The Fourth Whore, page 30
“Oh,” Kenzi yelped. She fell to the ground beside him.
“Kenzi, we tried to save him, but Death is far too strong to overcome,” the black woman said, putting her hand on Kenzi’s shoulder.
“Don’t you fucking touch me. Who the hell are you anyway and what the fuck are you doing here?”
“I am Tituba, true witch of Salem, I was called by Lilith for my skills in dark magic to try to bring back your beau.”
“His name is Henry,” Kenzi corrected. “What happened? Did he do this? Did he kill himself because he got fired?” Her throat spasmed and it hurt to talk past it. She looked around the room for signs that might help her put the pieces together. There was fresh blood on the floor hinting at something recent. Henry was not bleeding though.
“Where’s Daisy?” she asked, hand on Henry’s chest willing him to breathe again. Just be OK. Be alive. Come back to me.
“We don’t know,” Lilith said. “Of course, I thought perhaps Henry had taken her but then I realized he wouldn’t know how to get here. So, either Daisy brought him here or someone else did.”
“Where is here?” Kenzi asked.
“This is Daisy’s home where she was attacked,” Lilith said.
“Who else knows about this house?”
“Only one other. Sariel.”
“That makes no sense, why would Sariel bring them here?” Kenzi couldn’t slow the Tilt-a-Whirl of thoughts and emotions in her head.
“Because you had plans with Henry, because you fell in love with him and he, with you. Henry was standing in Sariel’s way and, in the same way he used you and your god-mother, he abused his power for personal gain.” Lilith shook her head and squatted down to Kenzi’s level. She touched Henry’s cold, dead arm.
“But what did he do to Daisy? Why would he bother with her?” Kenzi asked.
All she wanted to do was to fall into Lilith’s arms and cry. The things Lilith had done before, the evil deeds, escaped Kenzi’s mind. Right now, Lilith represented the mother goddess and Kenzi needed a mother.
“Daisy was in the way, I assume. I don’t know where she is. Perhaps she got away, but I fear she’s suffered a similar fate.”
“But how can you be sure? I mean—” She sniffled, sucking in the tears. “I found a paper saying he’d been fired. I know what that had to do to him. What if Henry did this to himself? And maybe Daisy got scared and ran away.”
“Then where is Sariel? Why is he not here to comfort you? Why would he not bring you here to say goodbye before collecting the boy’s soul. No, my love, he hides away, leaving you, yet again, confused and hurt. Did he not do this before with Gloria? He did not come for you or try to find you to say goodbye? It was your bird that thought of you.”
It made sense, what Lilith said. Where had he been before he suddenly arrived in Sheol just in the nick of time? Enoch had remained quiet during this interaction as if she too was considering the possibility. The only reaction it had was to squeeze its talons on her shoulders several times. She was glad she’d worn a hoodie or else it would have left deep punctures. As it was, its tense responses had surely broken the skin.
Kenzi’s eyes fell on the rabbit’s foot resting just above Lilith’s ample breasts. She reached for it. She needed it, her security blanket, her method of release.
Lilith stopped her hand by placing her own on top of it.
“Soon, but not yet. It will be yours again but first, we must discuss the future.”
“What future?” Kenzi asked and the dam broke, tears flowed, sobs shook her body.
Enoch pushed off her shoulder, landing on the floor near Henry’s head. Tituba bent down to Kenzi and collected several tears into a dulled and dented silver wine cup.
“What are you doing?” Kenzi asked looking down to the small puddle in the bottom of the cup.
The woman did not answer. Instead she approached Lilith, removed the rabbit’s foot necklace, and walked to the closet on the far side of the room. Upon opening the door, the smell of burning wax candles and beneath that, a thick livery smell permeated the room. A pool of blonde hair shone in the candlelight just before Tituba closed the door.
“What is she doing? I think she has Daisy,” Kenzi said.
“No, I’m sorry, love, Daisy is gone and though it pains my heart as well, we must move on.” Lilith took Kenzi’s hands and pulled her up.
She was so lithe and flexible even at that size. Kenzi had never seen a woman at the end of her pregnancy move so quickly and easily.
“So, what is she doing in there?” Kenzi pointed. Lilith’s hands on her face were as cold as Henry’s body but Kenzi let them turn her back to Lilith.
“She is spell casting. She will use your tears and my talisman to bring Sariel to us.”
“And then what?” Kenzi asked, mesmerized by Lilith’s eyes.
She could see the whole world in them. Like those pictures the astronauts took of Earth from the moon. Greens and blues swirled round in her irises and in her pupils, a universe filled with stars and galaxies.
“And then we kill him.”
“Kill him? Sariel? You can’t kill Death,” Kenzi said, looking at Henry.
She wondered what would happen if you could. Would recent deaths be reversed? Enoch was still inspecting Henry’s body, tilting its head back and forth as if confused.
“Yes. He can be destroyed if his power is removed or transferred.”
“Are you going to transfer his power to you? If you do that can you bring Henry back?”
“I have chosen you, Kenzi Brooks, to take his role. And yes, if it is not too late, we may be able to return Henry’s soul. But first we must take it back from Sariel and I can’t do that Kenzi. I can only facilitate the transfer of his power to you. Will you stand beside me? Will you take on the injustice of this god-forsaken world?”
“But, I don’t understand,” Kenzi said.
“The world as you know it is about to end. Armageddon begins with myself and my three chosen ones. You are the fourth and final creature I shall release onto this earth and you will stand beside me when we have conquered it.”
So, Lilith was responsible for all the talk of end times on the news? She and Daisy and this Tituba person?
“No, no, I don’t want that, I don’t want any of this.”
Kenzi only wanted to return to her vigil at Henry’s side. She needed to feel the weight of Enoch on her shoulder. She felt weak and incomplete without it.
“Kenzi, your whole life people have hurt you, belittled you, taken away your control. The Creator turned His back on you and left you to the wolves. Sariel chose for you and has since held you back both directly and indirectly. That will not be so in my Kingdom. Never again will you live beneath the thumb of a man made in His image.”
Lilith was right, even loving Henry had caused her pain. Whatever killed Henry is responsible for your pain. Henry didn’t hurt you. She ignored the voice in her head and continued her self-pity. Everyone she’d ever trusted had betrayed her or abandoned her. Even her own God, The Creator of all things, turned his back on her. And it really was Sariel’s fault. It all started when he abused his power. He chose to take away her only promised right as a mortal—the right to die and find peace. If she were in his place she would never allow her own feelings to interfere with anyone’s right to the death and afterlife destined for them. Except for Henry. You did beg them to bring him back. She shook her head, imperceptibly and subconsciously at her own thoughts. That’s different. It isn’t his time and we’d just found each other, and I could have loved him.
But isn’t that what Sariel did for you, isn’t that what you asked him to do for Gloria? Another part of her brain asked. Is Gloria dead because of Sariel’s actions or because you brought drug dealers into her world? Love doesn’t disappear when it makes a mistake. We don’t know that Henry didn’t do this to himself, and maybe Sariel is out there right now trying to find you. Maybe he got held up by that demon or he is trapped in Sheol. You can’t make any decisions when you’re this emotional. You should at least hear Sariel’s side.
Did it really matter though? Henry was gone, her mother, brother, and godmother were gone, and the world was ending. No matter how many times it had felt that way in the past, for the first time in her life, she was truly alone. Without further thought, she faced Lilith and nodded with conviction.
“OK, yes. I will stand by you, Lilith. And if we can’t bring Henry back, then at least I will be able to carry Henry’s soul into the afterlife. He deserves peace.”
Lilith smiled.
“When She opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living female saying, ‘Come and see.’ I looked, and beheld, a pale whore. And the name of her was Death, and Enoch followed with her. And the power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with blood-letting, with wanting, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”
While Lilith spoke, Tituba approached them. She carried a dagger in both open palms presenting it to Kenzi who took it hesitantly. Tituba bent in a low bow to Lilith who slipped the rabbit’s foot off the witch’s neck and put it back on her own.
“Has it begun?” she asked.
“It has, my Goddess,” Tituba answered and extended her arm to the window.
Lilith approached it and looked out at whatever was happening outside. Tituba stood, hands clasped in front, waiting for her goddess to give her the next order. Kenzi held the handle of the dagger in her hand where it felt as if it had always been, it had the familiar feel of the foot. She could cut herself with it and it would feel the same. But she had no desire to cut herself anymore, not now that she had made the decision to follow Lilith in her crusade.
“Awck, Awck,” Enoch called to her. Oh yes, Enoch. The bird would be Kenzi’s now. Her eternal companion. It would never leave its new mistress. The bird hopped about wildly, feathers ruffled and wings flapping.
“Come on, E. I’ll take care of you now,” she said bending down to offer it her arm.
She couldn’t help but look once again at the man who, for such a short time, held promise of something better for her. Henry’s face had paled as the effects of gravity pulled his blood away.
“Oh, Henry,” her voice creaked. “If I can’t bring you back, I promise to see to it that your soul finds eternal peace.”
She leaned to kiss him when Enoch pecked hard at Henry’s forehead. She pulled back. Enoch pecked at it again and cocked its head, so a single marble-white eye peered directly into Kenzi’s colorless one. She reached up and touched her own head and then ran her fingers over the scar of her name on her arm. Once more Enoch poked at Henry. His beak left dimples in the dead flesh but did not break it. She touched the divot, resting her finger in the shallow defect. It did not fall deep inside.
Enoch hopped backwards and flapped its wings silently. It seemed pleased at her discovery. She nodded in understanding.
“Go find him,” she whispered.
The bird took off out the door and down the stairs.
“Kenzi, if you have said goodbye to your life as you knew it, come see what my whores have done. See our vengeance on this biased, judgmental world,” Lilith said, never turning away from whatever scene played out on the other side of the glass.
The action on the street outside the cozy suburban family home was nothing Kenzi hadn’t seen before in Barton-McFarland. Granted, she supposed she’d never seen so much violence all at once but maybe this was a gang fight. If this is what Tituba could do, she was no more powerful than a crack whore who didn’t get her five bucks for a blow job.
She jumped when the gunshots began, but again, wasn’t shocked. When the first of the victims fell, however, something new and strange occurred. A black lava-like substance rolled out of him and sort of morphed into tentacles that grew impossibly long and thick like Jack’s magic beans. They climbed up the house closest to the body. As the number of casualties increased releasing more of the crawling goo, the house began to melt beneath them as if maybe it was releasing some acid onto it. In a matter of minutes, the entire structure was gone, the black vines lost their shape and seeped into the dirt left behind. The image of Daisy’s weird disease flashed in her mind. This was the same thing just on a much larger scale.
“There now, see, we are starting over from scratch,” Lilith said. “Soon, when we are through here, and Sariel has been destroyed, this house and all the talismans will be swallowed up by my plague. Very good, Tituba, you’ve done remarkably well. The hysteria is palpable.”
Tituba bowed her head in humble acceptance of praise.
“Now kill her, Kenzi,” Lilith ordered pointing to the black witch.
“What?” Kenzi asked, shocked. Tituba snapped her head back up, eyes wide. She began to chant beneath her breath. Kenzi couldn’t make out any of the words and wasn’t even sure they were English.
“She has served her purpose. Kill her. That is your job now, Kenzi. Silence, Tituba! Your spells won’t work on me and I have no further use for you. Return to the hell from whence you came.”
Tituba’s incessant chanting became insects in Kenzi’s ears, her head, and vibrated in her jaw bone. She couldn’t take much more of it. Like biting on tin foil. She clenched her fists and felt the knife the witch had given her sitting in her hand, waiting to be used.
Kenzi thrust it into the witch’s gut and then her chest and once she started, found she could not stop. Tituba crumpled to the floor. Her blood rushed out to kiss her killer’s feet. It was suddenly freezing in the room. Kenzi shivered, her teeth clattered together. She opened her hand to drop the knife, but it stuck there, clotted to her palm.
Had she sealed her fate just now? Was she Death? Dead herself? No. No, that is not what was supposed to happen. Death was supposed to come save her or to die by her hand. She could not remember. She closed her eyes and took three deep, cleansing breaths. If eternity felt like this, she’d bury that knife in her own heart.
“Kenzi!” Sariel’s voice called.
Opening her eyes, she determined that the voice had not come from inside her head. He was here in this room: The Scribble Man.
Chapter 54: Book of Kenzi 17
Enoch sat on Sariel’s shoulder. The bird had done just as Kenzi asked.
“Ah, Sariel. You do know how to make an entrance,” Lilith said. “And just in time. Kenzi, I believe, is ready to repay the favor you did for her when she was a child.”
“Oh, Kenzi, what have you done?”
“I…” she began but the thing was, she had no idea what she had done or what she was doing. She shook the knife loose from her palm and it skittered across the floor.
“She has pledged herself to me and joins me in my war,” Lilith answered for her.
“And how long before your little war catches the attention of the deities? It’s been no trouble seducing demons or promising mortals the impossible, but what happens if this goes any further? You must stop, Lilith.” He stepped closer to Lilith but turned to face Kenzi. “Forgive me for speaking in your defense, Kenzi.” He spun back to his ex-lover. “How can she be sure serving you will not end in the same way as your other—what are you calling them, whores?”
Lilith leaned into him, their silhouettes were that of lovers about to kiss. Kenzi’s heart threw itself against her chest trying to escape. There was nothing to do but watch. Now that he stood before her—her childhood friend and sometime hero—she knew she would never kill Sariel. It no longer mattered what he’d done, he’d never meant to hurt her. She also knew that she would never serve Lilith. Perhaps once the woman was an innocent victim of inequality, manipulation, and abuses at the hands of The Creator, men, and demons. She’d let her anger destroy her. She bore as much hate and prejudice as The Creator she wanted to dethrone. At this point, there was nothing else for Kenzi to do but trust in fate and act on intuition—it was how she’d survived her whole life and she excelled at it.
“What have you come here for, Sariel? Have you come back to return this to its rightful owner?” She pulled Kenzi’s journal out of Sariel’s belt. A scrap of pink paper, singed at the edges, fell to the ground.
“What? What is this?” Kenzi asked, picking it up. She unfolded it and stared. The picture was signed in a child’s messy scrawl and showed a stick figure waving in front of a long rectangle with circles for wheels. “I gave this to my dad. A long time ago. How did you get it?”
“Why don’t you tell her, Sariel. Tell her how you came upon this picture. Did her father throw it away? Did he burn it? We’re dying to know, Death.” Lilith smiled. Kenzi looked at The Scribble Man with the eyes of her seven-year-old self.
He sighed. “Your father was killed in a car accident. His cab caught fire and I managed to save it for you when I gathered his soul. I was going to tell you, but then Gloria passed, and it was too much for you. Too much all at once.”
“Once again, he determines your life, Kenzi. He decides what is best for you, what you can and cannot know. Is this who you would choose to spend eternity with?” Lilith asked.
“I’m sorry, Kenzi. I’m still learning. After four thousand years, I am still trying to understand mortal feelings. Mine are simpler than that. I know that I belong with you and you with me. I know I want to always keep you safe. I will always be your Scribble Man.”
“They all talk a good game, don’t they, Kenzi. But in the end, they abandon you, they seek to control you. You deserve freedom. You deserve a life that you created. I am the alpha, you, the omega. Together we will recreate this world in our image. You can have that Kenzi.”
The book in her hands grew warm. She leafed through it. The Scribble Man glowed on every page it was written. A red, painful glow similar to the scar he bore of her name. Her words had power too. Perhaps she wrote him into this feeling, confused character. This foolish, child-like man. Maybe she controlled him as much as he did her. Was that possible? Were they linked inexplicably the moment they had first made eye contact? Maybe her life did have a purpose, maybe all this was supposed to happen.
