by Noah Harris
It was all finished in less than ten minutes. They hurried out to the front hallway where Alison had stacked all the garbage bags, only to find the last of the gang heading out the door and Alison staring at some photos, her face ashen.
“What is it?” Richard asked.
With a trembling hand she handed him the photograph.
It showed Cliff’s cellar, the pentagram and boiler clearly visible. The photo had been take a little to the side and the triangle lay at the edge of the photo. A portion of a robe and one hand were at the edge of the frame. He couldn’t tell who it was.
Nor could he tell who lay in the pentagram. He guessed it had once been a man, but the body was so torn apart that he couldn’t recognize the man’s features or even what race he had been. His skin was gone, replaced with bare muscle, torn tissue, and pools of blood.
“Oh shit,” Tyrone whispered. “What the fuck is that?”
“What we’ll all be if they win. Let’s go.”
New York City didn’t let them down. Despite the racket in Anton Black’s apartment, no one came to investigate and as far as they could tell, no one called the cops. Soon they were safely across town, conferring with Laszlo in the back room of his sprawling basement occult shop on the Lower West Side. His face was grim as he studied the photo.
“Did they find another willing sacrifice?” Richard asked. If they had, it was all over.
Laszlo shook his head. “This was no willing sacrifice.” He threw the picture down in disgust. “This is a disgrace! It’s vile! This debases the noble art of magic!”
Richard was taken aback. He’d never known Laszlo to show any real emotion before.
Laszlo seemed somewhat embarrassed by his outburst. He fell silent for a moment, wiped his brow with a trembling hand, straightened his tie, and went on.
“This was a sacrifice, but not a willing one. It was of a different order than the kind they tried to get you and Georgios to participate in. Anton Black and his vile cult must have kidnapped someone. They put the poor fellow inside the pentagram and summoned a demon to appear within it, and not a demon of the kind you are accustomed to. There are demons who do not lust after earthly bodies, but earthly blood. The cult offered this victim in exchange for the demon becoming an ally.”
“But wait, I thought demons could only interact with humans if the humans were willing,” Richard said.
The occultist shook his head. “Not in this case. Given the right preparations and rituals, the interior of a pentagram is actually a small offshoot of the demon realm. And since the cult defines the deal with the demon, and not the victim, they are free to do to the victim whatever they choose.”
Everyone sat silent for a moment, letting this sink in. Then Alison spoke up.
“But if the demon can’t leave the pentagram, how can it help the cult?”
“Quite efficaciously, young lady. It acts as a guard on the other side. Anton Black must have anticipated that you plan to attack him via the demon realm and now has a sentry there, a quite deadly sentry.”
Richard let out a long, slow breath. “So what is this demon like? How can we recognize it?”
Laszlo shook his head. “It could be any one of a thousand demonic types. It is impossible to say. But you won’t simply be able to shout ‘begone’ and get rid of it. The other demons you have encountered were slaves to their desire for mortal sex. This demon has no such limitations.”
“How do I fight it then?”
“With your willpower. You are stronger than you think, especially in the demonic plane. We have no time for me to train you but if you focus your will, you can produce all sorts of powerful results. In their world, many things are possible that are not here. But you must fight it using your mind and your will. Your body is far too weak.”
“But how do I know which demon is the one who Anton made a deal with?”
Laszlo wiped his brow again, his hand shaking. “It will be the one trying to kill you.”
Richard and Alison stood in the summoning room of Richard’s apartment the next night, ready to shift into the demonic plane and close the breach between the realms. Alison carried a knapsack containing a magical brass bowl and a plastic bottle with a mixture Laszlo had made—a large portion of the dried demon cum that Richard had scraped off his body, mixed with a small amount of blood taken from both Richard and Alison with a syringe, plus several oils and strange powders Laszlo had brought with him. The occultist had explained each of the items and their purpose, but the lecture had gone way over both of their heads.
Tyrone, Georgios, Adam, and Steve had driven off in Richard’s pickup to Cliff’s house. They were supposed to attack the house at midnight, a few minutes after Richard and Alison started the ritual. In addition to Adam’s .38, Tyrone had armed the rest of them with zip guns—crude ghetto weapons that he was able to buy on the cheap. They were small metal pipes, cut to six inches in length with wooden handles lashed to them. Fitted on one end were thick rubber bands holding a nail. A single .22 bullet was placed in the pipe, the rubber bands pulled back, and when released the nail would hit the firing cap of the bullet and set it off.
When he had seen them, Georgios had not been impressed. “These are shit guns. Even the partisans had better.”
“They’re the best I could afford!” Tyrone objected. “It ain’t easy to get decent guns on the street. Even if we had the bread, all the gun shops are empty. What with the blackout and looting, everyone’s been buying a piece.”
Georgios shook his head. “I not blame you, Voodoo man, but with these shit guns we will have to sit in their laps to hit them. And they only shoot one bullet at a time before you have to reload!”
“At least you’ll have something,” Richard said to end the debate. “Hopefully you won’t have to use them.”
That was a faint hope.
Richard tried not to think about it. He and Alison faced enough danger themselves.
He looked at her as she mouthed the words of the magical incantation they would soon have to say out loud. Everything had to be perfect, and they’d been practicing all day. Richard sensed he could trust her, but he still knew so little about her.
Their eyes met. Alison’s lips stopped moving.
“You sure you’re cool with this?” he asked.
“Hell, no! But it’s got to be done, right?”
“Thank you for helping out, even if it isn’t your fight.”
Alison’s jaw set. “It’s everyone’s fight. As soon as you showed me that other world I knew I was in danger, the whole world was in danger. I couldn’t sit by and do nothing.”
“You know we might die trying to do this.”
Alison nodded, her mouth a grim line. “I know. But I’ve never done anything important in my whole life. Even if I die, at least I’ll go trying to do something big. I’ll have finally been somebody. And if I live, I get to start a new life.”
Richard took her hands in his.
“Then let’s try to live.” He turned to Laszlo. “We’re ready.”
Laszlo stood by the door, ready to guide them although he would not go with them. There was no point in risking the life of anyone who wasn’t essential to the ritual.
“You can do it, Richard,” Laszlo told him. “You have an incredible talent. And you, Alison, are a very brave young woman. Keep him from temptation if you can, and keep him focused on the task. He is going to a place where he is both strong and weak. Protect him from himself and he can protect all of us.”
Alison nodded. “I’ll try.”
“You must not try, young lady, you must succeed. Now, getting to the demon realm will be the simple part. After you do, use your senses to find the breach, just like you used your senses to tell you where they were going to sacrifice Georgios.”
“I was tripping when I did that. Right now I’m sober. I’ve never done something this big sober.”
“You will be all the more powerful for it, young man. Most wizards don’t even touch alcohol, let a
lone drugs. Now then, once you find the breach, perform the ritual as I told you. Once it is done, you can step back into our world. It will be more difficult to do so with the breach closed, but you have the strength for it.”
“We’re going to come out near Cliff’s house so we can help our friends,” Richard said.
“Yes, that’s a good idea. They’ll need you. Take care.”
As Alison picked up her knapsack, Richard put a hand on her shoulder.
“Ready to save the world?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yeah, I’m ready to be somebody. Let’s do it.”
Richard focused. It did not take much effort anymore. The room and Laszlo faded away and within moments they stood on the familiar, bare plain of bedrock with the geyser of lava spouting garishly in the distance.
Yet, something seemed strange. It took a moment for Richard to realize what it was.
No figures danced around the geyser as they usually did, and no figures swooped down at them from the skies. No shadows approached, no demons came yearning for their mortal flesh.
There were no demons around at all.
“Something’s wrong,” Richard said. “Where is everybody?”
“Maybe they know there’s a showdown. You said you got a reputation here. I bet Anton does too.”
“So all the demons are sitting it out, waiting to see who will come out on top. All right, let’s show them.”
Richard closed his eyes and concentrated, tried to feel the currents of magical energy coursing through this plane of existence, tried to feel where those currents touched the parameters of his own, more familiar world. At first, all he felt was that fuzzy barrier leading back to the summoning room in his apartment. Using that as a guide, he followed its contours like a blind man feeling along a wall until he detected another area of weakness that buckled under his mental probing like the thinnest membrane of silk.
He sensed something else there too—a heat, a presence he couldn’t quite describe. He had never felt it before in all his journeys to the demon realm, but he had an idea what is was.
Richard opened his eyes.
“There,” he pointed off across the grim, featureless plain. “I think Anton’s demon guard is over that way.”
Alison didn’t say anything, but when he set off in that direction she followed. They kept in physical contact like the last time he took her to this place. This time, she did not try to pull away.
They could not leap between distances like Richard had when he had passed into the demon realm and out into Central Park. Richard tried to do so, but he didn’t know exactly where he was going and could not picture it clearly in his mind. After a time, he gave up and resigned himself to a long walk.
Richard and Alison walked hand in hand. It felt strange. He hadn’t held a girl’s hand since his junior year of high school. Back then, it had been to try and convince everyone he was straight. Now, he did it because it made him feel comfortable. Alison’s easy acceptance of him was as gratifying as it was surprising.
“Thank you for being cool about my sexuality. You’re the only woman who knows.”
“Why shouldn’t I be cool with it? It’s straight guys I have to worry about. Hey, what’s that?”
She pointed up ahead. A forest of grey stone pillars blocked their path. Between them, indistinct shadows moved.
“I remember this. The Taurus demon showed it to me. It’s a sort of cruising ground for demons. Unfortunately, the weakness in the barrier is on the other side of it.”
“It’s huge. We don’t have time to go around,” Alison said.
“Then we’ll just have to go through it,” Richard said, squaring his shoulders.
“Tyrone seems like a good guy,” Alison said.
“Yeah, he is. But why do you say that now?”
“And your friends too. Adam and Steve are really cute together. Even Laszlo is cool. A bit weird, yeah, and he could use some friends, but cool nevertheless. You should invite him out sometimes. Give him some social skills.”
“Um, why are you talking about this stuff?” Richard asked. They had drawn closer to the stone forest, and from the shadows glowing eyes fixed on them.
“Because you need to remember what’s important,” she replied, squeezing his hand.
Together, they walked into the forest of granite columns. Each one stood ten to thirty feet high and at least eight feet wide. They had been scoured by the winds into a variety of weird shapes. Some were almost rectangular, while others were twisted and sculpted and looked almost like human forms. A few had been undercut until only a thin column held up a massive boulder perched precariously on the top. The ground between the columns was perfectly flat, adding to the unnatural look of the place.
The glowing eyes had winked out as they drew close, but the shadowy figures still flitted in the corners of their vision. If Richard tried to focus on them, they vanished.
The air smelled of brimstone and was as hot and dry as a desert. Beneath the stench of the demon realm, Richard’s nostrils began to detect another scent, a very different scent. It smelled almost like a forest, cool and damp and lush. Richard looked around and saw nothing but the same bare rock, yet he could not deny the smell was growing.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
“Smell what?” Alison asked. Her voice sounded far away.
A flash of green between two distant pillars caught his eye. He focused on the spot as he kept walking, and swore he saw sunlight glimmering on water, although this place had no sun. He had always wondered what gave the demon realm its dim, uniform gray light. The only places that had an obvious light source were the lava fields. This, however, didn’t look like lava. It looked more familiar.
“What is that?” he asked.
Alison didn’t answer. Richard moved towards it. As he did, the rock changed hue. He left the gray pillars behind and the stone of the pillars here was a deep brown color. The uniform gray of the plain changed to a greenish rock. The glimmering ahead of him grew brighter. He hurried forward, entranced.
Then, the scene changed. The pillars turned to trees, the ground grew soft and grassy, and above him arced a sky of clearest blue. His lungs filled with rich Missouri air.
He walked on in wonder, the trees thinning out until he came to a clearing at the center of which a pond glittered in pure sunlight.
Richard stood at the edge of the water, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun and the pristine air he took in with every breath.
Laughter rang from the woods on the far side of the pond. Figures darted between the trees, drawing closer.
Tyrone appeared, as did Adam and Steve and Georgios and many men he did not know. They were all naked, joyful, laughing with each other as they ran across the lush grass by the pond and one by one dove into the water.
“Come in!” they called to him. “The water’s warm.”
A deeply soothing sense of belonging engulfed him. He had made it. This is what he wanted for the rest of his life. His dream come true.
Richard began to unbuckle his belt. As he did so, something nagged at him. He felt like he was forgetting something. He looked down at his hands holding his open belt.
His hands…what about them? Weren’t they supposed to be holding something else?
Alison!
“Alison!” he cried out loud.
The pond and the woods disappeared, replaced by hard bare stone and grim gray pillars. His friends vanished too, and in their stead were a dozen little demons with twisted faces and spines down their back. They howled in mockery and lunged for him.
“Begone!”
The demons vanished.
“Alison?” Richard called, turning this way and that.
He stopped short. Just a few paces from him stood the Hooded One. His giant member pushed out of his robes—erect, tempting, fearsome, all but irresistible.
One hand beckoned Richard to come closer. The other hand he held out, palm turned upwards, and there floating above it, appeare
d the blue and green globe of Earth.
Richard felt a stirring in his pants. The Hooded One had never spoken to him before, but his message now was clear enough. He made the same promise to Richard that Anton and Cliff had made him when he was their captive. He could have the world, if only he would be a slave.
His hands were on his belt. His belt was open. A few more swift movements and he could have everything he wanted.
Richard hesitated.
He stared into those glowing slits, which looked back at him with promise and desire.
“No.”
Richard buckled his belt.
The Hooded One did not respond.
“I said no. You’re not tempting me with anything that my friends and I can’t build for ourselves. It will take time, I might be an old man before it happens, but we can have all that.”
Clack. Clack.
The Hooded One stepped forward.
Richard thrust out his hands.
“Begone!”
The Hooded One vanished without a sound.
“And never come back!” Richard called out. His words echoed through the empty forest of stone.
He leaned against a pillar, not knowing if he should cry or feel relieved.
A feminine sobbing caught his attention.
“Alison?”
He followed the sound, wary of another trick. After a minute he found Alison sitting at the base of a pillar, her face in her hands, her shoulders wracked with sobs.
“Are you OK?” he asked, kneeling beside her.
“They tried to trick me, and when I saw through it they tried to attack me. I told them to begone like you said. It worked.”
“They don’t have any power over you unless you let them.”
She stood up, still crying. “It seemed so real.”
“What did you see?”
“It was my home,” she said between sobs. “Exactly the same but the people were totally different. My mom wasn’t a drunk and my dad didn’t…he never…”