Bitter Moon

by R. L. Giddings

  “How does it feel having backed yourself into this particular corner?”

  He was right. I’d been inexcusably stupid. I’d come in totally unprepared and now, with Kinsella incapacitated, I was on my own. I had no back-up plan and couldn’t even rely on the local police for help. I had to think of a way of getting the Novices out of there as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I watched as Castellano cleared a space on the floor. He looked up as though consulting the stars but there were no stars, only the vaulted ceiling. Then he paced out a square and wrote the dimensions in a note-book.

  Kohl clapped his hands and four of the women stood and started moving down the short hallway through which I’d come. They returned a few minutes later carrying four brass candlesticks and other bits of religious paraphernalia. I felt strangely flat, as if viewing these events from a long way off.

  If Kohl had perceived me as any kind of threat I’d have been lying in the other room now alongside Kinsella. I had no illusions about that. I briefly considered just slipping away: sneaking out into the next room and taking Kinsella with me. But some deeper instinct prevented me. I had to see this through to the end.

  Once Castellano had finished positioning the candles he dropped to his knees, his grand robes billowing around him. Kohl meanwhile brought over a blue plastic sack, which he pierced with a knife. White salt crystals poured onto the floor and, in a practised move, he started to ascribe the lines of a pentagram.

  I looked through the doorway. Kinsella’s body hadn’t moved.

  Kohl spoke as he poured. “I have dedicated myself to serving Tuchulcha and, in return, he has repaid me a thousandfold. Here is a deity who has who felled kingdoms, laid waste to empires and levelled mighty armies. His moat was once the Mediterranean.”

  “But he’s using you. He’s using both of you.”

  “Only inasmuch as Kinsella is using you. Tonight we will allow Tuchulcha to step from one elemental stage to another. From this time onwards he will be: The God That Walks Among Us.”

  Kohl squatted down. He had taken out a permanent marker and was drawing a series of glyphs inside the lines he had so carefully constructed. For all that he was devoted to his master, he was taking no risks. The glyphs would protect anyone standing inside the pentacle once the demon had been summoned.

  The four women were still working, preparing the room for the demon’s arrival. One of them was walking around with a box of matches, lighting the candles. When the lights were switched off Kohl didn’t even look up, absorbed as he was in his glyphs. Castellano was on his knees at the centre of the pentagram, reciting a series of names.

  “Janua, Petra, Sponsa, Pastor, Propheta, Sacredos…”

  “What’s he doing?” I asked. Just the sound of his voice was unnerving.

  Kohl said. “We are Summoning his excellency with the names of those lesser demons he has spawned over the years. The last time Tuchulcha saw the light of day he was in battle, leading his people in an onslaught against the old God. Tuchulcha dared to challenge the old ways and, for his punishment, was plunged into the fiery furnace. For thousands of years he has been plotting his return to the world of men. Tonight, we will help him to realise that wish.”

  We both watched as Castellano moved around the circle offering a separate benediction to the six points of the star. One of the Novices brought over a clear bowl of water. She presented it to Castellano who dipped a silver brush into it before flicking it towards the base of one of the candlesticks.

  Then he stopped listing names and began the ritual proper.

  “Sprinkle me O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow.”

  He repeated this action with the other three candlesticks. A sense of helpless anger tugged at me. I was being complicit just by standing there. Even the witness has a duty to act. In desperation, I lunged at one of the brass candlesticks, knocking it over. I was on my way to the second when I realised that something was wrong. I turned to see the first candlestick suspended at an impossible angle above the floor, the wick still burning.

  The pain in my chest was immediate. It was as if a cartwheel had rolled over me, crushing the breath from my lungs.

  “You are here because I suffer you to be here, Bronte,” Kohl’s anger flared brightly. “I suggest you that you don’t trouble me further.”

  He dismissed me with a simple gesture. The world went quiet and slow for an instant. And then it hit me. It was like being struck by a huge pendulum, lifting me off my feet and propelling me over to the other side of the room. I crashed against one of the wooden screens and, as I hit the floor, I felt something give in my wrist. The women around me were shrieking, desperate to get clear.

  When I finally managed to raise my head, I was aware of the thickening darkness. Kohl and his father were little more than silhouettes, the blackness encroaching on all sides. The shadows seemed to cling to me like treacle, slowing my movements, robbing me of my resolve. It was as if the darkness had achieved substance and was threatening to seep into my skin.

  “What are you planning to do?” I asked

  “We will once again summon The Lord of Demons but this time we will offer him a prize beyond compare.”

  The eyes of both men slid past me and fixed on something at my back. I had to turn to see it. The marble walls beyond the spill of candle light glowed a greenish-blue creating what looked like the set for an opera and there in the centre was its doomed heroine: Kosi dressed in the white habit of a votaress nun, her black face small and pinched inside her headdress.

  “Kosi?”

  Kohl said, “Not merely Kosi. This is the changeling child. We knew that she existed. The prophesies spoke of her birth but did not specify where she might be found. My father tried, on many occasions, to track her down using the full reach of the church but every time his efforts were frustrated.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “The changeling child? The result of a union between a member of the Fae and a human? But that’s impossible. Conception maybe, but no human could survive the pregnancy.”

  “And yet here she is: a living, breathing embodiment of the impossible. After four thousand years of entrapment Tuchulcha craves that which she takes for granted. He wants to feel the sun on his face, to take a cooling draught of water, to experience the elation of exquisite pain. In short, he wants to live. But to inhabit a fragile human form would only diminish him, leaving him open to attack.

  “But a changeling child – a member of the Elder Race – that is different. No simple blade or blow could harm her. No prison bars could restrain her. She would be capable of many things, not least the ability to transform her appearance at will, crossing from the realm of mortal men to the world of the Fae with ease. She would be powerful indeed.”

  Castellano was saying, “Bind her in flesh, bathe her in blood and it is done.”

  I looked at the faces of the Novices.

  Bind her in flesh, bathe her in blood.

  So that was why they were here. He was going to sacrifice them all just to ensure the success of this gruesome endeavour.

  Kohl peered at me, apparently amused by my discomfort. “She will become The God Who Walks Upon the Earth. All will bow down before her.”

  A malignancy was gathering. Kohl’s audacious plan was close to being realised.

  I looked across to the doorway. There was barely enough light to make out Kinsella’s crumpled form, yet there he lay. Like everyone else who strayed across Kohl’s path he had been broken by the experience.

  Castellano’s voice echoed around the walls as he continued the Summoning.

  “O Tuchulcha, most potent King of the Eastern quarter, I call and invoke thee in the name of the Deity…”

  At the first mention of the demon’s name something changed, as though the shadows dancing on the ceiling did not reflect the movements in the room. The temperature had dropped several degrees. When I turned to look at the Novices I could see their breath s
olidifying. This wasn’t just a psychological phenomenon then. The room was getting much colder while for Kohl and Castellano, standing at the centre of the circle, nothing much had changed.

  I scooped up a handful of spilled salt and threw it towards the pentacle. The individual particles flared brightly before disappearing.

  Castellano had been as good as his word. He had bought them an immutable safety while the rest of us, denied the sanctuary offered by the pentacle, would be left totally exposed.

  Bind her in flesh.

  Kohl came over to the very edge of the perimeter and I thought for a second that he was beckoning me over. Then I realised that he was signalling to Kosi.

  She started moving towards him, at every step straining to resist and yet ultimately, jerkily, being propelled forwards. Kohl indicated where he wanted her to stand in front of the altar. He looked at her the way a lion looks at a lamb.

  Castellano’s words rang off the walls, “Do thou here manifest, clothed with all thy power. I command thee mighty Tuchulcha to come to me in thine own person to satisfy our will…”

  The candles at the centre of the room had grown dim, sealing us in a shrinking envelope of light. The Novices were moving closer, afraid of the darkness. I felt their eyes upon me willing me to take action.

  A hand clamped around my wrist. I found myself looking into the face of an older black woman. Her face was a passive mask but her eyes were quietly insistent. She waited until she was certain of my full attention before pressing something hard into my hand. Her eyes twitched once in Kosi’s direction.

  Then she released me, stepping back into the line of Novices. I stood there rubbing my wrist. For such a slim woman she had an urgent grip. I looked down at what I was holding.

  Someone had fashioned a rudimentary knife.

  I turned it over in my hand, the light glinting off the blackened blade.

  Castellano was kneeling beside Kohl, his hands raised in appeasement. The pair of them bathed in a strange golden light. Ahead of them, the tiny figure of Kosi her head lifted upwards in expectation, the air shimmering before her like a threadbare curtain.

  I gripped the knife hard but my thoughts were calm. The two men were untouchable so long as they remained within the circle.

  Tuchulcha was close by now. I could feel it.

  My mind struggled to make sense of all that Kohl had been saying. Could it be true? Was Kosi really the Changeling child? The idea was preposterous and yet Kinsella had put a great deal of effort into keeping her safe, of protecting her. Had he known all along?

  Kosi stood in front of the altar, on the far side of the pentagram.

  Neither Kohl nor Castellano noticed as I made my way towards her, both of them transfixed by what was happening directly in front of them. The air was thickening, coagulating. Whatever it was, I dared not look at it, keeping my eyes averted as I concentrated on taking small, measured steps.

  I held the knife down at my side in order to keep them from seeing it. But I needn’t have bothered, Kohl was mesmerised while Castellano was a picture of waxen stillness, eyes closed, only his mouth moving as he invoked the demon.

  As soon as I was close enough, I grabbed hold of Kosi’s head dress and pulled. She cried out as she was jerked backwards but the headdress held firm. Then, with another sharp tug, it came away in one piece. Her hair plaited into short braids for the occasion.

  I clamped a hand on her head, twisting her around so that Kohl could see her. I held the blade tight against her throat.

  “Stop it,” I said. “Stop it, now.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kohl snapped. “We both know that you would never harm her.”

  I ignored him, driving the point of the blade up under her jaw. Surely death would be preferable to what they had in store for her? Yet, no matter how tightly I gripped the knife, there was no way that I could go through with it. Couldn’t even break the skin.

  Had to convince him that I was serious.

  Then I made the mistake of looking at her face. Kosi looking up at me with those clear eyes of hers. No hint of a struggle.

  I dropped the knife to the floor as a terrible sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me. I tried to steady myself by grabbing Kosi’s arm. Castellano had prostrated himself on the floor, his arms and legs spread wide in a chilling display of obeisance. Kohl looked past me, his mouth half open.

  I turned towards the altar to see Tuchulcha’s form slowly detach itself from the shadows. Even in the limited light I saw far more than I care to remember. The bloated body, its hoary arms moving in an animated mockery of life. That terrible nightmare smile.

  It was difficult to contemplate in its raw state – like staring at the heart of a black sun.

  “It is done.” a rich child’s voice. Neither male nor female.

  Something twisted inside me as I realised that I had failed.

  “It is done,” Kohl and his father echoed, theirs head low to the ground.

  Tuchulcha flickered. At once both incredibly young and incredibly old.

  I stood totally still thinking that there could be no worse horror than for it to acknowledge me. If I’d thought that Kohl was powerful earlier then I had been wrong. This was power personified.

  The figure turned, gesturing languidly for Kohl to begin. A statue coming to life, regarding the world, comparing it to the abyss from which it had come: a terrible place alive with malignancy and the slither of thick, heavy chains.

  “Where is my offering?”

  Kohl indicated a silver salver which had been arranged just beyond the aspect of the pentacle. A vein throbbed in his neck.

  “I perform all your bidding with this offering of burnt bread.”

  The charred offering was there one moment and then gone the next.

  This was it then. This was what Kohl had dedicated himself to. He had given himself over to the summoning of demons; every aspect of the ritual carefully scripted and rehearsed in order to avoid the slightest error.

  The demon spoke again in its grotesque parody of a voice. “I have come as you have commanded. Now give me that which I claim in payment.”

  Kosi threw herself at me, grabbing the front of my blouse, desperate to get away. But it was too late. The exits had been sealed. There was no escape.

  Kohl intoned, “I give you this treasure so that she may be bound to your will and be your chattel. I ask only that any gifts you have imparted to me should become mine own and that you two should be bound together. Forever.”

  It was only as I began to extricate myself from Kosi’s grip that I saw what it was that she was holding. She held my grandmother’s amulet tightly in her fist.

  “Then let her approach,” the demon spoke in a high strangled tone. “I would see this Changeling child.”

  After a long pause, Kohl lifted his head. “She stands before you even now, my lord.”

  The demon shifted its considerable girth to one side, its wide set eyes scanning the floor.

  “Then let me see her!”

  I shuddered as if a harsh wet wind had brushed against me.

  He can’t see her.

  I understood instantly what I had to and wondered how such an obvious idea had eluded me for so long. Shielding Kosi from the demon, I pealed her fingers back from the amulet. Then I pulled the makeshift necklace over my head, holding it up so that Kohl could get a good look at it. I saw from his reaction that he recognised it.

  The simple lattice of birch twigs shaped into a pregnant woman’s form. The symbol of spring, fertility and purity.

  I let it hang there for a moment before drawing it over Kosi’s head.

  And then Kohl was in front of me, his lips pulled back from his teeth as he struggled for control.

  I looked pointedly at his feet. In his desperation, he had abandoned the safety of the pentagram.

  He was no longer untouchable.

  “Did you forget? Once you’ve left the pentacle you’re on your own.”

  But he was too an
gry to care. He indicated the amulet.

  “Give it to me.”

  I shook my head, watching as bright coils of electrical energy played around his body.

  My gaze shifted to the women sitting around the walls. They were starting to rouse themselves, flitting in and out of consciousness.

  Kohl started to close his fist, concentrating all of his electrical energy into one tight, coruscating ball. As he raised his arm to throw it I turned away. Bracing myself for an impact which never came. I felt an intense heat on the left side of my face but then the moment passed. Behind me, one of the wall hangings - probably hundreds of years old - was now ablaze.

  One of the Novices, coming out of her daze, realised the danger and pulled it down. With help from another woman, they quickly stamped it out.

  “You only get one warning,” Kohl’s hands were moving ceaselessly now, cultivating a second, smaller orb. His eyes had madness in them. “Now give me the amulet.”

  “Why don’t you get it yourself?”

  The voice came from behind me, low and urgent, the brogue unmistakeable.

  Kinsella stepped into the light, his clothes hanging in tatters. He’d lost a good chunk of hair and had an ugly skein of blood streaking his neck.

  One of the women moved to help him but he waved her off. He straightened himself and wiped his mouth, surveying at the thing above the altar. His gaze shifted in my direction. Smoke and blackened specks of cloth drifted between us.

  “You’ve done well.”

  “Have I?”

  He nodded. “We might still be able to turn this around.”

  He moved towards me shaking slightly.

  “Whatever happens to me you have to protect Kosi. Do you understand?”

  “He says she’s the Changeling child, is that right?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “What about the demon?”

  “You let me worry about him. He’s waited a long time for an opportunity like this. He’s not going home empty handed. Just keep Kohl off my back.”

  I wanted to say something encouraging but couldn’t find the words. Kohl was too strong for me, and that was the simple truth. But that wasn’t what Kinsella wanted to hear. He just needed me to buy him some time.