by Will Carver
I may have been too late to meet with Lily Kane, but I am not too late to save her. To ensure her soul can be liberated. These are the ceremonies I perform every day, people come to me wanting to learn and perform a love spell, a wealth and weal spell, an employment spell or fertility spell. But not everyone knows how to ask to be healed, not everyone knows they may be protected or have their energy raised. These are the people I must locate and help.
I light a candle and speak again. ‘At the end of that darkness comes light. And when it arrives we will celebrate once more.’ I shut my eyes and open my heart out to this unfortunate creature before me, hoping that she is not in darkness now, that my ceremony is bringing her closer to a light, so that she may celebrate and embrace the cycle of life and death. So that her essence is not damned from whatever ritual came before mine.
In order for this to work, I must wait for the candle to die out naturally, eventually releasing her. There cannot be an interruption of this otherwise she will fall to the place her killer intended her to go. But I cannot wait around here and make myself culpable. Conventional law cannot be applied to this situation because this is not a conventional crime.
There is no point in calling the police or an ambulance, her body is dead, only her soul can be rescued now. That is my job. Balance. Equilibrium.
A couple walk their Collie through the green but the dog doesn’t sense the evil that I feel so strongly. It must be working. Every person is oblivious to this. They do not see me.
I leave her. Nothing more can be done. Nobody knows I was here, that I have saved her. This is my calling. I feel it. As long as the candle remains alight, allowing for a natural burn out, my work is done. I am helping.
But all of my meditation, the circles I cast, the hand-fastenings, the healing ceremonies, they make no difference.
There is no redemption.
I am not protected.
I save no one.
V
THEY WILL NEVER know that it was me, and that’s fine. I’m not a serial killer. I don’t wake up in the morning with an urge for malevolence. I don’t have a hunger for malice against others. I do not crave the recognition for the things I am doing or will do in the future.
This is all part of a larger plan.
If I can just do this, there is something in return. I will be rewarded.
So, when I open the morning paper after my run and read the headline, I am not upset that one person in this hugely populated capital city has perished. I can’t get upset about that, it was my doing; what I do get annoyed with is the report of tampering.
Somebody touched the body after I was finished.
Someone is interfering with me getting my family back.
I went to the crossroads. I buried the box with my photo, the earth, the silver piece. I summoned him. And I made the deal. It was up to me, only me, to do something to reunite us. It had to be my soul that was sold. It had to be me who committed these acts. This is the only way we can all be together.
And I won’t let anyone stand in the way of my quest or the only god who would help me.
The article in the newspaper mentions certain items found at the crime scene, namely a circle of salt and a candle. The journalist refers to it as ‘Halloween paraphernalia’. This writer believes that it is probably insignificant to the case and was more than likely left in the area by forgetful trick-or-treaters. It is significant for me.
There is no mention of the symbol that I left.
There is no reference to Lily Kane’s deathly genuflection.
There appears to be more of a story in the items that this writer, and the police, allegedly, have determined as extraneous.
So, as I recover from my morning run, the one part of my old life as Sammael Abbadon, the aspect of my character that fools those around me into believing I am the same person I have always been, I pray to the Lord. Not for guidance or help but to ensure this does not affect our agreement. To ask whether I should be looking further into this and if I have permission to eradicate the problem.
My Lord answers. The agreement remains; whatever occurred after I had finished my work made no difference. It should be seen as a positive, now I have anonymity. But I do not have to act on it yet. I must stick to the job at hand.
There is a little way to go.
Yule
December 2008
Celeste
I RUN TO the top of the steps outside the National Gallery after realising I am in the wrong location to save the next person. Totty Fahey. V’s second victim. This gives me the vantage point over Trafalgar Square to spot anything unsavoury and abnormal.
‘There he is,’ I say to myself. I’m not referring to the victim but the slender man with his back to me heading towards Totty Fahey. The one with the black aura.
I see what he is about to do. I am already taking the blame for his decisions.
I’m frozen. With fear or self-preservation, I’m not sure. But my inaction results in a private showing of V’s second culling. I watch in silence as he effortlessly slides the sharp blade through the broken heart of the old man who instantly drops to his final kneeling position. Others laugh or converse at the action around them, whether the man on the plinth reading a broadsheet aloud or the idiot behind me spouting biblical drivel; but nobody cares enough to see an elderly man gasping his final breath, hidden in plain sight.
As though some lives are less worthy than others.
I bolt down the steps, jumping the last four. I must be quick but also not draw attention to myself, so I have to dodge people, sidestepping my way to the centre stone where Totty is now alone. Silently exsanguinating; draining of blood.
Not fighting.
The killer is now as invisible as his own victim. Only I am left.
He is the darkness and I am the light.
At first I drop down to my knees behind him, wrap my arms around his frail chest and place my hands over his wounded heart, but it has been irreparable for years. It’s almost like he has resigned himself to death. Like maybe he wants to go.
He gives up before I do.
I move around to the front of him and physically restrain my own emotions. His eyes are still open and somehow, even though no tears are evident, he looks to be crying. His expression shows nothing, but his eyes speak a word to me.
Finally.
I spit on the floor and rub at the chalk symbol the killer left behind. Erasing evidence again. Not helping myself. I lay down my cloth, a twig of holly that will eventually blow away and a silver candle holder that will ensure the elements do not affect the flame. I recite a Yule mantra that I hope will keep Totty in the light as long as it takes to ensure he is rescued.
I finish the ritual on the man I believe to be dead and stretch upright.
‘Pats?’ he asks quietly, not spluttering but almost managing a smile, like he has seen something.
I drop back down to his level, perplexed at why he was chosen for this. I want to touch his face but my hands are covered in his blood. I move my face close to his and respond. ‘Soon, sir. Very soon.’
But January David unknowingly ensures that the killer will get his way; that another will be condemned.
That Totty doesn’t get to be with his Pats again.
V
THE LOOK IN the eyes of Lily Kane, the first person I ever killed, will live with me for ever.
First, her unsure scrunch of the eyes as she focused on the man she saw in the church earlier. Then her smile of recognition and advancing steps to greet me. Then the utter shock and disorientation as I pounded my fist against her trachea, her hands immediately reaching to the front of her neck in a futile attempt to uncollapse it, leaving her cancerous stomach uncovered, inviting my knife into it. Her eyes widening in the trauma yet showing no fear.
I can’t witness that again.
The old man stands out. Every other person stares up at the plinth to applaud or condemn the artistic merit of a man reading current affairs aloud. The old man
, Totty Fahey, as I will find out, looks across at the kids climbing the bronze lions; he peers up at Nelson’s Column and I grip him from behind, locking his arms to his side and jabbing my blade through his chest. It does not slide through as easily as it did into Lily’s stomach so it isn’t until my third attempt that I pierce through to the heart.
He puts up less of a struggle than Lily did and I tell myself that he wants to go, that I am doing him a favour. It makes it easier to twist the knife as I lower him, an almost dead weight already, to the concrete slab below our feet.
I’m helping you, old man.
Don’t fight me.
He doesn’t.
I tell myself that nobody really minds when old people die.
At the fountain I take the tin out of my inside pocket, wedge it into a nook at the edge of the water as there is nowhere on this crossroads to bury it, and call upon my Lord to inform him that I have carried out his wish.
Just as I will do after each kill.
Exactly as I did the night I first called on him for help.
‘NIISO! bagile avavago gohon. NIISO! bagile mamao siaionu, od mabezoda IAD oi asa-momare poilape.’ I mutter these words looking down into the water, the Enochian Key which refers to the emergence of a Satanic age; my eyes are closed, my voice inaudible to those around me.
I continue, ‘Appear. To the terror of the Earth and the comfort of those who are prepared.’ And we speak. I know that everything is going according to the plan; my work so far is pleasing. It is not supposed to be easy to do these things but they prove worthiness. Half of me does not want to.
My Lord informs me that a reward is due for the work I have done so far, I will see my wife again, but that I should also be prepared for another test at any moment.
Every day without my family is a test; every time he asks me to kill another person it is a test; every time I open the newspaper to find that someone is tampering with my work and may negatively affect my ultimate goal … that is a test. Having my family back is the final reward; until then, I believe the Lord is sending Gail to me.
But, of course, this is also his test.
Imbolc
February 2009
Celeste
V HAS TAKEN two lives already. I have saved them. Everything is in balance.
He chooses these dates despite the fact he is not a part of this faith; this is not his way of life. He purposely sullies my beliefs.
And his own newly adopted half-ideology.
Imbolc is the women’s festival, so it makes sense for this killer to set his sights on another woman for this occasion. This is the time for creativity, of the poets and their ideas. It is a time for us to whisper our secrets and our wishes.
I whisper to Brighid.
The secret of my abilities.
That I wish to save people.
Before they die.
I watch Talitha Palladino slump to her knees and I know I am too late again. He is behind her but his face is shielded by shadow as he utters his last words into her ear. I throw the strap to my bag over my head instead of having it rest on my shoulder, to make it more secure, so that I can run. In this split second, the killer has gone. Leaving his third victim in a position of prayer, waiting for me to salvage her spirit.
I arrive at the body out of breath – still more breath than Talitha Palladino; adrenalin courses through me to make my heart beat faster – still less adrenalin than Talitha Palladino; my heart still beats slower than Talitha Palladino’s. Drawn in the ground in front of her soapbox is a pentagram not too dissimilar from the one containing Baphomet, the Sabbatic Goat, that will keep me trapped in a cell until the end. I rub at it with my feet until the earth is flat and symbol-free. January David will never link it to Satanism.
Behind her a triangle has been crafted into the mud just as it had been for Totty Fahey, although his was upside down and represented water; this is the correct way and illustrates fire. I kick dirt into the miniature trenches that make the three adjoining lines and erase more of his work.
Performing my ritual, I am saddened to be here so late again. I cannot save her life, only her afterlife. How did nobody see this? Why do they not see me? How does the murderer make himself invisible? What strange power does he have? I ask myself these questions completely unaware that the killer is still here; he is always here talking with his God when I begin my healing ceremony.
Somehow, for now, I am invisible to him too.
He never looks back because he cannot face what he has done.
I walk away, leaving the girl on her knees, thinking I have saved her. But Mother Nature turns her back on me today. An imbalance is caused that rocks the purgatorial third victim, casting her into the fire. But all believers in a higher being will, at some point, be tested or let down by that in which they put their faith. It is how we deal with the situation and the disappointment on our own that defines us.
The good will forgive as they expect to be forgiven.
The desperate will find something to fill the void.
In his despair, V turns to a faith which he manipulates for his own self-interest; he doesn’t fully understand it. In their own anguish, the victims, unknowingly, turn to V. In the middle, I stand, to save them all from hell.
Ostara
March 2009
V
THEY THINK THEY are getting closer after Talitha, but they have no idea what they are looking for. I hear them speaking; I stay in the cathedral to listen.
At the end of the row of pews, I kneel in front of a gated altar, speaking to my former God, taunting him, telling him that he has the power to stop these things if he will just speak with me. But I have conditioned myself to know that he will not enter into a dialogue when he is wrong; when he lets terrible things happen to innocent people.
The detectives do not want to disturb anyone worshipping in the cathedral, so I am left alone, much like the horde of parishioners in the chapel next to me who are oblivious to the scene that unfolds inside their house of worship. They continue blindly rejoicing a God that does not care and will not listen.
I smile to myself as I think this. Nobody can see my face as my back is turned in fake prayer. Nobody can see me as I walk right past them to complete my ritual. The perfect veil is openness.
The detective they all listen to, January David, is not my nemesis. We have no connection. There is no competition between us. He cannot feel my presence. He will not see me, until I want him to see me.
For all his hard work, he is doing nothing to get in the way of my plans.
It is only Celeste.
And I stayed while she interfered. I was here with her.
I wanted so much to turn around, to see the face of my enemy. As the bell rang to my right, there was a chant behind my back, in the chapel where I left Graham White; the moment I realise it is a woman. I could have finished things there, gone in behind her just as I did with the man she thinks she is saving. I could have slit her throat or severed her spine or punctured a kidney. But my Lord listens to me so I must listen to him.
I am not here to question.
I do not disobey the one who will bring me my family.
I think I hear the detectives leave, so I stand from my false prayer, metaphorically spitting on the altar. January David and the overweight detective are at the back of the church, passing the corner where the votive candles live. I head the same way, following them so that I can eavesdrop their thoughts on the case. I also want to see what my tormentor has done to interfere with my work.
As I look left into the chapel, one detective remains, standing behind the body, talking to somebody on his mobile phone.
‘Yes. I got the phone,’ I hear him say. ‘Sir, it doesn’t show any signs of voodoo. I think January is right about this.’ He continues to talk to his superior, his back turned towards me so he doesn’t know I am here. I am the only one around. I take a look at Graham’s body flopped on the marble, my symbols nowhere to be seen.
She
is trying to delete me.
‘He doesn’t think there’s anything in the Satanic angle; I think it’s worth looking into, still. I can do that, sir. He seems to be playing this by the book, though.’ He turns around and sees me staring into his space. He looks directly at me, the man who killed the person who is heaped on the floor below where he stands, not comprehending that he is closer to the truth than January David.
He twitches his head to his left, ushering me to move along. There is nothing to see here.
‘Of course, sir. I should really go. He is outside with Paulson now and that woman. I …’ He waits for the voice at the other end to finish and his eyes follow me out. ‘Very well,’ he ends, and hangs up.
I stop just before the exit and pretend to read an article on the wall about the Archbishop of Southwark and something else about the venerable Mary Potter. The detective passes behind me, forgetting who he has seen, preoccupied with his involvement in the debrief outside with his partners.
When I step outside, January David, the portly detective and the other one are huddled in a triangle; smoke streams out from one of the sides. A woman has joined them this time but I dare not look at her. I walk within a couple of feet of each of them, an arm’s length, as I arc round to a plant pot against the wall nearest to the crossroads.
I hear them rejoice at their brilliance and how they are finally getting somewhere on this case, then I block them out to summon my Lord. We talk only a short distance from the gaggle of detectives, but only I can see the Lord.
Because I believe.
He tells me that I am doing well, that tonight I should indulge myself.
I think about Gail and whether this means her.
I should be thinking about my wife.
My Lord lies that the next will be the last; that I am to carry on the way I am.