Dark Light Book Two

by Rob Shepherd

  Elizabeth still had dreams but no fire to believe in them. Ella brought her great joy at times but in her heart she knew it was not enough. Elizabeth wanted to die and thought constantly of her own death.

  Sometimes she felt drawn to learn more about zombies, witchcraft, and the occult because she no longer felt human. She felt her dreams while sleeping had so much more allure then her waking life.

  She toyed with the idea, sometimes, holding John’s loaded shotgun to her face when he was at work. She practiced cutting herself in the bathroom. She would sit there bleeding, wondering which thick vein would actually cause death, if she ever gathered enough darkness in herself to go through with it. Ella was so young she would forget all about her mother she reasoned to herself. John would remarry another nice girl, and hopefully treat her better this time around. “Ella would be okay… wouldn’t she?” she wondered as she looked around herself hating almost every single detail of her life. Every detail of her self.

  By most people standards she was considered a classic beauty with a wholesome face like Vivien Leigh or Judy Garland. But Elizabeth wanted nothing more then to be reborn. To destroy her could-have-been famous face with expensive plastic surgery she could never afford. She hated her soul and her image was guilty by association. If only her story would come to an end she thought wistfully.

  “Where is the end?” she pleaded with the mirror out loud. “MY end.” It was 3:33 in the morning. John was still doing deliveries at his new job as a delivery truck driver during the graveyard shift. Ella was sleeping peacefully in her crib. Elizabeth felt like the walking dead, “How can a person live when their heart is shattered?” For some reason she still loved John, not in the same way of course but she still saw his good side. “At least we love each other sometimes, and he is a good father to Ella… right?” she sighed. Talking to herself was a normal past time for Elizabeth.

  She went to the living room and went through some books she had gotten from the library.

  Dark magic books.

  She had been almost shy about asking for that section when the librarian asked how she could help her, but Elizabeth quickly brought back her acting skills. “I am writing a screen play for a horror movie, and I think this stuff is so scary! I just need some authentic ideas.” She gave a little chuckle trying desperately to sound light-hearted, and not at all like the emotionally unstable woman she felt herself to be. She always hoped no one would notice the silent agony she felt over her own painfully average life.

  “Scary…ha!” she griped out loud, flipping through pages like a mad woman. In reality Elizabeth rarely felt anything anymore, other then a vague sense of remorse and mourning over the death of herself. Even though the general public still technically considered her alive. She was internally always attending her own imaginary funeral. Black lace veils, rain and all.

  She had actually felt a twinge of hope when the librarian left her with wicked assortment of occult books. She thought how strange it was that she should feel such a bright innocent feeling, when she was holding such evil in her hands. She checked out all fifteen of them. John wouldn’t notice, he never noticed anything she did. That was an unofficial silent promise he had made to her three years ago, and one she was sure he would never break.

  Elizabeth was running on empty, sleep deprived, soul deprived but most of all drained from her lack luster life. When she had been a little girl she swore one day she would be a real star… a glamorous movie star.

  Lately she felt tempted to try an act of spiritual vital desperation. She hadn’t admitted it to herself really; it was just an inner question mark. Could it be a real option? Would she actually go through with it? Selling her soul to the devil in exchange for her wildest dreams coming true.

  Book after boring Wicca book let her down. Old fancy ceremonial crap after another, frustrated her to tears.

  North, South, East, and West, blah blah blah… she thought. “Give me something I can use!” Then in a simple paper back book she read the words, “Making your own spells is easy and fun! They usually work the best, because they come from you.” It sounded like a cheesy infomercial for “Witches R Us” but it did inspire her.

  Elizabeth jumped up. Okay she thought… think of movies. What do they use in movies? Candles… incense… animal sacrifice? She searched her house for all the candles she could find. Old ones… used stumps… Christmas ones… Birthday? No, too small and no cake to stick them in. Cheap jar ones in the kitchen… okay, check. She looked at the clock.

  She had about two hours to try to sell her soul before John got back home from work. “Incense? Nope. Don’t have any… maybe I could use a menthol cigarette?” she pondered. Animal sacrifice? Eww… yuck. What could she actually kill?

  A bird? Yeah right… not at 3 am. Her daughter’s goldfish? No, too small and then too much guilt, Ella would be crushed. What about a cat? There were some stray ones outside, would that work? Egyptians worshiped them, maybe that was wrong, even for dark magic. “Maybe I could do like three sacrifices, and it would add up somehow,” she asked aloud.

  Just then a moth started flitting around the porch light. Without thinking she swatted it down with her hands and placed it in an empty teacup. She injured the moth, but it was alive.

  Next, she thought of her hair. She went to the bathroom and chopped off two inches of her pretty mane, laying it in a wine glass. Then she grabbed some dirt for summoning the “Lord of the Land “, the evil ruler of the planet she hated, and yet wanted to conquer with her movies. For her last sacrifice she offered her own blood. She gathered her tools and set up her makeshift altar, the coffee table.

  She lit all her candles and a menthol cigarette. She put it out on the back of the moth, which she felt a little sorry for at this point. Then she grabbed her razor and cut her finger. With her blood she drew a pentagram, the stereotypical star in the circle she had seen in so many horror films.

  Elizabeth felt nervous but despite her fear she tried her best to conjure. “Fallen one? Lucifer? Satan? If you are real… I want to make an offer. I have a dream from my heart. An old dream from childhood. I was supposed to be a beautiful famous movie star. Can you help me? Please!” She closed her eyes, waiting to feel something different. “I offer these sacrifices to you, for your attention. A dying moth in ashes represents how I feel right now, a gray dying… hollow of an existence. In this chalice, my hairs’ length, a part of my beauty for you to keep, and last I offer my blood. A part of my life force in the shape of your symbol.”

  She felt a tear fall down her cheek. “Why am I doing this? I have sunk to a new low. I am such an idiot,” she thought as she hung her head down in shame feeling utterly ridiculous.

  She still had her eyes closed, when she heard a strange sound in her ears. “Elizabeth…” she smelled something moldy, like mildew.

  “The dark prince has sent me here to you, tonight. We have been in the shadows watching you suffer; we have been waiting… for you to join us and discuss the terms of your agreement with us. Dear sssweet Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth felt frozen with fear and excitement, it worked! She asked, “May I open my eyes? May I look at you?”

  “Yes,” came the hiss from in front of her now. She opened her eyes the room looked hazy with smokiness, like when something burns on the stove, except this smoke had a greenish tint. On the altar was a fairy sized transparent creature, with tiny trails of smoke emitting from it. It had large dragonfly colored wings, and a lizard’s face and body, complete with a tail. The eyes were just holes that somewhat glowed, with a black antimatter type energy. The eyes looked mean, simply evil.

  “Who are you?” Elizabeth asked wide-eyed and surprised.

  “I am Temptation…a child of the dark prince. I am his to manipulate.”

  The creature had no definable voice. Neither male nor female, just a voiceless whisper.

  “You are so small,” Elizabeth blurted. The creature explained,

  “Your sacrifice was small and puny. That
is why I appear to be this insignificant. The larger the sacrifice, the larger the portal you open for demons.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said a bit embarrassed, but relieved she hadn’t tried the cat, seeing as how this thing was scary as hell even in this tiny see through form.

  “Now Elizabeth, tell me what you want of my master and then I will tell you the price for what you ask. Let usss calculate… numbers… numbers…numbersss. It must be documented and sealed.”

  The demon hovered over the pentagram waiting. She noticed his bloody razor teeth and flickers of red in his eyes when he spoke. Its eyes upturned in a constant state of malicious joy.

  “Um… well. I want to be a rich famous movie star. Like Marilyn Monroe. Did she sell her soul to you too?”

  “We have parts of her. We enjoyed certain parts of her. Parts of her flesh. Her blood. We ate parts of her. Almost had all of her. But no. She resisted the final sacrifice. Hence her early death. She was put out early for refusing to pay her debt, but we did make arrangements with her and her owners…managers. They couldn’t get her to succumb fully. She wasss ssso delicious… so pure of heart! Pity we failed to hold on to Norma Jean. “

  Temptation’s smoke color changed to yellow, then back to a darker more sinister shade of green.

  “We took her red sphere, her creator’s sphere. Her status is incomplete, spiritually speaking. Not a whole human soul anymore. She’s incomplete. So you want the same deal? Is that it? Then we must have Ella. Children are not allowed in that seal. She wanted it all too, but you must give up children if you want the ego to rise to it’s potential, my exquisite Elizabeth.”

  Temptation smiled, and licked its teeth with a long slippery forked tongue.

  “No! Not Ella. Different deal then, a different one! I don’t need to be that famous.” She gulped hard, and waited for the tiny demon to help her.

  It laughed but the laugh sounded terrible, more like staccato-enraged screams going up and down in volume. Elizabeth shuddered at the sound, and only knew what it was by the hardy movement of the lizard’s belly, and its ugly twitching grin.

  “Be specific. What is your dream Elizabeth? Share it with me pretty one. Yesss. You remind me of her, Norma Jean.”

  Its smoke tinged with bright blues and reds now.

  “I want to be famous, I want to be a beautiful movie star. I want people to want my autograph! I want paparazzi taking my photos! I want to have 100 million dollars in the bank when I die to leave to Ella. I want a gorgeous mansion and luxury.”

  “Mmm is that all? Not too much. Wait just a moment. Shh. “

  The demons eyes rolled with numbers, it reminded Elizabeth of the slot machines she had seen in Las Vegas. The shrieks of what sounded like crying whales, emanated from the creature as it focused on its calculations.

  “Shh,” it hissed occasionally. “I said shh!” It seemed to be speaking to the whales that were shrieking inside of it. After about five minutes, it finally spoke,

  “Your contract is ready to be made. The water serpents have given birth to your transporter, your vessel of transfer. What you give, you will never have again, for all of time and space. It will belong to Sataniel, the ruler of the great abyss.”

  “Okay. What do I have to give you?” she asked, a bit hesitantly.

  “You must agree to three grievances, two for yourself and one upon someone you love. You must spend one Earthly year after your death on this planet as a legend. I will explain this in more detail later. Lastly you must give us your third eye, an indigo sphere for all eternity. You do not need to go to the abyss, but you will be a wanderer and never be granted access to holy Paradise.”

  Elizabeth was relieved, “You mean… you don’t need my entire soul? And I won’t burn in hell?”

  Temptation answered. “No, you are not asking us for so much that it would require your entire column of spheres, which would equal your entire soul. When you give us your third eye you will be almost blind in the afterlife. Your indigo sphere is your voice, so you will be mute and blind. But no, you will not burn. You will be lost, confused. Forever.”

  “And what about being a legend on Earth for one year? What the hell does that mean?” she felt exasperated. Elizabeth had no idea it would be so complicated. Temptation smiled,

  “Have you heard of strange stories? Lochness? Sasquatch? Mermaids?”

  She nodded. “Yes, of course I have.”

  “Those are beings in transition, humans who are part demon. You must be transformed into a different vibrational physical form before we can access your spheres. Humans are filled with divine light, sometimes at a vibration that sizzles our demonic skin. It is painful! We can only enter abominated bodies such as humans who are evil, or under heavy foreign substances, drugs and the like. They have enough holes, tunnels of emptiness, where their divine light has been devoured by evil that acts like a spiritual acid. Being a legend is simply an accelerated method to devour divinity, to aid us in carrying out the agreement. It creates paths and a doorway into your soul. “

  Elizabeth was speechless for a few minutes, this horrible little monster was filled with so much shocking knowledge. She remembered her other question. “But what about the grievances?”

  “Think of them as temperance. We have to balance the wealth and fame with some amount of sorrow, so that you do not appear as if you have well… made a deal with the devil! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA “

  This apparently was hilarious to the demon that took several minutes laughing at its own joke. “Pick two for your self and one for someone you love. You will want to choose instead of us choosing for you. It’s always worse if you let us choose.”

  He grinned at her; little insects appeared to be crawling around in his mouth. A few drops of red liquid dripped from its teeth from all the laughing, it had brought out putrid materials that normally lingered underneath its dark blue reptilian skin.

  Elizabeth began to think of bad things she could tolerate, “Okay. I will choose a terrible car accident for myself that takes me seven months to recover from. And I give up the ability to have more children. I choose to be barren. How’s that? “

  Temptation looked very serious. “Not bad. Excellent choices actually. I would think you have done this before but you only have one good soul now, don’t you? Now, you forgot to choose a curse for someone you love.”

  Elizabeth demanded, “Put in the contract that Ella will not be personally harmed as a result of my deal. It can be anyone but her!”

  “Done.”

  Temptation nodded and clapped its claws. “Now choose one more, painful experience for someone you adore.”

  “Alzheimer’s disease. I will let you choose among my loved ones, just so long as it is not my own flesh and blood such as my daughter.” Elizabeth was going to make sure there would be no sneaky loopholes for this demon to harm her baby.

  Temptations eyes rolled numbers again then asked, “Can it be any form of brain damage or amnesia? Alzheimer’s is a combination of different problems, we like specifics. The numbers like perfect equations.”

  She thought quickly. “Agreed. Any form of mild to moderate brain damage, non vegetative-state, treatable, and they make a 75% full recovery in two years.”

  “Damn Elizabeth! I think you are part demon already, let me look at you. Oh, you are a Capricorn. That is why negotiations come so naturally to you! Hmm. Very well then. We will agree to that. You will die at 49 in a mysterious way. People who make deal with us never get to live to their natural age of death. Agreed?”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath, “Wait! Do I have to sign in blood or something? “

  Temptation laughed. “No. Just simply say, “YES! I do want to make this agreement with you, Satan.” I have been recording this entire conversation for the recordsss.”

  She scratched her chin. “What if I change my mind? Do I get a second chance? Like Marilyn?”

  Temptation looked annoyed. “You have 24 hours to change your mind from the moment you say yes to the master
. Ms. Monroe did not get a second chance, she is damaged goods now Elizabeth, but look at how you, and the rest of the world worship her still! Isn’t it amazing? The world will love you too. They are waiting to worship YOU now!”

  Elizabeth looked at the clock and gulped, it was 4:23. John would be home soon, she had to make a decision. She thought of her dreams, she thought of the mansion and seeing Ella with all she could ever hope to have. She thought of seeing her face on the big screen, walking on the bright red carpet, “YES!!!! YES!!!! YES!!!! A thousand times yes. Satan, I do want to make this agreement with you!”

  Temptation smiled. “Very good. Elizabeth. Your wish has been granted. All your dreamsss will come true now, very very soon. You can expect many people to contact you and make you amazing offers. Don’t worry, just enjoy your little deal.”

  With that the miniature beast disappeared, the pentagram of Elizabeth’s’ blood gone now, taken by Temptation.

  Elizabeth felt strange, a kind of wind swept through the windows. Her neck tingled, she felt stronger. More aware. Happy? She threw all the candles away along with the dead moth. John came home exhausted. “What happened? Did you burn something? Smells awful in here like you burned the house down.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Oh I just lit a few candles tonight. I’ll go open more windows.”

  He did a double take. “What? You look, different. Your hair. Your skin. You look brighter. Almost sparkly or something.”

  Elizabeth laughed, “Really? How strange. Let’s go to bed. I am sure you just need to get some sleep.”

  Elizabeth fell asleep peacefully until inside of her mind began a dream like an old movie reel. She had never had a black and white dream before. In the dream, she saw Marilyn Monroe acting adorable as usual, and then she heard Marilyn’s voice in the dream.