Pentacle - A Self Collection

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Pentacle - A Self Collection Page 16

by Tom Piccirilli


  He was close enough to death that when he gagged on the vomit and blood his own ghost spoke for him. "You got to put an end to it. It ain't his fault, you listening? Not his fault that he's losing control." His lips trembled and his teeth dripped as he choked, ribbons of blood painting prophecies. "He's my daddy. He's frail, and needy. It rose up in him, y'understand, the rhythms, what man can make it lie down, what man can starve his own blues like that? I can't. Can you? He had to start playing again. It ain't his fault, not all of it, not all of it anyhow. You gotta help save my girl, Elise. Her name is Elise, and she'll be with him. He's waiting for you! He knows your name!"

  Two great wracking sobs shuddered through his body as he began to spasm, scared but still smiling, his fear lost within the love of the music sweeping the street. Footprints on his face blazed red. His spirit held on, winding threads of itself into the branches and trying to knot its heart among the other dead. It didn't trust me and didn't want to leave, and stared at me suspiciously with the same bleeding sockets of the dead man on the ground.

  "Go on," I told it. "I'll take care of everything."

  Still, his spirit curled with the other shadows, clinging to them, and the world, and the music.

  If you see Elvis over there, Self said, ask him what the frig was up with those fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches.

  A simple rite of release would set his ghost free, no spell or nail had captured it yet, but it didn't want to go. Self dipped his claws into the darkness, plying the lapping waves of what moved there. He gave me a sidelong glance, his nostrils quivering as he sucked in the essence of murder. Take the guitar, you're going to need power.

  I don't play.

  Yes, he said, you do. You'd better.

  I hefted the guitar and my satchel and threw them over my shoulder. We walked up Beale street, past the cabarets and theaters, the numerous piano bars and clamoring cafes drifting with smoke. A Baptist Church struggled for its place among all the bliss cut loose in the lounges.

  Self loved going to church; he trundled up the walkway and peered through the windows, smelling the freshly cut flowers that lined the altar, and waving to the reverend. Other churches spun in the air as well, with different altars calling. Those that had been built for Elmore James, Carl Perkins, Albert King, Furry Lewis, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. They lived on and died on. Prayers were sent up and made by T-Bone Walker and Louis Jordan and Willie Dixon. The night wedged open further. People laughed and ate in restaurants, and danced out the back doors into the alleys. Great guffaws broke free, and women tittered and sang.

  The further we went down the street, the further we went away.

  Self felt it too, and wrapped himself around my leg. But he didn't whine or argue the way he usually did, and that frightened me more than anything.

  What's the matter? I hissed. Words rose and ignited as I described burning symbols in the air, half-expecting resistance from my second self with his tongue around my wrist, but not getting any.

  Don't you know? he said. Are you really that naïve?

  Sweat poured down my face. I started feeling sicker and sicker as we breached the night. The cramps got much worse until I doubled-over snarling with pain, with the wards of Abra-Melin scurrying under my tongue. The attack had been inordinately subtle, entwined with the music. Hidden in the blues were screaming toads and the acrid taste of salt, the witch's bane. My spells of protection came too late, and as I mouthed invocations my voice wasn't nearly loud enough now to be heard among the songs.

  Self strummed the guitar on my back and it seemed to help a little, for a while. My fists filled with hexes and ignited uselessly. Some of the world had already been left behind—most of the living, yet none of the lamentation. I staggered and went to my knees a few times, but managed to stand and keep going up the street. People crowded past me, arguing, groaning, drawn along by their own blues: recent suicides, the abused and slain, a gathering of the vanquished.

  I felt the soothing hand of my mother on me, her tender touch, and I moaned the way I had in the feverish nights when she sang to me sitting on my bed. Sorrow swelled and soaked me like the icy washcloth she'd pressed to my burning forehead, and I could feel the awful sobbing about to break in my chest when I realized it was Self running his hand through my hair.

  Finally we came to a club of shadows full of whispers, and the blues poured out heavily with the moans of the dead. Regret packed in beside me: shame, remorse, penitence, and the countless lost. The music was filled with cries of victimization, trouble that never ends or eases, bad luck that forever turns worse, shrieks of the Damballah, the need to be free, and the drop-kicked chants of the pious and the damned. The club held the heat of the fiery sun hanging over cotton fields, the heart of Egypt, gospel sounds and tribal calls. The blues collected it all. I moved along with it, wondering what the hell had led me here and why the world had gone so empty, just as I stepped into a squirming puddle of tortured toads.

  Self viciously kicked them aside and said, I'm getting the feeling somebody doesn't like us.

  I nodded. You and me both. But are they trying to keep witches out or in?

  Now I knew where the sickness had come from. Someone had known, long before I did, that I'd be coming here. He'd taken the time to baptize and eviscerate the toads, sending the agony into me, hoping to halt my approach. For that he needed my name. Who had the power and knowledge of my name?

  I took a step inside, and with the hideous sound of rotted wood bursting my leg shattered.

  Answers that question, Self said.

  The laughter of Matthew Hopkins, Cotton Mather, and other witch-killers echoed along the street. I shrieked and grabbed my shin, tumbling aside where the souls continued to walk over me. Iron knives had been crossed and buried under the doorstep so that no witch could walk by. My second self and I stared at each other for a minute as I tried not to chew through my tongue. I writhed and flailed, thrashing wildly. He waited for me to ask. Help me.

  It would be my privilege.

  He spit venom on my leg and worked it with all the prowess of an Asian masseuse, kneading the severed ligaments back together, realigning the torn cartilage. I gritted my teeth and listened to the cackling of Mather and Hopkins, the crackling of my splintered bones as Self healed me.

  Thanks.

  Always at your service.

  It took him twenty minutes, even with his claws, to dig the blades free. He studied them for a moment, shaking his head, then plunged them into the night where the witch-killers wandered, always vigilant, even today.

  We walked into the club.

  Darkness assailed, as it had to do. Spirits took their seats and sauntered up to the bar, drinking fruit jars full of liquor, flirting with one another with wide, empty grins that only underscored their torment. The guitar held arcana of some kind—the dead shied away from it, but the pressure of their troubled lives and deaths pressed me in the direction of the stage—towards him.

  His face had been eaten by shadow, so that it drifted in and out of focus. He played Tenor sax, the way Lester Young used to do—pulling the deep blues from an instrument more associated with jazz, but going at it in such a way that you knew, instantly, that this was what suffering was all about. Lurking somewhere unseen played a standup bass and a piano with an unbearably slow left hand slide. I noticed the blood on his shoes. The ghosts nailed to the trees were nailed to him as well.

  He must've died during the night and still looked like he hadn't gotten used to it, but was hoping somebody had simply made a mistake. Being dead had given him his blues back. Who is he?

  Don't you know a legend when you see one?

  Apparently not.

  Self closed his eyes and swayed to the music, snapping his fingers to the crooked beat. Riley Rufus Scalder. Sugarfoot Scalder. Played with Tommy Dorsey before Memphis got back into his blood and he came home to where he belonged.

  Of course I knew the name, but couldn't reconcile the legendary jazz and blues great
with the flickering man seated on the dark platform, blowing softly into a sax: his loose skin clumped at the wrists and hung from his face like melted wax, his boneless body crumpled within a freshly-pressed suit.

  He played for the departed, the angry stillborn, and the bitter barren. Sugarfoot's music had been bringing them in for years, and tonight was no different. His blues had called them to the edge of emptiness and annihilation—the overdosed, heartbroken, and the downtrodden despairing. Unleashed like this his music had taken them—us—all of us, to hell with him.

  Beside Sugarfoot Scalder, singing words I couldn't completely understand, stood his granddaughter, Elise, moving listlessly. The resemblance had more to do with the cool glow of horror they exuded, the burdensome witchery in the raw meat of their ebony faces. Elise sang more beautifully than anyone I'd ever heard before except my mother. She swooned before the microphone, leaning forward and unleashing her anguish, tilting as the sorrow and suffering of ages tipped along with her in the room.

  The dead audience loomed, and I moved among them, watching.

  Sugarfoot looked down at me and a shrewd grin gashed open and broadened. His lips eased off the mouthpiece, but the sax continued to softly play on. "You aren't supposed to be out there," he said. His breath had soured, and I knew he'd died sucking down cheap scotch. "You're here to play. I been waiting for you. Waiting for you a long time." When his thumb slid off the octave key I saw he'd driven 14 Penny nails into his palms. He drew back, smiling a little more, but with a familiar terror in his eyes, as he squeezed his fist and poured blood down into the bell of the sax.

  Who is it?

  Mr. Nice-Foot.

  From out the bell crawled Abul'l-Ala My'aal Nice-Foot Byjohn, fifth hierarchy, fourth order, sired by Nammah, ambassador of Shamdon, and emissary to the duke of the East, Agares. It preferred too many forms at once, in the manner of Nammah, pot-bellied and wearing vestiges of a dozen creatures: goose honked with him, lion, a hare's tail, raven feathers, and slices of wolf, crocodile, hawk, and boyish aspects rising to the surface of the mixture, its crown sitting askew on its malformed head. It yanked out the 14-Penny nails and drove them in again, so that more blood burst into its face. Nice-Foot Byjohn's breath had been tainted by the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians, the drowned of the river, and by the last sacrifice in Chucalissia Village five centuries ago.

  He always liked the horn, Self said, nodding a greeting to the feeding Nice-Foot Byjohn. Used to blow it on the pale horse, riding into Canaan, when he commanded thirty legions of Hell. Bad sounds. Nice-Foot ain't so nice.

  Doesn't have any feet, either.

  "You killed your son," I said to Sugarfoot Scalder.

  Elise cringed at that but continued singing. She couldn't bring herself to look at me although she knew the truth of what had happened in the park, whether she'd seen it or not. Her father's ghost sat in the furthest corner of the room, smoking and listening. She couldn't bear to look at him, either.

  Her figure made the angry, envious dead women even more jealous, and the heartbroken men could do nothing but feel even more cheated and conned by God. I heard them mutter as they drank, about how beautiful she was, the clean curve of her hips, the slant of her throat, and how they wanted to scratch her eyes out. And her angel's voice, impossible to get away, with the blues lying in wait to trap you.

  Sugarfoot Scalder finished feeding Nice-Foot. "My boy," he muttered. Smoke rolled past his face, and seemed to obscure him and yet comprise him at the same time. The soul of his son waited patiently, tied to the other dead, no more or less than any of them. "My boy. He didn't know no better."

  Let's get out of here, Self said.

  No.

  You always say no. You always regret it.

  What are you afraid of?

  With a genuinely abashed look he crawled up my shirt, nuzzled my neck, and peered for a long time into my eyes, our noses pressed together, breathing the same breath. He wanted to lick my face but my sweat had too much salt. It isn't me who's afraid, it's you. Trust me for once.

  I do.

  Sugarfoot gestured me forward, appearing so old and small and vacant that he didn't even seem to be there the next instant, flashing in and out from moment to moment, not even existing during the silence between notes. His bleeding hands moved on the keys while Nice-Foot squirmed in the sax, bathing and drinking. Self frowned and dove from me. He shambled to the stage, doing a slow grooving shuffle.

  "My daddy done this to me," Sugarfoot said.

  "Mine too."

  "My daddy cut three oak apples off the tree when I was born and dropped them in a pail of water, under my cradle. They sunk. You know what that means?"

  "Yes." Oak apples were galls formed on an oak tree by the larva of wasps. If they sank beneath an infant's crib, the child was bewitched.

  "He told me about you a long time ago."

  "I doubt that."

  "You my savior. Mr. Nice-Foot done told me all the rest."

  Nice-Foot Byjohn crawled out of the bell again and took a bow, then fixed his dangling crown. Elise appeared to be on the verge of fainting, but managed to squeeze her mouth into a ghastly smile, and immediately began another song. The dead applauded, and even got up to dance, clapping in rhythm; other trailing nailed shadows wrapped together in damnation, congregating in places as if to discuss the benefits of the condemned, shoving over to the bar. They drank, and argued, and even laughed, the giggles turning slick and syrupy with misery. Self gyrated and frolicked among them, pinching asses.

  "They're caught up in the blues, in the music," Sugarfoot said.

  "You've got to stop it."

  "No, that's your job. You're my savior."

  Slash him! Self urged me, sounding almost sad. Cut his throat. And hers too! It won't finish him, but it'll stop the music.

  I can't! You have to stop Byjohn!

  I can't!

  What?

  He isn't doing anything wrong.

  I sighed because I knew what he meant. Mr. Nice-Foot couldn't be held accountable for his master's faults, the needs and misdeeds of a man's own fuming blues. Abul'l-Ala My'aal Nice-Foot Byjohn, son of Nammah, fourth order of demon, fifth hierarchy, emissary to Duke Agares and ambassador of Shamdon, its crown still sloped upon the wicked hawk-head and wolf's leer, a demon who'd once had thirty legions serving under him in Hell, was now an innocent before human frailty.

  If you're going to do this you have to play, Self said. Battle of the blues.

  Oh God.

  Elise's hair cascaded in a dark arc, her slow and languorous movements agitating the resentful souls. Her words became no clearer, remaining nothing but gentle, cryptic calls from the day of judgment. Self sat in a seat to watch the show, hooting and clapping. He banged an empty beer bottle down on the table.

  Don't do any of that kung fu crap on stage now, he told me.

  When I was thirteen my mother bought me a guitar. I had no aptitude and worse concentration. When I finally picked it up again years later, and found the furious blues within me, the desire and sentencing of fate, there was so much more that had become gory and appalling in my life, that I couldn't risk pulling music from the mouth of the raging beast.

  I plucked at the string and it made a note—I didn't know what it might be, but it sounded ugly in a primitive way. Self swung side to side and a freezing sweat suddenly burst on my forehead and sluiced down my neck. I felt the old savage needles of memory threatening to rise up with the chords.

  Our blues flooded out and I couldn't keep from shrieking. So much, too much, like a stake pulled out of the chest. I tasted blood and once more witnessed the murder of my mother, and couldn't keep my lost love Danielle out of my mind. Darkness split wide and like a tide washing in around me, I was suddenly sitting in the pew where I'd held Dani when she died. Layers of years peeled back one after the other, down to the marrow of my life. Her blonde hair splayed against my thigh, patches black and fried, broken nose and torn face running red over my lap once agai
n. She had coughed and gagged my name, the corpses of the coven surrounding us as I kissed her gently and wept, covered with the bite marks of my father, and they were all my blues.

  Self enjoyed the forces coming apart in the room, and danced madly with the dead. My Christ, how he'd hated Danielle.

  "Don't stop," Sugarfoot said. "You got what it takes."

  "No, I don't."

  "Don't stop now."

  I didn't have the courage.

  "Don't matter who wins this fight. You're freeing my soul. I give him too much. Mr. Nice-Foot own too much'a me." Nice-Foot slithered free, now with the eyes, the gray hair, his love of the blues and need for an audience. "I died last night, but he ain't letting me go."

  "You're the one not letting go."

  "I'm trying. I swear, I'm trying."

  "Try harder."

  The hexes filled my fists until they began to glow black, red sparks arcing up and down the strings. I scanned the room, thinking of what would be on my conscience if the music continued, and what would well within me if it didn't.

  In the moment the fire faded.

  If you won't play you'll have to slice him! Self grabbed silverware, fell over and crawled forward, and flung the knife towards me. Just slice him! Cut his throat, get the blood. Do it, listen to me!

  Muddy Waters had said that 'if you wants to know the Blues, you got's to go back to the church.'

  I remembered the church, and power within it, the music that inspired and could drive a believer mad with dream and hope. The days before the vows of my father led me down a different path. I began playing again.

  Across the club, already knowing what would happen, Self leaped, his fangs bared. Not that, you schmuck!

  I can't help it. I'm sorry.

  No! No!

  Self loved the church, but the church hated him. I kept playing, and sang as well, drowning out Elise, who stared at me with surprise but no hope. I used the same kind of words as she did, unformed but complete in their indefinable, ambiguous manner, as if my mother whispered lyrics to me, and only half-hearing, I repeated them. She was so near.

 

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