Strength drains. Sugar crash exhaustion. Ringing in my ears and I grow wall-eyed. Buzz in the vision. Motes in my hearing.
The brimstone.
Fear. This is the Devil, Lark. The fucking Devil! What are you doing?! The self-preservation voice screams to be heard over the Gnosis but I've heard that shriek a thousand times before and it's a pussy. Ignore its limbic wails and push on.
Then that sense of strength I sensed in the hotel room.
Pressure changes in the room again.
Sensation like a vast boil, set to burst.
Slow it down. Fuck. It was real. In the hotel. It was real.
I'm outclassed. Can tell that real quick. There's that rising sense of terror in my throat, my mouth. I cannot bind whatever entity this is. Devil or no I've rushed this job and I'm not ready for it. It's on the threshold of the world. It's syllables away. Close my notebook.
Stop this. It can be shut down, still, if I do it now. All I have to do is... stop the rite, just don't go further. Banish. Go about my day.
It can't get in right now. The door is open a crack and it cannot force itself in. It's too big for me to handle. It's too strong. I can feel it pressing against the inside of my head. Stop it. Stop it now. Cold sweat and the fear lightning shooting into my fingers.
But.
But.
If I stop this, I'll never know what it is. I'll never know.
Not the first time I lost heart at the cusp of things. Settle down, man. Keep going. Win lose or draw, I'll learn a thing about this son of a bitch and that's all I ever want.
'Jesus Lark, what is that thing?'
She's just whispered it. Not even really talking to me but in my one-pointed mind, I can hear her. Bettina, this would be my answer, I do not know.
Can't help myself. Keep going. Keep chanting. Pressure drops. Something like a tiger paces in the circle in front of me. The Devil comes. The Devil is coming.
Have to see. Addicted to answer, finish it, finish it. Ave Satanas.
The Devil is here.
iv
His skin is the colour of every vicious racist thought you ever had. His eyes are that colour you hate. But he has some style.
White suit. Two-tone shoes. Cuff links. Tie pin.
No. Wait.
He's red and dangerous and bat-winged and ferocious.
No. Again.
He's that old man in the park who looks at your kids too close. He's that physical education teacher who touches you too much when he's not making you feel like shit for being fat, or weak. No, he's just a shadow made of malice.
He's watching me.
Whatever form he takes, and he's all of them at once, he's watching.
'What do you want, cunning man. Eager miracle man?'
Booming scream. A thousand spider whisper. Nails down the chalkboard. 'Wait till your father gets home'. Seducer, the syllables dripping like honey. All at once but never at the same time.
'By what name are you know, spirit?'
Business as usual. See, the thing is, they have to answer in the circle.
'Lucifer. Satan. Diabolus.'
'Sower?'
'Sower of Discord. Sower of Ruination. Sower of damnation. Yes, that too.'
He laughs. It's too confident. It often goes like this with spirits. It's a game of chicken. You're on collision course with each other. Who’s got the stronger will? Who’s got the sand?
Didn't lose my nerve at the moment he came through. Can't see it happening now.
'Sower. Thrice bound. By my will you are bound. By this sign of the Tau-Cross you are bound. By the circle, you are bound.'
'Oh. Of course.'
But the menace of him doesn't leave. The force of his presence. The surging charisma. The compacted fear. Hell. Am I doing something wrong?
No. This whole thing has the same feeling as the hotel. This is the thing I need to talk to.
'Bettina. Hand me a drink.'
There's some water in her circle I laid out. Drain half of it. The Devil is staring at her, head cocked.
'A dead girl. Do you ever wonder if you still have a soul, dead girl? I mean, you died. Your heart doesn't beat. It's only magic that keeps you walking around, after all. Ambulatory. Have you never thought that you are just a husk? Just the cocoon and the butterfly is somewhere else?'
She looks at me. Lights up smokes for us both. It's not really high ritual magic to take a smoke break but the performance part is over. This is invocation now. This is the covenant. This is the haggling. So long as I don't break the mood, or leave the circle, I'm still in the rite.
'Do you ever wonder if your true self is in hell with me? Would you like to know? Would you like to know where your grandmother went after she died?'
Dragging, she looks at me with an eyebrow raised and I shake my head.
The Devil laughs at us. Bettina won't speak. She's good with that. Curious as hell and she'll do as she's told when the pressure is on. She's dead. She can afford to be patient.
'And you, thaumaturge. Magician. Why have you summoned the Devil? Is it to take counsel? Do you want to do a deal? What do you have to offer? There's a certain tradition to these things but perhaps you've got something novel and unique to ... to tempt me with. '
'Be quiet. I ask questions.' Meet him with strength or the bindings won't hold. Magic is just believing you can get the job done.
'There's something you want. There's something everyone wants. Do you want... a woman?'
He leans forward. Something has his attention. He raises one finger. Looks like he's tracing out a pattern in the air.
'Yes. A woman. Do you want her back?'
'I said be quiet.'
'Oh my. That's the question isn't it? You don't know if you want her back! Oh, that's a poor question to raise the likes of me for. I could tell you how you're going to die or I could tell you about ... Wick. But your true heart's desire is to settle how you feel about a woman...'
Shit. He's got me. Because I realise he's right. For two years, all I've thought about is Scarlet and Jon. But she sold me out. She had her reasons but she sold me out.
Bettina murmurs something. 'Heart's desire? Hell, Lark, you don't even know what that is.'
Wait.
'How do you know my name?'
'I'm the Devil. Do you think I don't know every magician's name?'
This is escalating. That isn't how magic works. I've conjured a hundred spirits and they don't know things like this. I'm thrown and the Devil is still talking.
'I'm looking through you now. I can unfold time around you like you'd open a birthday present. Ah, the Hollow. I could tell you how to get rid of that right now. Scarlet? Do you want to know what her plans are? Do you want to know about the daughter who hates you? Do you want to know what's coming to your world like a meteor? Do you want to know how you'll die? Do you want to know what caused your mother to lose her mind? Do you want to know...'
'No. Be silent. By the three bindings I bid you to silence. Name of Tetragrammaton, be silent.'
Get to speaking on a castigation chant - doesn't normally pay to thrash a creature you want to work but having the lash to hand never hurts.
'One of those questions, I tell you now, you will regret not asking me.'
He talks before I can finish the punishment. Wonder if it would have worked...
Still. Question - I can't help myself. Don't even think about it.
'Which one?'
A heartbeat. Then slowly, the Devil begins to laugh.
'Oh Lark. You were right. Every story is Faust's story.'
I start. Whatever this entity is, never dealt with something like it. Shaky fucking ground.
Bettina raps knuckles on the ground. Turn. She slides a finger across her throat and nods the side of her head to the shifting figure. Finish it.
'You know a woman called Ava.'
He goes silent. It's like all the sound in the world gets sucked in. A reverse hiss. Time to shut this whole thing down. Worry a
bout what this thing is later. Curious I am, stupid, no.
'You know the woman. She lays ban on you. I lay ward on you. You are abjured. You may not act against her. You may not act for her. You are barred from her presence. You cannot contact or have her contacted. You are forbidden. You are forbidden. You are forbidden. By Michael, Lord of Flame, the Lion of the South. By Raphael, Lord of Air, Angel of the North, by Gabriel, Lord of Water, Eagle of the South, by Uriel, Lord of the Earth, Bull of the East, you are bound. By iron and flame, you are bound. By Kingdom, Power, Glory and Everlasting Law, you are bound. By the name you have given, Sower, you are thrice bound!'
Don't normally like to get formal but needs must as the... you get it.
Some people think you measure magic in power, it ain't like that. You measure it in information. You can feel the local reality alive with my commands, changing the nature of the spirit that calls itself the Devil.
Then it stops shifting. It's a Satanic Majesty. It stands. Tall, in a suit, eyes of flame, aristocrat sneer. The information stops. The spell stops working. Just. Freezes.
Up.
That shouldn't - that isn't -
And then it hurls back on me. Feedback. Never felt anything like this. Had spells go wrong before. Had entities break out before. Nothing I couldn't handle.
This is-
Feel myself getting bound in my own magic. Feel myself suddenly trapped. Heavy. Commanded.
And while I'm caged, while I'm prey, the Devil commands me.
'I thought I was free of her. Ava. But she'll know I was here. She'll know! I was free of her and now she'll know. So I command you, magus! I command you to be fucked up. I'm coming for you! You'll know hell before I'm done! For what you've done to bring that woman back into my life!'
Insanity puts the boots in. Sense and reason fall away. I slump and I'll find out later I'm drooling and that I've pissed myself. But for now, all I see are systems of chains, binding me against my will into self-harm. It's the only reasonable course. Take that athame knife in my fist.
Stab at my own eyes before Bettina's fist punches my wrist then she knocks me the fuck out. One punch.
Seven
i
Excerpt from THE DEVIL’S MOTHER-IN-LAW
BY FERNÁN CABALLERO, 1859
In a town, named Villagañanes, there was once an old widow uglier than the sergeant of Utrera, who was considered as ugly as ugly could be; drier than hay; older than foot-walking, and more yellow than the jaundice. Moreover, she had so crossgrained a disposition that Job himself could not have tolerated her. She had been nicknamed “Mother Holofernes,” and she had only to put her head out of doors to put all the lads to flight. Mother Holofernes was as clean as a new pin, and as industrious as an ant, and in these respects suffered no little vexation on account of her daughter Panfila, who was, on the contrary, so lazy, and such an admirer of the Quietists, that an earthquake would not move her. So it came to pass that Mother Holofernes began quarrelling with her daughter almost from the day that the girl was born.
“You are,” she said, “as flaccid as Dutch tobacco, and it would take a couple of oxen to draw you out of your room. You fly work as you would the pest, and nothing pleases you but the window, you shameless girl. You are more amorous than Cupid himself, but, if I have any power, you shall live as close as a nun.”
On hearing all this, Panfila got up, yawned, stretched herself, and turning her back on her mother, went to the street door. Mother Holofernes, without paying attention to this, began to sweep with most tremendous energy, accompanying the noise of the broom with a monologue of this tenor:—
“In my time girls had to work like men.”
The broom gave the accompaniment of shis, shis, shis.
“And lived as secluded as nuns.”
And the broom went shis, shis, shis.
“Now they are a pack of fools.”—Shis, shis.
“Of idlers.”—Shis, shis.
“And think of nothing but husbands.—Shis, shis.
“And are a lot of good-for-nothings.”
The broom following with its chorus.
By this time she had nearly reached the street door, when she saw her daughter making signs to a youth; and the handle of the broom, as the handiest implement, descended upon the shoulders of Panfila, and effected the miracle of making her run. Next, Mother Holofernes, grasping the broom, made for the door; but scarcely had the shadow of her head appeared, than it produced the customary effect, and the aspirant disappeared so swiftly that it seemed as if he must have had wings on his feet.
“Drat that fellow!” shouted the mother; “I should like to break all the bones in his body.”
“What for? Why should I not think of getting married?”
“What are you saying? You get married, you fool! Not while I live!”
“Why were you married, madam? And my grandmother? And my great grandmother?”
“Nicely I have been repaid for it, by you, you sauce-box! And understand me, that if I chose to get married, and your grandmother also, and your great grandmother also, I do not intend that you shall marry; nor my granddaughter, nor my great granddaughter! Do you hear me?”
In these gentle disputes the mother and daughter passed their lives, without any other result than that the mother grumbled more and more every day, and the daughter became daily more and more desirous of getting a husband.
Upon one occasion, when Mother Holofernes was doing the washing, and as the lye was on the point of boiling, she had to call her daughter to help her lift the caldron, in order to pour its contents on to the tub of clothes. The girl heard her with one ear, but with the other was listening to a well-known voice which sang in the street:—
The sound outside being more attractive for Panfila than the caldron within, she did not hasten to her mother, but went to the window. Mother Holofernes, meanwhile, seeing that her daughter did not come, and that time was passing, attempted to lift the caldron by herself, in order to pour the water upon the linen; and as the good woman was small, and not very strong, it turned over, and burnt her foot. On hearing the horrible groans Mother Holofernes made, her daughter went to her.
“Wretch, wretch!” cried the enraged Mother Holofernes to her daughter, “may you love Barabbas! And as for marrying—may Heaven grant you may marry the Evil One himself!”
ii
I'm looking over the notebooks I made. Five fat sixty-four page things. Covers, every page both sides, back cover, they're filled with writing. My walls too when I ran out of blue lines.
Can't read a damn word. It's not in any language I've even seen but it's clearly script.
I'm eating the broth Bettina made for me after I wrote for seventy hours straight. She tells me I did it with blood, on the floor of the sanctum when ink ran out. Then in spit when she wrestled me downstairs. Then when she got me more stationary I just kept going. Then I just came out of it, asking what was going on, then slept for sixteen more.
She's gone now.
'I gots to eat, hey.' All she said to me. Damn. Dead hunger isn't normal hunger. It burns brighter and deeper and she's been putting it off watching my crazy ass scribble. Only thing I can make any sense of, snake images, over and over.
Don't deserve her. One day I'll figure out why she stays. Says she owes me but she paid me back a dozen times over during the business with the Old Man.
None of this writing makes sense, serpents aside. There might be a cipher... Somewhere. I'll go to Lin's bookshop. She's clever with codes. Her ex-husband used to keep book for some guys. Taught her how. Right now, fuck it, I shower and change clothes and light up for the first time in days.
Tastes like shit. I cough. Maybe it's time to give it up if it's no damn fun.
The scab on my cheek itches like a too-deep tattoo. Can't complain. Bettina hadn't punched me fast as she did, I would have taken out my own damn eye.
Brew some coffee and limp around my office. My hip is well sore. In a drawer I find, result, a fifth of Iri
sh whiskey and pour it in.
Trying not to think about what the Devil said. Trying not to think about his curse. Trying not to think about the last thing he said.
'I thought I was free of her. But she'll know I was here. She'll know!'
Not the first time I've done freelance gigs for people lying about their motives. Shake that tree later.
I keep looking over the damn notebooks. Nothing. Put them away. Drink more Irish coffee. Take them out. Nothing. Put them away.
The Ultrascorpions never even tried to protect me. Write them a letter asking why. Leave them the last cup of coffee. They'll explain why in dreams or something. Not the kind of cats you just talk it over with.
Maybe they were more pissed than I thought.
Door opens. Bettina walks in.
She's bought a guest.
Katanya.
Black spray-on jeans and Joan Jett T-shirt looks like she bought it when it was first print. New school sheriff.
Frown up at my muscle but she shrugs. 'I remember her from last time. She seems alright to me.'
The Ultrascorpions inspect her aura. Slink into the shadows. Either they're on strike or Katanya's not here to fuck me up.
'Jesus Lark, what happened to you?'
My right eye is swollen. Hard to give her the Look. Shrug. 'Ninjas, baby. Ninjas.'
Katanya shakes her head. 'Yeah. It's ninja season. I'll drop by the pharmacy, get you some anti-ninja cream.'
She sits down at my kitchen table and pulls my head close. 'I should stitch that up.'
'Bettina took care of it.'
'Lark, I was gonna be a doctor. Trust me, splashing it with whisky and manfully bearing up won't keep if free from infection.'
Look over at Bettina who shrugs.
'It'll scar no matter what but we leave it, it's gonna be ugly and it's gonna be sensitive for the rest of your life. Let me give it a go.'
Bettina nods and gets the medical stuff I keep upstairs and never used since I took all the pain killers for fun ages ago. Throw back some shots and Katanya washes the wound, clears old blood, thick scab then gets to work. Grind my teeth. Stomp on the floor.
Devil City Page 6