At his last words, heads began to bob in assent. A low murmur began again, this time with a more positive tone.
The older man turned to face his sons with a quick wink before asking, “Billy, since you’re the one with the big ideas, tell us what we need to do.”
An hour later the main ceremony room, which had been used previously for the sole purposes of hazing new members and holding award dinners, was now cloaked in shadows and candlelight. Billy drew a large and shaking circle in the center of the room with sea salt and chalk, the white grains coarse and spilling everywhere around the uneven white line. Under his breath he read passages from the book in his hand.
“Gonna be hell to clean up,” one of the members of the group murmured and Billy shot the man a murderous glance, but he did not stop his incantations.
When he reached the other end of the circle he stopped, leaving a space roughly a foot wide. He stepped out of the circle and closed it behind him, a string of words and intent focused upon the shape. He turned to face the group, motioning to the ceremonial robes heaped upon a table serving as both altar and supplies holder.
“Put on your robes, gentlemen, then arrange yourselves in a circle around the outside of this circle, please.”
One of the members cleared his throat and with a smirk asked, “Wouldn’t we be safer inside the circle of protection?”
Billy sneered. “It’s not a circle of protection in that sense. It’s a circle of binding. If you prefer to stand inside of it when the demon arrives, by all means, do so. I won’t stop you.”
The gathered men exchanged nervous glances and moved toward the altar. No one spoke as each man donned his robe, and the room was eerily silent as everyone took up his position in the middle of the floor.
Billy stood between the edge of the circle and the altar, a large dagger held over his head as he read once more from the book he had brought with him. His voice echoed across the expanse of the room and seemed to vibrate the very stones of the walls as he spoke the words for all to hear.
Calahan stared at the book and blade and a sudden, intense feeling of dread gripped his insides. He looked around the room at the faces of the men, barely visible beneath their hooded cloaks. The few eyes he did manage to catch a glimpse of looked terrified. The fear in his stomach turned to something worse and unnamable. He turned toward his younger brother, about to request an end to the ceremony, when movement caught his eye.
The room was filled with the scent of roses as a tendril of smoke curled in the center of the circle, growing and shifting as if sentient. It was purest white and took on a shape within seconds, the vapor solidifying into something resembling a cocoon. Calahan and the gathered men gasped as the edges shifted, unfurling, and they realized exactly what they were looking at. It was wings. As the wings parted, a face was revealed, glowing and painfully beautiful. The draft from the opening wings scattered the salt circle as the creature turned to face Billy.
When it caught sight of the dagger in Billy’s upheld hand its face contorted from serene beauty to a rage so horrible it was terrifying to behold. In spite of the fear, all present were powerless to avert their eyes.
“I have summoned you, and I command you, demon!” Billy shouted over the rising din of frightened men.
“Demon?” the creature in the circle howled, “How dare you? Do you not know whom you have summoned?” it asked and its voice shook the assembled men until they felt their ears would bleed and their hearts would explode.
Billy aimed the point of the dagger at the creature and said in a voice choked with terror, “Demon, I command you to tell me your name!”
“I am no demon, child of man. I am an angel, and you will address me as Metatron.”
With a contemptuous glance downward, it stepped through the circle, the tips of its toes scattering the remainder of the salt as it made its way toward the young man. The dagger shook and dropped from Billy’s outstretched hand and he threw the book at the angel in a last ditch effort as he tried to escape. In a single swipe that was almost invisible, the book went flying and Billy stumbled backward. Calahan watched as what he assumed to be Billy’s mouth seemed to open wider and wider, until it was as wide as his staring eyes.
Calahan rushed to his brother, his mind not registering that Billy was already dead. He slipped in the pool of red spreading from his brother’s yawning throat and landed with his face mere inches from the terrified eyes.
“Billy?” he asked and stared from his brother’s face to the blood covering his own hands.
“Leave him, he’s dead, Cal!” his father shouted over the growing commotion of the gathered men running for their lives.
Calahan turned toward the thing wreaking havoc over the terrified men. It was only a few feet from him now, and with a sense of horrible dead calm inside, Calahan reached for the dagger his brother had dropped. He and the angel stared at each other amid the chaos and Metatron cocked its head to the side.
“Do you intend to kill the voice of God?” it asked him.
Calahan struggled to hold onto his sanity as he pointed to Billy’s body. “You killed my brother. You didn’t have to.”
“It was necessary. He knew how to conjure angels. Lesser men would use the knowledge for less noble deeds.”
He watched the angel approaching. It was so beautiful as to be painful to look at, and its voice was like an entire choir of male and female voices in harmony. Its features were androgynous in the most perfect sense of the word, seeming to shift between beautiful man and beautiful woman depending on the light. He felt his heart ache and realized with horror he was in love with the thing. He wanted to bow before it, worship it. Die for it. He shook his head and tried to concentrate.
The noise seemed to have faded during the standoff with the angel. He looked around at the others and they appeared frozen, all eyes focused on the man and the angel. How much time had passed? Metatron took another step toward him and broke him from his daze.
“So you will kill us all then?” Calahan finally asked.
“It must be done for the greater good.”
Its words released the gathered men from their stupor and they began to flee once more. As a member of the congregation tried to run past the angel it reached out and snapped the man’s neck. Calahan frowned and took a step toward it, closing the last of the distance between them.
The angel stared down at him, its face unlined and peaceful but for the blood splattering it like rouge and lipstick. Its chrome-colored eyes were unblinking and Calahan felt his own watering after only a few moments.
“One request from a dead man, then, angel.”
Metatron nodded. “Ask.”
“A kiss.”
Again the angel nodded. Calahan closed his eyes and leaned in on tiptoe to kiss the cold lips. It put up no resistance and did not return the kiss. It was as if he had kissed a statue in a graveyard.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I’m sorry,” Calahan said, bringing the dagger forward.
As he plunged the blade up and into the angel’s chest, aiming for where he assumed its heart to be, there was a look of almost comedic surprise in the angel’s eyes and then Metatron wrapped its arms around him, tearing two long gashes into his back as it howled in pain. He felt the wings close over him as his agony joined that of the angel’s, pulling him closer into an embrace that crushed the breath from his lungs. He felt the world go black, felt the slightest sensation of something so pure and exquisite he feared he would be lost in it if he touched it and then it was gone. The darkness was complete. It was horrible and cold, and it terrified him.
“Where am I?” he cried out, but the words died into total silence as they left his lips.
He saw his brother Billy in that blackness, his dead eyes wide and staring at him. Billy shook his head, raised his hands, and pushed. A force propelled Calahan backward and he felt a sickening reconnection with the suffering of the physical world.
He was reborn in a chok
ing gasp of vomit as he fought against the angelic embrace until at last he could breathe again. His movements were weak as he dragged himself from beneath the angel’s lifeless wings and arms, pulled out the rest of the way by robed men. They surrounded him, their faces contorted with cheers like screams, and he batted at their clawing hands.
A white-haired man hoisted him to his feet and clapped him on the back, causing him to cry out in renewed distress. He fell to the ground and clawed at his back, tearing his tattered clothing away from the burning sensation spanning the entire length of it, trying to escape whatever was causing the pain. Next to him, the old man was saying something, but the ringing in his ears was too loud to make out the words.
He was dragged screaming back toward the angel’s body and posed on the other side of the angel, a spread wing pushed into his shaking, bloodied hands. He squinted against the glare of a sudden flash, a photo taken, and the men surrounding him began to cheer once more. He stared out at the faces, each one filled with bloodlust, then he looked down at the body and felt terror rising into his throat. What the hell had they done?
He was carried on a current of activity too quick to follow, days blurring past one another until at last he found himself standing above an open grave. He stared down into the gaping hole, smelling the fresh earth and feeling the cool draft of the pit. He stared at the new coffin and its unmarred surface waiting to be lowered. The white haired man had paid off the gravediggers to have a moment alone and they had gone to a small stand of trees to smoke cigarettes.
After a signal from the white-haired man the other men of the group, now without their robes, moved quickly across the graveyard. They carried something wrapped in bloody canvas between them, dropping it at the edge of the grave. In complete silence, they lifted the coffin and set it on the other side of the hole.
A hand grasped his, and he stared at the white-haired man as he moved to stand next to him. It was the same man who had pulled him from the angel’s embrace, the same man who had pulled him away from death. The man was talking, and he could make out the words now.
“Shove him in, old boy. Let’s get rid of it before the police start asking questions about the other night.”
“This is wrong,” he told them.
The white-haired man pushed the canvas bundle into the open grave and the other men began to push dirt in on top of it until it was hidden from the casual observer. Still in complete silence, they replaced the coffin on the trusses before gathering to pay their respects to the departed. He stared around at them in horror, but they seemed not to notice.
The gravediggers joined them and lowered the coffin into the hole. There was no ceremony, no real grieving. The group of men wandered away from the gravesite with the words ‘it’s where he would have ended up sooner rather than later’ and ‘it’s for the best’ carrying back on the breeze.
Long after everyone including the white-haired man had left, he remained at the grave. He stared at the hastily carved name, ‘William Robert Calahan’, chipped into the headstone. No dates were included. No final words of who William Robert Calahan was were given.
Hours later the white-haired man returned, accompanied by a woman with red hair. She smiled uncertainly as they approached, lifting the hand not gripped by the old man in greeting.
“Hey, Cal, sorry to hear about Billy.”
“Mmmm.”
“Cherry is here to apologize,” the white-haired man said, giving the woman’s wrist a painful squeeze.
“For what?” he asked.
“That whole misunderstanding with Crowley,” she said, her voice choked with pain as the old man applied more pressure. “I’m real sorry about Billy.”
“Me, too.”
“You all right?” she asked.
“No. This is wrong,” he told her, “We need to fix it.”
The white-haired man dragged her away with an impatient glance backward. He returned alone minutes later with two shovels. As the white-haired man began to dig he watched him with curiosity.
“What are you doing?”
“Help me dig. We don’t have much time,” the old man told him, nodding toward a shovel.
He picked it up and joined in digging. It was easy work, the soil still loose from having been recently excavated. When they were a couple of feet down, the old man excused himself and climbed out of the hole.
“Need a break. I’m not as young as you. What was your name again, son?”
He stared up at the old man and shrugged. “No idea, sir. All I know is we need to tell someone about this. Make it right.”
The white-haired man nodded down at him sympathetically, his face sad. “I had really hoped you would have been back to your old self, Cal. I thought maybe seeing Cherry would have rattled you the right way, but it didn’t and for that I am truly sorry. You understand I can’t have you spilling our secrets to the general public. You know far too much. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
He didn’t have time to consider what the white-haired man was saying. There was a clang of metal on bone across the cemetery and moments later Virgil Calahan, Sr. covered the body of his eldest son in the grave of his youngest son.
***
BEAUTIFUL, BROKEN THINGS
by Rose Blackthorn
He noticed the store-front within the first week of moving into the neighborhood. The broad window was curtained with sheer black hangings and a coral pink neon sign flickered Open over an array of oddities. There was no business name over the mirrored glass door, just a hand painted plaque with a large black crow holding an eyeball in one clawed foot.
The street was filled with little shops, all of them grimy and worn in the ever-present overcast. There were pawnshops, tattoo parlors, adult book stores, and little food stands with two or three tables or a narrow counter with barstools. This was not the best part of town to work in, let alone live, but Trey didn’t have a lot of options. Unless a person had the money to pay for walls and security, this was the best he could get.
“Have you ever gone in?”
Trey started, glancing at the painted girl who stood near him. She had candy-pink hair and wore a white sequined dress that left little of her browned figure to the imagination. “Huh?”
The girl laughed, a tinkling sound that was decidedly out of place. “To the Morrigan’s. Have you ever gone in?”
"No." He looked back across the street, to the wooden sign displaying the crow and eyeball. “What did you call it?”
The girl pulled a case out of the beaded bag dangling from her wrist, opening it to reveal tiny iridescent tablets. She put one under her tongue before returning the case to her bag. “The Morrigan’s.”
“What is it?” Street lights made pools of dingy gold on the dirty pavements up and down the street, and vehicles skimmed past on their silent airfields, sending bits of paper and plastic wrappers scooting along the cracked sidewalks. Trey kept from asking about the tablets. He was clean now. He repeated it as a silent mantra, clean now clean now clean now.
“My name is Nousha,” she said breaking through his inner monologue. “You’re new around here. What’s your name?”
“Trey,” he answered, clean now clean now ran on in the back of his mind.
“The Morrigan's is a magic shop.” Her dark skin shimmered, picking up the yellow of the street lights and magnifying it.
“Like card tricks, sawing someone in half?”
She laughed, more tinkling. “No, not that fake stuff. Real magic. Spells and hexes, love potions and such.”
He stared at her, half hypnotized by the glimmering shifting colors on her skin. “No such thing.”
Nousha shrugged, her bright pink hair like the neon signs along the street. “You could see for yourself. Or not.”
Trey looked back at the dark window with the Open sign stuttering against the glass. Past the glass, behind the sheer black curtains, he thought he could see someone looking back at him. But it could have just been a reflection. Or maybe
he’d caught a partial high off the painted girl’s glittering skin.
A car pulled up and stopped, window opening to reveal a heavy-set man of middle age. He glanced at Trey, then to Nousha. “Feel like a party?” he asked, voice gravelly and low.
“If you’ve got the creds, I’m up for anything,” she said in a sexy purr. She winked at Trey, then got into the car. Her skin picked up the blue and violet lights from the interior, glimmering hyacinth and wisteria before the window slid shut and the car’s airfield whisked it away.
Across the street, the Open sign buzzed and flickered. If anyone had been standing behind the curtain before, they were gone now. Trey felt as though he buzzed and flickered, clean now repeating again and again in the back of his mind. He turned and went down the street to the barred security door, punched in his access code, and went up two flights of dingy stairs to what was now his home.
The light was dim, and the air cool. Water seeped down the near wall, pooling at the base before reaching the nearest drain. Trey noted it on the small digital map he carried, then continued walking along the tracks. Far off in another tunnel, he could hear trains running. Behind him, Jacob hummed tunelessly as he cleared debris away from the tracks.
Who’d have guessed I’d end up here? Trey thought, stopping to examine cracks in the wall and ceiling. Small chunks of concrete had broken away, revealing ancient brickwork beneath. He added additional notes to the map, checking the time when he did so. Two more hours before his shift was done. Then the requisite visit to his parents. He didn’t look forward to it.
After inspecting the remainder of the tunnel, Trey went back to the hub. Jacob trailed him, still humming some unrecognizable song. They washed up and dumped their coveralls in the dirty laundry bin before lining up to swipe their ID cards through the time-clock.
“You hear they might be offering overtime?” Jacob asked, interrupting his own humming. The black geometric tattoos that nearly covered his face made it hard to recognize his expressions. This one appeared to be mild curiosity.
Wrapped in Black: Thirteen Tales of Witches and the Occult Page 10