The Devil's Equinox

by John Everson

  The place still holds a veil of power. I felt it before I entered. A dark sadness that hangs in every shadow. The stories of this house must be true. Before I looked at any other rooms, I found the door to the basement and went downstairs. Each creak of the steps gave me pause. It felt as if someone was going to step out of nowhere and try to stop me. But nobody did. The basement was cool and slightly damp; it had that smell of an old house that has not been used in a long time.

  I pulled on a string that was attached to a bare lightbulb mounted on one of the ceiling beams but nothing happened. Still, there was enough light through the dirty glass of the window wells that I could see. There wasn’t a lot left in the basement. A laundry tub stood against one wall, flanked by a washer and dryer set that looked like it was from the fifties. I wondered if they still actually worked. There were a couple of old boxes scattered around and a workbench with a few rusted wrenches and tools hung from the opposite wall.

  Something drew me to the wall behind the staircase. It looked as if it had been made out of quarry rock, all uneven with rough edges. There was an old iron grate latched to the wall. I tried to open it, and at first it wouldn’t budge. But then it gave when I pulled harder, and a screech echoed through the basement that sounded like a coffin opening in one of those old black-and-white movies. I couldn’t help but shiver, but the feeling only lasted a moment. As soon as the door was open, I could feel the mouth of darkness. The center of the thing that I’d felt upstairs as soon as I’d opened the door was here.

  I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight app to look inside. The walls were blackened with soot, but the base had been cleaned of any debris. I could see faint markings on the walls that made me smile. The sisterhood had been here. Nobody else would have thought anything at the half moons carved in the stone, but I knew what it meant .

  The offering symbol.

  This had been the secret hearth. The place where offerings were made. And if the stories were true, there was a relic of power buried here.

  There was an iron ash shovel propped against the wall nearby and I grabbed it, to see if I could test my theory. The base of the fireplace was laid with unmortared bricks. I pressed the edge of the shovel into the widest crack and tried to pry it up. At first, it wouldn’t move and the shovel just popped up with a clang. I kept working at it, until the brick itself began to shift against the others. It lifted about an inch before it got caught, wedged against the brick next to it. I grabbed the edges with my fingers and let it settle back in to be more level, and then lifted again. It came out with a cloud of white dust. And then I could move the ones that had been next to it easily.

  I stacked up a handful of them, and then used the shovel to move the pea gravel that sat below. It only took a minute before I found what I was looking for. My fingers grew icy with every shift of the shovel. When I reached down and actually touched the small ivory shards that hid within the blanket of stone, my hand grew almost white-cold.

  I was touching the bones of a baby that had been hidden beneath the fireplace. This had been the source of the sister’s power who had once lived here. The child’s name had been Carolyn. And her bones were the relic I had come here for.

  I hoped that they could amplify my own magic as they once had for another coven. I smoothed out the gravel and set the bricks back into place before returning upstairs. There were many preparations to make.

  Austin frowned. Regina really did consider herself some kind of witch. And apparently one who was tapped into a much broader network. To Austin, witches were the stuff of Disney movies – old hags who stirred iron cauldrons. He knew that there were modern ones who believed in drawing power from the natural energies of the world, but he’d never paid much attention to that. But the idea of someone burning things on top of the bones of a baby in order to accomplish…what? Cast an actual spell? It sounded ridiculous. But obviously Regina didn’t think so.

  He considered the erotic rituals at Club Equinox. He’d dismissed them as fake trappings to make the whole sex and bondage thing they had going on there feel more like a dark fairy tale. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe the ‘sisterhood’ really were modern witches? And the tattoo that Regina and Brandy both had was the symbol of their coven, more than the symbol of a sex club.

  It was a lot to take in at one in the morning. And not something he could easily bring up to discuss over coffee tomorrow. He could just imagine saying, ‘So, last night I was reading your journal and….’ No, that wasn’t going to fly.

  He set the journal back where he’d found it and finished his glass of milk. Somehow he didn’t think it was going to help him get to sleep tonight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Regina said. Her voice sounded as if it was coming from far away. Austin groaned and shifted, pulling the covers higher over his shoulders. But Regina wasn’t having it. Suddenly all of the covers and sheets slid away, and her hands were on his back, kneading and teasing.

  “You’ve got to go to work,” she said. “I let you sleep an extra fifteen minutes, but you’re going to be late.”

  He rolled over and saw the light in her eyes and the playful glint of her smile. She bent down and kissed him, and a feeling washed over him that took away all of the nervousness and uncertainty that her journal had imparted just a few hours before. Whatever weird shit she was into, she was not some evil wicked witch. She was the woman who had saved him.

  Austin smiled and tried to roll over again.

  “I don’t think so,” Regina said, pouncing on him to hold his back fast to the bed with her weight. “I’ve got something that will wake you up.”

  She shifted her hips against his, with her lips brushing against his neck and ear.

  “That’ll do the trick,” he agreed, reaching around her waist to grab at her rear. But Regina slipped out of his grasp and escaped. She stood by the bed and shook her head. “No time for that. But tonight, if you’re good….”

  He swiped at her, but she eluded his grasp. “Not fair,” he complained. But she disappeared from the room, ending the argument. He reluctantly got out of bed and shambled into the bathroom to get ready to face the day.

  The only upside was that it was Friday. In just a few hours, he’d be done with the hourly cavalcade of work emergencies and free to spend two full days with Ceili and Regina. He couldn’t wait to get to work because of that – the sooner he got through the day, the sooner he could return home. He looked in the mirror in the bathroom and pressed his fingers to the sides of his eyes, pulling the skin until the small wrinkles went away. He was feeling wiped out at the end of the week. Hell, it wasn’t just the week. The past few months had not been kind. It should not be a shock that his eyes were looking tired and saggy.

  Austin shook his head. He didn’t need to start looking old yet. He was barely thirty years old. He looked down and saw one of the little incense bags that Regina had begun leaving all around the house. There was one tied to the bed behind his pillow, and one at the foot of Ceili’s bed. He picked it up and held it to his nose, taking a deep breath. There was a hint of lavender in the fragrance, and something more earthy too. Regina said the bags were there to soak up bad harmonies. Or harmonics. Something like that. He didn’t care really. They had a decent scent and she put them in ornate little drawstring bags that reminded him of the kind of things you got expensive but tiny gifts in.

  Whatever Regina wanted to put around the house, he was okay with. He breathed it in again, and the scent brought a smile to his face. He had to admit that every time he smelled one, his whole body relaxed. The scent reminded him of the warm smell of Regina’s hair when he buried his face in her neck. The thought made him smile, and he set the bag down. He needed to get himself ready and out of here.

  * * *

  Regina waited until she heard the garage door creak closed and then she went upstairs. There were things she had t
o do before tonight. Things to prepare.

  She went first to the master bathroom, pulled the sundress over her head and dropped it to the floor. Naked, she then knelt down next to the toilet. Anyone watching might have thought she was about to be sick. But a moment later, she lifted a curly black hair from the floor and smiled.

  That was step one.

  She set the hair on the white counter next to the sink and then went to the closet to retrieve a satchel that she’d left there with the things she’d need. It included a number of items she’d gathered from Austin, as well as other supplies. She reached inside and removed a small box of sculptor’s clay. She opened it and cut the square into thirds, before rolling a chunk of the clay between her hands until it warmed. When it was easily pliable, she quickly crafted a crude human figure from it.

  She pressed the pubic hair she’d rescued from the floor into the appropriate anatomy of the clay figure. She then pulled a hair from Austin’s hairbrush and smooshed it into the clay of the figure’s head. Then she opened a small plastic case that once had housed makeup. Now, it held a thin yellow sponge. Austin drooled in his sleep, she’d discovered. Which made it pretty easy to harvest saliva without his knowing. She mopped the damp sponge across the face of the clay figure, and then removed another small case from her bag. This one also held a sponge; however, the yellow was smudged in red.

  It was amazing what you could do with a razor when someone was deep asleep. The thinnest slice on the back or arm, and the sleeper didn’t feel it, at least not enough to wake up. Maybe their dream suddenly changed and in the dream they got a paper cut to echo what was going on in the real world… but they didn’t wake up. The night she’d gotten this harvest, Austin had stirred slightly when the edge of the blade had touched his arm, but then his breathing had grown deep again as she’d held the sponge to the tiny cut.

  The next day, he’d probably assumed that he’d scratched himself with a fingernail in his sleep.

  Regina rubbed the sponge across the body of the clay figure, anointing it with Austin’s blood. As she did, she spoke the words of a joining spell:

  “His blood is mine

  His kiss is mine

  His head is mine

  His love is mine.”

  She held the doll up to her lips and pressed her tongue to it. Then she pulled a needle from her bag, and pricked a finger. She pressed the dot of blood that emerged to the center of the doll’s chest.

  “What I say to you, I say to him.

  What I tell you to do, he will do.

  His heart now bound in blood to my heart.

  His will now bound in a kiss to mine.”

  She whispered the words over and over like the prayers of a Rosary. With each repetition, she held the clay figure to a different part of her body. Her lips. Her breasts. Her sex.

  When she was through, she held the doll up to her face, and said softly, “Tonight, you will continue your training. You won’t question me. You will enjoy every moment as it comes. And there will be many moments that come….”

  * * *

  The one predictable thing about being in marketing is that there is always an emergency. Something broke on the news that needs to be countered with some well-placed PR. A competitor touts some new feature that must be answered before their spin erodes market share. Someone in the product development team forgot to plan for a convention banner or flyer or postcard or wants to know why the thirteenth email in a series of product promotions hasn’t gone out yet. Demanding personalities. Internal politics. External tsunamis. It was an hourly sap on the psyche, but it was his life.

  He loved the challenges and thrived on the creativity needed to bull through every tempest in a teacup that someone else’s poor planning created. But at the same time, every day he turned on his computer, he wondered why he hadn’t followed his dream, packed up his car on the last day of college and driven west. He had always wanted to try his hand at screenplays. If he’d gotten a tiny apartment near L.A., he could have focused his time and energy on one of his own dreams, instead of constantly having to find ways to meet someone else’s. His life would have been so different to what it was now.

  Whine of the working man, he chastised himself, just as Bernie walked into his office. The head of the finance team reminded him of Drew Carey – he was a burly guy with a balding head and retro glasses with thick black plastic frames. He took a deep breath before almost every sentence he spoke; Bernie always sounded as if he’d just run up the stairs. But Austin knew better. Bernie never ran anywhere.

  “I need the Las Vegas conference brochure on the street next week,” Bernie said after a moment. “Are you going to hit that?”

  Austin nodded. “Already hit. It went to press on Wednesday. The mailing house should have it on their schedule on Monday. This time next week, people will be reading all about how much fun they could have with us in Vegas.”

  Bernie betrayed a hint of surprise, but then covered it with a smile. He’d clearly hoped to rub Austin’s face in a missed deadline, and instead, the marketing manager was ahead of the game for once.

  “What are you up to this weekend?” Bernie asked, switching the subject since he couldn’t crucify Austin on a missed marketing step

  “Just hanging out with Ceili and Regina,” he said.

  “Regina, huh?” Bernie asked. “Is that the girl you said you met in a bar? Because, well, I know how those kinds of things go. But do you really expect me to believe that she didn’t wake up the next day, take one look at you and bolt? I can just see her the morning after, slapping her head and asking what the hell they put in her drinks.”

  “Very nice,” Austin said. “But luckily for me, not the way it happened at all. Regina is funny and sexy and amazing and I can’t wait until five p.m. today to get back to her.”

  Bernie shook his head. “I’m not buying it. You’re making her up. She’s a figment of your imagination. No girl that good could fall for the likes of you.”

  “Don’t you have numbers to crush?” Austin asked. “Quit trying to crush my balls.”

  The big man snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve got forecasts to finish today. Maybe I’ll call a budget meeting at four-thirty today once I’ve gotten through them.”

  “They don’t call you Bernie Buzzkill for nothing,” Austin said.

  The finance director grinned with shark teeth. He took the nickname as a source of pride. “The summer outing is coming up in a couple weeks. You’d better bring this Regina to it. I want to see what delusional looks like in the flesh.”

  “Ha ha,” Austin said. He resisted saying any more. If Bernie could only have seen them at Club Equinox last week he’d have choked….

  * * *

  Luckily, Bernie did not call a four-thirty meeting and ruin everyone’s weekend, so Austin was happy when he walked into the house from the garage. He had been singing along to a Green Day song in the car, and now the track was stuck in his head.

  Regina was on the couch with her journal as Ceili slept in a baby seat perched on a blanket in the middle of the family room floor.

  “How was your day?” she asked, looking up from the book.

  He shrugged. “The most important thing is that it’s over. What would you like to do tonight to celebrate?”

  Regina grinned. “I had a feeling you’d want to do something, so I asked Brandy to come over tonight at seven. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  “You have to ask?” She shook her head. “It’s Friday night; do you know where your sexy, satanic friends are hiding?”

  “So, Club Equinox it is,” he said with a grin. “Do I have to wear a blindfold still?”

  She nodded. “But once we get you fully initiated, we can drop it. So…maybe tonight we can move that process along?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.
Depends what they want me to do. And what the membership fee is?”

  “Worry not,” she said. “If you watch Ceili, I’ll go get ready.”

  Austin looked at the baby, who was strapped into her baby seat and dozing with a pacifier in her mouth.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem,” he said with a grin.

  “Just give me five minutes,” she said, and disappeared up the stairs.

  Austin sat back on the couch and stretched with an audible yawn. It had been a helluva week, and he was definitely ready for some relaxation. He wasn’t sure if a club was really what he needed, but….

  He smiled as he watched Ceili breathing slowly. Every now and then one of her eyes would start to open, and then she’d suck harder on the pacifier only to have the eye close again. He wanted to lift her up and hold her, but he didn’t want to wake her either. So he stretched and sunk deeper into the couch. As he did, Regina’s ‘little black book’ slid down from where she’d set it on the middle cushion to touch his thigh.

  Austin pushed it back up to the center of the cushion, but after glancing at the stairs to make sure Regina wasn’t in sight, he flipped it open.

  Her familiar script covered the page he’d flipped to. It was dated quite a while ago. Austin leaned over to read it closer. She was writing about rituals.

  I finished reading the Elysian text today, which was enlightening on a lot of levels. I wasn’t allowed to remove it from the rare book room at the university library, so I’ve had to go back and forth for the past few days to go through it. I took a lot of notes. I’ll copy them here over the next few days, so that I’ve documented it all in one place. It’s amazing to me that an ancient book of rituals like this is locked up in a library special collection versus being hidden in a secret drawer in some witch’s desk. It seems far too precious – and underground – to be in a public collection.

  The text was written almost six hundred years ago now, so it was difficult to decipher some of it with the language differences. There was a lot of description of the basics – using candles poured with the blood of an innocent when trying to set a protection ward. Using the hair and fluids of a body to secretly bind it to your will. Or, most powerfully, using the bones of an infant in a circle to establish a ward that can repel almost anything. The power that can be divined from a child’s bones is actually an entire chapter of the text, which, naturally, was one of the parts I was most interested in. They used to keep the skulls in their pockets, because if you inserted your fingers in the eyeholes and invoked the child’s spirit, you could instantly triple the intensity of any spell you cast. Apparently, the covens of old used to pulverize the rest of the bones of innocents once they were sacrificed, in order to stretch the amount of protection they could glean from the children as far as possible. They’d sell ‘baby powder’ in small bags in the black market – and it wasn’t the kind of powder that you put on diaper rash. I wish I’d been alive back then to visit one of those markets. So many rare and strange things!