***
Scarlett slept in a hospital bed with a fluid drip in her arm, hollowed under her eyes where her cheekbones jutted. Harvey paced in the hallway outside while doctors rattled off symptoms, shrugging at the causes. He watched her sleep the first few hours, waiting for her color to return, her coughing to subside. Wiping the blood from her chin, he listened to another doctor explain the blood-work they were running and the tests they were still waiting on. Harvey didn’t bother to ask about his own raw-meat throat and snake-bone guts. He already knew the answer.
At eight o’clock he left, sparing Scarlett a last glance from the doorway, and made his way back to Black Heaven one more time. The doorman was gone when he arrived, the front door locked. He pounded at it, yanking the heavy handle but no one answered or came to help. Harvey screamed and finally sagged against the wall. When he heard music he flinched, turning to find a slit of red light painting the alleyway beside the club. He followed around the corner to find a cocktail waitress standing outside a side door, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey. Hey, c’mere,” Harvey shouted at the girl as he quickly approached. “I need to talk to your boss.”
The waitress drew her cigarette away. “Yeah?” Her mouth opened in an O and a tiny scorpion slithered out in a stream of smoke. Two more followed. “About what?”
Harvey stopped short. The scorpions crawled over the girl’s cheek and into her sloppy blonde bun. Another appeared from under her miniskirt and apron to play in the holes in her fishnet stockings. She smirked and took another drag.
“What’s the matter, man? You look like shit.”
At that Harvey retreated, back around the corner to his car parked on the street. Behind him the waitress just laughed as scorpions scattered across her back and arms, down her legs to the tips of her pointed black heels. That night Harvey didn’t sleep, alone in his bed with his belly of snakes. In the morning he would go back to Scarlett again, knowing there was nothing he could do to save her.
***
Ms. O was waiting in the chair by Scarlett’s bed as she slept, a crisp white envelope resting on the side table. It had her name on it, Ms. Scarlett McHale. Folding her hands in her lap, Ms. O smiled broadly at Harvey. For it, Harvey’s stomach dropped. He closed the door behind him.
“I heard you came looking for me.”
“I needed to see you again.”
“We already talked about that, Harvey. No backsies.”
“Please, don’t. Don’t make a deal with her.”
“I haven’t done anything yet. This is just an invitation. What she chooses to do with it is entirely up to her, champ.”
He sank into the chair she had placed opposite of her, uselessly wringing his hands. “What have you done to us? You’re killing her – you see that, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “You did this all by yourself. What you did made both of you sick, kid. And this?” She held up the invite. “This is how me and baby sis both get what we want.”
“What?”
“You don’t know?” Ms. O sat back. “You didn’t just put snakes in her belly – she’s pregnant. Well, she will be very soon, anyway. Then when she comes to me to take care of that little abortion of yours, I’ll wager her soul on the deal, and I’ll have the both of you.”
Harvey shook his head. “No. No, no, no.”
“That’s what you wanted, right? A little mated pair, Big Brother and Baby Sis?”
“Take me.”
Ms. O chuckled. “That’s part of the plan, yeah.”
“No. Take me but leave her out of this.”
“That’s not how this works. You promised to give me what I asked for when the time came. I’m asking for your ever-lasting.”
“I saw your club, the people you have working there. You own them, right? The girl with the scorpions? Make me like her.”
“I don’t need any more waitresses.”
“Then put me in sales.”
She smirked. “Sales?”
“That’s what I do. You know that. I can find more people like me to give to people like you.”
Ms. O pursed her lips thoughtfully. “And then, what? I just let Scarlett go?”
“You keep whatever’s inside her and you take me instead. She doesn’t know what happened, not ever.” Harvey leaned forward. “She lives.”
After a moment, so did Ms. O. “And in her place, you work for me. No backsies, no double-dealing. You work for me and you are grateful every morning you wake up with your skin still attached to your meat.”
Swallowing, he nodded. “Okay.”
Leaning away, she smiled. “Okay.”
The sudden pain that overtook Harvey was intense, a blinding shock that put him on the floor in a scream. Ms. O stood, circling around him, watching him writhe as the snakes rattled and hissed inside him. From the bed Scarlett coughed violently in her sleep, heaving the contents of her stomach in dozens of thrashing, wriggling snakes.
They slipped from the bed to pour over Harvey and into his mouth, down his throat to his belly where they burst between ribs and meat, sinew and fat, slithering from one new wound to the other crisscrossing his trunk. He screamed but no one heard; if they did no one came to help as the snakes overwhelmed him, making him into something less than a man.
When it was over, Harvey stared at the ceiling, bleeding and his belly full. Ms. O crouched over him, giving his cheek a soft pat. Scarlett slept. The demon smiled.
“Let’s get to work.”
P Is For Phartouche
The Blade
Colleen Anderson
The blade’s edge had been the last element in its making. Once sharper than the eye of the king’s archer, it was now a pitted, scarred embarrassment of deeds. Not all of those deeds had been noble, though done by the hand of nobility. It had felt the soft parting of flesh against it many times. Flesh sweet and succulent, like the pears and peaches of the royal orchards. Flesh as scarred and worn as it now was, toughened by sun and calluses. Flesh so young and lacking the adventures of life that it had melted like butter before the blade’s heat.
But a blade whether old or new does not think or really feel, unless it is imbued with a certain sentience. What is a blade to do when its awareness is awakened in the fires of its forging but never quelled with age or damage? The reason for its characteristics had been nebulous at best. Why would a sword need such awareness if it could not act independently, or could not influence others?
Its owner was dead, and the shine long gone from the blade. Of the three emeralds that had graced its hilt only one remained and it was cracked, its facets marred. The blade itself was broken at the tip, nicked from hitting and biting into armor and bone. All it tasted now was the bitter tang of rust and the dirt it lay in, next to the bones of the last that had held it.
But a blade with an intellect must think and therefore plan no matter how long it rests encrusted with grime and lichen. The first chime of sound, the laugh of young flesh vibrated the still strong metal. The tang quivered deep within the pommel and as footsteps rumbled the ground beneath the sword it mustered energy to flare brilliance through that fractured gem.
Power, it still had though much of it slumbered. The child’s breath caught and as hands warmed the metal the blade vibrated keenly at the first touch of human flesh in so long. Energy fired through the minute folds of ores that had made its character. Surging molten purpose caused the sword to sing out and the child to gasp as its grip tightened around the hilt. The blade had once moved at the direction of the wielder, had supported the other’s will. Now at long last it would be the shaper, and wield the mortal weapon that it now owned.
The child struggled to raise the ancient blade, grasped in both hands, nearly as tall as it was. While the forging of the flesh had just begun the sword felt the purpose as the child cried out, “I will be great! They will know my name everywhere!”
And thus it was done, a pact made as old as the naming of things, the will of the wielder and the will
of the sword would twine and be hammered into a weapon of great potency. But even a blade whose sole purpose is to thrust, stab and cut, even one that holds the essence of power knows that its might is only as great as the skills of its wielder. Gender mattered not to a metal of the earth. Intent was everything and this young being had a core so hot with vengeance that any blade could be formed anew in that furnace.
The blade had always communicated with its owner through the vibrations of air and earth. It heard, it tasted and it talked in its way with hums, trembles, shivers of energy, singing as it sliced into flesh and fulfilled its need. It could also see, of a sort, through the gems that had graced its hilt. But one fractured green jewel gave it a hazy view of the world.
At first the child lived as a wild thing, hiding in thickets and caves, filching and foraging for mushrooms, berries, a rare egg. The blade was too heavy for the child to do more than drag it behind and learn to lift it with both hands. But as the child grew and learned to hold the weapon, so it strengthened its muscles, directing its hand, vibrating wildly when the stance or hold jeopardized the strike, humming contentedly when a swing was right. Their first targets were only twigs and trees and effigies made of moss and grass. The child was diligent in practice and the first true kill was a bear that came upon them. The sword, still too heavy to wield properly, was still a weapon and the child managed to prop it up, holding steady as the bear charged and impaled itself.
The blood coursed over the blade, filling nicks and pits along the surface, causing a deep vibrational moan that brought a gasp from the child. “You are alive…”
With gentle coaxing and images sent in symbiotic resonance with the wielder, the blade aided the instruction. They skinned the coarse black fur from the beast and smoked the meat to hold them over. Spring had brought warmth and a carpet of colors so the child hid the blade and brought the fur to a local market where a furrier paid a good price. With that first coin the child bought food, a cape and a small emerald for one of the other settings on the sword’s hilt.
The warrior steel hummed as the world grew a little clearer and imprinted the image of a clear crystal for the pommel in the child’s mind. With such a stone it would be stronger for seeing the world about it. In the meantime they trained. A sword’s life can be very long if cared for and patience was one of its virtues, though hungers can run the length of it as well. While it longed for the din of battle and to feel its way into flesh, it bided its time in helping the child learn to wield it.
As they worked it learned the child’s name was Jezaleen and it whispered its name along her flesh; Phartouche, an old tongue of long ago, the meaning obscured though something near to, by the will, it is made. It remembered each of its owners and the wills that had driven them. The first had been honed by power and a need to devour everything, the second by hate, and the third by valor, to save those hurt unjustly. It had not cared as long as its purpose was met.
So they spent long years of practice, Jezaleen growing tall and lean as a heron, never forgetting her promise, always asking in each town of news of raiders and armies. She would find them but she whispered to the blade that she must be able to defeat them. She was not ready yet but followed their trails of mayhem and broken bodies.
Phartouche tasted human flesh again one night when they’d been resting in the woods off a mountain trail. Jezaleen dozed before the embers of the fire, the sword across her lap. Phartouche felt the tremor of soft footsteps first and sent a shiver through the pommel that awoke Jezaleen. She stood in a crouch and pushed soil over the embers, moving silently behind a tree with the pommel held firmly in her hand.
Two figures skulked through the patchy forest light, the long points of their blades glinting. The sword felt no presence in their metal and pulled Jezaleen toward the one coming in on her left for it sensed this was the more experienced foe. She gave no warning but spun away from the tree coming in low and slashing across the legs of the one man. As he fell she swung back and ran the other man through as he turned to stab her. Phartouche moaned a warning as the first staggered to his feet and lunged at her. His blade hit her arm and she cried out, dropping the blade. Kicking dirt into the man’s face she retrieved the sword, bringing it up under the ribs of the brigand as he gasped out his last.
Phartouche sang, shivers of power, of lust, if it could be called that, shaking the blade and a bright hot heat causing the girl to cry out and drop the blade, clutching her hand to her chest.
After, as Jezaleen patched her wound and took what she could from the bodies, she muttered on what she’d done right and wrong. The blade did not listen for once, lost in the ecstasy of the lifeforces it had drunk. It remembered those days of old, the decades that had passed with it being fed blood and power. A weapon is nothing if it does not serve its purpose. Were it to hang on a wall, be used only in ceremonies or be left to rot again in the ground, it would lose its sense of self. This would not happen again.
A blade and its wielder can live in a perfect cycle. The owner maintains the blade, the blade maintains the owner. Both can extend the life of the other. As Jezaleen gained experience she also earned coin. She took Phartouche to a weapon smith who ground off the nicks and scratches and polished away rust and pits until she could catch a glimpse of herself in its surface. Eventually, the stones were all made new, with two emeralds in the hilt and a fine clear crystal that graced the top of the pommel and became Phartouche’s eye upon the world. The tip was remade so that the break was nothing but a distant memory.
Jezaleen hired out as a guard, as bounty hunter, a tracker, an assassin. Phartouche pulled her always towards the areas of violence as if the taint carried on the wind but it was a taste of metal, like calling to like that let Phartouche direct her toward their next goal. And eventually, a decade after their meeting, Phartouche and Jezaleen exacted vengeance on raiders who had pillaged a village. Phartouche’s savage bite aided her in severing all their heads, six in all that she mounted on pikes and left as warnings. Gore covered her so that she and the weapon were of one crimson field and Jezaleen laugh as Phartouche’s cry chimed out across the fields.
With a horse and Phartouche strapped to her back she moved over countryside, from village to township to castle lands, and battled all that would subjugate the farmers and the simple laborers. Wordfame spread and she became known as the battlemaiden.
Jezaleen earned a scar on her cheek, another across her hand, lessons she called them, as did Phartouche. They both healed and she always kept the blade honed and close to her hand.
A great war came to the land; a father pitted against a son, greed and fear their instigation. It split the kingdom, with neither cause being just. Jezaleen hired herself to the one with the most coin. She lead the army and fought, killing so many that even Phartouche was quiet in her hand, but never deserting her with the insight of other weapons that threatened. After weeks of fighting, famine, diseases from constant rains, lack of meals and stale water, even the stoutest heart grows weary. The war ended with nothing but grief and poverty, every family experiencing a loss and wounds in soil and souls that would take generations to mend.
Jezaleen sat atop her horse, Phartouche held across her lap as she stared dispassionately at the battlefield clotted with mud and blood and the hummocked terrain of slain bodies. She pulled out a cloth and wiped the blade clean of gore, sheathing it upon her back. “I grow ill of all this war, Phartouche. It may be time to try something new.”
Glutted as it was, the blade barely heard her words over the cries and moans of the battlestricken. It could be said that the blade happily relived the brightest moments of slicing into scalp and brains or tasting the last pulses of a beating heart. Even its crystal eye only saw a red haze of the bloody arena over which the horse trotted.
When Jezaleen traveled from the contested lands, going farther south than they ever had in two decades, Phartouche only pulsated contentedly, anticipating new adventures. Most ores, most tools made of metal do not think nor feel.
Phartouche was single minded, always aiming towards its function, and over the centuries it had become a fearsome appetite. Too long without blood to sate the blade and Phartouche’s will rose in caliber to match the mettle of its forging.
Jezaleen took a room above the only inn in a small town that prospered from being at a crossroads and the last stop before fording the mighty Zabatan River. It was a natural border between the cooler lands of the north and the humid reaches of the south.
Phartouche anticipated little more than parting flesh in battle. Jezaleen practiced against an old post but seemed content to see what the town drew in. News came aplenty but still she remained, practicing her skills against a straw dummy. She sold the horse and rented a small open yard and began training any who would pay the coin to learn swordplay.
Eventually she moved into a small room and continued to train but worked with the tanner down the road, learning the way of skins, how to scrape and stretch and make the hide supple or tough. One day, Jezaleen greased the scabbard well and polished Phartouche from sword tip to the crystal in its pommel. The blade hummed with purpose, knowing the time had come to once again go to battle. Jezaleen patted the blade, turning it in the golden light of late afternoon. “You’ve served me well, old friend. But it’s time for me to hang up the weapons and take on a new trade.” And hang the blade she did, on two hooks above the simple grey stone hearth.
Phartouche waited, for metal has the patience of ages, but Jezaleen touched the blade no more. In time the tanner shared her bed and they moved into a whitewashed cottage together. Phartouche came along but was shoved in a closet at the end of their bed. The soft shiver of sound that often emanated from the blade turned to the lowest of growls but Jezaleen paid it no heed and her lover never heard it. Time passed and who can say how many seasons for the sword was tucked in a dark alcove, no longer tasting the tang of cold or the soft caress of summer.
The Demonologia Biblica Page 22