were so close, she thought they brushed against her a few times. She picked up her pace. Gloria, somehow, kept up. The woman hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived and it worried Kenzi. The falling bits of dirt and the nasty little grubs raining down on them no longer bothered her as much as the swampy smell that emanated from her godmother.
They neared the turn in the path just before it widened into the only welcoming space of Sheol and Gloria’s breathing changed. Short, grunting puffs came and went almost like a dog on the scent of a rabbit. Suddenly, the woman shoved Kenzi aside and entered the room filled with roots and branches of the Tree of Knowledge. Without all the metallic charms dangling in the light, the room seemed duller, colder, and unwelcoming. The wall she fell into grabbed at her and she had to pry off the hands of a Nod trying to hitch a ride.
“Hey!” she yelled to Gloria. “What gives?”
“Where are they?” Gloria asked. Her voice low and graveled.
“Sariel and Enoch?” Kenzi asked confused.
Gloria cleared up the confusion easily enough when she started plucking down the few remaining charms hanging about the room. When her arms were filled with close to twenty, she turned back to Kenzi.
“What has he done with them all?” Gloria, arms dripping with gold and silver and nickel chains, pendants tinkling together like coins in a collection box, was even more bloated than she’d been at the apartment.
She looked like a tick about to pop and her eyes were pure black. Nostrils flared. Maybe she was dead after all. She sure wasn’t acting, looking, or smelling right. Was she a zombie or something? A zombie that ate shiny metal things instead of brains.
“Glo? Gloria?” Kenzi approached her slowly as she would a strange dog.
“I know you brought Lilith here, did she take them?” Gloria growled. “Give the rest of them to me now, bitch!”
“What the actual fuck? If you aren’t dead, I’ll kill you myself. Who the fuck do you think you are? I saved your life.”
Kenzi’s godmother grabbed her by the neck and threw her. She landed with a thud against the far wall, the impact knocking the wind out of her. In those breathless seconds, she wondered if it was possible to break your ass because she wasn’t sure she could stand.
The avalanche of death-eaters helped her find air and her strength to move quickly enough. Kenzi balled her fists and held them up to her temples. What the hell was going on here? She roared in frustration and paced in circles.
Her skin itched. How long had it been since she cut? A small voice in her head whispered that she hadn’t even needed to at Henry’s. But now, she wanted that foot. Everything fucked up in her life—the cutting, the sex, the drug addicted mother, and now Gloria with her crazy brain damage—was all Sariel’s fault.
“Get out, you stupid little whore. You’ve done nothing for me. You’re no longer needed nor wanted here.” Gloria handed Kenzi a scalpel. “Do us all a favor and cut deeper next time.”
Kenzi fought against the softball sized lump in her throat. Part of her wanted to take it and do exactly what Gloria had suggested. Just end it all here and now. There was nothing left for her. She looked at the mother figure she’d grown to cherish more than her own true mother. No, that wasn’t her. It was not Gloria.
“If you’re looking for the demon charms, they’re not here. Lilith took most of them and since she didn’t return them to you, I guess you are shit out of luck.” She laughed and pointed the scalpel toward whatever it was inside her godmother. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you are not Gloria. You’re a fucking piece of shit.”
The thing which was not Gloria lunged for Kenzi. It grew larger as it neared and then impaled itself on the blade. The knife punctured Gloria’s bloated belly and a puff of putrid air popped out like a bellows. Kenzi suppressed a gag. It spoke.
“I am the night. I am the end of life, the omega. I am the one who waits in the darkness, and I will devour you.” The voice booming from pink lips that had once kissed her forehead was deep and threatening.
Kenzi was so taken aback by this dichotomy, she could only stare, slack-jawed as Gloria’s body broke open with a sulfurous stink and a behemoth stepped out. The creature’s horns twisted in a mockery of pain, and dug grooves into the ceiling. When a grub or maggot was dislodged and fell onto the monster, it sizzled and popped as if it were in a burning log. The monster’s eyes, or lack thereof, were black holes that seemed to draw in all of the light. Kenzi knew instinctively that if she looked directly into them, she too would be pulled into the abyss never to return. It reached out to her with impossibly long fingers tipped with equally impressive claws.
“No! Lucifer, you have violated our contract,” Sariel said.
He stood in the entrance of the cavern with Enoch on his shoulder. The ground shook and the walls began to crumble. Enoch lifted off the ground at the same time, talons outstretched toward Lucifer. Swooping away at the last moment, it grasped many of the chains knocking them off the demon’s arm.
“Get her out of here!” Sariel called to Enoch. The cacophony of destruction was deafening as the space began to cave in around them. “I’m going to finish him.”
Kenzi had never seen Sariel like this. The Scribble Man, her imaginary friend who drew her pictures and wrote notes in her journals, was furious. He, like Lucifer, grew until he filled the cavern and shook its walls. Kenzi backed up until she reached the wall.
The two titans tore into each other. Teeth gnashing, claws tearing at scarred flesh; at the same time, a pale hand wrapped itself around the neck of the demon.
“I’ll destroy you or send you back to Hell for good. You’re no different than Lilith,” Sariel growled.
His fingers wrapped around the demon’s windpipe as if there was no skin there to protect it. Only garbled sounds came from the demon, but it bucked its head about wildly slicing off tree branches and ripping the ceiling apart.
Sheol caved in around them. The Nods, hordes of them, were freed from their dirt prisons and they rushed at Kenzi. She screamed as bodies piled around her, dragging her under the sea of rotted flash. Ancient arms and hands touched her everywhere, grabbing at her flesh, her hair, her clothes.
Enoch, also gigantic, beelined to Kenzi and grasped both her shoulders. It lifted her out of the fray and enveloped her within its giant wings. She was propelled forward and fell to her knees. Sobbing and shaking with fear and grief, she could no longer move.
It was quite suddenly, and in an otherwise silent space, that she could hear Enoch’s talons clicking on the faux hardwood floor of Henry’s apartment. He laid his beak on her thigh. She rubbed her finger down his head.
“What the hell is happening, E?”
Enoch only chattered her avian language.
“I wish I knew exactly what you were saying, my friend. Get inside your head and see the things you’ve seen. Then maybe I would understand this better.”
She inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. The exhale was a lot shakier than she would’ve liked. “I gotta pull myself together. Henry will be home soon, and I’d better check on Daisy.”
Enoch, as if in understanding, moved her beak off her leg and backed away. She took to Kenzi’s shoulder when she stood and together they went to Daisy.
The bedroom was empty as was the rest of the apartment. Confused, Kenzi remembered the note with Henry’s numbers she’d left on the kitchen table. Lying on the table, where the note had been, was a letter with the hospital’s header. She picked it up.
Dr. Henry Patel,
We regret to inform you that the unanimous decision of the Internal Medicine Residency Board is to dismiss you from the program. During your two years in this program, you have had multiple disciplinary actions for tardiness and poor academic performance on exams.
Your lack of response to the recent call to all physicians to present for the tragic emergency in Labor and Delivery cannot be overlooked, especially in light of the above named offenses….
Kenzi dropped the letter. Henry had been fired? He must be devastated. So, where was he? She scanned the living room for any notes he may have left her, but the room was spotless except for his backpack thrown haphazardly on the comfy chair. Checking the door, she found the chain still in its locked position but dangling from the wall. He must have had to break the door open or someone did. What if he thought something happened to her and he had taken Daisy out with him to find her. She touched the splintered wood as if trying to have a psychic vision of recent events.
The phone rang, and she jumped. Enoch cawed out in surprise. Kenzi ran to the bedroom where the sound seemed to be coming from. The cordless phone glowed blue on the far side nightstand. She belly-flopped onto the bed and grabbed it.
“Henry?”
“Kenzi?” Lilith said on the other end. “I need you to come quick, something’s happened to Daisy and Henry.”
Chapter 53: Book of Kenzi 16
Enoch sat on the porch of a modern two-story home wrapped in faded and weather-worn crime scene tape. The sun was at the level of the railing on which it sat so that all she could see was the dark form of a bird surrounded by a golden glow. If this were a movie, it would be the scene where the hero shows up at the last minute to save the day. She smiled. Enoch was the only thing she could trust in this fucked up situation.
She was out of breath from running. She’d found enough money in Henry’s backpack to pay for a taxi but was afraid to give the exact address, so she picked a 7-11 near the house and ran the rest of the way.
“Hey, E. Let’s go get Henry,” she said holding her arm out.
Enoch ignored it and chose the shoulder instead. She let out a low, airy squawk. Kenzi leaned her head to the side in a sort of head-hug and Enoch rubbed its beak up Kenzi’s face. Right now, this bird was her hero.
Enoch led her up the stairs, which she took two at a time. At the top, they immediately turned left to enter what certainly looked like a crime scene. Henry’s lifeless body hung limp and bloated, a swollen black tongue pushed out of his mouth. He looked like a poisonous mushroom ready to spore. All the talismans Lilith had stolen were hanging around him as if he had now been relegated to their ranks. Kenzi screamed at the same time her knees turned to jelly. She managed to stay upright long enough to grab for him. Catching his legs, she lost her balance so that for a moment, she hung with him. Realizing what she’d done, she let go and fell to the floor into a sticky mass of blood.
Lilith stood naked and morbidly gravid beside a black woman in an orange sarong and turban. Beside the snake tattoo encircling her body, Lilith wore only Kenzi’s rabbit’s foot around her neck, taunting her.
Kenzi couldn’t breathe. The air was gone from the room. It had to be a dream. Henry could not be dead. It made no sense. Get him down, help him, CPR, maybe it’s not too late for CPR. Christ, I don’t know how to do fucking CPR. Come on, Ken, you’ve seen it done a million times, it can’t be that hard. Her strength returned, and she filled her lungs with air.
“Get him down from there!” she screamed.
Lilith remained stoic, life swam within her protruding belly in direct opposition to Henry’s body hanging beside her.
“What did you do to him?” Kenzi sobbed.
She brushed past Lilith and climbed up onto the chair behind Henry. She worked frantically at the knot embedded deeply into the swollen flesh at the back of Henry’s neck. Enoch flew up to the post acting as the gallows and pecked at the rope until it thinned, frayed, and snapped, dropping Henry’s heavy body to the floor with a thud.
