Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  “Life is hard. Go on, go make yourself a drink. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “I figured that.”

  I went into the kitchen and poured two shots of whiskey into my martini shaker, and then poured lemon juice in there and powdered sugar. It was how I made a whiskey sour, and I had been told, on good authority, that my whiskey sours beat any bartender’s in town. Of course, I was a bartender, part-time, so I supposed that it was in my DNA to make a really good drink.

  After pouring my drink, I went back into the living room to join my new friend. Of course, that’s a sarcastic meaning of the word “friend,” because I had no clue on who this man was, and, what’s more, I had no desire to find out. As beautiful as he was.

  “So,” I said to him. “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “I think that you know.”

  “I think that I don’t.” I crossed my arms in front of me and glared at him. He was going to play games with me? After the kind of day that I had, he had his nerve.

  “Lyra, I believe that you know who I am and what this is all about, as you say.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders as he made a bad imitation of my voice when he said the words “what this is all about.” His deep baritone voice shot up a few octaves when he said those few words, and I was annoyed.

  “I don’t sound like that.”

  “Of course you don’t sound like that. I was only trying to make a point.”

  “Listen…” I sighed. “Alright, let’s start from square one. What is your name?”

  “Peter.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Like St. Peter? Is this what this is all about? I really did get shot, and now I’m dead? If that’s the case, then I feel really, really gypped. I mean, all this stuff that I learned in church about how glorious Heaven is. So far, all that I’ve experienced today has been a lot of rude people working in tandem to piss me off. Not to mention the fact that I had to clean up this apartment today, because there was trash everywhere.”

  He smiled and then had a little chuckle.

  “Oh, Lyra, I guess you could say that you’re getting warmer.” Then he smiled. “That’s a colloquialism that I’ve learned these past fifty years or so, and I think that it’s a delightful one under the circumstances. Because it fits this situation.”

  “What situation?” Yeah, it was beginning to dawn on me, and I started to get pissed again. I was in Hell? What kind of bullshit was that? What did I do to deserve to be in Hell? I mean, yeah, I wasn’t the most religious person in the world. In fact, I was really an atheist. No, agnostic. I believed, yet I really didn’t.

  Besides, I thought for sure that I would be reincarnated after I died. I just figured that I would be a baby again somewhere, hopefully not in a war-torn country or a really poor place. I thought that I’d come back to some middle-class, but loving, family, and start everything over again.

  I certainly had never entertained the notion that I would be going to Hell.

  Then again, anything was possible.

  5

  “Okay, let’s start over,” I said to this man, whose name was, I guess, Peter. “Now, tell me what is going on?”

  “Have you ever read Dante’s Inferno?”

  “Yes. Oh, let me guess. I’m Dante and you’re Virgil. I see.” I nodded my head, feeling proud that I was starting to figure it all out. “Well, I guess that’s not so bad. I mean, in that poem, the narrator, Dante, only visits Hell.” I wiped my brow. “Phew, you had me scared there for a second.”

  “No. That’s not what’s going on, mate. I was only asking you about that poem to see if you were familiar with the fact that Hell has many different circles. You are in the first one.”

  “Oh, no. I shouldn’t be here at all. I didn’t do a thing wrong, ever. I never cheated anyone. Well, unless you count that time that I took that eyeliner out of that store. But I didn’t mean to take it. It just ended up in my purse accidentally. Of course, I didn’t return in to the store once I found out I had it, but still.”

  I ticked off on my hands all the sins that I knew about. “I never committed adultery. Well, unless you count that one guy, but he was getting a divorce. Or so he said. It’s not my fault that he ended up going back to his wife. Anyhow, I’d have to be the one who is married to commit adultery, right?”

  “Technically, that’s wrong, but go on.” Peter seemed amused, which further enraged me.

  “Let’s see.” I looked up the ceiling, trying to think of all the Ten Commandments. After I went through those sins, I would go through the Seven Deadly Ones. Or, on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t go through the Seven Deadly Ones. God knew I was guilty of sloth, wrath, envy, gluttony, greed, lust and pride on more than one occasions. Of those, I was least guilty of greed, but, on a sliding scale, I was still pretty guilty of even that.

  “Okay, let’s see. Thou shalt not commit murder. I haven’t done that. Of course, that particular Commandment is thou shalt not kill, and I’ve killed bugs and spiders and ants and things. Surely God isn’t going to hold that against me, is he?”

  “Go on.” Again, Peter’s raspberry lips were curling into an amused smile. “You’re right, the Commandment is thou shalt not kill, and you’re also right that God is not going to hold killing spiders against you. But go on.”

  “Phew.” That would have been really a bullshit thing if I got here because I killed roaches in my home. If that was the case, how would anybody not be in Hell?

  “Thou shalt not steal,”n I said, pointing to Peter. “That’s another one.”

  “You already told me that you stole an eyeliner from a store, so you can just skip over that one. Unless you have other stealing incidents that you’d like to confess.”

  I sighed. “Well, I might have forgotten to give back some change to some drunk people one time when I was waitressing. But I was really broke. It was either that or I didn’t eat that week.”

  “Did you manage to buy a new pair of shoes that week?”

  “Well, yes. They were on sale, though, and you don’t pass up a good pair of Jimmy Choos on sale.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Wait, how did you know that I bought a new pair of shoes that week?”

  “I’ll tell you later. But, please, go on. This is so amusing to me. I don’t think that I’ve been this amused in awhile. Usually my job is…pretty grim.”

  “Grim. Like reaper grim?” Lord knew that this guy didn’t look the part of the Grim Reaper as I’ve always understood him to look, but, then again, nothing about this particular day was turning out the way that I thought that it would.

  “No. I’m not the Grim Reaper. But, after you go through all the Ten Commandments, you can play twenty questions with me. That would be amusing as well, mate.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You are an odd duck, you know that?”

  “That’s the first time that somebody has described me as a species of water fowl, but, you know what they say. There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Okay, where was I?”

  “You went through adultery and stealing and killing,” Peter said helpfully. “And you concluded that you were really guilty of all three. As they say, mate, you’re batting a thousand.”

  “Yes, okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to think of some of the other Commandments. “Let’s see, there’s something about honoring my mother and my father. Now, I think that’s a really vague Commandment, don’t you? I’ve backtalked my mother, of course. I was a bratty teenager at the time. What bratty teenager hasn’t done that?”

  Peter nodded his head. “Nevertheless, it sounds like you’re still batting a thousand.”

  “Now, come on. These were peccadilloes. Minor little things. Are you telling me that everybody who has killed an ant, mistakenly taken something from a store, and told her mother to suck cocks in Hell is going to end up here?”

  Peter laughed. “You really told your mother that?”

  I shrugged. “I always liked that line in The Exorcist. I saw
a chance to use it, and I did.”

  “Ah, The Exorcist,” he said, nodding his head. “Silly movie, really. Possessions don’t really happen like that.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Like what?” I was suddenly interested in what this man had to say, although I was going to continue going through the different sins in the Ten Commandments as soon as he told me exactly why The Exorcist wasn’t correct.

  “Demons don’t do all that, mate. They don’t make a person green and their eyes…” He shuddered. “That movie gave me nightmares, even if I knew that it would never happen.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. “How do you know a demon wouldn’t do that?”

  “Think about it, Lyra. If a demon wants to possess somebody, she is going to do it without anyone knowing. The whole point of possession is for the demon to act on his proclivities in the real world. I would think that making a person green and making one’s head spin all the way around would defeat that purpose, don’t you think?”

  “You make a point.” Then I thought about his words. “I see what you did there. You used both male and female pronouns. Does that mean that there are male and female demons?”

  “Of course. I have read in some pieces of fiction that demons have no gender, but they are wrong. Demons are distinctly either male or female.”

  “Interesting. But couldn’t there be a particularly dumb demon who would do all that, and cause him or her to get caught?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Lyra, the term ‘dumb demon’ as you say is an oxymoron. There’s no such thing, mate. Every single one of them is possessed of an intellect that you and everybody else in the world couldn’t fathom. So, no, when they possess, you’ll never know about it.”

  “Ted Bundy?” Suddenly my recitation of my sins was forgotten.

  “No, he wasn’t possessed. Just particularly crazy.”

  “Hitler?”

  “The same as Ted Bundy. Lyra, there is such a thing as mental illness that’s not attached to anything particularly evil. Besides, most demons are more subtle than those two men, and all the serial killers you might list off. If you must know, there are many demons working on Wall Street. They’re getting rich off of people’s misery. And they’re not the ones who get caught. I knew that was your next question – if Bernie Madoff is a demon. He’s not. A demon would never get caught in his evil deeds. They are much too smart for that.”

  “Ah, Wall Street is full of possessed people. I knew that something was up with those people.”

  “Demons are greedy. That is perhaps the best way that you can tell somebody is a demon in this world. They will amass money, never giving a cent to charity, and then will put their fortune into an off-shore account so that the government cannot touch it. They can never spend the money they amass in a thousand lifetimes, but that is of no concern to them. They want money just for the sake of having it.”

  “Well, that certainly describes most of the billionaires and hedge fund managers you hear about. But, then again, if a demon is immortal, then maybe they need all those billions to keep them afloat for thousands of years.”

  “Lyra, their host body dies. Those billions then go to their greedy heirs, who are not necessarily demons, because many of those heirs are pretty stupid. So, when their host body dies, they simply go on to another host body and the process starts all over again.”

  “So, are you saying that the only demons in this world are those who are super-rich?”

  “No, of course not. Some demons are not greedy for money or power. By the way, that is where many other demons are. In Congress. So far, they’ve not managed to attain the presidency, which astounds me. Some demons are your everyday people who are motivated by cruelty. Animal abusers, people abusers, high school mean girls and boys.” He shook his head. “They are really legion.”

  “Interesting.” I nodded my head. “And…”

  “Lyra, I’m sorry, but there is not much more time. We have to move on with this conversation.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? If I’m in Hell, then I’m here for eternity, right?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, let me go through the rest of the Ten Commandments so that I can figure out what happened that I would end up here.”

  “Lyra, I’m not a priest, so you don’t have to confess your sins to me. I’m also not your judge. Hopefully you will not see your judge for many, many years.” In other words, shut the fuck up.

  “Okay, now you’re confusing me. If you mean judge, I’m assuming you’re talking about the person who is going to decide where I go after I die. Since I’m in the first circle of Hell, as you say, then I must have already been judged, right? Otherwise, I didn’t get my due process. Is there any way I can appeal this decision?”

  “Are you quite through?”

  “Yes. I mean, you want to talk to me about what is going on, right?”

  “I have wanted to do that for…” He looked up at the clock. “A half hour now.”

  “Then take the floor.”

  “Thank you. As I said before, you are in the first circle of Hell, although I refer to it as The Infernum. You didn’t get here because of any of your earthly deeds, or lack thereof as the case may be.”

  “Well, that’s shitty. You mean that I’m here through no fault of my own?”

  “I guess you can say that. You’re here because of a curse that was put upon you thousands of years ago.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I think that I need another drink.”

  “Go ahead, but do it quickly. Our time is running very short.”

  At that, I got up off my seat and went into the kitchen to pour another whiskey sour. I made this one a double, and, as I sipped it, I started to feel tipsy. That was a good sign – if I was really dead, I doubted that I could feel drunk.

  I went back to the living room. “Okay. Now. What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t been alive for thousands of years, so how…”

  “There’s no time to explain all of that. I need to tell you more about what you are to do once you get back to earth.”

  I suddenly felt a million times happier. “Oh, thank God. I’m not stuck here after all?”

  “No.” Then he cleared his throat. “Before I tell you what is about to happen, I must warn you about the other circles of Hell. They get progressively worse than this one.”

  “Much worse?”

  “Progressively worse. As you have probably deduced, in the first circle, there are many irritations. All of your pet peeves are made manifest in this first circle. All of the things, the minor things, that drive you crazy on earth are all that you encounter here.”

  “So…”

  “Messy homes, slow drivers in the fast lane, people who see a highway arrow miles ahead and go to the front of the line, shopping carts in the parking stalls, littering, traffic jams…all of those minor things that you, in particular, hated are all that you will encounter here.”

  “People who go to the front of a line in a construction zone is one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m glad I didn’t encounter that one today.”

  “You would have if you would have stayed in this circle a little while longer.”

  “So, what is in the next circle?”

  “Well, it is cumulative. So, in the next circle, you still have all the minor irritations that are in the first circle, but, in addition, you add in uncoordinated traffic lights. Everywhere you go, you will hit every single red light just as it’s turning red. Needless to say, it will not only take your hours to get anywhere, but you will also be unbelievably angry by the time you get to your destination.”

  I shuddered. “Okay, so Hell is a series of minor everyday irritations for eternity. I mean, that’s bad. That’s really bad. But compared to what I thought Hell was…” I shrugged. “It sure beats burning alive and being tortured.”

  He shook his head. “There are nine circles, just as Dante said. And, in the last circle…Let’s just say that the traditional vision of
Hell is accurate.”

  “Well, I won’t have to find out about that, will I? Because I’m getting out of here right now, right?”

  “You are. But things will be just a little bit different.”

  “Here we go. I knew that there was going to be a caveat. Well, okay, go on. Tell me how things will be different.”

  “We don’t have time for this, mate. I’m sorry. I’ll be there with you to help you and answer any questions you have. Because I’m sure that you’ll have many questions along the way.”

  “Dammit, why do you keep trying to rush this? I need to know what’s in store for me when I get back to earth, and I need to know now.”

  Peter looked irritated. “You were the one who insisted on reciting all your sins. That really wasn’t necessary, and it wasted much precious time. I could have simply told you why you were here in a few short sentences and then you would have the information that you need. At least partially.”

  “Partially. Listen, you could have stopped me when I started to spout off like that. You could have interrupted me and just said ‘quiet Lyra, you didn’t do anything to get here, so…”

  Peter made a face. “That’s one of my biggest flaws. I’m too polite sometimes. At any rate-“

  “And what do you mean by partially? Are you saying that, even if you had all the time in the world, you still wouldn’t tell me what I need to know?”

  “That’s correct. There is too much to tell you all at once. I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

  “Ay…” I shook my head. “Well, this is bullshit. But tell me what to expect.”

  “We’re out of time. So, I’m sorry, I cannot tell you anything, mate.”

  “Listen, if you could just explain things to me instead of telling me that we’re out of time and you can’t explain things, then you could explain things.” I hoped that made sense to him. It made sense to me in my head.

  “I’m sorry?” He furrowed his brow, which told me that he didn’t understand what I just said.