When I opened the door, no one was there.
The hallway was thin, the ceiling low, the ship slightly titled at an angle; I could feel the unevenness in my steps. I crept slowly down the hall toward the end where a series of steps awaited.
When I came upon them, I noticed above me the hatchway had already been lifted. I heard the shuffling of feet on the upper floor and laughter as voices slipped past. I went to put one foot on the first step and then heard a noise behind me.
It was the rat from Ronan’s room. It sat in the hallway on its back legs, the cracker wedged in its tiny human-like paws. I was in no mood to hold a conversation with an animal and so I took that step up, intent on seeing what the second floor of the ship looked like from the top of the stair.
The rat squealed and I turned swiftly. The cracker fell in slow motion to the floor, breaking into several crumbling pieces. I heard the sound of bones crushing. I saw bloody muscle, tissue and tendon stretch and pop between a set of perfect pearly-whites. The rat’s body squirmed and twitched before falling limp. The corpse hit the floor with a plop.
The little girl seemed only hungry for the head.
“You must be Sophia.” I was shit-your-pants nervous, alone in the hallway with an imp that had a bad reputation and clearly bad eating habits.
Sophia wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. She wore a yellow dress and little black loafers. Her hair was done up in perfect blond curls. She tilted her head, smiling. Blood glistened on her teeth and on her gums.
“I’m Norman.”
Sophia cracked her neck. There was a faint crazed look in her eye, though the smile did its job to help distract from it.
“Sophia Ana-Lula-Desderii Medishini,” she introduced.
“And it’s alright if I call you Sophia?”
“Absolutely not, you big buffoon.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’ll call me Sophia Ana-Lula-Desderii Medishini, or you’ll not call me anything at all.”
I chewed on the inside of my mouth, nervously. The itch was returning, but that nuisance would have to wait.
“I’m kidding!” the little girl laughed. “I don’t really care what you call me as long as you pay me.”
“Pay you for what?”
“To get you inside the fortress, of course,” she said with an eerie, confident grin.
I didn’t trust the adorable smile, or the precious golden curls, or the big brown doe eyes that reminded me of Bambi. My instincts were running rampant.
The imp named Sophia made a slight movement forward and instantly I was on my guard. My eyes grew wide and alert, my heart skipped about six beats in my chest and my hands came up as if to push my way through a crowd.
Sophia clicked her tongue and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Maybe we should go to Ronan’s room,” I said, cautiously stepping off the stair. “Tsaeb’ll start wondering if I bailed on him, and—”
“Tsaeb,” said Sophia, “is just one of them Sin Demons and ain’t nothing to worry about.”
“You know him?”
“Nah,” she answered, shaking her head and curling her upper lip. “I just know. I could smell his stink before he stepped on this ship. Don’t like them. Never have. They get on my nerves.”
Sophia began to skip up and down the hallway. Her curls bouncing against her back and shoulders. Her smile was sweet and bright, her full set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth (minus the blood) shone in the passing shadows. As she skipped, her little black loafers tapped against the wooden floor, back and forth. She stopped directly in front of me and I pressed my back defensively against the wall.
“My price,” Sophia began, “is nothing less than getting me the hell out of Big Creek.” Her voice was stern and unforgiving, and her face began to reveal some of the evil that hid behind her peaches-n-cream skin. “You buy me from Ronan, become my new Master until I do what you need me to do, and then you set me free.” She leaned in closer, grabbing the tail of my shirt. “Fail to get Ronan to agree and I’ll rip your spine from the back of your neck and keep you alive long enough to let you watch me eat it.”
She pulled away and was the smiling, skipping Sophia again.
I swallowed hard and forgot what saliva felt like in my mouth.
“Sooophia!” shouted Ronan from the door of his room at the other end of the hall.
She stopped and turned to me again. “Got it?”
I nodded, as I had no choice but to agree. She left me standing there for a long, tense minute and then I followed her back to Ronan’s room.
“Hi there,” Sophia said, grinning at Morris. “Did yah come to see me? I missed yah!”
Morris, visibly shaken, pressed himself against the window as though he would find a way to fit through it if he had to.
“Leave him alone,” demanded Ronan.
“You’re such a square,” Sophia said.
I stood in the doorway, arms heavy at my sides, a secretive fear controlling every movement I made. Tsaeb noticed right away and he watched me closely, at the same time, keeping his eyes on the imp who he was certain had everything to do with the way I was acting.
We’ve got a problem. I wanted to say the words aloud to Tsaeb, but he knew by my stone-like expression.
Ronan wobbled on his wooden legs toward Sophia and grabbed her by the collar of her frilly yellow and bloodstained dress. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled and callously shoved her into the chair I had occupied before, next to Tsaeb who snarled over at her with a look of disapproval.
“Jealous?” Sophia smirked.
“Why would I be jealous of you?”
Tsaeb was jealous. He sucked it up, pushed out his chest, crossed his arms and raised his chin to Sophia’s eye-level.
Sophia turned away, bored, yet satisfied she had already succeeded in getting under the competition’s skin.
“My dear friend, Morris McAlister,” Ronan began, “stopped visiting about six months ago when my imp here strung him up by his ankles and started skinning him alive—he’ll always have the scars.”
Tsaeb and I jerked our heads simultaneously toward Sophia.
“I had only just bought her a few days before, and Morris, like most who meet her for the first time, thought she was just an innocent little girl. I was out hunting when it happened, and when I returned I could hear Morris screaming like a woman all the way from Little Cove just through the forest there.
“I paid far too much for her,” Ronan added, “but the gypsies have never been known to give refunds. I sure went looking for one, I’ll tell you what, I sure did! But the gypsies had already left Fiedel City. Last I heard they were heading to Bastia.”
“Can you make her leave?” asked Morris, trembling and barely able to look at the imp that wore the adorable skin of a little girl.
“Of course.”
Ronan made a movement with his hand toward the door, which I moved away from quickly. Sophia growled, gritted her teeth and then stood. Before she left, she glared at Tsaeb and then puckered her lips and made a smooching sound at Morris. At the door, she stopped and looked over at me. Only I could see her face. I knew without words exactly what that nasty look of hers meant.
She skipped out of the room, the sound of her loafers clicking down the hallway and fading as she turned the corner.
“I’d say you definitely got gypped,” said Tsaeb.
“What did you buy her for anyway?” I asked. I had started scratching again, though the itch was still only mild for now. “It just seems she’s more dangerous than she’d be helpful. Are all imps like her?” The thought sent a shiver up my spine.
“Dangerous, sure. Helpful, certainly. And no, most of em’ aren’t half bad.” Ronan pulled the sooty glass globe off the base of the lantern near the window and began wiping the soot with the fabric of his robe. “For her Master, an imp can’t refuse any order and she can’t harm him. Since the alligator gnawed off my legs, it’s not as easy to get around anymore. F
or someone like me, a slave imp is perfect! She cooks, cleans, organizes, guards, runs errands and kills if I need her to. Ha! Yesterday I had her clipping my toenails!”
“But you don’t have any feet,” I said.
“Ah! I guess you caught me in a lie, but you get the idea.”
Ronan rubbed the globe with his fingers, admiring the spotless shine and then he placed it carefully back over the dancing flame.
“Morris hates her,” said Morris.
“Don’t you ever worry about her turning on you?” I crossed my legs tight so that the fabric of my slacks would rub against the itch and scratch it for me.
“You mean like having a wild animal for a pet?” Ronan glanced at Tsaeb and smirked. Then he pressed his bottom against the edge of the table where the lantern sat burning. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I’ll never have to worry about that as long as Lilith keeps her word.”
My curiosity grew.
“Lilith made a deal with the people of Creation,” Ronan began, “that she would bind her imps to us as our slaves for as long as we harvest the souls of the New Dead for her. The imps help protect us, if one can afford an imp, that is. They don’t come cheap.”
I hated to hear that.
“Lilith,” I said, “as in the first wife of Adam?”
Ronan and Morris looked at me as if I had gone mad.
“No!” said Morris. “Bah! Adam would never!”
“No man in his right mind would willingly take her as his wife,” said Ronan, “and I doubt any man in his wrong mind would even.”
“She’s the daughter of Eve and Lucifer,” Tsaeb said so casually.
“Eve and Lucifer?”
“Eve and Lucifer,” Tsaeb mocked me.
“But...that doesn’t make any sense....”
“Why not?” said Ronan. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Norman,” Tsaeb said, looking at me sternly, “the people of Creation aren’t familiar with the beliefs of outsiders.”
I caught on.
“It’s such an old story,” Ronan added, “probably hundreds of thousands of years old—there’s a book on it.”
Of course, there’s always a book. I faintly rolled my eyes.
Ronan wobbled toward me. “I never did get you outsiders. It’s like you people—what’s the Outside like? Is it really true that if one of us tries to go there that our flesh’ll scorch right off our bones and our souls’ll be lost for eternity?”
“Uh, well,” I glanced at Tsaeb, “I really don’t know. Sorry.”
“Ah, well it’s no big deal,” said Ronan. “Just thought I’d ask. Not often I get the chance.”
“Will you tell me about Eve and Lucifer?” I said.
“Sure, but let me tell you over dinner.”
“Thou shalt not gamble, lest he get more than he bargained for.”
--
THE DINING HALL WAS magnificent with twenty massive tables and dozens of twelve-tiered chandeliers. So much food that I thought I could die. I stuffed myself until I could eat and drink no more.
Amanda never cooked anything like this, and she knew her way around the kitchen like any chef, but no, not like this. No one had anything on the cooks in Big Creek.
The wicked imp, Sophia, had been ordered to sit at the opposite end of the table, far away from Morris McAlister. Old Ronan did whatever he could to make his friend feel comfortable. Sophia’s presence was unsettling; almost enough to ruin my meal, the way she stared at me across the rows of food. The look in her eyes, the threats she mouthed when Ronan wasn’t looking.
I was going to have to bargain with Ronan soon.
“Lucifer did more than tempt Eve so long ago in the Garden of Eden,” Ronan explained over a plate of pork chops. “He seduced her after she and Adam were banished from the Garden. Eve gave birth to Lilitu, later named Lilith by her father, Lucifer. Lilith corrupted Adam, the First son of God. Adam, under her influence, bedded Lilith and gave her twins, a son and a daughter, who became the first of the incubi and succubi.
“Lilith was the First daughter of Lucifer. The Finality. The completion of the task that began with Eve, who ultimately bridged the way between Good and Evil, allowing Evil to corrupt Good, to taint it and influence it, to take on its forms so that it could eventually dominate it.”
By this time, the nearby conversations had silenced and many eyes were on Old Ronan, who told the story like a man that had dedicated his life to it.
“We believe that Lucifer was killed by his daughter, Lilith, making her the only ageless being in Creation. She feared that if there was anyone else living that took youth and beauty from the Well of Immortality, that eventually there would be no more and she would inevitably wither and die.”
I knew that Lucifer was alive.
“What makes you believe that Lucifer is dead?” I said.
“No one has ever seen him,” Ronan answered, “no one living in the past thousand years or so anyway. Also, Lilith claims to have killed him: ‘I took his eyes, rendering him powerless to see the world of Creation. I took his eyes.’ Those were Lilith’s words, written in the Book of Lilitu.”
“But what does that have to do with death?”
“In Creation, to lose one’s Sight is to die.”
A flash of Charla’s death jumped up in my thoughts. The water that splashed in my eyes. The blinding light that I could not fully see but knew was there. Charla’s body burning. It suddenly occurred to me that Charla clawed at her eyes during her death, that even though her flesh charred, flaked and smoked, it was the eyes that mattered and nothing else.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, I thought to myself.
“Well,” I began aloud, “what is Lilith to you and to Creation?” I rubbed my chin. “And why would you trust the word of anyone that sends assassins to kill the queen that you protect? Sounds like a trick to me.”
“We’re certain it’s a trick,” Ronan said. “Part of her grand scheme.”
“Yep,” added Morris, “it’s a trick alright, but we ain’t goin’ into it all blind.”
“Morris is right,” said Ronan. “We take advantage of it because for now it suits us, but we’ll be ready for it when the gist is up.”
Tsaeb stuffed his face with the last of his pumpernickel bread and then said with his mouth full, “And to answer...your first question,” he paused to swallow, “Lilith is the embodiment of Evil to some and a goddess to others. Nuff’ said.” He buried a fork into a bowl of pasta.
“Tell me more about this book, the Book of Lilitu.”
All Ronan had to say about the book was that Lilith’s scribes wrote it and had been writing it since her birth. Ronan had never seen the actual book. There were duplicates, though not many. Ronan possessed one of them. After we left the dining hall and went back to Ronan’s room, he showed it to me. The book did no good, written in some ancient language that I could not understand.
As the day wore on, Ronan and I bid Morris McAlister a farewell. He had stayed in Big Creek long enough and wanted to get back home to his ugly wife who would be a welcome sight after having to see the imp that tried to skin him alive. But before his long overdue departure, I had an unintentional heart-to-heart with Morris McAlister, which turned out to be rather informative.
According to Morris, outsiders like me rarely come to Creation. He had only known two others in his lifetime. One was murdered by one of the many assassins that lurked about the city. Anyone in Creation, especially Fiedel City where the fortress stood, could be an assassin. They come clothed in the garb of average people; some were once average folk influenced by those that want the queens dead, becoming assassins themselves. I began to understand, though had a feeling before, why I couldn’t get into the fortress easily. I was on the side of those who protected the queen. I was the person from the Outside that came to do precisely what the people of Fiedel City and most of Creation, wanted. I was the man that the queen would want to see. I was the one the people had been waiting for, f
or thousands of years. But to prove one is that person had never been an easy thing to do.
Tsaeb, a sin demon, was aiding me. He was helping me to do exactly the opposite of what would be expected of a creature like himself. And he worked for the Devil, of all the dark and godless beings in the world. What was going on? Why would Tsaeb or the Devil want to help me succeed in something that had any kind of good, God-like result?
Am I making a mistake? Am I a pawn for the Devil in one of his twisted schemes against God? Haunted by these thoughts, I began to think I was working against God and that eventually there would be hell to pay. But nothing made sense anymore, not that any of it made sense to begin with. Now things were deeper and more confusing. Possibilities did not match up. Contradictions were aplenty. Mysteries had begun to multiply. Old stories had been proven and refuted.
“You’ll know when you get in to see the queen,” said Tsaeb.
“And what if I don’t make it in? What if they kill me on the spot and I die a man that worked for the Devil?”
Tsaeb lowered his eyes, and the way he had nothing mocking or cruel to say in answer puzzled me.
“Well?” I demanded.
Tsaeb looked up and said with unnatural sincerity, “You’re working for Lucifer, yes, but not against God.”
Without another word, Tsaeb left the room Old Ronan had given us for the night, even though we had no intention in staying much longer. We needed to be on our way, Tsaeb and me with my temporary new slave, Sophia, by our side.
I had to do it, I had to bargain with Ronan and get it over with and I worried it was not going to be an easy thing to do. But if I had to offer things I did not have, make promises I could not keep, I would.
“Can I speak with you?” I said, standing in the doorway of Old Ronan’s room.
The night slowly flooded the valley, the sky blue and black. No sun. No moon. Just the atmosphere in its transition from twilight to night, and without the sun, Ronan’s room was a dark place once more. Candles helped give the room light, at least six of them placed about in warm puddles of dripping wax.
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