7 Souls

by Barnabas Miller; Jordan Orlando

  This isn’t a good idea, Mary thought as she snapped the locks open, returning her keys to her—Dylan’s—jeans pocket. This isn’t a good idea at all.

  But it couldn’t be helped. She had to bring Dylan here.

  “Your mom’s probably home,” Dylan whispered in the silence. Mary flicked on the overhead light, leading him over the warped wooden floorboards. He’s been here before, Mary remembered. Many, many times—when he was just Scruffy Dylan and I wasn’t paying any attention.

  As Dylan walked directly over the spot on the floor where he would end up lying in a spreading pool of his own blood, Mary felt a wave of fear and anxiety pass over her. We shouldn’t be here—this is a big mistake, she told herself again. We need to run.

  But there was something else she needed to do too.

  “Come on,” Mary whispered, pulling him by the wrist, down the apartment’s narrow corridor, past the kitchen and bathroom—to the third bedroom door.

  Dad’s study.

  This was the room Morton Shayne had used as an office. His actual place of work, where he saw patients, had been across town, in a shared office that he’d split with a couple of other psychotherapists, but this was where he always did his real work, studying cases and writing articles for journals. Nobody went in except Dad—and since he’d died, nobody ever went in there at all.

  But that’s not true, Mary reminded herself as she took a deep breath and turned the old glass doorknob and pushed the door open. It creaked against the warped floor and dust cascaded down through the overhead corridor light. Ellen comes in here. Ellen comes in here all the time.

  The moment the door was open, the stale corridor air was flooded with that smell—the most familiar and most melancholy aroma in the world; one that Mary had known her entire life, that permeated her oldest, deepest memories of life as a little girl, of the strange, bright world of early childhood that was gone forever.

  The smell of her father’s tobacco—his beloved Borkum Riff pipe tobacco.

  The tobacco aroma was all over the note she’d found in Dylan’s pocket—it was so pungent, so unmistakable that she’d picked up the scent even before she brought the paper to her nose. Now, stepping forward into the pitch black of her father’s study, that same aroma, blended with the smells of old books, mildew and stale air, was flooding her nostrils, filling her with nostalgia and sadness and dread.

  “Here’s the light,” Dylan whispered, finding a switch and snapping on the overhead bulb.

  The room was tiny, with a narrow window that looked out on the same air shaft Mary’s window did. The room was nearly filled by a gigantic oak desk, which was covered in stacks of papers and books and an old, brass gooseneck lamp. The computer was gone. (Mom sold it, Mary remembered. The only time she dealt with this room at all.) The walls held rows of pictures: of Dad’s college days at Swarthmore, of himself and Mom when they were a young couple, of the baby girls in strollers being pushed down Riverside Drive. Morton Shayne’s Columbia PhD and his therapist’s license were proudly framed on the other wall. Mary remembered everything about the room, even though she hadn’t set foot in here for ten years.

  But Ellen had. The floor was littered with what were obviously Ellen’s belongings; there was a David Bowie CD that could not possibly have belonged to Morton Shayne, who had only liked classical music. There were several of Ellen’s schoolbooks on the desk, Mary saw now, along with a worn paperback of The Fellowship of the Ring and two or three empty Diet Coke cans in the rusted wire wastebasket.

  “Mary?” Dylan said quietly, making her jump. “Why are we here?”

  “Have you ever been in here?”

  “No. I mean—” Dylan still sounded dazed. “I don’t think so. No. Probably not.”

  Make up your mind, Mary thought, still so intoxicated with the overwhelming pipe-tobacco aroma that she almost imagined she could smell her father. The sorrow and grief that she had avoided so carefully was threatening to drown her. Make up your mind, because we’ve got to go. Again Mary remembered the blood on the floor. This isn’t a safe place to be.

  “Look at this,” Dylan said, picking up a book from a shelf on the desk.

  The book was old, threadbare: a jacketless hardcover that must have been published decades ago. It was bound in what must at one time have been a luxurious purple cloth binding but had deteriorated over the years to a fuzzy-edged, pale remnant of itself. The spine and cover were bare, except for a partially worn away inlaid gold symbol. The symbol was a stylized, asymmetrical almond-shaped eye.

  Dylan carefully swung the book’s cover open.

  The frontispiece was blank. No publisher’s mark, no copyright date—nothing.

  “What is it?” Mary couldn’t decipher Dylan’s expression. He kept turning the yellowed pages, which were ornamented with vertical columns of small drawn figures, ghostly shapes printed in fading ink. The book was so old that the frail, smooth pages were coming loose from the binding. Mary leaned closer as Dylan traced his finger along the drawings.

  “Khetti Satha Shemsu,” Dylan murmured, pointing at the symbols. “I actually recognize that.”

  “What do you mean, you recognize it? How can you possibly—”

  “It’s what I do,” Dylan explained. “Languages, and linguistic history—it’s going to be my major.”

  “So what kind of symbols are those?”

  “Hieroglyphics,” Dylan told her, flicking on the desk lamp and moving the book under its weak glow. Mary stared at the strange sideways figures—men or women (it was impossible to tell which) with odd clothes and headgear, surrounded by inexplicable, precisely drawn icons. “Egyptian hieroglyphics—from ancient Egypt. From, like, three thousand years ago.”

  “Is the whole book—”

  “There’s stuff in English, too.” Dylan showed her, flipping ahead in the book. Most of its pages were murky gray illustrations of sheets of hieroglyphics, interspersed with dense passages of English text. “It’s some kind of facsimile edition of … Look.” He showed her the thin, reedy typography on the book’s title page:

  MAGICKS & INCANTATIONS OF HORUS THE SON OF TNAHSIT.

  Being a Full and Complete REPRODUCTION of Papyrus Rolls of 2600 B.C., the Tomb of Senneferi Notes & Translations by the Hon. Sir Frederick Hollead, LONDON, 1858.

  “What the hell?” Mary flinched as a yellowed corner of the book’s title page flaked off in her hand. “What is this?”

  “A book of spells,” Dylan marveled, his scruffy hair hanging in his eyes. “An ancient book of spells. It must have been, like, a roll of papyrus that got mummified, preserved, from, um, from some kind of archaeological dig somewhere … and, like, restored and copied in the nineteenth century, when all those tombs got opened.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “There’s a marked page,” Dylan murmured, frowning in concentration. “Look.”

  A yellow and white plastic New York City Transit Authority MetroCard was jammed between the book’s pages. Dylan flipped the fragile pages forward and opened the book wide.

  THE CURSE OF 7 SOULS

  The Highest Servants of the Ancient Magick believed that Man contains seven souls. In mockery of their foolish beliefs, Horus the Son of Tnahsit perfected a vengeful curse to smite enemies with the terrible power of this mystical Number. The Ritual must be obeyed exactly: The Spell-Caster utters the Incantation before an Unclothed Victim Slumbering beneath an open Southern sky, who upon awakening is given an Amulet of Tnahsit as a Keepsake. The Spell-Caster chooses seven Minions, the seven Men and Women who most despise the Victim, and summons them with a written Invocation Marked with a Token of Tnahsit’s eye. [Translated Incantation and Invocation Reproduced below.—F.H.] The Spell-Caster commands the Minions to bring forth their own Hatred and Wrathful Anger in the torture and punishment of the Victim. If, by the time of one Passing of the Sun, the Curse of 7 Souls reaches its full fruition and the Victim lies Dead, then the Victim’s suffering will continue in the afterlife as he revisi
ts the Ba of all 7 Minions, experiencing both the Pain he has caused them, and all of their vengeful Ire. The Soul of the Victim then scatters to Oblivion, unless the Victim has achieved Enlightenment and is reborn as an Akh, or new Soul, so finding a new vessel, or Ka, on Earth. Whatever the fate of the Victim’s Soul, when the day is done, the Minions will forget all that they have done in Service of the Curse: their Vengeance shall be complete, and so their memories shall be clean, and no trace of Horus’s Magick will remain upon the Earth. Horus ends the Curse with a warning: The Spell-Caster has only one day to fulfill his murderous desires, for if the Victim still lives after a day has passed, then the Spell Expires, and all shall be forgotten.

  Mary realized she’d collapsed into her father’s leather-covered desk chair while she was reading. She was staring at the page of the book like it was the only thing she could see, the only thing anyone could see, in the entire world.

  The Curse of 7 Souls, she thought weakly. I’ve been cursed.

  Of course she believed it all, without the slightest hesitation. All her doubt was gone—left behind somewhere around the time she’d come back from the dead and watched her friends plot against her—participated in the master plan that Horus’s ancient spell had somehow actually conjured out of the air. She didn’t have any doubt left.

  I’m not hallucinating; I’m not dreaming; I’m not crazy, she reminded herself again. And this all makes sense.

  “Ellen cast the spell,” Mary whispered. She was crying, but she couldn’t feel it—she only knew because the tears were blurring and stinging her eyes. She didn’t feel anything at all. “Ellen cast the spell on me. She”—Mary looked up at Dylan, but she couldn’t see anything through the tears—“she hates me. Hated me, like you all hate me—and she did something about it. She did this.”

  “Are you sure? What about the amulet?” Dylan objected. “Did you ever get anything like an amulet from Ellen? It says she had to give you some—”

  “It was Ellen!” Mary sobbed, wiping her eyes. Dylan’s hand was on her shoulder and she wanted to grab it and clutch at him, wailing in self-pity and sadness and remorse, but she was too numb to move. “Didn’t you read what it says? The note with the eye on it! Your amnesia! My own sister wanted me dead because she hates me so much!”

  “Wait,” Dylan murmured. He leaned his shaggy head closer to the book, peering intently at the murky hieroglyphics. He tapped his finger against a group of symbols so faded and small that Mary could barely make them out. “Wait—this is wrong. Jesus, this is wrong. Ellen needs to see this—”

  Boom! Boom! There was a loud banging on the apartment’s front door.

  Dylan jumped—his whole body tensed. His finger stabbed against the fragile book, and the illustrated page he’d been examining tore free of the binding. He grabbed Mary’s hand. She grabbed back, pressing against him.

  “Stay here,” Dylan told her. “I’ll deal with it.”

  No, no, no—

  There was no way she was going to let him do that. It was beginning to occur to Mary that she’d made another mistake, that she’d messed up again and that the consequences were going to be very bad. Too much time in this room, she scolded herself as the banging on the front door repeated. Too much curiosity when Dylan was right all along, we should be RUNNING—

  “Don’t go out there,” she told Dylan, clinging to him. “Please don’t go out there.”

  “Just stay right here,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”

  Dylan was gently prying her hands away. His attention was still on the torn-out page of Horus’s book, and whatever strong impression its tiny symbols had made on him; he brought the page with him as he circled the desk and moved toward the study door. Mary watched him leave the room that she’d avoided entering for ten years, on his way to do the heroic male thing and answer the door.

  “No!” Mary called out as she sprinted after him, tripping over one of Dad’s stacks of old books and nearly toppling to the floor, correcting her balance and stumbling out into the corridor just as Dylan opened the front door. A deafening explosion filled Mary’s head like a grenade going off. Dylan was propelled backward, flipping in the air like a drop-kicked action figure and landing on his back on the floor. The gunshot had been deafeningly loud—Mary heard a distant scream from another apartment. Bright scarlet blood was spreading out of Dylan. Released from his hand, the page of Horus’s book drifted gently to the floor like a falling leaf.

  Dylan screamed. The agony in his voice was terrifying.

  Mary spun on her heel and ran down the corridor in a blind panic. Dylan was still screaming behind her as she slammed against her own bedroom door, propelled herself inside and then slammed and locked the door.

  She could hear footsteps, entering the apartment, walking closer.

  “Oh, Jesus—oh, God, it fucking hurts—”

  Dylan, screaming.

  Standing at her bedroom door, trembling with panic like an animal on a busy highway, Mary suddenly noticed something—an object on the floor.

  A package wrapped in purple paper.

  Ellen’s gift.

  Stooping, Mary picked it up, tore off the paper and uncovered a small tarnished gold necklace. The pendant was a crude carving of an almond-shaped eye.

  The eye of Tnahsit.

  My amulet.

  It was all true, then. She’d known it already, but this confirmed it. She made sure I received the eye as a gift, Mary thought. To complete the curse.

  Mary leaned against the door and listened as the footsteps approached—slow, measured steps on the creaking floorboards, getting closer and closer.

  What do I do now? Mary looked around the small bedroom, panicking. What the hell do I do now?

  A fist was banging on her bedroom door.

  Then she heard a familiar voice—a weak soprano.

  “I’ve called the cops!”

  What?

  Mary recognized the voice—her own mother’s.

  She woke up, Mary realized. She’d forgotten all about her mother, but of course Mom was here, in her bedroom, probably having locked the door herself.

  “Whoever you are, the cops are coming! I called nine-one-one!”

  Good for you, Mom, Mary thought, impressed. Outside the bedroom door, the creaking floorboards made their noises again: whoever was out there was leaving. Mary could hear the footsteps hurrying away. Then the front door slammed.

  Well done, Mom, Mary thought. She hadn’t realized how overcome with sheer terror she’d been until the door closed and she felt safer. Having an assailant with a gun right on the other side of her door had been so terrifying that Mary wasn’t sure she could deal with anything more.

  But you don’t have much to deal with now, she told herself weakly, as Dylan continued to scream and sob and Mary stumbled back against her own bed and fell down along it, overcome with weakness and fear. It’s almost over.

  So I have to get it right.

  She was sure of that—it was the one thing she was sure of as a familiar haze began to flood her senses and her eyes fixed on the blinding glare of the room’s overhead lights.

  I’ve got a chance to make this right—just barely.

  She was trying to concentrate as the world filled again with pale whiteness, and the bedroom and Dylan’s moans and the glare expanded into a silent inferno of blinding light.

  5

  PATRICK

  SHE COULDN’T SEE—THE air was white and thick. The smell hit her, immediately—cigarettes and pot smoke and booze and sugar, all mixed together into a swill that conjured up every party she’d ever been to or thrown up at or had to clean up. A hissing sound, like a punctured tire, was coming from her right hand, and when she cleared her eyes and looked down, she saw that she was holding an aerosol can and spraying something wet and black onto the wall in front of her.

  It happened again, Mary thought, noting the rasping, boozy taste in her mouth and the itching of her stylish clothes against her tall male body. Her dea
d spirit (or whatever you wanted to call it) had moved somewhere else, occupying another of the seven souls by means of whom Mary had been cursed.

  I’m Trick.

  It was obvious even as Mary’s surroundings came into focus: she was in the living room of Patrick’s suite at the Peninsula Hotel, after the end of the party. The room was quiet—that particular, eerie hotel silence that Mary recognized well from the many afternoons and evenings she’d spent here.

  The suite looked totally empty. The smoke was clearing, though it lingered near the wall, where she was standing. The party was over; the guests were long gone. Glancing at Trick’s left wrist, Mary saw that his steel TAG Heuer read a few minutes to two (and the blackness outside the window confirmed that that meant two A.M.).

  Her hand—Patrick’s hand—was holding a spray can that said KRYLON; Mary realized that she—Patrick—was spray-painting the wall. She was adding a large black spot to the end of the word GOODBYE.

  I saw this before, Mary realized, shuddering slightly at the memory of her final moments on earth. I came in here and saw the room like this—looking around now, gazing through Patrick’s eyes, Mary could see the floor’s entire expanse covered in party trash—and this word was spray-painted on the wall.

  But it had never occurred to her that Patrick had painted it.

  Why? Why would Patrick trash his own hotel room? It was such a sweet room, as he always said; the arrangement with the hotel meant he could basically stay there forever without—

  (such a sweet room)

  —worrying about the consequences. Mary just couldn’t imagine Trick vandalizing his own room. It didn’t make any sense, but something about that phrase was stirring a memory in a way she’d come to recognize.

  (such a sweet room)

  SUCH A SWEET ROOM; such a beautiful room. Everyone who came in here, no matter how jaded, always took an involuntary deep breath as they looked around. A decorator had done it all, back in the early nineties; like the rest of the Dawes apartment, it had ended up as a glossy spread in a magazine. The red walls, the enormous handmade child’s bed, the bay window facing the park—all of it was perfect, delightful.