by Jean Rabe
She shut her eyes, tried to get the image of Jimmy’s bloody corpse out of her mind, and prayed that the demon would stay in the cabinet with her and not lose patience and disappear to rip out someone else’s heart.
***
Twenty Three
Bridget waited until nearly eleven. She was stiff from sitting in a cramped position, and she rubbed her thighs as she climbed out of the cabinet, the demon sluggishly following and growling. The employee room was dark, but enough light seeped in under the crack in the door that Bridget could orient herself.
She once again pictured the various halls of the museum, the route she’d taken to get to this room and where she needed to go to reach the bowls … and in the end what might happen if she got caught, all things that had tumbled through her mind while she’d waited in the cabinet. There were motion sensors, video cameras, alarms, and security guards to contend with, and her heart seized at the notion of being discovered inside this place. She wasn’t this kind of a thief, she told herself, at least not anymore. She didn’t break into museums. She brokered and smuggled and dealt under the table. She used connections and courted the black market.
She didn’t do … this.
But she was doing exactly this.
Excuses tumbled through her head that she might use if confronted—she got lost, hadn’t realized the museum closed … somehow hadn’t heard the repeated announcements, fell asleep in a lounge. She’d fallen down some stairway and hit her head, only now coming to. Hopefully, though, she wouldn’t need an excuse—all of which would be lame anyway.
“Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle,” the demon growled.
“Sure,” Bridget said softly. “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle all the feckin’ Aldî-nîfaeti in this museum … if there are any.”
While she had no trouble accepting and reselling museum pieces—that someone else had stolen and brought her way—she had not personally taken a single object from a museum. Too risky maybe, or against some flimsy moral code that hovered in the back of her mind. But what was the difference between accepting stuff swiped from a museum’s basement across the ocean and from taking something out of a display case in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? If there were lines to be crossed, today she’d cross them and pluck something right out of an exhibit—three somethings according to Rob … if all went well.
The demon continued to hiss and babble, most of the words in the long-dead Sumer tongue she couldn’t fathom. A scattered few words she understood.
Prison.
Unshackle.
Jimmy. Mmmm.
Otter.
Aldî-nîfaeti.
Freedom.
Otter.
Freedom.
Aldî-nîfaeti.
Unshackle.
Michael.
Otter Otter Otter.
“Shut up you damnable gobshite and I’ll unshackle the Aldî-nîfaeti. But if you don’t shut up, maybe you’ll have to find some other sorry fool to—” Bridget stepped to the door, held her breath, and pressed her ear to it. Silence. She stepped out into a dimly lit corridor and started toward her target. The hallway smelled strongly of lemon floor polish and musty things.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art had serious safeguards, but Bridget figured that she was up on the technology. She worked her way through the halls, either tilting cameras or passing through blind spots, using a few of the large air vents to move from one area to the next, and making her way through stairwells used only by employees and security, pressing herself against walls the entire time. She saw and avoided half a dozen different security guards before reaching the wing where a sign read: Ancient Near-Eastern Art. Rob had e-mailed her about where precisely the bowls were in this hall, according to the museum’s interactive Internet site. He’d also noted in his message that there were two hundred and sixty-nine Sumerian pieces on display.
She stood where the shadows were thickest and took in the collection—cow and duck-shaped amulets, figurines, the feet from a broken statue, cuneiform tablets … and the bowls, everything eerily illuminated by the after-hours lighting.
The demon hopped at her side, chattered louder, and gestured with a talon at the case that held the bowls.
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon hissed. “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle—”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re here, eh?” Bridget had managed to disconnect the video feed from the chamber, was pleased there were no motion sensors here—that she could find, and disabled the alarm on the case.
“Gotta work fast,” she whispered. If someone was monitoring the various screens, they’d realize that the feed to this room was out and eventually would send someone to investigate. She just hoped that with so very many rooms in this place, it would take a while before anyone noticed the missing feed.
She pulled a small tool from her pocket and worried at the case’s lock, swung the side panel open—some sort of heavy Plexiglas that looked clear as crystal, and reached inside, over an ox-like figurine and to the first bowl, small and shallow, like something a kid would eat cereal out of. She gingerly lifted it, brought it out, and noted that the demon had stopped moving. All five eyes were wide and fixed on the bowl, its mouth drawn tight. Bridget carefully sat the bowl on the floor and reached for the second, this one twice the size of the first and deeper; it felt like it weighed three to four pounds.
“One more,” she whispered. “One more.” This time she had to lean into the case, as the final bowl was well inside the cabinet, engraved cylinders on either side of it. Similar in size to the larger one she’d just brought out, this one looked thinner and quite fragile, and she held her breath when she cradled it with her gloved fingers, lifted it up and over the other objects in the case, and pulled it out. She sat this down, too, then reached back inside the case, removed the exhibit cards for the bowls and stuck them in a pocket, and then rearranged the other Sumerian pieces. With luck, the bowls’ absence might not be noticed right away.
Squatting, she nested the bowls inside each other and gingerly picked them up, headed away from the case. She stopped when the demon rushed by her and raised its gaze to meet hers. “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti.”
“Not here,” Bridget whispered. “I’m not going to break a piece of pottery in here.” She wanted to get out of the museum as fast as possible and deal with the bowls outside, preferably a few blocks away, some nice dark alley. She wanted to delve into the pottery first with her psychometry, see exactly what was trapped inside.
Bridget wanted time to discover what—if anything—she’d be letting out. She started around the beast, but it moved and planted itself again, all eyes glaring defiantly.
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’m going to do that.” Still she kept her voice to a whisper. “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti, but outside. Eventually. Outside.”
“Mmmmm Otter.” The demon made a smacking sound.
“Pissmires and Spiders.” Bridget sat the bowls at her feet and gestured. “All right. All damn right. Go ahead and bust them to pieces yourself. Free your damnable Aldî-nîfaeti buddies.”
The demon skittered back, eyes on the nested bowls, acid bubbling at its lips. If Bridget could ascribe an emotion to the beast, she’d say it was nervous.
“You don’t want to touch the bowls, do you?” She nudged them closer with the tip of her shoe, and they rattled together, the edge of the lowest one flaking. “Maybe you’re afraid one of them will suck you up inside it.”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon snarled.
She nudged them closer still, all the while worrying that she’d been in the museum too long, that someone would notice the cut video feed to this room. “Maybe there’s some über-powerful witchery scrawled in the clay, something that threatens you.” A nudge even closer.
The beast slogged back, growling out a string of words she couldn’t understand. Its dizzying eyes narrowed. “Unshackle Otter
from life.” It turned away. “Unshackle Otter. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Otter Otter Otter.”
“Wait, I’ll unshackle one of your buddies.” She picked up the smallest bowl and brought it down hard against her knee. The impact sent an image into her head, of the woman who’d fashioned the bowl, who spoke in the demon’s tongue, and whose face was deeply lined and hard-looking.
Bridget stared at the two pieces of the bowl, half-expecting to see some monstrosity filter out with the falling clay dust. But nothing happened. The demon fell silent and twisted its front claw against the floor, making a skritching sound. Acidic drool spilled out over its bottom lip and hissed against the polished marble. It shook its ugly head.
“Okay, so I did it wrong. Or it was empty, eh? So what am I supposed to do? You tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that you feckin’—”
It made a gesture with its claws, and Bridget got the intent. She flipped one of the bowls over, so its rim was against the marble floor.
“Now what?”
The beast snarled and raised a claw, balled what amounted to its fist and drove it down, with the other claw it pointed to the overturned bowl. “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti.”
“So break it while the bowl’s inverted.” In one of her psychometry delving she’d spied a bowl turned upside down in the corner of a room. All right, but—” She picked up the mid-sized bowl, studying the markings inside it, not able to see it very well because of the faint after-hours lighting. But she managed to spot two figures etched in the clay, odd creatures she guessed represented demons, their hands tied. Words that resembled bird tracks circled out from the center of the bowl and wrapped around the etched demons. Cradling the bowl against her with one arm, she used her teeth to pull off a glove so she could directly touch the clay. “All right, I’ll break the bowls, but I have to take a closer look first.”
Bridget shut out the sound of her demon’s harsh breathing, and spilled her senses into the ancient bowl. A woman appeared in the back of her mind—most of her face hidden by cowl, shadowed thin lips quivered as she muttered in the very old language. Bridget could clearly understand the woman; her psychometry allowed for that. The woman used a tool to etch words into wet clay—what was becoming the very bowl that had survived the centuries and was in Bridget’s hand.
“Huseff, son of Nogress,” the woman intoned. Her words had a flat sing-song feel, like a chant or maybe a spell or counter-spell. Bridget wondered if the woman was reciting what she was engraving into the clay or if the spoken and written words were completely different. “From Huseff’s men-sons I heard the voice of the frail and of other men fighting and of angry weeping women. All are cursed and afflicted, pained by Yadun and Yaqrun and Azada. Yadun and Yaqrun and Azada, one will be taken with this bowl, seized by its scales and hair tufts upon their heads—”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” Bridget’s demon snarled. “Else Unshackle Otter. Mmmmm Otter. Unshackle—”
Bridget’s mind bore in deeper and she continued to listen to the woman.
“—grab them by the tufts of hair about their heads, by their broken horns. Sahtiel help in the binding. Grab them by their high broken horns and say ‘remove the curses and the pain from the hearts of those you have raged against.’ I adjure you in the name of Prael the great and Ruphael and Sahtiel. Bother no more Huseff and his men-sons. Descendants of Nogress must be teased no more, cursed no more, demon-vexed no more. I am the healer and the binder. I turn away fetidness and sickness. I protect the descendants of Nogress, the men-sons of Huseff. I bind. I bind in clay and words. I heal and annul. With these words I coax and catch I bind. Weapon of clay, mother wet-earth, in the names of angels Sariel and Barakiel—”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon spat. “Mmmm Otter.”
“—free the hearts of Huseff and his men-sons from darkness. Ease the troubles of the descendants of Nogress. Protect this house from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti.”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon growled, apparently oblivious to Bridget’s delving into the pottery. “Unshackle.”
Bridget’s head pounded. Her connection with the clay bowl had gotten increasingly difficult and painful as the woman’s chanting continued. And with that last sentence it felt as if an ice pick had been driven into her brain, so hurtful the link had become. It was all Bridget could do to stay on her feet and hold the bowl. Psychometry came almost effortless to her with some pieces, but apparently when an object had been witched, it was another matter entirely. She fought for breath and struggled to keep the image of the woman in the forefront, watched from a distant place as the woman finished the engraving and ran a watery paint around inside the bowl so that the color collected where her tool had dug into the wet clay. Then she poured the remaining paint out onto the dirt floor.
Bridget’s chest was tight and she felt feverish. The demon paced and hissed, mumbled “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti” like it was the chorus of a catchy pop tune.
“I will,” she told the demon. “Give me a moment more.” She wanted to see what happened next, pushing the image forward, leaning against the display case for support and watching the woman bake this bowl and others she must have inscribed earlier, all sitting in a brick oven. The woman bent, grasped this bowl in crooked fingers, and shuffled outside into the night, to a home that Bridget knew must belong to Huseff, through a door opened by a tall man. Two boys stood behind him. Bridget kept all her attention on the woman and bowl, and for a moment it felt as if she was the bowl and could feel the woman’s calloused sandpaper fingers against her skin and sense the arcane energy gathered anxiously in the clay.
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon hissed. It nudged her leg, but Bridget managed to keep the connection with the clay.
The woman shuffled to a corner of the room, the floor of which was hard-packed earth. Ever-curious, Bridget wondered who Huseff was, and his sons … were they important? Of any consequence to their community or to history? Had they done something to be vexed by demons? Her knees threatened to buckle and she felt lightheaded; she was breathing so shallowly now, and she saw flashes of light behind her eyes, the headache caused by this connection almost to the unbearable stage.
“A little more,” Bridget whispered. “Please finish this.”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Mmmm Otter. Unshackle Otter from life.”
The woman turned the bowl over and placed it where the walls met at a forty-five degree angle, repeated the words Bridget had heard her intone when etching the bowl, finishing with: “Ease the troubles of the descendants of Nogress. Protect this house from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti.”
There was a light behind the woman, a torch or lantern, something that made the shadows on the wall dance. At first Bridget thought the shadows were cast by Huseff and his sons, but as she focused, she saw they weren’t at all human shaped. They were grotesque and alien looking. Two fled like leaves cast away by a strong wind, but the third writhed against the wall and shadow-claws stretched up as if trying to hold onto something.
“Yadun and Yaqrun and Azada, one will be taken with this bowl, seized by its scales and hair tufts upon its head,” the woman chanted. “One will be grabbed by the tufts of hair and its broken horns. Sahtiel help in the binding. The others will flee this protected place, Huseff, fearful to return.”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon snarled and nudged Bridget more firmly. A talon pierced her slacks and pricked the skin underneath.
Bridget ignored the beast and watched in her mind’s eye as the remaining shadow-thing detached from the wall and took on fleshy form. It flailed with lobster-like claws, trying to gain a purchase, and it keened shrilly as it was sucked down and down, circling the overturned clay bowl, then disappearing underneath it, like garbage disappearing down a drain, screaming and raging … and
then there was silence. For a moment Bridget thought she’d gone deaf. Then a soft sound intruded, the woman’s feet scuffed across the dirt floor and she and picked up the bowl and cradled it to her. Again Bridget felt the calloused fingers against her skin and the arcane energy in the clay—she was that connected to the bowl. But she also felt an immense darkness that threatened to smother her, the snared demon inside the clay. And she wondered if her mind had been caught by the etchings just as the beast had.
Caught? Yes. She couldn’t break the connection.
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” her demon growled.
“I can’t,” she tried to say. Bridget didn’t think she’d actually managed the words, that she was only thinking them. “I can’t.” This time she managed to speak. “I can’t. I’m caught like the damnable Aldî-nîfaeti.” Caught with Yadun or Yaqrun or Azada—whichever one of the three shadows the woman had sucked down into the clay. Bridget realized it was not the same woman who had forged the buckle in her pocket. This woman had used clay, the other had used metal. Why? Was Bridget’s demon different? Did it matter what material was used in the catching of demons? Or did each witch use whatever material most appealed to her?
Bridget couldn’t see the woman any longer, only the etched-words, black against the dusky-red clay cocoon that held her. She couldn’t feel the woman’s fingers, only an oppressive heat. The woman had “felt” powerful, almost a palpable aura that had surpassed what Bridget sensed in Adiella’s company. Bridget could still hear, her beast grumbling over and over: “Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Unshackle Otter. Mmmmm.”
Bridget tried again to break the connection, picturing Otter. Get free for him, she thought. For Otter.
“Otter. Otter. Otter. Mmmmmm.”
Get free.
Finally! Her senses were out, feeling like she was a child who’d just gotten off an especially long, dizzying tilt-a-whirl ride.
“Unshackle—”
“Fine.” She flipped over both remaining bowls and placed them lip-down next to each other, stared at them. “Fine, you fecker.”