by Marcus James
“Oh, shit.”
“What?” Richie asked. They both made their way to the table, taking the other two chairs closest to her. It felt wrong to talk about any of this without Sheffield, but after what had taken place, there was no telling when he would be back and this couldn’t wait.
“I saw what they are and what they have done. I know why they are here and I learned what it is that connects them to witches...” Kathryn paused, weighing the gravity of what she was about to say. “I know our genesis.”
Magdalene sighed and shook her head. “Kathryn, if you know this. If you truly know the very start of witches, the first seedling that took root and spread its branches wide, then you must keep that so close to your heart that even I cannot see it.”
Kathryn nodded. “I will never think on it again. I will bury that knowledge so deep if I have to that I make myself forget it.”
Richie said nothing. He reached for his pack of cigarettes and lit one immediately. Kathryn could tell from the look on his face that he was seeing the complexity and depth of the darkness they were going down.
She felt bad for him. It made her think of that moment when Sheffield had seen all of those rumors, all of those colorful superstitions confirmed as ominous truth.
“Speaking of Sheffield, where is he?” Magdalene asked, obviously having picked up her cousin’s thoughts.
“He’s at his hotel. We got into it earlier. It’s not really important what about, but I think he’s cooling off.”
It was then that they were startled by a sudden knock on the door.
“Shit.” Richie said, as all of their heads turned towards the foyer. “Hopefully that’s him...”
Magdalene stood and held her hand out in a gesture to signal the two of them to stay where they were, and slowly she made her way to answer the door.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“Sheffield! Who do you think?”
They all breathed a sigh of relief and Kathryn’s heart felt as if it were tremoring inside of her chest as that door opened and Sheffield came walking in. He looked so beautiful with those emerald eyes and his taunt body dressed in his jeans and dark blue tee, the sparse tuft of dark hairs poking out from the V-neck, his arms folded across his chest and his wayfarers pinched between his fingers.
He walked across the room and towards Kathryn. The look on his face told her everything she needed to know about the remorse he was feeling, which in turn sparked the first gnawing sense of guilt at what had just transpired between she and Kuri.
Not only had she bed someone else, that someone else had been a supreme being, and the waves of euphoric pleasure, no matter how tinged with diablerie, were more than he had ever given her. She fought to push it aside and reminded herself that she did what needed to be done-the only thing that could be done-to get Kuri to reveal his secrets to her.
“Hey, beautiful.” He stood over her and smiled, tilting his head to place one of the sweetest kisses on her cheek. It was a kiss of absolution, not so much for what she had done, but for what he had done. “You were right and I was an ass-”
Kathryn pressed her fingers to his lips in protest. “No need to say anything else.”
His smile widened as he gave a nod. “Okay, honey. All right.”
“Well,” Magdalene began, taking a seat back in the chair she had been occupying before Sheffield’s arrival. “Let’s get back to what we know.”
“The Anunnaki.” Richie said.
“The what?” Sheffield asked.
Magdalene cleared her throat. “They’re like... well, like the angels of ancient Sumer and Babylonia. They are the children of the gods Anu and Ki and they were the children of Lahamu and Lahmus, who were also consorts and children of the creation goddess Tiamat and the god Abzu.
“The Anunnaki were known as the Seven Judges and they carried out the judgment of the gods much as the angels of the Old Testament did. They were responsible for the great flood and the destruction of the ancient world. If a God is slighted by mankind, that god could send the Anunnaki to avenge the offended deity.
“So, my theory is that that is why they are here. That the Dark God of the Wood has sent them to kill Kathryn, before, presumably, she eventually becomes with child-The child who will end the Legacy and face down the Dark God of the Wood.”
Sheffield turned to look at Kathryn, but she would not meet his gaze. Instead, she reached for a cigarette from Richie’s pack that was sitting on the table top and lit it.
“In a nut shell, but let me flesh it out just a little bit more...” Kathryn blew a ring of blue-gray smoke before continuing. “They were fed the offerings of the heart and the brain, hence the killing, and they are very sexual beings. Indulgent in pleasure, hence the rapes of the victims, and they were rapes, every single one of them. Rapes that started in pleasure and consent, but quickly turned into those mutilated violations.
“They bedded with the priestesses of Inanna in the time before witches and the city of Babylon. They bedded them and to their surprise, were able to impregnate those women with horrible monster giants call the Anak-later known as the Titans in the Greek world and Nephilim in Judea.
“As with the story of the Titans and the Nephilim, these beings were highly intelligent, powerful, debauched, bloodthirsty-literally-as in they lived off of blood and flesh like a child suckles the breast for milk-and demanded to be worshiped as living gods on earth,” Kathryn took another puff.
“There are other things... but in a nutshell, their arrogance sealed their fate, and the god Enlil, who was the great decider of mankind’s fate, decreed punishment for the Nephilim and for the humans who had given in and praised them, and as a result, ancient Uruk was destroyed, and the survivors were gathered in a great ship, like the later story of Noah, and upon their return, the survivors rebuilt it and made the great city of Babylon.”
“Which,” Magdalene concluded, “Given what we know of history and the movement of deities, when the God of the Jews came into Babylon, and people started to leave the old gods for this singular male war god, the Anunnaki more than likely punished them all once again by destroying Babylon forever-burying it in the sands for a millennia.”
“That’s about right.” Kathryn said.
“And why only the three? Who are the other four Anunnaki?” Sheffield asked.
“Well, the guy’s from Nephilim, whose real names are Arishaka, Niiqiarqusu, and Kurigalzu, were the first three born. They are like Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the head archangels... not really sure about the other four or where they are. Perhaps it was figured that it would only take those three to kill me.”
“Great.” Sheffield snorted.
“The only other thing I could find,” Magdalene said, “was Lamashtu. She is a daughter of Anu, and would be sister to them. I would have to assume that she is another of the Anunnaki. She was a terrible one though. It was believed that she tormented women during pregnancy and childbirth to induce still birth, and then she demanded sacrifice of those babies.”
“Oh, great!” Kathryn rolled her eyes.
“But, if she is one of them, then that could work to our advantage.” Magdalene added with a smile.
“Okay,” Sheffield walked over to the bar where he had brought the fresh bottle of whiskey and popped it open. “So how the fuck do we stop them?”
Kathryn felt sick. The memory of all that she had seen, the memory of Kuri between her legs, and the reality of what was coming made her stomach constrict into several knots.
Magdalene sighed. “Well-”
BANG!
They all jumped, Magdalene letting out a yelp as they were interrupted by the collision at the sliding glass door.
“Angelina!” Richie let out as they all got to their feet and rushed to the door. She was naked and bloody. Her brown skin was lacerated and her breasts were swollen and bruised from bite marks and one of her eyes was swollen shut.
Sheffield pulled the door open, blood smearing along the glass as he
did, and Angelina fell into Kathryn’s arms. Only the faint moans of life came out of her.
“She’s barely breathing!” Kathryn said. Angelina’s hair knotted and matted in dried blood. “Angelina, honey, it’s Kathryn. Can you hear me?”
Angelina’s head tilted to the side and she let out another moan.
“We need to get her to the hospital!” Sheffield ordered.
“No!” Magdalene countered. “No. we need to take her home. We need to get her to her family.”
“What are you talking about?!’ Sheffield answered back. Frustrated.
“Get me something to clothe her in.” Kathryn said to her cousin. Magdalene nodded and disappeared down the hall towards her bedroom.
“Kathryn...”
“They’re witches Sheff!” Kathryn fired back at him. “She’s a witch. We can deal with the physical injuries later. But first we need to save her life.”
Magdalene returned with a white cotton sun dress from her luggage, and they carefully slipped it over Angelina’s body. The blood was staining the fabric in crimson streaks as soon as they had put it on, but at least she was no longer naked.
“One of you,” she looked from Sheffield to Richie. “Please, get her to my car. We’ve gotta get out of here. Fast!”
Richie nodded and carefully lifted Angelina’s limp and broken body against his chest and they grabbed everything they needed and slipped out of the patio door. Kathryn shook her head and pulled the door shut. The smear of blood was enough to eradicate everything she had felt for Kuri. Every sense of desire and affection was wiped clean from her heart.
There would be no negation. There would be no bargaining with these things. If there was a way to destroy them utterly, then she would find a way. They would not get away with what they had done to Angelina.
“This ends tonight.” Kathryn said under breath. She would no longer wait for them to make a move. She would no longer sit idly by and let them decide the way it would play out.
If this was her destiny, then so be it. She would walk into it willingly and she would open the gates of hell itself to swallow them whole.
XVIII
Kathryn sped towards Angelina’s home, winding between cars and using her witchcraft to hold every traffic light green and switch all those that were red to green at the last minute, barely missing cars that were passing in the opposite lanes.
“Hold on, Angelina, hold on babe!” she repeated over and over, looking at her frequently, her faintly conscious body propped against the passenger seat and Richie’s Thunderbird following right behind.
Orange streetlight flashed across the hood of her car, passing over like electric streams of water in the darkness, and the oaks and palms began to sway in the warm night, picking up in ferocity the closer they got, as if sending an alert to the Ramos home.
Kathryn was done playing games, and whether it meant she would die before sun up, it no longer mattered. The Anunnaki had to be put to end. This could no longer stand. She was a Blackmoore. Of all the witches in the world, they were the ones who stood out. They were the ones who turned their backs and continued on. They were the ones who made a life and a name for themselves the world over. They had succeeded where the ancient god had hoped they would fail.
The war was beginning. The end times were at hand. If Kathryn was destined to usher it in with the eventual birth of a child, then so be it. However that would come about, what kind of mother she would be, all of that could be figured out in the future, for now, the greatest act she could do for that child-the first act of motherhood she could commit, would be to fight the forces of hell to make sure that child came into the world in the first place.
Kathryn made a sharp turn into the Ramos driveway, the white of her headlights shining into the windows of the front room. She turned off the engine and popped the door open, quickly getting out, just as Richie pulled up behind her, with Sheffield and Magdalene jumping out before he came to a full stop.
The screen door opened and that old woman came out, dressed in a floral nightgown, and two young men around Angelina’s age followed behind her.
“Help me get her out of the car!” Kathryn shouted to them.
“Angelina!” the old woman called. She hurriedly spoke to the young men in Spanish. One of them ran inside, and the other-shirtless-save for a pair of jeans, came rushing down the steps.
“I’ve got her!” he said. Quickly curling his arm behind her neck and slipping the other under her legs.
“Juan...” Angelina managed. Her eyes fluttered open for just a moment.
“I’m here, sis. I’m here!” he said to her.
“Get her to the back!” the old woman said. She turned and looked at Kathryn. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing my granddaughter home.”
Kathryn shook her head. “Please, don’t thank me yet. Not until she is safe.”
The old woman smiled at her, the lines of her face spreading as she did and she placed her hand on Kathryn’s shoulder. “She will be.”
Twenty minutes later they were gathered in that temple, the candles on all of the altars lit, all of those plaster eyes staring down on Angelina, who’s limp body lay in the middle of the former mother in-law cottage, and a congregation thirty strong all dressed in white, men, women, and even a few children, encircled them all.
They sang and beat drums, and her grandmother gathered water from that fountain, saying prayers over the cup as she brought it back to Angelina, and began dipping her fingers into it and spreading the water over Angelina’s face and arms as they all sang and chant.
Kathryn and Magdalene looked to one another and took hands. She could feel the power between them. The power that was their blood and it moved through their body like currents of electricity and flowed through their hands and into each other.
One of the brothers brought in a black rooster from the hen house in the back, and began to brush it over Angelina’s body. As with voodoo, they knew this well, this cleansing of the aura, drawing out all of the negative spiritual energies that had corrupted her.
“Come over here... please” the old woman said to them, and Kathryn and Magdalene walked over. Humbled by all that they were seeing. This was a true community. A congregation. This was nothing like what they had ever known. Blackmoores were shunned and feared and their entire lives they had suffered near isolation from the people of South Hill, but here in this neighborhood in Echo Park, the community came together to aid one another, to help one another through times of crises.
It filled them both with a deep sense of profound love and a shadow of pain in what they knew they as Blackmoores would never know.
Kathryn and Magdalene bent down, one on either side of the old woman, and took her hand, and then, with their other hands, they placed them over Angelina’s chest.
“Focus all of your power. Channel it in to her. Focus on it repairing all of the damage done to her-the scars inside of her body-push out the spiritual poison and envision that power restoring her. See it giving her new life and illuminating her heart.”
They all closed their eyes, and Kathryn allowed it to flow out of her just as she could feel the old woman’s and Magdalene’s flow through her. It was a great circle of psychic energy that vibrated and moved through them like a rushing river.
Everything was turning, and the world seemed to be bending and the earth beneath them felt thin, as if they were floating in the middle of the darkened universe. No ground beneath and no sky above, just an endless universe of stars and planets, and in that moment Kathryn could hear the whisper of the goddess. She understood what was needed of her, and she felt the love of every deity she had ever praised, every single one that she had ever sought comfort from in her deepest moments of hopelessness.
There was a shock. A jolt, as if paddles had been placed to Angelina’s chest, and they opened there eyes just in time to see Angelina’s pop open and her body shot up as she took in her first deep breath.
“Abuela!” Angelina clung to her g
randmother and then looked to Magdalene and Kathryn. She reached out for Kathryn quickly and held her fast and fierce. “I don’t know where I was,” She whispered. “But it was dark and terrible in its silence!”
Kathryn looked at her and for the first time, allowed the tears to slip down her face. “You’re back. You’re back and I’m so sorry.”
Angelina shook her head. “It’s not your fault my friend. It’s not your fault.”
They brought her more water to drink and Kathryn stood and walked out of the temple, looking over at both Sheffield and Richie. The relief was evident on Richie’s face and for a moment Kathryn feared that the solemn look of Sheffield’s meant that once again he would be too scared and overwhelmed by what he had just witnessed and leave her again, but when their eyes connected, he smiled at her and gave a nod and she knew that he was impressed by what he had seen.
Kathryn threw herself against the side of the cottage-turned-church and dug for a cigarette. She felt drained. Her limbs felt as if they were full of sand and she knew if she lay down, she’d probably sleep for four days and nights.
“You did well.”
Kathryn turned to see Magdalene standing behind her, just as exhausted as she was.
“You said you had an idea how to stop these things?”
Magdalene took the cigarette from between Kathryn’s fingers and gave a nod as she took a drag. “Pazuzu.”
Kathryn looked at her confused. “Pazuzu?” Magdalene nodded. “That demon from The Exorcist?”
Magdalene laughed. “Yeah, the very same.”
“He actually exists?”
“Oh, he does. I mean William Peter Blatty took some liberties with who Pazuzu was, but yeah. He is the Mesopotamian demon-god of the winds. Winds that brought plagues and famine, but he was also invoked by women and mothers to protect them and to protect children. He wasn’t a demon the way Christians have changed the word to mean.
“They were good and bad. And Pazuzu had one very particular enemy... the Joker to his Batman so to speak.”