Deadly Rising

by Jeri Westerson

  Erasmus stood in the middle of the shop while everyone followed Doc to his car. “He’s serious?” he said to me when we were alone.

  “Deadly.”

  “But he cannot possibly know…”

  “What have you got to lose?”

  “Time. Advantage over a god on the loose.”

  “I don’t think an hour or two will make any difference.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more, but he had the grace to close his lips. Like a gentleman, he gestured for me to go ahead of him, and when I passed over the threshold, he closed the door. I heard the lock turn without him doing anything. Anything I could see, anyway.

  We all piled into Doc’s Rambler. Erasmus sat uncomfortably, crammed between me and Jeff. He could have magicked himself over there, but I sensed this was his way of trying to be part of the team. His hand lay in between our seats and I gave it a quick squeeze to reassure. He stiffened but didn’t so much as look my way.

  Jolene called Nick and told him to meet us at Doc’s.

  Doc Boone’s place was less than a mile down the road. We walked into his darkened house. I didn’t even want to know what time it was.

  As soon as we settled in, Nick arrived, out of breath again, and peeled off his jacket. Erasmus stood as he usually did in the dark of my shop—stiff and uncomfortable. He surveyed the room with heavily hooded eyes.

  Doc and Jolene scoured his library of old, leather-bound books. He’d take one down, thumb through it, and show Jolene, who was leafing through her own book from the shelf. They conferred quietly while Nick used Jolene’s tablet for additional research. Seraphina sat with eyes closed, hands resting palm up. Feeling the vibration of the universe, no doubt. Jeff kept to himself. He had never been a research kind of guy.

  I was about to say something to Erasmus when he moved toward Doc. “Wait, Doctor Boone! That book. I recognize it.”

  And speaking of Bookes, my own little shadow must’ve felt lonely, appearing beside me with a decided pop.

  Everyone turned to look, then went back to what they were doing, as if disappearing and reappearing Bookes were an everyday occurrence. I guessed now they were.

  Erasmus took the tome from Doc’s hand and looked it over. Sigils were etched into the worn leather of what looked to be a very old, very well-traveled book. The pages were not parchment, but some kind of very thin paper.

  “This is quite rare.” He gave Doc a look of admiration.

  “I did a lot of traveling when I was seeking the light,” said Doc, “and I brought back a thing or two.”

  “From the Library of Alexandria?” Erasmus chuckled.

  Doc looked decidedly dumbfounded. “You’re not serious…are you?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  Jolene peered over Erasmus’s arms. I think he just made her millennium. I went over to look as well. Not paper, then. Papyrus. Maybe something that used to be scrolls now bound in a book.

  “What is that?” I asked quietly.

  “The Scroll of Banebdjedet,” said Erasmus. “He was a god of Egypt. See here.” He pointed out a painting among the hieroglyphs of a goat-headed Egyptian with a feather and cobra headdress on his horns like a pharaoh. “He was one of the first four gods to rule Egypt…before the others forced their way in. He is depicted with a ram’s head. ‘Ram’ and ‘soul’ are very similar words in ancient Egyptian, making the ram sacred.”

  I couldn’t help but touch the corner of the papyrus. “So…Baphomet is related to this god?”

  “No. He is this god. This is his older self.”

  Doc’s face lit up. “That’s incredible.”

  “Indeed. He has used many guises over the centuries. When the Egyptians waned, he turned to the Greeks and became Pan. And when they, too, gave way to a newer religion, where there was no more room for a pantheon of gods, he faded. When they were no longer worshiped, the gods retreated to the Netherworld. And the Powers That Be entrapped them there. They would all be happy to escape and wreak havoc upon your world. If angered enough, the Powers might do it.”

  “So don’t piss off the Powers,” said an open-mouthed Jeff. “Good to know.”

  “Won’t sneaking into the Netherworld incognito piss them off?” I pointed out.

  “That’s why I’d prefer they didn’t know.”

  “Then we need a spectacular masking charm,” said Doc. “Something that would work on all planes. That’s why I was consulting this book. It talks about moving through to other worlds.”

  “Specifically, the Netherworld.” Erasmus turned the pages and smiled at each scene, as if meeting an old friend. Maybe he had been there for the first signed edition.

  “Then that’s what we’re looking for—Jolene, Nick.”

  “On it, Doc!” said Nick with a salute. His fingers worked furiously over the keyboard while Jolene flipped book pages double time.

  Pacing, I watched them for a while, until I felt droopy and leaned back into one of Doc’s comfy armchairs. Before I knew it, Doc was shaking me awake.

  “Kylie, why don’t you go home. We’ll meet up at the shop early. I think we’ll have a plan of attack by then.”

  I groaned as I rose. My bones were tired. I didn’t think I’d enjoy that brisk walk home, but it had to be done.

  Erasmus stood in my way. “I’ll take you back.”

  “Oh. You don’t…” but before I finished that sentence there was darkness, cold, and I was suddenly in my front room. “…have to do—Dammit, Erasmus! At least let me say yes or no.”

  “My apologies. You looked so weary…I thought I would help you.”

  I scrubbed at my hair and yawned. “Thank you.”

  As I stomped toward the stairs, I noticed Erasmus seemed to almost rock with nerves.

  “Are you going to be all right?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “G’night then.” I could barely drag myself up the stairs. When I finally reached my bedroom, I did little more than shed my clothes, get into a long sleep shirt, and crawl under the covers.

  I woke well before dawn. But there was the merest tinge of pink in the sky.

  Erasmus stood over my bed looking down at me. I blinked sleepily. “You weren’t there all night, were you?”

  “Yes.”

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position and ran my hands over my face. “That’s some of that creepy stuff I told you about.” I was about to get up when he sat on the bed beside me, eyes intense.

  “I don’t wish to be melodramatic, but this might be the last time you see me.”

  I sighed. It felt as if I hadn’t slept at all. “Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t want to be melodramatic. You’re going to see me downstairs as soon as the Wiccans arrive, and then after you get back from the Netherworld.”

  “We must prepare for the possibility that I…may not return.”

  A sudden jolt gripped my heart like a stab of a knife. “But you will.” I tried to slide off the bed, but he gripped my arm, stopping me.

  “Kylie…”

  “You have to come back, okay? Who will I harass if you don’t?”

  He said nothing. His eyes still held mine captive.

  It was on my mind and I had to ask. “What happens, Erasmus, if you don’t, um, eat?”

  “I don’t know. It’s never happened.”

  “But…will you…die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about other demons you’ve known?”

  “We are all different. All created with a purpose.”

  “So demon taxonomy is a jumble?”

  “We have some things in common. Other things…not.” He drew closer. His hand came up and stroked my bed hair. He smoothed a strand from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear, as he had seen me do countless times before.

  I licked my lips nervously. “Couldn’t you try to eat something else? Like real food?”

  “No.” His fingers were still gently
, barely stroking.

  My hands moved toward him without thinking. I gripped the lapels of his jacket and soon I was running my hands up the hard muscle of his chest. “Have you tried?”

  His breath hitched. I liked the sound of it. And so my hands traveled higher, touching the skin of his neck, knuckles scraping against beard stubble under his chin. “No. I was created as I am.”

  It was getting hard to concentrate. His gentle touches sent tingles over my skin. I really wanted to touch more of him. “But you, um, drink alcohol. And coffee. What about a…protein shake?”

  He tilted his head. His finger traced down my cheek, under my chin, and down the smooth path to my neck. “And what, pray, is that?”

  “It’s…it’s full of, uh, stuff that a body needs. Protein and vitamins and things.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re talking about, do you?”

  I shook my head. His hand slid behind my neck and he cupped my head a moment before pulling it toward him. His mouth opened over mine and I was more than ready to receive it. We kissed like long-lost lovers. I clung to him, and his arms glided around my body, hugging me close. He angled his head to kiss me deeper, his tongue finding mine easily enough. The feel of his lips! It was a sensation I had never experienced with anyone else. Was it the demon or just his technique? I gripped him hard, tugging him against me, caressing him with my body.

  He drew back enough to whip off his coat and pull open his shirt. I did him one better, shimmying out of my sleep shirt and underwear, and waiting for him on the edge of my bed with nothing on. I shivered at the chill in the room, but as he swooped in to embrace me again, all thoughts of the cold disappeared.

  His mouth was at my ear, nibbling, breathing hard. My fingers were in his hair, tugging at him until he brought his face around and I could kiss him again.

  His hands were everywhere now, callused fingertips gliding over me, causing me to shiver.

  Driving forward, he pushed me back against the bed and quickly unbuttoned his trousers, shoving them down. His hands were hot on my backside as he lifted me up and thrust inside in one smooth motion.

  He bent to kiss me and then dropped his face to my neck, teeth grazing my skin. I inhaled his scent, which wasn’t quite like any man I had ever been with. There was sweat, but also something smoky—burnt logs in a campfire—and something earthy, like petrichor in a forest. I dug my nails into his shoulders and wrapped my legs around him, keeping him tight to me. He thrust harder, grunting with the effort. One hand was still beneath me, gripping a buttock cheek, while the other kept him balanced against the bed. Lost in sensation, I could escape the here and now. I could leave all of it—Baphomet, the Ordo…and even Ed—far behind a veil. There was only Erasmus. The hard feel of him. The hoarse murmuring in my ear as he repeated my name, as if trying to hold on to part of me before we separated again, maybe for all time.

  His mouth traveled downward from my shoulder, nipping, licking as he went. His lips enclosed a peaked nipple and sucked as he grasped my hip and thrust harder.

  His hot skin slid against mine, his hard muscles against the softness of my thighs. I pulled him in tighter, felt him deep within me. I angled my hips up, slamming against him.

  I think I was already crying when release suddenly washed over me, his following soon after. Still he rocked into me, and I clung to him. He pulled his face from my chest and took my mouth with his again. We kissed until we both needed to breathe. He held my face with one hand and, with his forehead pressed to mine, we breathed each other in. “I thought it was the height of foolishness doing this once,” he rasped, “but the most foolish thing of all was doing it twice.”

  “I don’t regret a minute of it.”

  His breathing calmed as he gazed at my face. “Neither do I.”

  My heart flipped ridiculously but I tried to keep my expression neutral. “The Wiccans will be here any minute.”

  He drew back, taking his smoky warmth with him. He ran his hand through his long hair. “I know. I merely wanted to say…goodbye.”

  “This isn’t goodbye. Stop saying that.”

  “It might be, Kylie. Be realistic. Whatever your witches come up with cannot possibly help. When I am unable to travel the Netherworld undetected, I will be forced to report to the Powers That Be and they will see into my mind. They will know everything and I will be instantly destroyed.”

  I clutched at his hand. “Then don’t go.”

  “I must. I have to find a way to send Baphomet back.”

  I heard noises downstairs and Seraphina’s voice yelling, “Kylie! We’re here!”

  We stared sorrowfully at each other for a long moment. The instant I let his hand go he vanished…along with his clothes.

  It wasn’t as easy for me. I had to drag myself from the bed into the shower.

  I’d thrown on a cable knit sweater and jeans and was slipping my feet into running shoes when my phone rang.

  “Kylie, thank God I got you.”

  I had to play the part. “What’s going on, Ed? You sound terrible.”

  “I feel terrible. I blacked out yesterday. Behind the wheel.”

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Remarkably. As soon as I could drive, I got myself over to Doc. He was real nice about me coming over so early. He looked me over, told me it was from that fall a week ago.”

  “Really?”

  “But it shouldn’t happen again. He recommended I get a CT scan in Machias, just to be sure, so I’ll be doing that today. I wondered…I know it’s an imposition…but could you run me up there? If you can’t, I’ll understand. I’d have George do it, but I really need him here in case there’s a break in the murder investigations. And then I thought…I mean, it’s a helluva a date, but we could spend the rest of the day there. After you get done sitting around a doctor’s office. Come to think of it…forget it. That’s not the way I had this planned…”

  Guilt swept over me, dark and heavy. “Maybe I can do that. I’ve got something going this morning but let me get back to you around ten to let you know. Is that too late?”

  “No, that’s fine. I stayed home from the station. But honestly, if you can’t, Deputy George will help me out.”

  “Let me get back to you, okay. And Ed…I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, Kylie.”

  I closed my eyes and held the phone to my chest. I was the worst human being in the whole world. In all the worlds. What was I doing? Sleeping with a demon, making promises to Ed. Jeff was right. I needed to choose. But now was not the time. There were more important fish to fry.

  I made my way downstairs. The coven was talking together in a circle. Erasmus, dressed again in clothes somehow cleaned of blood, hovered in the shadows as far away from them as the room allowed.

  Jeff stood behind the counter, pulling out drawers and inspecting the glass canisters.

  When she noticed me, Seraphina looked up and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind I made coffee.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” I retreated into the kitchen, Erasmus’s eyes on me the whole time. “Subtle” did not seem to be in his vocabulary.

  With a hot mug in my hand, I joined the others. They had a stone bowl on top of some kind of tripod set up in my fireplace, a fire going under it. There were roots, stems, and other bits of exotic herbs from my stores laid out on the hearth, and new sigils written in chalk there too. “So what’s going on? What have you found?”

  Doc was playing with something in his hand. “A way for your Mr. Dark to get around undetected. If you remember, we were trying to create an invisibility spell but we didn’t have all the ingredients. This particular spell combines invisibility with memory. The person we cast it on will only be visible to those he speaks to, but anyone he stumbles across won’t recall he was there. It’s ingenious, really.”

  Erasmus drew closer. “It won’t work on me. I’m not a human. I’m a demon.”<
br />
  Jolene squinted up at him from her seat by the fire. Her tablet lay on her lap. “That’s why we had to find just the right one…for demons.”

  Doc threw the object in his hand up a little and caught it. “We’ve got this. It’s an ancient Greek coin.” He opened his hand. A misshapen thing struck with a lion’s head. “It’s made out of electrum.”

  “I see,” said Erasmus. “You charm the coin and I carry it?”

  “Not exactly. Here’s the hard part. We have to melt the coin to embed our spell. And while it’s still white-hot, we have to heat an iron poker and, well…thrust it into your chest.”

  Without thinking, I lunged in front of Erasmus. “What? Are you insane?”

  “Now, Kylie, I know it doesn’t sound very pleasant, but he isn’t like a man. He can take a lot more punishment. And when dealing with demons and the denizens of the Netherworld, this is the safest method. Something in a pocket or sewn onto the clothes can be lost. This will be virtually undetectable.”

  Erasmus firmly pushed me aside. “I should like to point out that electrum is an alloy of gold and silver. And your poker is of iron…silver and iron can kill a demon.”

  “I realize that, Mr. Dark. Our spell will have protections to keep the silver and iron from killing you. As long as you return within the allotted time.”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  “Well, that’s not very neighborly. You entreated us to trust you. Can’t you afford us the same courtesy?”

  His gaze darted toward me before he squared with Doc again. “I see. If Kylie agrees, I will do it.”

  “Doc, I don’t know.”

  “Look, the three of us stayed up very late to find just the right spell. You either trust us or you don’t. And it’s already been eight hours since Baphomet flew goddess knows where.”

  He was right. Who knew what the god would do next…or to whom? We were all in danger. Erasmus might end up being the safest out of all of us. “Okay. If Erasmus agrees.”

  He nodded slowly and faced Doc again. “Very well. What must I do?”