by Jean Rabe
“Please do not do this thing. With Yaqrun we can claim this city.”
“Yaqrun.” Bridget stepped off the ladder and opened the box, reached inside and gingerly withdrew the top bowl. She sat the box down at her feet away from the stairwell. Running her fingers around the letters she’d carved, she took a look around and shivered from more than the cold.
Bringing Otter had been a very bad idea.
Light streamed in through broken windows and the dust and ash particles in the air were suspended like snowflakes that refused to fall. She counted at least a dozen piles of ashes with charred bones and bits of the dead owners’ possessions. Here a blackened boot, there a gun, a still-smoldering blanket, a polished white human skull that looked incongruous with all the other dark matter, the singed carcasses of a few rats, syringes, a ball cap with the brim burned off. There was a bite to the air, an acridness that clings to burned-out buildings mixed with the touch of roasted flesh. Bridget heard Otter gag; she’d gotten so used to foul-smelling things that she could handle it.
“You don’t have to come all the way up,” she told him. “In fact, you might want to go back down. This was a bad idea, Otter. I’m sorry I said okay.”
He ignored her and clambered up the rest of the way. “Holy shit! Those were people.”
Vagrants, urban explorers, security guards, maybe people on the docks the Aldî-nîfaeti had found and brought up here to devour leisurely. Remembering how the museum guards died, Bridget knew all of these had suffered horribly.
Their deaths—whoever they were—rested squarely on her. She’d let the damn demon out of the bowl. She’d not considered the repercussions.
“Yaqrun.”
The top floor was one big circular room with rusted steel girders holding up a cement roof and rusted steel braces on the side wearing the graffiti of gangers and lovers. Sarah & Pedro were inside a lavender heart. Jander & Joe inside another. Posters for bands called The Happy Problem, Streets of Laredo, and Sister Sparrow were affixed above a table made of boards and plastic milk crates—the only objects not incinerated by the demonic occupant.
“Yaqrun. Yaqrun. Yaqrun.”
“Bridget, please do not—”
A glare cut her demon off. It squatted next to Otter, breath puffing away like noxious little clouds through a slit in its bulbous lips and through gills in its thick neck. She’d not noticed the gills before.
“Yaqrun, I call the slayer of farmers, burner of children, destroyer of—”
“Civilizations. Yaqrun the mighty, the supreme, the pillager.” The Aldî-nîfaeti had somehow merged with the concrete, but now pulled itself out. It had grown since Bridget last saw it at her brownstone, and its appearance had changed.
“Oh my God!” Otter shouted. “Holy fuck!”
“Get out of here, Otter. I said this was a bad idea.” She heard him clamber back down the stairs, clumsy in his haste.
“Protect Otter,” Ijul said as it lumbered after the boy, breath still puffing away in the cold.
The first time she’d seen the tentacle monstrosity, she likened its height to an NBA center. Now it was easily a dozen feet tall, and the octopus-like appendages at its base were swollen, twitching against the marble floor, steam rising from their ends. Its cylindrical body that rose like a column was no longer smooth. It had the appearance of blackened tree bark, and the whorls looked like carved faces. Each face was different, one a young man, one an old woman, one a stern-faced person of indeterminate sex, another had a long nose and prominent cheekbones. Maybe they were the faces of the Aldî-nîfaeti’s victims. One near the base of its body had a mouth open as if caught in a scream. Its two mannish arms had thickened and lengthened, and the lobster-shaped claws they ended in glowed red like hot coals. Its simian head had more detail to it … or maybe the improved light allowed her to see it better.
The face was truly hideous, eyes limned with rivulets of lava, nose upturned and showing the flicker of flames in its wide nostrils. The cheeks were overly exaggerated and the skin cracked across them, embers burning in the crevices. What initially had looked like crabgrass going on top of its head now appeared as the talons of large birds, and they flexed and quivered as she watched in horror. It opened its mouth and a frigid blast of air rushed out. Despite its penchant for burning, it radiated a cold more intense than the winter outside. The cold of hell maybe, Bridget mused, as she stepped to the wall, recited the spell and placed the bowl down against it.
“I Bridget the strong-willed call Yaqrun, Aldî-nîfaeti, slayer of farmers, destroyer of children. I take her by the tentacles. I pierce her dark and evil eyes that she may no longer look upon the people of New York. Sahtiel help me in this catching. Aid me that I might grab Yaqrun by her many limbs and by her thick neck and say ‘remove the curses and the pain from the hearts of those you have raged against.’ I adjure you in the name of Ruphael and Sathietl and in the name of Prael the great and under the eyes of Inanna of the morning and evening. Bother no more the people of New York City. They must be teased no longer, teased nevermore, cursed no more, Aldî-nîfaeti-vexed no more. I am Bridget the strong-willed, the binder and the cleanser. I turn away all things fetid and foul. I protect the people of New York City. I bind. I bind in clay and powerful words. I heal and annul. With these words I catch I bind. Weapon of clay, mother wet-earth, in the names of angels Sariel and Barakiel and Prael the great. Under the gaze of Inanna of the morning and evening, I Bridget the strong-willed shackle the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun, slayer of farmers. In so doing I free the hearts of the people of New York City. I ease their troubles. I Bridget the strong-willed protect this city from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun.”
She knew she’d recited it perfectly. Had memorized it and repeated it in her mind again and again. The beast should be pulled toward it and under it. Hilimaz, now dust, had taught her and pronounced her an apt student.
But Yaqrun only looked at her and made a painful noise that stabbed into her head.
“Christ!” Bridget hollered. “Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun.”
Its voice came deep and musical and sickly beautiful. “Yaqrun, slayer of farmers, burner of children, destroyer of civilizations. Yaqrun the mighty, the supreme, the pillager.” The lava that had limned its eyes spilled down over its cheeks. More lava spread from its swollen tentacles and oozed toward her.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Bridget plucked the bowl up, leaped over a trail of lava, and rushed to the stairs. She’d barely managed to grab up the box with the other bowl when the lava flow increased. “Run, Otter!” she hollered as she thundered down the steps, cradling the box and the bowl to her chest. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
She’d done everything Hilimaz had taught her. The old potter wouldn’t have tricked her. Hilimaz had wanted Yaqrun snared. Had done everything perfect, except …
“Shit and two is four and four is eight,” she spat as she cleared the last few steps and landed in a crouch on the level below. Bridget heard metal groan and saw the rusted iron steps behind her melt.
“Run Otter!” Bridget hurried down to the next level, the stairs giving way underneath her. She jumped a span equal to her height and landed in a crouch, nearly dropping the box and bowl. “Run baby!”
Down another flight, faster this time. She sensed the silo shift around her. Could lava melt concrete? Was the whole damn place coming down? The girders! The feckin’ demon was taking out the steel girders.
She’d done everything right … except the crucial thing. On the bottom floor, she spied it. Though the silo was round, there were two cement walls at right angles on this level, probably at one time marking off a storage room. It would work.
Lava dripped down the open stairwell, and when she glanced behind her, she saw tentacles coming down with it. The Aldî-nîfaeti was lowering itself like some octopus creature in a SyFy channel schlockfest.
Bridget spun and ran toward the wall, then
fell to her knees when fiery agony lanced into her back. All efforts on keeping the bowls from breaking, she ground her teeth together to fight the agony from a glob of lava that had been hurled at her back and burned through her coat to her skin. She screamed in pain as she glanced behind her. That glance that cost her a moment was nearly her undoing. A tentacle lashed out and struck her face, the heat so unbearable she feared her flesh was melting. The icy wave that radiated from the creature threatening to put her in shock.
“Yaqrun the mighty, the supreme, the pillager, slayer of farmers, burner of children, destroyer of civilizations.”
If not for the demon’s arrogance, at blathering on about the armies it had bested, she’d be done, so much slag like Yaqrun’s other victims. Holding the box and bowl to her chest, she crawled the last few feet to where the ninety-degree cement wall joined the building’s exterior. It was the thing she hadn’t gotten right on her first attempt. Always Hillimaz had placed her bowls where walls joined, that was part of the magic.
Bridget fought against the pain and recited the spell as she went. Turned the bowl upside down, making sure the rim touched both walls. She finished: “Weapon of clay, mother wet-earth, in the names of angels Sariel and Barakiel and Prael the great. Under the gaze of Inanna of the morning and evening, I Bridget the strong-willed shackle the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun, slayer of farmers. In so doing I free the hearts of the people of New York City. I ease their troubles. I Bridget the strong-willed protect this city from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun.”
The demon shrieked, the sound like metal slicing across metal, but louder than anything she’d ever heard before. Through half-closed eyes she saw its shadow on the wall and watched its writhing tentacles flailing against the concrete in an effort to find purchase and stop itself from being dragged along the wall and into the clay.
As some point the noise stopped—or rather Bridget’s ability to hear did. In utter silence, the massive now one-dimensional Aldî-nîfaeti was pulled to the bowl and sucked under it. Bridget sagged onto the freezing cement floor next to it, pressing her burned face against the cold in an effort to find some relief.
Otter nudged her shoulder. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him … couldn’t hear anything. He pulled her into a sitting position and propped her against the wall, pushed the box aside and fretted over her.
After a few minutes, her hearing started to return.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay. Really. I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.” Otter looked from her to the overturned bowl to her again. “Is it in there? I thought I saw something slide under the rim, something black. That flaming demon that burned your house? Is it in there?”
She nodded.
“Holy fuck that thing was huge.”
She nodded again.
“Wait’ll I tell Lacy. She won’t believe me.”
“You shouldn’t tell Lacy. You shouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah, Mom, you’re right. They’d think I was a nutter. We gotta get you to a hospital.”
Bridget shook her head.
“Your face, Mom. It’s all … burned.”
Part of it anyway, Bridget thought, like Hilimaz had been burned by the same demon. “I’m okay,” she said again. “We’ve got another one to catch. I don’t think Kaliv-re will be as difficult.”
“Kaliv-re?”
“It looks like a big piece of Silly Putty.”
O O O
It wasn’t as difficult.
They were back in Adiella’s pit by noon, and Bridget placed the demon-filled bowls in their carefully-packed box inside the witch’s trunk for safe-keeping. Bridget entertained renting out a safety-deposit box for them, but in the end thought this might be better.
“You need a hospital, boss,” Rob said. “Me and Marsh’ll—”
“I need to get to my bank,” Bridget returned. She was out of money, and what she had to do next wouldn’t be free.
“Get yourself to that spa, okay?” She put her hands on Otter’s shoulders. “Get Rob and Marsh to take you shopping and get something nice to wear for the service.” She looked to Rob. “Do you guys got any money to cover it? A credit card? I’ll pay you back.”
“Sure thing, boss. Take care of yourself. Okay? We’ll get Otter and us cleaned up for the funeral.”
There were questions … from Quin about his brother, from Michael about what happened with the demons, from Adiella about how Bridget managed to catch demons when she wasn’t a witch. Bridget left Otter to answer everything the best he could.
Bridget slipped out of the pit as a subway train trundled past.
***
Thirty Seven
On Utica Avenue, Carle-Rotzski’s advertised itself as the largest funeral home in Brooklyn. Bridget had been to a service here last year, for one of the “Westies boys” she used to box with late at night in the closed gym. The man—Wesley O’Donahue—had still been in the life and had recently gotten caught up with a sour crowd that dealt drugs and firearms, was taken down in a drive-by. That visitation had been in one of the smaller rooms, and most of the people who attended were old friends and talked with Irish accents. Bridget had felt more comfortable there, and the display of pictures had been kept to one table.
Tavio’s service was in the largest room. Good thing, Bridget realized. The place was packed. All ages and stripes were present, friends of Tavio—some of whom she recognized and steered clear of so she wouldn’t have to talk about old times when the two of them were married, business associates she’d seen but had never met, a bevy of women in high-end clothes and somber shades of makeup, hair perfectly done up. Bridget wondered how many of them were Tavio’s former lovers, maybe some of the well-groomed young men in turtlenecks, dabbing the corners of their eyes with tissues fit into that category as well. Tavio had liked sex; Bridget believed he thought it passed for love.
Otter was at the front, next to Adiella, both dressed in black, standing next to one of the displays of pictures. Otter had to practically beg his grandmother to attend. Adiella had told him she preferred to grieve alone. In the end, Otter had won out; Bridget wasn’t sure the witch’s presence was a good thing. Bridget’d had more than enough of Adiella in the past week.
From a distance—Bridget stayed at the back of the room—she couldn’t see all the details of the photographs arrayed on tables and on easels, but she spotted a couple of large framed pictures that had been taken at her and Tavio’s wedding reception on the boat.
Marsh and Rob were seated toward the center of the room, in the middle of the rows of chairs. No sign of Quin or Michael. Rob had told her not to expect them, that both men relayed they were finished with her employ. She would find them later and send them some money for all the recent troubles they’d endured.
She’d cleaned up well. Bridget had treated herself at the Oasis Day Spay on Park Avenue, a massage and facial and steam bath. Though she was not as badly scarred as Hilimaz—she suspected the invincibility she seemed to enjoy because of her demon had helped—the left side of her face was still marred from Yaqrun’s flaming tentacle. The skin looked wet and shiny, and the two thousand dollar wig she’d purchased at Disomone’s helped cover some of it. The wig was not quite as red as her own hair, but it suited her nonetheless.
She was one of the few people in attendance who wasn’t wearing black or gray or deep navy blue. Bridget had spotted a brown cashmere sweater dress in the window of a designer resale shop on Eighty-first. A Bluefly calf-length design, it was beautiful and yet simple. She’d bought a few other pieces at the shop, a suitcase from a department store, and stashed all of it at the two-bedroom loft apartment. Not in the best of neighborhoods, Bridget hadn’t the time to be picky and look around for a better place to temporarily live. She’d taken the first open thing she found and had the keys in under an hour. It was a short-term lease, and she signed it for the minimum—three months. But Bridget didn’t inten
d to stay there that long.
She watched Otter greet people who passed by. The boy looked serious, but she hadn’t seen him crying. He’d probably already done his grieving in the days while her mind was in Sumer, though she suspected the brunt of his sadness would sink in some time from now when things quieted down. The demon-snaring business done … at least until she could figure out what to do with the gobshite of a beast that still clung to her ankles, oozing and belching and babbling in Sumerian about how tasty the hearts of these people might be … she would settle Otter back into his routine of school.
But the routine wouldn’t last long; Bridget was formulating another plan.
The boy was adamant that he was keeping Tavio’s Italian restaurant, and that he was also keeping an after-school appointment next week with his dad’s investment counselor. Bridget would go along, wanting to make sure no one took advantage of Otter … though she figured he’d be savvy enough without her guidance.
“Fifteen, not fifty,” she whispered. She glanced down at the tri-fold memorial card. Tavio had claimed to be Catholic, but in the years she’d known him he hadn’t put in many appearances in church. The front was a placid picture of Christ, the words “In Remembrance” beneath it. Inside: the Lord’s Prayer and opposite it, Tavio Vren Vãduva-Madera; services in the Carle-Rotzski Serenity Chapel; officiating Father E.J. Larson. On the back, a quote from a James Montgomery hymn: “There is a world above, where parting is unknown, a whole eternity of love, form’d for the good alone; and faith beholds the dying here, translated to that happier sphere.”
Was there a heaven?
Bridget knew there was a hell. It was where Yaqrun and Kaliv-re had come from, and Ijul at her side. It was where Enlil had been banished for a time, and where she was likely to end up. She’d done little good in her life … theft, fraud, murder if you stacked on what the demons did after she’d freed them. Had she done any good?
Saving Otter.
Now maybe she could work on saving herself.