That Hoodoo, Voodoo That You Do: A Dark Rituals Anthology

by Tim Marquitz

  The brass bed had surrendered to a caked rust, and the spread, probably once green, covered a mattress that could have been solid granite. But the bed was a double and Howard didn’t care about anything else. He lay on it, scooting over to accommodate the woman. His shit eating grin reappeared. Patting a pillow gone flat he suggested she join him.

  Lilly half smiled, deep crow’s feet spidering in the drab light.

  “Business first, lover, okay?”

  The statement, meant to sound easy going, didn’t. Smash-and-grab sex did not mix well with small talk. This was business, after all, and fucking strange men beat waitressing tables at Denny’s, but it was still business. She was probably the wife of some blue collar jerk out to make some pocket change for herself. Howard fished five twenties from his wallet and Lilly took his money. Examining the bills she frowned.

  Howard did not need a snake to bite him. “There’s more if you’re good, okay?”

  “Oh, I’m good. Don’t you worry about that.” She stuffed the cash into her hand bag and climbed upon the bed, placing the bag carefully on the night stand. “Would you like to undress me or should I do it myself?”

  “Yourself. But slowly so I can watch.”

  She slipped off her black skirt, even threw in a little faltering squirm intended as some kind of erotic dance for Corbin’s benefit. The attempt seemed pitiful, but even in these dry gulch towns a hundred buys just so much. Kicking panties to the floor the woman sat before Corbin naked.

  Nearing the embarrassing perimeters of her forties Lilly wasn’t hard on the eyes even in the unflattering light. Although her tits had begun to head south they had some bounce. Her body seemed reasonably firm too, but plum colored varicose veins were already splintering from her ankles. She was almost completely shaven excepting a thin landing strip, the type usually reserved for centerfolds and body pierced Vampirellas, enough pubis remaining to suggest she had never been a natural blonde. She couldn’t strip dance worth a shit either. Still, she wasn’t a wasted hooker giving it away for a few drinks and cab fare. Some mileage remained on this woman’s odometer, but not a whole lot.

  “Think I can make it in Hollywood?” she asked, and it took a moment for Howard to realize that she was serious.

  “Why not?” he lied.

  Lilly’s hand slid up his thigh, her touch more coarse than he would have preferred. Still, Howard responded with a low moan, his hard-on reacting to the sensation of female flesh. Her tongue, considerably softer, followed the same path. When she took him inside her mouth he felt he was going to release all of it right there. But she stopped cold, her grin reassuring him she wasn’t about to bring it home just yet.

  “So, Howard-from-Seattle, how would you like it? Squeaky clean, or just a little rough? I’m thinking maybe the latter?”

  “Surprise me.”

  She reached into her handbag and pulled out two pairs of police issue handcuffs, each polished to a high gloss. The manacles were the real item, not some tin trinkets purchased at some tacky sex shop. A roll of masking tape spilled out too, but Lilly shoved it back into her bag, careful not to upset whatever else remained inside.

  “Okay to use some of my toys?”

  Howard’s heart was racing now. He rarely had an erection throb so effortlessly since Edie was in her twenties, but a guy had to be careful in these situations. He quickly did the math. Hell, what was the worst that could happen? If the woman had anything unsavory in mind it hardly mattered. He carried little cash and the shitty rental parked outside wasn’t worth stealing. If she really wanted to roll him she must have known there were faster ways to get money from him than sucking his cock.

  “Let’s play,” he said.

  Nodding approval she cuffed him to the brass posts before he might have second thoughts. Howard’s erection again sprang to life. Filling her mouth with ice she went down on him, but stopped just short of the moment of truth. Heaping more cubes into her hand she slid them across his nipples, and in a gesture both odd and arousing she took the same ice into her mouth.

  She climbed on top of him rubbing herself gently between his legs without taking him inside her. Rocking rhythmically she coaxed his tongue into her mouth and teased him into a hot-blooded rush. She stayed with him, rising and falling in increasing undulations, and he hardened with each motion against her cunt’s soft bristle. Just as he felt certain he would come she whispered, “Not yet . . .” and eased him inside.

  He wanted to feel her breasts, to fill his mouth with them, but his hands remained shackled. The power belonged to her as she pounded against his thighs, and her ass thrashed like some carnal animal. With her mouth against his ear she spoke through quick and hot breaths.

  “Now…”

  His body jack hammering hers he spilled into the woman like hot ash. She filled herself with him, hips thrusting even after he came.

  “Jesus, woman! You’ll give me a heart attack!”

  Howard lay still trying to catch his breath, but Lilly had already climbed off and slipped back into her panties, standing by the night table without looking at him. She seemed to forget he was in the room while rifling through her hand bag. Corbin realized the woman had switched gears and that his segment of the party was over.

  “What are you—?”

  “It has to be quick. Very quick…” she muttered, not really speaking to him. She removed a large plastic container with something dark inside, but Howard could not tell what the lumpy object was. Suddenly uncomfortable with the thought that he remained cuffed to the bed, he pulled at the restraints realizing he had zero chance of extricating himself.

  Christ, is she toting a gun in that container?

  Maybe she wanted to spatter his brains all over the piss stained carpet just for the hell of it. In these small dirtwater desert towns lunatic shit happened all the time just to give the local crazies something to do.

  “Look, if it’s money you want—”

  The thing inside the container moved.

  No gun…

  “I don’t want any more of your money, Howard.”

  Popping the lid she withdrew something alive that in the pallid light looked like an anemic dragon, a smallish thing that fit into her hand. The beady eyed lizard, an ugly brown spotted reptile that resembled a rat covered in snakeskin, displayed a mouth full of tiny pointed teeth. Howard had no idea what the woman was doing carrying around the oily bastard, but a single realization struck home. He had just fucked himself into one very tall pile of deep shit.

  “Listen, I don’t know what you—!”

  The lizard tried crawling from her hand, but the woman stroked it from head to tail and that seemed to calm the creature somewhat.

  “Shhh! You’ll frighten it. It won’t do any good if you startle him. I’ll have to wait for this little guy to calm down a bit, to get used to you.”

  “If you think I’m just going to lie here and wait for you to do God knows fucking what kind of kinky—”

  The woman did not appear to hear him. She pulled out the roll of masking tape from her bag, tearing off a thick strip and covering his mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Howard, I really am. I have nothing against you personally, but you came to me in the bar, didn’t you?” She held the lizard close to his neck. “It’s called a blue tongued skink. Most come from Mexico and not many live in Arizona. An amazing creature, really. Pull off his tail, he grows another. The Tohono O'odham say they’re easier to find right after they shed skin because they’re more brightly spotted then. Have a look?”

  “Mmmmmmphhh!!!”

  Howard struggled against the bed post, twisting and yanking the manacles until they scraped shrieking along the brass, his efforts to free himself making a lot of noise but serving no purpose.

  “I know you’re confused, Howard, but the skink is effective only after a woman has been laid because all that adrenaline is pumping and her cunt is spilling over with seed. It’s some sort of chemical thing, I think. The lizard doesn’t do much for men, I
’m afraid, but for women the Indians say the skink offers a small piece of eternity.”

  She held the skink to her bare breast, allowing it to bite the soft flesh above her nipple, then pulling the unwilling creature from her and smiling even as the tracks of fresh punctures leaked blood.

  Barflies. They were batshit crazy and this bitch was their goddamned queen. Howard squirmed from the small snapping mouth but the cuffs restrained any real movement. He could pull only a few inches from its fangs so the fucker would not sink its pinheaded incisors into his neck. She held the skink closer to him and something thick and crimson squirted from a sinus in its eye. It landed in a glob on Howard’s chin.

  Blood. It had to be.

  “Mmmmmmmmphhh!!!”

  “Oh, he’s angry, all right. He was aiming for your mouth, you know. They do that when they sense danger, a bad sign, sadly, according to Papago lore. They call it Aak when an animal becomes fearful in the presence of Man, but the skink is essential to their ceremony.” She held the reptile against his throat. “This will be quick. I promise.”

  It was. The lizard snapped once, then sank its teeth into Corbin’s flesh. Discovering the softest section of his throat it redoubled its grip. With the hot seer of liquid venom Howard gurgled, kicking and convulsing against the burning rush.

  No…that’s not quite right. Something else is happening here, something much worse.

  He heard the lizard gulp. The hot liquid was not rushing in. It was rushing out. The skink was sucking his flesh dry, drinking him! Engorged like a huge tick, the reptile was growing too fat and lethargic with blood to let go its grip. Clutched against a thick vein in his neck it continued to drink like an insatiable nursling.

  Lilly’s image fuzzed but Howard had to watch her. The woman’s voice seemed distant, her words dropping out as she spoke.

  “Look at me, Howard. I know I’m not hard to look at, but would you call me beautiful? Not merely fuckable, Howard, but truly beautiful?”

  Look…Howard…beautiful…

  Through the thick masking tape Corbin struggled for breath, but the woman paid no attention. Every muscle was drying up inside him, every bone going to dust while the reptile held fast to his neck, a rapacious leech sapping its host.

  The woman tried peeling the skink from his flesh but the reptile clung stubbornly and she had to pry its mouth open until the lizard released its grip. Fragments of shredded skin hung from its mouth.

  “The Papago have this interesting philosophy about sharing, Howard. And for hundreds of years their women have followed this ancient ceremony unknown to the outside world. We two have shared our bodies. My flesh and blood—and now yours—coalesce inside this simple creature…”

  She held the lizard close as if admiring the phenomenon of its existence, and for a brief moment it appeared the woman were embracing a cherished pet. Then she bit off its head, spitting the chunky remnant on the floor and drinking the dark blood spilling from the creature’s neck. Squeezing out the thick soup of its innards she swallowed the goo until the bloated reptile withered like an emptied sack. When she had finished she wiped her lips with the back of her hand and inspected the guano dripping from her fingers.

  The skink’s shriveled torso lay limp and useless in her hands. She tossed it aside, smearing a dollop of the reptile’s blood across each cheek, creating a freakish cosmetic hybrid neither rouge nor war paint. Touching Howard she did the same to him, stepping back to regard her work.

  “Au-auho . . .”

  Her hands covered her face, the sharp nails shearing her own withered flesh in an act of self-mutilation. She peeled thick folds like dried cheese from her forehead and cheeks, a shedding snake throwing off her skin while revealing lumpy mounds of sopping membranous tissue underneath. The woman’s features mutated into one breathing festering wound.

  “Au-auho…The red paint. First me, then you. We share all of it, you and I. The Papago believed all living things are related, there is an ebb and flow, a give and take, and all life is one. I doubt you understand, Howard, but that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  Lilly was correct. Corbin understood nothing even while his body was folding in on itself imploding like a child’s deflated water toy. His vision on his right side went dark while something like a runny egg slid down his cheek, and Howard realized it was his eye. His remaining orb remained intact long enough to watch his flesh become a gelatinous, formless heap, the sizzling residual of warm grey mash smearing the faded sheets and trickling to the floor.

  The dripping manacles hung from the bed posts, attached to nothing.

  #

  The old Indian’s frown-wrinkled flesh did not easily accommodate his smile. But from behind the desk he could not restrain himself as he studied the ravishing raven haired young woman who had entered the small motel office carrying a long strapped hand bag with thick blonde tufts of a wig that peeked through its snap. He nodded his approval. The first hint of crimson sun was rising in the Sonoran desert sky, and even through the dust caked windows its rose glow caused the flesh of the woman to radiate like burnt gold.

  “Thank you, Tuck,” she said to him. “I know this was difficult for you to do for me again.”

  As can appear only on an aged face, there was sadness in the old man’s smile.

  “Lovely, the fluid smoothness of your skin, the sheen of your hair like black marble. Perfect in every respect. Winter again comes to summer in Ajo. The skink, he does good work,” the Indian said. “The lizard is rare and must be very difficult to find in these parts.”

  “Things hidden in the desert always are difficult to find. One must first know where to look.”

  The woman thought of the salesman from Seattle. Nothing much remained of him to find, that was damned certain.

  “Yes. Well, thank you again, Tuck.”

  “Tuakam,” he corrected her, as a doting parent might rebuke a discourteous child. “The young must always pay the aged the respect of a proper appellation despite the uncommonness of our circumstances, yours and mine. No man can alter this truth. You live not among our people, but the Tohono O'odham Nation forever remains inside you.”

  He was correct, of course. But the woman had always wanted more for herself than a life wasted on a primitive desert reservation. The elderly Indian never fully understood that, and seeing him again often muddied her own thinking with guilt.

  “Forgive me the disrespectful habits of another world, Tuakam. The ancient ritual has a strange effect, and it becomes very difficult to know who I am—or even what I am.”

  The old man leaned forward to share a secret. “You are once more the beautiful woman you were. That is what you are. As to who you are, you need only to look into my eyes to know.”

  He took the hand bag from her, placing the blonde wig and the stranger’s belongings into a large plastic trash bag. Later he would burn everything, disposing of the man’s car somewhere far in the desert. He looked at the register the man had signed the previous night. “Smyth. Probably not his real name,” he said.

  “No one will come looking. Not out here.”

  “Is the room cleared?”

  “There’s dust. A lot of it on the bed. It’s all that remains of him, as with the others. And that smell. Always that damned smell.”

  “I will see to it,” old Tuakam assured her. “Working here I have learned another ancient cleansing ceremony that is even older than the ritual of the skink.” He placed upon the desk a gallon container of Lysol. Together the Indian and the woman shared a remarkable moment of laughter.

  There remained one final rite, and for this the two turned serious. Each raised a palm to the other. Their open hands touched palm to palm, then slowly separated to conclude the ritual of parting.

  “I must leave you now, Tuakam. Perhaps out there is a young brave like your father. I found him once. Perhaps this time I may discover him again.”

  “Where will you go?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Phoenix for now
, I guess. And should I grow restless, maybe after a while, when I can pluck up enough courage I’ll catch a bus to California and take that walk I promised myself. They call Hollywood Boulevard the street of dreams, you know.”

  Attempting to recapture his smile the Indian reached below the counter and handed her a plastic container. Its lid had been punctured to produce several air holes. The dark lump inside shifted its weight. “For you, my mother. A small piece of eternity for when the time comes once more, as it must.”

  She placed the container into her hand bag and kissed the old man’s forehead, again parting from the son she had birthed nearly eighty years past.

  Lilly did not look back as she shut the door behind her.

  Into the Mirror Black

  Tim Marquitz

  It is time.

  “So soon?” Tyson looked to the gilded mirror, which hung above the fireplace mantle. The misty blackness that swirled within its depths obscured the eyes he felt staring back. A gentle waft of heat washed over him though the coals had long been extinguished. He regretted his inadvertent defiance and hurried to appease the voice. “I’m sorry…I’m ready.”

  Only silence met his apology. He had angered the darkness and knew he must make amends. The time was nearly upon them, but he would be prepared. He would make them proud. Together, they would stand upon the precipice of the world and be the first to hail the ancient gods. They would know him as their savior, the one who woke them from their endless slumber.