“Riches? Power?”
“An end to suffering.”
Chialdra huffed. “You mean death!” She laughed bitterly as she readied for flight.
“No,” said Caleb. “I mean the life we’ve all been denied.”
Chialdra leaped, and they were airborne. It was wonderful and terrifying, and Rana tightened her clasp around Caleb’s waist as the bird flapped. They flew into a wide columnar chimney in the ceiling, and darkness enveloped them.
She grew dizzy as Chialdra sped upward into unseen caverns. Wind tore at her face and hair. They burst from the ziggurat’s roof, into light as feeble as a candle. The Lair of Azazel had aged like its master. The bricks were worn, misplaced, pitted. The mirrored floor had become dull, scratched, dirtied with dust.
Chialdra flew faster, and the ziggurat shrunk behind them. The wind in her face cooled her racing thoughts. All of Gehinnom, she thought, will wither when the next Lamed Vavnik is killed. Killed!
One man will die, she thought, so that millions can live without suffering. She might carry on with that stain on her conscience, but how many people would die when Earth shattered? She trembled like the Araatz, beyond the DanBaer. Does that make me, she thought, no better than Caleb? No better than a demon? The Horn of Azazel thrummed in her hands, as if uncomfortable with her ambivalent thoughts.
“You mustn’t tell Daniel of our plan,” Caleb shouted over the wind. “He’ll try to stop us. Later, when we’re safely in our new world, he’ll come to see that your creation is better than any that has come before. Because you have built it, Rana, it will be perfect.”
“Caleb,” she shouted. “I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to fear.” They flew past caves spilling scattered light onto the Abyssal walls. “You’ve done this a thousand times, in your imagination. Now you will do it for real. Here you are, flying on the back of a demon, the Horn of Azazel in your hands, about to create a new universe! Marul thought you weren’t strong. If only that witch could see you now!”
“Who?” Rana said. “Who is Marul?”
“No one,” Caleb said. “No one at all.”
Rana felt an odd emptiness gnawing inside her chest. “But you still haven’t told me how I do it.” They darted through the Bridges of Fire, and the searing heat came and went. “How do I build this new world? With brick and mortar? Hammer and nail?”
Caleb’s hair whipped in the wind as he looked over his shoulder at her. “I’m surprised the Gu Rana hasn’t guessed by now.”
“No! Tell me!”
“Rana, my dear, to create a new world, you have to sing!”
——
Daniel and the others gazed into the southern valley where whorls of multicolored shapes were kicking up a giant cloud of dust. The air rumbled with distant thunder. “Goddess protect us,” Prelg said, his cheekbones as sharp as mountain peaks. “They come to devour us.”
“Go to your circles!” Daniel shouted. “Hurry! Begin your spells.”
“But we don’t have the power,” Elyam said.
“Then pray it arrives soon!”
They took their positions in the Tree of Life, and the demons charged into the valley as the ten began the spell. They chanted the syllables of the Tetragrammaton, Ye, He, Va, He, in spiraling Fibonacci sequences. Each chant was subtly different from the others, part of a greater whole, a spiral within spirals.
His spine tingled. His hair stood on end. Their hairs were rising too. It looked as if they were hanging upside down from the desert floor. The mob of horrid creatures thundered closer. A green, four-legged horse with an ostrich’s head waggled its long neck. Red sparks raced down the body of a gigantic millipede. A huge bat with an octopus’s beak swooped low over the demon ranks. A giant, naked man, green as slime, hobbled forward on legs five stories tall.
The ground shook and the mountains thundered with their echoes as the cloud of dust filled the sky, red and angry in the pre-dawn light. The purple hair of a voluptuous woman waved like a sea anemone. A jackal barked, its white scales as nacreous as seashells.
There were so many vulgar forms that Daniel felt sick with terror. But he continued the spell, and the others, watching him, continued too.
Closer flew green-winged apes and pterodactyls with goats’ heads. Closer crawled spiders with human faces and rats as large as rhinos. Closer came the ten thousand demons. Daniel chanted louder to fight his fear.
A hundred feet from him, the Legion abruptly stopped. The line of monsters huffed and panted. The swirling dust fell with a soft hiss as the echoing thunder of their approach slowly faded from the mountains. Daniel had stopped his spell without realizing it, and so had the others. Their hair drifted back down to their heads with the dust.
A yellow elephant, an amorphous blob of ink, a knife-limbed wolf, and a thousand other monstrosities peered down at them with a mixture of malice, bitterness, confusion, curiosity. Colorful mists of condensation puffed from panting mouths. Oily drool splattered on stones. Belches, flatulence, and gurgles befouled the air.
Why did they pause? He began the spell again, and the Mikulalim joined him, but not the Bedu. Baasha cowered low. Ahazia had shut his eyes. Elyam was praying, while Zimri stared in wide-eyed horror at the multitude.
A huge giraffe with white fur, spiraling ram’s horns and a vicious rat’s face stepped from the throng. Its eyes, the blue of the deepest oceans, scanned the assemblage. Kokabiel, Second General of the Legion.
“Stop your ritual,” Kokabiel said.
Daniel continued, and he hoped the Bedu would join him, that maybe Caleb would arrive with his magic object this very moment. But the giraffe demon leaned forward, and with a powerful exhalation, blew them all to the ground. Daniel gasped, the wind knocked out of him.
Kokabiel said, “Now rise for her majesty.”
Daniel spit sand from his mouth as hoof and claw and foot parted for an approaching procession. Four gray wolves, large as horses, led the pack, their eyes milky and blind. A group of imps hopped and giggled like mischievous children behind the wolves. They smacked tambourines and played disturbing melodies on flutes of bone. Stout, hairy hobgoblins walked behind the imps. They held up long wooden poles whose tops burned with bright phosphorescent flames. The hobgoblins swung the poles toward the crowd, and demons barked and leaped back.
Four deathly pale women followed next, naked, though their thick hair, candy-apple red, wrapped their bodies like wool dresses. Their webbed feet squished as they walked over the sand, and their long tails snapped behind them as they walked. The women hefted the thick poles of an elaborate throne. It was covered in sparkling jewels, silver ornament, and ivory filigree. Upon its elevated chair sat a smiling woman.
Her hair was so dark it seemed blue, her eyes were an autumn forest, and her freckles on her porcelain skin were like a sky full of stars.
Rebekah, Mashit. Queen of Demonkind.
Her body glowed faintly blue, like ancient sea ice lit by moonlight, as the red-haired women lowered her throne to the ground. Her silver shoes were bedecked with many mirrors, and when she stepped onto the sand her sharp heels did not sink. Her white satin dress fluttered behind her in the breeze from the Abyssal, but hobgoblins made sure it never touched the ground. A wide belt hugged her waist, and its oversized crystal facets, like diamond chips, winked brightly as she walked. Her large buckle, the Hebrew letter Ayin, shined with its own illumination. She was a moon goddess, luminous, full of mystery, fallen to earth to walk among mortals. Daniel trembled at the sight of her.
“Rise for your queen!” Kokabiel shouted. His voice was heavy with magic, and Daniel found his legs rising against his will. It was a horrid, sickening sensation, perhaps what the Mikulalim felt every day. When everyone had stood, Rebekah said, “Now, now, Koko. Calm yourself. That’s no way to open a dialog, and we’ve a lot to talk about, Danny and me.”
The sound of her voice stirred him. Daniel hadn’t seen her—not while awake—since the wedding. She fixed her gaze on hi
m. Her eyes burned, as if he were looking into the nuclear heart of a star. His breath caught, and he knew this power had always burned there, hidden from him by magic. How many times had she had used her powers to cajole him when words failed to persuade? How far down had she invaded his mind? Her eyes scoured his mind now, probing for answers, but a wall he didn’t know he had possessed until this instant blocked her.
She waved Kokabiel away, and he bowed and retreated. Then she approached Daniel. “I’ve missed you, Danny.”
She blinked, and the burning star cooled. Suddenly she was a demon no longer. Standing before him was the Rebekah he had known. The human. His sweetheart. “I’ve missed you too, Bek,” he said.
He heard a gasp from the Bedu.
“You don’t look well,” she said.
“I’ve felt better.”
“We both have.” She circled him, examining his body as if he were a statue, and he remembered the wedding, where she made only five circles, instead of seven. These were for the five days of creation, before the arrival of man. The hobgoblins cursed quietly as they struggled to keep her dress above the sand. And as she moved, her belt flashed like distant suns.
“Ashmedai has poisoned your mind,” she said. “If only you had stayed with me, none of this would have happened.”
His hand had slid into his pocket, and he pulled out the shriveled remnant of the boutonniere.
“Is that what I think it is?” she said.
“I’ve held onto it,” he said, “because I wanted to believe this was all a nightmare, that I’d wake up and have a laugh. But I’m awake now, Rebekah.”
“Do you remember that day we went to Coney Island? We walked the boardwalk, rode the Wonder Wheel and Cyclone, and then it started to rain. You said, ‘Don’t worry, Bek, it’ll pass.’ But it rained all day. We waited under the awning of the Fun House for the storm to pass, and I said, ‘The day is ruined.’ And you said—”
“I said, ‘No day is ever ruined with you.’”
“Well, Danny,” she said, blinking at him. “Here I am.”
“I said those words to an illusion,” he said.
“You said them to me.”
“I said it to Rebekah. You are Mashit.”
“You can still call me ‘Bek’ if you like. You can call me whatever you want.” She turned and said to the crowd of demons, “Vostiel, bring me the vestments.”
A pea-skinned hobgoblin with a brass ring between his nostrils emerged from the throng carrying a plush pillow. Draped across it was the crimson robe with floral blue and green filigree, the one he had been wearing in the dream. On the robe sat a bejeweled crown.
“I don’t want to be king,” he said. “Not in Sheol, or anywhere.”
“But you do want to help the suffering, don’t you? Think of what you and I could do, together, Danny.”
“I have. And that’s what scares me.”
She offered her hand to him. “No one else has to die, Danny. Come with me, and together we can end the suffering of the Shards. From the throne of Abbadon, you and I will rule the Cosmos doing what we’ve always done, helping those in need.”
“I’m sorry, Bek.”
“Danny, please. I love you.”
He felt as if someone was squeezing his chest, tighter and tighter. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’ve scoured the Cosmos looking for you. Is that not love?”
“If you love me so much, why try and kill me?”
She seethed. “Is that what the cur told you?”
“I know you are killing the Lamed Vav.”
She grimaced and took a deep breath. “The cur has fed you many lies, Danny. I’ve no desire to kill the Lamed Vav. I have not harmed a single one.”
“Stop it, Bek. I know you’ve already killed three. I saw their fragments raining down over the desert with my own eyes.”
“Yes, you saw fragments, but they weren’t from a Lamed Vavnik. Why would I destroy so precious a thing? When you chisel a jewel from stone, you must chip the surrounding rock away. These are the fragments you saw.” She pointed to her waist, turning her hips left and right, and her crystal belt flashed like oil in moonlight. “This belt I wear is made from those same fragments, a gift from General Kokabiel. What you saw streaking across the sky was not a dead Lamed Vavnik, but the mortar that had fastened them to the Earth.”
“If the Lamed Vav are not dead, then where are they?”
“The are in Sheol. In Abbadon. Maya Dorje, Paula Baumgarten, and Baaba Lankandia are alive and well there.”
Daniel’s head spun as he recognized the names. “The Lamed Vav aren’t dead? Why bring them to Sheol?”
She smiled, and it brought him back months, to when they’d first met and laughed at everything, because everything then had been beautiful. “Soon my servant Af will free Sunil Pranadchandr from Earth. With his removal, Earth will shatter. Its waters of life will gush out.”
“And everyone on Earth and all the Shards will wither and die.”
“Not exactly. With four Lamed Vav in Sheol, our Shard will not wither. We will persist as the Earth has persisted. And, with the help of the Lamed Vav, Sheol will grow.”
Daniel opened his eyes wide. “While everyone else withers.”
“The Shards will not wither in a day. As they dry up, Sheol will offer a helping hand. We will become the source of the waters, as Earth has been the source for eons. In the cosmic hierarchy, Sheol will take Earth’s place at the pinnacle. Our sustaining waters will flow down to Earth and the Shards. Sheol will finally have what has been denied us since the beginning of time, the freedom that comes from abundance.”
She swept her gaze over the Bedu, the Mikulalim. “Hear me, people of Gehinnom. No one has to die. You may come with us to Sheol, where you will be our honored guests. But if you choose to stay, then you shall wither here. And when the waters dry up, you’ll have nine eternities to contemplate your mistake.” She turned to Daniel and held out her hand, “So, Danny, will you come with me? Will you help me build a new Cosmos?”
An enormous black eagle darted from the Abyssal. The horde gasped and shouted at the sight of it. Daniel recognized the glittering topaz eyes, those elephantine wings. Caleb and Rana clung to Chialdra’s feathery neck.
Chialdra circled the demon ranks, and the Legion sprung to action. Arms reached for potions. Weapons were drawn, amulets lifted. Lips muttered the first lines of dark spells. But Mashit cut them short with a raised hand. “Hold your positions! Do not attack!”
The eagle circled the ranks, cawing, “I am ashes! You’ve led me to my demise!”
“Shut your damned screeching!” Caleb shouted. With a great whoosh of air Chialdra thudded to rest on the sand beside the Tree of Life. Daniel blinked dust away. The bird stood on one healthy leg. The other, badly infected, bent crookedly. Caleb and Rana climbed from her wing. Rana held a large curving horn, like an enormous shofar. Her hair was windblown, and she kept adjusting her dirtied robe as if it didn’t quite fit.
The horn! Daniel thought. This is the object of power. He snuck a glance at Havig and Elyam. Both gave him a curt nod.
“I didn’t expect a welcoming party!” Caleb said. His voice was hoarser, smokier than Daniel remembered, the voice of someone who had awakened from a long sleep.
Rebekah scowled as she examined Caleb. His bandages were red with blood, and his robe, like Rana’s, was filthy.
“I was told Great Ashmedai bleeds,” Rebekah said, “but I did not believe it.”
“Why does my blood surprise you?” said Caleb. “For you draw it so easily. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“Death is too easy,” she said. “Exile has duration. Suffering is prolonged. When the Shards wither, I’ll enjoy your pleas for mercy.”
“Why, Mashit? Why would you destroy what we had?”
“What we had? We had nothing.”
“We had a family,” Caleb said, stepping closer. “We had a palace full of children. We had
love.”
Rebekah—Mashit—gazed at Daniel. “You don’t know what love is.”
“And you do?” Caleb said. “Your love is as fickle as Sheol’s stars. Daniel, whatever this bitch has promised you, she’ll not give it. Come with me, and I’ll show you what true happiness is.”
“Is the cur still obsessed with his childish fantasy?” Mashit said. “A little universe to call his own? Let me guess, the Gu will build this new world for you. Tell me, Rana, what has the cur promised? Are you content to let a mongrel be your master?”
“What are you talking about?” Daniel said.
“He hasn’t told you?” Mashit said.
“No.”
“Centuries ago, one of Ashmedai’s astrologers came to his court and laid out plans for cosmogenesis, how to create a new universe. The astrologer had all the pieces worked out, except one. How to prevent this new universe from collapsing. The only things known to sustain universes were the Lamed Vav, except we didn’t know who or where these Lamed Vav were.”
“And now you do,” Daniel said. “We were never going to go back to Earth, Caleb, were we? You want to use me to sustain this new world of yours.”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “You will be its Pillar, and Rana its architect.”
“Did you know of this, Rana?” Daniel said.
Her cheeks were flushed and she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ve only just learned of his plan,” she said. “But you haven’t lived in this hell, Daniel. You don’t know what it’s like. This is our chance to make things right!”
“It may be right for some,” he said, “and hell for others.”
“Ashey, my dear,” Mashit said. “This dream of yours is nothing more than a childish fantasy. Come home to Sheol, and I’ll see you’re well taken care of. There’s a stone house on the cliffs by the lake that would be a perfect place to retire.”
Caleb coughed, and blood pooled in the corners of his mouth. “So I can be your trophy? So your guests can drink wine on your balcony as you point to the cliffs and say, ‘There lives Ashmedai, once King of Demonkind, now a sad little hermit.’? Never.”
“There are worse fates,” Mashit said. She raised her arm, and the Legion rose to readiness.
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