by Ash Krafton
And she had saved his life. And she held his hand. And she asked him to trust her.
Simon took a deep breath and started telling the story he had never stopped reliving, every day, every fight, every night in his darkest nightmares.
"I was a stupid kid, who grew into a stupid teen ager. I was no different than any other. Loud music. Smokes. Anything to seem cool enough. And there were stories, you know, about Salem and magic, and the bitchin' things you can do with it. Me and my friends, see, we got our hands on some old books. Journeyman's spells. Basic shit."
"How basic?" Her voice was even, non-committable. Non-judgmental.
So far. It was still early on.
He scratched the back of his neck. "Bend to my Will, Fire Starter, that sort of thing. They never thought anything of it, and neither did I, at first. Long after the others forgot about it, I still practiced. I had something inside that was trying to reach out, and magic was the only thing that allowed me to reach in." He held up his hands, fingertips not quite touching. "I needed to make that connection, complete that circuit. So I practiced. I used to do tricks for the kid that lived next door. Sarah was nine, maybe ten. Used to look out her window into mine at night and I'd make something float, or appear in her room. The way she'd laugh—It was a game to her."
"Magic is never a game," Chiara said.
"Yeah, well, tell that to a stupid kid trying to impress a girl. Casey was a year ahead of me in school. Cheerleader. Theatre club. She was the girl every guy would have killed for a single kiss. But she was mine. She wouldn't have given me a second look if I hadn't conjured. That caught her eye. Made her think I was special. Made me think I was special, too. Until she left, for another. He had money. Guess the poor kid with the magic tricks wasn't enough. And the sod that took my place, well. I'd already lost her. He won, him and his fancy car. He didn't have to do what he did."
The memory of the shame he'd endured, the abuse. Five against one was a coward's game, an ambush. He clenched his fists, his teeth so hard the cords in his jaw bulged. And the way she laughed at him the next day in school…
"Well. I wasn't going to let him get away with it. He could have her, the trashy bitch, but he wasn't going to take my self-respect. I showed him who had real power. I went home, I got my book. I went to the park where they hung out, the hoodlums. I opened a circle, I conjured—"
"Oh, no, please say you didn't."
"I did. I was angry. I was beyond angry. And stupid, stupid me hadn't yet learned that a circle drawn in anger can only do one thing."
Her voice was a strangled whisper. "A demon."
"Not just any demon."
Chiara lowered her eyes. "Bal. That's how you knew him."
"You got a real thing for the nicknames, doncha? Well, your buddy Bal, he did the trick, alright. He hunted down that bullying bastard and tore him to shreds right in front of me. And I enjoyed every minute of it. Dick bag deserved it."
"Did he?"
"Back then, he did. And you don't need to try to make me feel bad because I have been paying for it ever since. See, Balazog performed the task he had been summoned to perform, and when he was done, he wanted to be paid for it. And he took his pound of flesh, and all the smiles that went with it—"
"Sarah."
He rubbed his eyes, feeling old, feeling tired.
"He didn't even kill her first. He took her straight back to hell with him, body, soul, life, breath. An eternity of torment for a little girl who never did anything but laugh at my stupid tricks. I tried to fix it. I studied. I apprenticed. I exhausted master after master and I know more dead master mages than there are living ones now. I alienated my friends, my family. They thought I was crazy. Mom had a breakdown when she thought I was ready for the nuthouse. She thought she failed me. All I wanted was to know one thing, how to correct one mistake. But I never learned it. And now what am I but a stupid man, making the same stupid mistakes again and again?"
Chiara just nodded and rested her head on his shoulder.
"That felt too much like a confession," he said.
"Confession, I hear, is good for the soul."
"Then why don't I feel any better?"
She tilted her face up toward his. "Don't you?"
He didn't reply.
"You have carried a lot of guilt for a very long time. Was this the first time you expressed regret? Sorrow? Being angry with yourself, blame—those things aren't contrition. You know you would never make that mistake again. You know deep in your heart that you will never again be that cocky when an innocent life is at stake. You've done your penance. You can heal. And you've also told me everything I need to know to correct this."
"You can't correct this one, love. The demon that has her is too strong."
"He is. But I'm stronger."
"You're not even full demon."
"Thanks for noticing." She grinned at him. "Anyway, I have a little something up my sleeve. You're not the only illusionist, you know. I'm holding all aces."
"You're starting to sound like me. And that's never a good thing. I hope you know what you're doing."
"Of course, I do." She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. "Mostly. I just have to sort the details."
Simon rubbed his mouth. "You have no limits."
"Oh, I have them. I just know where they are. See, people who don't know their limits spend their lived walking in the dark, all cautious, hands out, creeping one slow step at a time. They're too afraid they will come crashing hard against their limitations, like smacking into a wall. If they knew their limits, they'd be like kids in one of those inflatable bounce houses, jumping around like they could just about fly. And if they bounce into a wall, they see it coming, they turn a shoulder, and they realize it's not hard at all. Me, I know my limits. I know exactly how far I can go and I have the freedom of having my entire being available to use."
"Must be nice."
"It is. You'll see what I mean when we get you there."
"Not me." He rolled his head away. "I've gone much too far the way it is. All I want…is to go back."
"We are."
He smiled and squeezed her hand. She didn't know what he'd meant. Didn't matter. He loved her for getting pretty close.
No one had ever been brave enough to even try.
Simon rented a Honda at Logan International Airport and drove to a motel on the edge of Malden, about twenty minutes outside of Boston proper. Not like he planned it. He wasn't even really conscious about doing it. The roads just rolled their way beneath his wheels, the rotaries and the narrow streets that only a New Englander could love. (And, by love, he meant navigate daily without resorting to vehicular homicide.)
The motel was a two-storied stretch of rooms with a triangle-shaped parking lot that made no fricken sense at all. At least Chiara didn't comment on the chain-link fence that ran around the back of the property. Keeping someone out or something in? He had the same doubts.
They both just sort of squinted out the window at it a while before shrugging and getting out. Good a place as any. Wasn't like they would be here forever.
He read a handful of online reviews while they waited for the desk clerk to get off the phone. Non-smoking rooms, huh? He'd see about that.
Last room on the top floor. As private as it got. At least the foot traffic would be minimal. He ground out his smoke on the cement floor outside the door before he unlocked it, sweeping his hand with a gentleman's bow. "Your suite awaits, milady."
"Of course, it does," she said, her voice echoing from within. Odd. Commercial carpeting and ugly bedspreads in cheap motel rooms didn't usually lend itself to echoes. He peered around the doorway.
Her usual palace. Cruddy couch included.
Told you so was all she'd said. He smirked right back at her. See? Non-smoking room, his ass.
"Well, what's the plan?" He slouched on her sofa, blowing a smoke ring, wondering what the neighbors would be able to hear through the walls.
"I don't know. I guess
I just want to see the area. I want to see all the good and beautiful things there are to see." She clasped her hands against her chest, spinning to face him. "You grew up here, didn't you? Give me a tour. Tomorrow is soon enough for everything to go to Hell."
"True enough." His gaze turned vague as he stared at the fire. "Although Hell usually isn't considerate enough to wait."
He intended to take her into Boston for a full-on Liberty Trail tour, men named Ebenezer wearing knicker pants and tricorn hats. Baked beans and Irish pubs and cannoli up in Little Italy. Maybe a harbor or two. The whole nine.
But not Salem. He was immovable on that particular point.
It should have been a straight shot down Broadway but he took the back way to town. Old habits. The back way turned out-of-the-way and the next he knew he was driving down the block upon which St. Berenice stood, the stone fortress of Twelve Steps and Plastic Cutlery. Simon slowed down and slouched in his seat as they passed, trying unsuccessfully not to look at the building.
"You should just pull into the lot," Chiara said. "I know you want to."
Grumbling, he did so, parking close enough to the front door that he heard it slam when someone came out. Sounded different from here on the outside. He glanced up at the windows, wondering if he'd see any of the prisoners. Knowing the building wasn't the prison that held them.
"You've stayed here, haven't you?" Her voice broke his reverie.
"More than once. The first time, it was involuntary. This place used to be a psychiatric hospital. I got to stay in the lock-down wing around back." He waggled his eyebrows. "Criminally insane, so they thought."
"That's awful."
"It was what it was. That mug shot you liked so much? Followed by a stint here at the nut house. Nobody knew demons existed, much less how to summon them. Of course, I was the crazy one. No one believed Hell was actually real. The arcane, the occult...movie shit, nothing more."
"Sanitariums are terrible places," she said. Her expression clouded over like a sudden gust of storm, brooding and ominous. "Those poor wretched people, barely covered in rags, left to starve, preyed upon for the sake of medical advancement. Lobotomies. Relief from their demons, they called it."
She cast a scalding glare at the front door, as if this place were to blame for old injustices. "All a lobotomy ever did was cut off the part of the brain that let me communicate with the demon inside, that human connection that enabled it to listen to me. Lobotomies. A life sentence of possession, that's what they are. Those poor souls were damned once they tapped the spikes into their brain. The demon was contained, but only temporarily. Once the host rotted, the demon would vape out to find another open soul. And the sanitariums were full of them."
"Well." Simon shrugged. He eyed her suspiciously. "This place actually wasn't all that bad. What the hell kind of place were you at?"
"Well, it was a while ago." Her gaze drifted as she tried to think back. "What year is it now?"
"Not going to ask, not going to ask, definitely no way I'm going to ask." He shook his head. She'd dropped enough hints that she'd lived anything but an average mortal lifetime. "I mean, they hardly do lobotomies anymore, and even then most of those are accidental. Anyway, I think the term sanitarium has gone largely out of fashion."
He tapped a cig out of his pack but didn't light it. "Nowadays if you have a demon causing you trouble, they send you to rehab. Unfortunately, I've seen the whole twelve steps list and none of them directly address exorcism. Bah. Useless. They do have spa days, though, cucumber masks and hot stone massage and organic buffets. And Xanax. The Xanax is always good."
"Do you think you'll ever have to come back here?"
Will I ever come back here? Depends on what "here" is. He looked hard at the portico, squinting. "Probably."
"Really?" She sounded disappointed. "Do you want to?"
"Maybe." He rubbed his tattoo, an itch too deep to scratch. There was one "here" he'd never be able to leave, not entirely. "Maybe once they get a program that can actually help."
But, deep down, he knew. No program, no infinite number of steps could ever solve his problem.
All the magic in the work couldn't solve that problem.
Not when magic was the problem.
"Yeah, well. Anyway." Enough was enough. Looking at the windows he used to look out of really didn't do much for his perspective. As long as there was magic, he'd be its slave. End of story. He stretched his arm behind her seat so he could back out. "Idle hands are the devil's playthings. And I don't share my toys. "
They passed the afternoon touring colonial historical sites. Lexington and Concord afforded some distraction without the headache of Boston traffic. As they headed back on the Concord turnpike, she chatted about colonial Boston and Paul Revere and something that sounded more like gossip than historical fact. She was showing her age again.
He gave her the royal treatment and treated her to a frappe on the way back. That was when she really blew his mind. Kid acted like she'd been around forever but she never drank coffee over ice cream? He didn't know if it was the caffeine or the sugar that did it. She seemed so excited, so human. So much like a girl.
And that was how he wanted to think of her: just a moment in the now.
Not as the conglomeration of divinities, the child of an Enochian who banished demons with hell fire and blessed the damned with holy chrism. Not as the thinnest sliver of a mortal who was spliced between the Light and the Dark. Not as the woman who travelled through hell gates.
A last glance at the girl who, for the moment, was simply just a girl. Then he turned off the pike, heading to Belmont. It was time.
He couldn't put it off any longer. This road—hell, all roads—led to only one place: his old neighborhood.
He drove stoically, refusing to really see what was outside the window. He paused at a stop sign, waiting, waiting, waiting. For what? What could change? Nothing ever changed. No matter how many times he went back nothing ever changed.
He hit the gas. Couldn't spend a lifetime at a stop sign.
Halfway down the street, he passed an outdated white house, plain plastered, old shingles. Didn't even have to look at it to know it was there. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white.
Chiara tapped on the window. "Wow. That one is stuck in a time-warp, isn't it? Such a picture-perfect neighborhood, then there's that thing."
"Just like life, huh?" The words slid out on edge, sharper than he meant them to be. "Outside is perfection but there's always a flaw somewhere. Always some blight keeping it from being perfect."
He drove to the end of the block and shifted the car into park. A broad field in need of a good mowing. An empty playground. Swings that rocked with the occasional breeze. Abandoned, desolate, void of the sound of happy children.
Alright, well, it was a school day. But still. Even the dog park was empty.
"This is it. This is where...Sarah was taken." He couldn't make his voice obey. No matter how he tried to sound strong, he could never get her name out without feeling like he had a fist around his throat. "It looks the same. How can it look the same? It's been a lifetime—"
Chiara got out of the car and came around to his side, tapping on the window. "Come on. You didn't come all this way to sit in the car."
He took as deep a breath as he could. Tough thing when the sight of a merry-go-round was enough to make a grown man choke on a sob.
He bit his lips and got out of the car. She linked her arm in his as they walked into the park. He knew she wasn't being cute. She was keeping him from turning tail and running. Concentrating on his feet, he counted the steps. Each one was a miracle.
"Where did it take Sarah?" Her voice was soft.
He pointed without looking up. "There. The merry-go-round. I used to push her round, you know. I can still hear her laughter."
He shrugged away from her and rubbed his head. Her laughter. It echoed through his head, innocent. Menacing. Accusing him. "God, it won't stop."
Chiara grabbed his arms. "Simon. Look at me."
"Make it stop." He whimpered, pouring everything he had into his eyes so she would see it, so she'd believe him, help him. "I just want her back."
"Simon..."
"Give her back!" Grief made his voice ragged and raw. He screamed up at the sky, the universe, the whole bloody lot of Creation, just needing the right one to hear him. "Give her back to me, you bastard!"
She shook him, hard. "Focus on me, Simon. Focus! You have to draw a salt circle, right on the spot where the portal was. Do you remember?"
Did he remember? The laughter in his head snapped off like a switch. His vision cleared. His voice became like a stone dropped into a well. "I'll never forget."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag full of salt. Biting off the corner, he poured it out in a stream, concentrating, murmuring, drawing out a circle.
Chiara walked around it, leaning over to inspect it. She nodded her approval. "Good. Now, I need a spell. Do you know how to open Solomon's Staircase?"
Simon crumpled the empty bag and stuffed it into his pocket. "Oh, you've got to be fricken kidding. A Solomon's Staircase on a salt circle? Do you have any idea…"
His mouth snapped shut while he mentally completed the magical calculations. "You do. You want me to do the one thing that can't be done."
"Why can't it be done?"
"It's a hell gate. You want a mortal man to open a hell gate."
Her gaze shifted. "Not entirely."
"A staircase into Hell."
"Yes..."
"Hell gate."
"No, not the same. Hell builds hell gates. They're trying to get out. To create chaos. Unbalance. That's not what this is. We are fixing a wrong."
"You're rationalizing."
"Can you do it or do I need to find someone else?"
He scratched the side of his head. It was pointless to argue with the kid when she was set on something. There had to be limits, though, right? Just because a girl has an idea in her head doesn't make it a good idea. "You do realize that it's a two-way portal?"