Pentacle - A Self Collection

by Tom Piccirilli

  Control yourself, I ordered. We're going to be here until I figure out what's happening.

  It would prove impossible to tell what was merely City—signs of the Street—and what was actually the coven's maleficia. Evil remained evident. I wandered the West Side until night, doing my best not to daydream about Danielle, and failing. I was approached six times by mumbling drug dealers, and once by an adolescent mugger who got to within a couple of steps of me before changing his mind. At six o'clock the car shops, garages, and warehouses on Eleventh Avenue began to close up. The hookers came out relatively early: a little after midnight. Empty side streets thrived with cars that would roll up, drivers chatting and laughing with the ladies, everyone shifty-eyed and desperate, proceeding to the end of the block with them. Taillights lined like an airport runway. Self grumbled at the electrical atmosphere: the lust excited him. It made me antsy, too.

  Something else came alive as well. With the night fell another atmosphere: colder, heavier, and just as primal as sex but with an uglier sense of reason. A living but unalive presence dropping over the area like an immense black tarpaulin: you could feel the cement trap shutting—the buildings, corners, brick, all fencing in the pressure and fear. It came down, a wedge between me and my second self. I groaned, my chest suddenly hurting badly, and Self reached up to massage me with his loving touch. I thought about what eighty-year-old Giles Cory must have felt when for two days Salem crushed him to death beneath iron weights, simply because he refused to plead during the trials.

  Do you feel that? I asked.

  Yes. We're in the right place.

  And from the shadows she came to me.

  Pumps dutifully clacking on the sidewalk. Twenty-five years old on the outside, she moved with grace and purpose, casually dressed in a white blouse and matching gray jean outfit, without the cheap ease of the others, acting more like a college student. Perhaps she was. Haunting dark looks: brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, wide doe-eyes, evocative lips. No need for makeup.

  "Hi," she said, and I wondered if she'd follow-up with, 'Want a date?' She had a smile that permeated her entire face, the kind that puts chills down a lonely man's back—or any man's for that matter. Friendly intentions and good conversation aside, there remained an alertness to her, a built-in wariness, and that hint of unfocused dread. The beautiful smile shifted to a less intimidating buddy-type grin. "I noticed you've been standing around here for hours, kinda just shuffling along. Are you waiting for someone in particular?"

  "I'm new to the area," I told her, "and thought I'd . . . ."

  "Ah, I get it . . . you thought you'd 'make the scene,' right?" she finished for me with a nice giggle.

  "Something like that. If it's not too cliché."

  She shrugged. "A bit, but I suppose I'll let you slide in a generous display of New York hospitality."

  "There's no such thing."

  Again the shrug and sardonic smile. "Not entirely true, if you must know. It's just that not everyone in the city gets a warm welcome. Hardly anyone, in fact, so you should consider yourself special."

  "That's kind of you." What surprised me most was that she didn't quite stop walking as she spoke to me, taking a small languorous step further on every few seconds so that I was forced to walk beside her to keep up the conversation. If it was a ploy to get me to follow her, it worked. I slowly moved along with her.

  "There are all types of scenes to make," she said. "Most you probably can't imagine, and every one of them is more interesting than just standing around on the sidewalk. So what's your deal?"

  C'mon, Self pleaded.

  Don't say it.

  C'mon. You've got enough money. Do it.

  "I'm Nadine," she continued. "I live right up the block, so I suppose we're neighbors. What's your name?"

  I told her. We continued doing our little shuffle beneath the streetlights, making small talk. We passed the liquor store and wandered down Eleventh Avenue, her smile drawing me on. I wanted to ask her questions about the girl who'd been found in the park, but, strangely enough, found no way to broach the subject. We turned the corner.

  A bearded black man sat off in the thick shadows surrounded by garbage cans and corrugated cardboard boxes; I tensed, drew back, and fell into a defensive stance, but he made no move. Nadine didn't see him, taking her jacket off now, the fully silhouetted angles of her breasts exposed in the feeble lamplight, about to make her big pitch. The stranger peered at me, wavered, squinted and shook his head, then looked again and croaked, "Hey man, I hope I don't frighten you none, but tell me if I got dem ol' D.T.'s again, pleeze, I got's to know, just answer me this . . . who dat be sittin' top you skull?"

  Aww, cripes, Self said. He can see me.

  The man laughed a wheezing, high titter. "Got's a funny voice, too. Kinda the way my wife Fiona sound 'fore she threw me out. Oh, I got to get right, I need my drink. Legba don' like men to be dis way." He smiled a yellow, withered grin. "It be a bad night. Trust me. An ugly night."

  Nadine said, "Damn it, Arlie, what are you doing here?" and grabbed me by my arm, spinning me hard to her left and throwing me up against the alley wall. She pressed a knee into my tailbone and kicked my legs wider apart. Before I could say a word, the barrel of a small-caliber gun was nudged firmly under my ear.

  With great astonishment the man said, "Nadine, I'm surprised! When you quit whorin' and join the cops?"

  "Shut up, Arlie," she told him, then leaned forward and whispered, "Okay, creep, talk to me or I'll blow your rotten, twisted brain all over this alley."

  I said, "Now this is more like the generous display of New York hospitality I was expecting."

  She jammed the gun into the tender spot of my kidneys, and I dropped to my knees, gagging.

  "Yo, Nadine," Arlie said. "What you be doin' to ma boys? Dey in de bad night wit us."

  Self's claws were already out, bitter spit leaking from his lips, ready for mauling. I called him back down, fighting as my own hands trembled with majik.

  "You're one of them, aren't you," she said.

  "Who?"

  The gun found my kidneys again and I bit my tongue to keep from either shouting or killing her. She'd learned a lot on the Street and had picked up a fine technique from police and pimps. I fell but managed to wheel around, position myself facing her, propped against the wall. She thrust the gun under my chin, still smiling, the grin going acid, then toxic, pure anger and terror. "You've been standing around here all day long. Now don't tell me you've been just 'making the scene,' all right? Maybe I'll just carve your guts out the way you did Debbie and Vera, and those Haitian kids."

  They scrawl in the children's entrails to contact the hierarchies and make greater maleficia.

  "I'm here to help," I said.

  Raw edges of rage crawled in and out of her doe-eyes. Oddly, her beauty only intensified. "You or one of your friends killed my man. His name was Eddie Thompkins, but none of you cared about that. Not his name, his face, not even his money." She gripped me by the wrist. "You just wanted to cut his hands. You took the first knuckle of all his fingers. Now why?" Two tears of fury squirted out the corners of her eyes and did a slow winding trail down her cheeks. "Why that? Of all things, why'd he have to bleed to death like that?"

  "Did he have a twin?" I asked.

  It caught Nadine like a shot to the nose. She backed up a step, her mouth a flat, white line. "How did you know that?"

  Fingerprint whorls from a twin made a powerful poison. Arlie kept staring over her shoulder at me. "I can't understand what you doin' with that thing top you head. Damn. I got one too? Feels like it sometimes, eatin' out the back of ma brain." He hunkered further down into the garbage, among the cans and bottles, and drew poorly-formed African tribal symbols in the air. "Bad juju. I need ma drink. We at the crossroads. Papa Legba maitre carrefour, protect us. Nadine, you listenin'? The Eshus be out tonight finding meat for dat hungry Oggun. Don't stand on no corners. I got to get right. Eshus, they stay in the corners. D
espachos."

  He'd mixed up Santeria and Voudon with Brazilian black magic, but all of it was essentially correct. We were at the crossroads.

  Nadine shuddered and said, "Goddam, it got cold . . . ."

  She started to turn and the boy from the grave stepped into the mouth of the alley.

  The cement trap closed. Self leaped at the child again. I held back my spells this time, the infernal weight pressing me further away, shoving down like a razor blade between us. Our bond severed. Self cried out, and I shrieked, torn in half. I slung invocations but didn't come close to hitting the child, maleficia turning the world end over end, my ribs buckling beneath the tarpaulin of evil. Danielle's face came unbidden, her laughter on the beach loud in my ear. Nadine screamed and the gun went off. Another two shots and Arlie screeched, "Legba!"

  I lifted my fists and fired hexes blindly, speaking the nine names of God: ". . . Ei Adonia Tzabaoth Emeth . . . ." The razor drew back and the crushing pressure eased off some. My vision cleared. I saw Self battling the boy, biting, scratching, the child laughing the whole time. Cut free from me, Self wheeled away as the wind rose, tugging at him gently at first, then stronger as the maelstrom grew, air full of keening insanity as he tried to crawl back to me. Head ducked, struggling forward, he could barely stay on the ground. I ran to him, leaped, and missed my second self's ankle as he flew backwards shrieking, arms and legs outstretched towards me, sucked out of reach and dwindling into darkness.

  With spinning motes of white energy exploding in the air around me, I called a killing curse and brought my burning fist up as hard as I could into the boy's jaw. His giggle cracked in half. I got him in a full nelson, his flesh as cold as a winter wellspring. I snarled, "What is your name?" His teeth multiplied and curved, human form rapidly changing—I bit into his ear and gnashed through the putrid ichor flooding my mouth. I gagged and nearly vomited, but had tasted the name: Verd-Joli. Third hierarchy, second order of demon, sired by Abaddon, a destroyer.

  Still humming and chuckling, tra-la, tra-la-la, the demon came on. Nadine stood frozen and raised the gun again, fired twice more into the blond face. Arlie, out of his head, still had sense enough to know what was coming, and the courage to try to do something about it. He chanted a melody to Papa Legba, god of Voudon, companion to the ancient blood worship of Santeria. I called out, "Get back, both of you!" Nadine still had no idea what was happening, and scowled at me, certain I was the enemy in some capacity or another. She fired the last bullet at me. A splinter exploded from the brick wall. Verd-Joli took her by the throat, roughly pulled her head back exposing the thick, healthy veins of her neck, ready to feed.

  Rolling to Arlie's side, I picked up a broken wine bottle and slashed my palm, in the same motion spun a binding incantation, saying the words King Solomon had used to bottle all the demon djinn: "Lofam Solomon Iyouell Iyosemacui." Verd-Joli's mouth snapped open as if pried by invisible hands, and he dropped Nadine. Her neck bled but I couldn't tell how badly. The spell held him in place for one second too long—the coven's demonic familiar shrieked as I drove my bloody fist against his lashing tongue. That's what it took. He knew me now, understood my purpose, and became one inside my blood, my self.

  Arlie kneeled at Nadine's side, cradling her head in his lap. "Oh Legba," he sobbed. "I been on de corner too long. Hep me. Take de Oggun away."

  Again that screech as Verd-Joli fell back into his child's form. I heaved him into the air. "Where are they?"

  How clearly I could see the struggle in those bleak eyes: the rage, confusion, and frustration of a spawned destroyer, all for nothing as he lay trapped and powerless before me. Sirens wailed nearby. I put him down and patted his head like a good dog. "Take me there."

  The boarded building was no longer a church and hadn't been for years—now a crack den and sanctuary for rats. Raw waves of maleficia lapped at me as I moved up the stairs, Verd-Joli at my side. That rictus grin spread over his beautiful face like a plague—he'd come home, at last, returning to the fold, though with a new master.

  "Is the entire coven within?" I asked.

  "You don't know what you're talking about," the boy said.

  "Then explain it to me."

  "You'll find out."

  I walked to the front door and held out my hands, searching for signs of enchantment charms or runes written on the wood: no warding spells of any kind, no curses or protective astral webs or Kabbalistic locks and keys. I had an open invitation.

  "You lead."

  Verd-Joli stooped to all fours and scurried forward. Inside, the darkness writhed, hodgepodge lighting receding down a narrow hallway. I drew guarding sigils in front of me, sparks discharging through the air. The stink of urine and rotting garbage became stronger. Soon we came to a small, open vestibule, with perhaps two hundred pews lining the room. Weak candlelight dimly lit the place. A sloppy Goat's-head had been spray-painted on one wall. Two roosters ran free. A number of black robes hung askew over the nearest bench.

  "A black mass?" I said. Verd-Joli clapped his hands softly and giggled. "A stupid black mass? You've got to be kidding me." I expected a witches Sabbat, with all its powerful pagan rites and pentacles, seals of Solomon, the sweat of nature and sweet odor of deadly nightshade. True witches have their own form of worship, and true Satanists don't go through the reverse motions of mass—they don't accept the Christian symbolism. Fools like Montague Summers never realized that black masses were never performed by real witches, and exist only in gory fiction, horror videos, and adolescents playing around emulating their heavy metal heroes. They parody the Catholic ritual, performing it backwards with a silly, if ugly, edge: inverting crosses, burning black candles, stepping on stolen host, screwing around in the pews, tossing in a spice of Santeria and cutting the heads off chickens. Kid stuff. In the days of Louis XIV, decadent and fashionable French noblemen played obscene games in wine cellars with their mistresses, getting drunk and letting the orgy grow until they occasionally slit the throat of a commoner.

  Self sat on the altar before a chalice, swinging his legs like an impatient child seated in a shopping cart.

  Several books were piled to the left of him: the Harris papyrus, Egyptian Book of Thoth, Madame Blavatsky's Book of Dyzan, and the Celestial Intelligencer: to his right stood a robed and cowled figure slowly paging through Collin de Pianey's Dictionairre Infernal searching for Self's picture—de Pianey's encyclopedia contained portraits of most major and minor demons—I couldn't see the person's face but knew he'd be worried.

  The boy laughed and held my hand as if we were father and son about to go watch a circus. I took a step forward and screamed as somebody threw salt into my eyes. The witch's bane blinded and weakened me, and I stumbled forward in agony. Verd-Joli's laughter rang out louder, and I knocked a pew aside. Clawing my eyes, everything going double, triple, I commanded the boy to help, but not soon enough before something that felt very much like the base of a heavy candlestick connected with the back of my skull.

  I awoke with tears streaming and tasted the salty bitterness lining my lips. Rubbing my eyes, my fingers came away smeared with blood, but the pain began to fade and gray blurs took some focus. After a moment I realized I was sitting in a chair beside the altar, not tied with any ropes or chains, but restricted by a simple, paralyzing ring of salt surrounding the chair, empowered by the deeds of maleficia.

  Even so, I felt better, the nausea and feebleness gone, and knew Self was my self again. The binding spell on Verd-Joli had been voided the instant my familiar returned to me. I looked over and he was still swinging his legs. He said, Hey.

  Blinking, I could barely make out a dozen milling shapes standing around in the pews, garbed in black robes.

  Who are they?

  A dying bunch of clucks. He breathed deeply and sighed longingly. A lot of spilled blood. I love a good party. He reached over and drank from the chalice, liquid trailing down his chin.

  What he tasted filled my mind: parsnip, belladonna, poplar leaves, cin
quefoil, female rat, and stale meat from the cemetery.

  He waited for me to say it.

  Help me.

  He climbed up my chest and nuzzled my neck, licking the salt from my eyes. I scanned our audience. He was right—they weren't a coven, not even a true unified group; a mixture of homeless and runaway kids and addicts. They'd probably been using this place as a shelter before whoever was in charge showed up. They'd been fed the poison a short time ago; I could smell their deaths already. I worked at the puzzle as I dug through the knots of majik holding me to the chair: like everything else that had occurred so far, it too was paradox, a weak but complex charm.

  One of the terminal women—a toothless, dirty-faced crone with years of abuse carved into her face, representing every cliché of witchcraft without any of its meaning—used the corner of her robe to shine a brass amulet on a necklace ringed with tiny silver pentacles. I could just make out the name SYLVIA etched into the brass.

  "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to put your own name on a talisman, Sylvia? Use a shemoth, a substitute name for the archangels."

  She wavered and looked up at the ceiling, puzzled, unsure of who had spoken to her, and said, "Huh? Wha'?" She was slowly turning blue. Kids sat beside her, too weak to finish smoking a joint. No one took any notice of me.

  The vestibule door opened and the same hooded, robed figure from before emerged with an air of grace, style, and command, the stench of blood growing heavier in the air. Happy boy Verd-Joli danced, gyrating hips, frolicking as if he were plucking and tossing flowers. Everybody else sat in their death daze and watched without care or understanding, the whole scene a strange, drug-induced hallucination, a stepping stone between lucid seconds of a hideously vanishing reality. Approaching, robe sliding off shoulders, sheer dress underneath, golden hair splayed out now halfway down the back, breasts jutting with the slow intake of heaving, furious breath, she turned to face me.