by Bryan, JL
“You killed them,” Cassidy said. “My roommates.”
“I had help.” His narrow forked tongue licked across his chin, and the second circle snapped and dissolved. Only two more remained.
“Where’s Barb?” Cassidy demanded.
“With Reese. Come with me if you want to see her.” He snapped the third circle. “We won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Cassidy thought fast. She knew she could express her power through drawing—Ibis had said the symbols that healed her leg were powerful because she had drawn them. And she’d accidentally infused her recent tattoos with magical power. And once she’d made a Ouija board with her own hands, and it had been powerful enough to reach an archdemon and draw it into Reese’s body.
Nibhaz. Ibis had given that as the name of the entity at the center of the cult.
Cassidy poured her purse out onto the floor. She dropped to her knees, grabbed a lipstick and drew a circle on the warped hardwood floor around her, willing it to protect her. She embellished it with squarish shapes and outward-pointing arrows, imagining she was constructing a medieval fortress.
Peyton snapped the final circle and rushed toward her, stopping just short of the new, much smaller circle she’d just drawn. He squatted, his face inches from her ears, his frosty breath reeking of rotten meat.
“Stay back,” Cassidy said. “Get away from me.”
“After we’ve gone to all this trouble to reach you?” Peyton hissed, but there was nothing of Peyton in that voice. It was a voice echoing from a cold abyss, a voice of ancient evil. “No...you are ours, Cassidy. If you do not know it yet, you will understand very soon. Your brother is ours. We have taken your only true friend as well. If you want them back, you will do as I say.”
“Leave me alone!” Cassidy’s lipstick had worn down to a nub. She took a bottle of blue nail polish, lifted out the brush, and hesitated. What could kill a demon?
He watched, amused, as she sketched on the floor inside her circle. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you, Cassssidy? The circle you’ve cast is even weaker than your friend’s sad attempt.”
“Then why can’t you reach me?” Cassidy asked, drawing faster and not looking up.
“I can kill you if I wish, but your struggle amuses me.”
Cassidy frowned at her drawing. She’d tried to draw a winged angel armed with bow and arrows, something to fight off a demon, but in her haste had come up with something closer to a cutesy cherub.
“Sending me a Valentine?” Peyton hissed.
“Shoot him!” Cassidy ordered the little angel. She waved her hand forward over the drawing several times, each time ending by pointing her index finger at Peyton’s chest. She was willing the angelic arrows to fly.
Peyton snapped to his feet, then staggered back toward the door, lurching and twisting each time she brought her hand forward and pointed at him. She did it faster, imagining golden arrows piercing him again and again.
Then Peyton laughed and strolled back to leer at her.
“No one ever taught you a thing, did they?” He laughed, flicking out his tongue between his fangs. “Your mind is like a jar filled with nothing but trash.”
He reached out a claw and pressed it against the air in front of her face. She saw a feeble, transparent red circle in the air around her, but only had a glimpse of it before it snapped and dissolved.
“Look at me, demon!” a voice commanded.
Ibis stood in the doorway, slipping his old leather pack off his shoulder. Cassidy felt a rush of hope at the sight of him. Peyton turned and sneered at Ibis.
“Who are you?” Peyton stalked toward the tall, handsome man who called himself a librarian and a magician.
“I am a priest of Thoth the Timeless, of the ancient order,” Ibis said, a reply that raised Cassidy’s eyebrows as high as they would go. He drew from his pack a cylindrical length of dark wood, inscribed with small hieroglyphs like eyes and birds. He waved it in the air.
With her senses open to the unseen world, Cassidy watched him draw glowing white hieroglyphs in midair, and he spoke in a rapid, clicking language she could not hope to recognize.
Peyton shrieked, and the unseen serpent heads coiled in tight, as if each head were trying to hide behind the other two.
Ibis chanted louder and drew faster, advancing on Peyton. Peyton howled and clamped his hands over his ears. Blood leaked out between his fingers.
Peyton ran to Cassidy’s window and leaped through it, smashing right through the pane. Cassidy and Ibis ran to it in time to see him streaking away down the street, heedless of the honking cars.
“Are you hurt?” Ibis asked, touching her arm.
“What did you just do?” Cassidy whispered.
“A quick and dirty banishing. If I’d known and had time to prepare, I would have performed a forced exorcism instead.”
“What’s this? Your magic wand?” Cassidy reached to touch the carvings on the ebony rod. He flicked his hand, and the wand was gone.
“I told you I was a magician. Who was that man?”
“My ex-boyfriend. He’s turned into a real monster.”
“I hope you don’t mind me just walking inside, but the front door was open,” Ibis said.
“No, I needed you, obviously.” Cassidy hugged him. Trustworthy or not, he was the only person left who could help, and he was here for her. “Thank you. We need to save my brother.”
“First, you’ll have to tell me what’s going on. It’s not wise to charge into these things recklessly.”
Cassidy nodded, thinking of how she might have endangered her brother with her impulsive trip to the mission and the things she’d said. She began to tell Ibis everything she’d been through, as quickly as she could.
Chapter Forty-One
Kieran’s eyes fluttered open when the phone rang. Deena’s voice murmured beside him in the dim room.
She’d taken his virginity in what he considered a spectacular fashion, though in his youthful eagerness it had actually lasted less than a minute. The world seemed a warmer, more exciting place to him now.
He must have dozed off soon after. Kieran turned in the bed and traced his hand down Deena’s bare back, and he was instantly aroused again and pressed himself against her. She was turned away from him, whispering into the phone. He kissed her shoulder.
She ended her phone call and rolled over to look at him, and he kissed her.
“We have to go,” Deena said.
“Can’t we do it again?” he asked.
“Maybe later. I told Matt everything, and he wants us to come to the church right away.”
“You told him everything?” Kieran sat up. “You said it was a secret.”
“Not about us, Kier-bear.” Deena touched his chest. “About how you stood up to your sister and showed loyalty to the church. He thinks you’re ready for initiation. The prophet is going to do it personally.”
“That’s great! Let’s celebrate.” Kieran kissed her again and tried to climb between her legs, but she pushed him off.
“Tonight, Kieran. Right away.”
“Can’t it wait a minute?”
“No, the prophet has spoken. We have to get dressed and get to the church. The prophet says there’s a very powerful patron spirit for you, the most powerful of all. You might truly be our messiah, Kieran.”
“When can we hook up again?”
“After your initiation,” Deena said. “If you’re the messiah, we can do this all you want afterward. Even Matt would allow that.”
“Wow.” Kieran imagined what it would be like to sleep with her every day, anytime he wanted. “Let’s go.”
“The messiah’s consort,” Deena smiled, then climbed out of bed and pulled on her plain white panties. “Won’t all the other girls be jealous of me?”
Kieran reluctantly left the bed and got dressed, wishing they could stay just a little longer.
A flash of lightning filled the room, followed by deep, rattling thunder that knocked the
lamp onto the floor. The storm had arrived.
Chapter Forty-Two
“The archdemon Nibhaz wants to capture the power of your line for himself,” Ibis said. “This is why the cult invested heavily in this city. He has likely been watching you and your brother for your entire lives. The power of your blood, combined with your lack of training and knowledge of what you are, makes Kieran a vulnerable and tempting target.”
Ibis and Cassidy sat on the edge of Cassidy’s bed. Stray’s band pounded on in the basement, drowned out by thunderclaps every few seconds.
“Then why did Nibhaz try to kill me when I was sixteen?” Cassidy asked.
“If he wished to kill you, he would have. He was playing with you, or perhaps testing you.”
“And my father? He died the same way as Tamila and Zoe.”
“The demon may have wished him dead to weaken your family. Those who feel alone and weak are far easier to control. Your brother may have been vulnerable to the cult because he sought a kind of surrogate family.”
Cassidy felt furious. “And now Nibhaz wants my brother as his host.”
“Precisely. I was investigating why the cult was here, and that investigation brought me to your family.”
“And why are you here? What was all that ‘priesthood of Thoth’ stuff?”
Ibis smiled. “I was an orphan in Timbuktu when the priests adopted me. Timbuktu was then a magnificent city, filled with universities, libraries, and mosques, the greatest city in West Africa. They operated a library, collecting and copying manuscripts of all kinds. They were just a remnant of a great priesthood. In 391 A.D., when the ancient Egyptian religion was outlawed, the priesthood of Thoth went underground. The group in Timbuktu was one last surviving fragment. Do you know anything of Thoth?”
“Sure, from Barb’s Egyptian phase. He was the god of...writing, right? Magic and knowledge, things like that.”
Ibis nodded. “The word ‘of’ can be a barrier to modern understanding of ancient gods. Instead of the goddess ‘of’ love or the god ‘of’ war, considering saying ‘the goddess love’ or ‘the god war.’ These are forces in human nature with a god-like impact on the life of each individual, you see? So Thoth, fully understood, is ‘the god knowledge.’ The priesthood’s true work was in collecting and preserving knowledge against the forces of destruction and ignorance. To that end, they constructed libraries. They once prevailed upon the Greek conqueror Ptolemy to construct a great library at Alexandria. In exchange, they taught Ptolemy how to portray himself as a traditional pharaoh rather than a foreigner, and so Ptolemy’s line ruled for centuries.”
“Okay...”
“So I was taught by them to carry on their ways. I lived on as they aged and died. I am now seven centuries old.”
“You look good for your age,” Cassidy said, unsure how else to respond. “You keep yourself alive by magic?”
“That would be forbidden—only the wicked seek out such ends. It is my nature to live on. The priests believed I was the offspring of a human woman and one of the wild, faceless fire spirits that dwell deep in the Great Desert, the Sahara. I still do not know the woman’s name—she may have been a traveler with one of the desert caravans, and abandoned her unwanted child on the streets of the first city she reached at the desert’s end. Timbuktu.”
“And how does that bring you here?” Cassidy asked, torn between her desire to learn more about Ibis and his strange life and her need to go save her brother.
Ibis told her quickly about a monastery in the Greek mountains where the monks had studied evil magic in order to fight evil, but had eventually turned and become dark sorcerers themselves. This order was behind the Church of First Light, whose real purpose was to find young, attractive, healthy hosts for Nibhaz and his legion of lesser demons.
“Then what do we do?” Cassidy asked.
“First, go and check on your brother,” Ibis said. “Use your ghost-body. I will watch here for any further danger.”
Cassidy nodded and closed her eyes. She raised up out of her body and focused on Kieran.
She found him on the move, riding shotgun in a huge, windowless van driven by Deena. Kieran gazed at the older woman with something like adoration, bordering on worship, and Cassidy felt ill. Deena herself stared at the road, steering through the heavy storm. Cassidy could see a voluptuous, yellow-eyed demon infused into the woman’s body.
The van turned into the open gates of a complex with high gray walls. Suddenly Cassidy floated in front of a familiar barrier, the rock wall with jigsaw bricks that seemed to stretch on forever in all directions. It was the place she’d gone the time she tried to spy on Reese. Reese must have been inside these walls at the time, she thought.
She returned to her body, opened her eyes, and told Ibis what she’d seen. He frowned and looked troubled.
“They’re rushing him to their temple,” Ibis said. “It may be they’ve chosen to initiate him now—before you have another chance to change his mind. He’ll be possessed by the archdemon before the night is over.”
“We have to stop them. We have to go there right now.” Cassidy jumped to her feet.
“As soon as we’ve prepared.” Ibis looked around her room, then picked up a pair of wine bottles into which she’d mounted candles. He popped out the candles, then handed her one. “We need to scrape the wax off these.”
Cassidy went to work. “What are they for?”
“Those we confront are each possessed by a dangerous and powerful spirit,” he said. “A glass bottle, properly prepared, can capture demons. Our first line of attack must be to draw the spirits from their bodies, leaving them weak. With luck, the cult members will be too confused and frightened to fight us without their demons.”
“And what’s our second line of attack?”
“We must remember your brother is a willing participant, not a prisoner. The only means of saving him is to cast Nibhaz himself away, deep into the abyss.”
“Right back to Hell.”
“Precisely.” Ibis produced his wand from his leather pack. “With his legion of demons stripped from their hosts and imprisoned, I will be free to carry out the necessary incantations. If we had more time, I would teach you those in case I fail.”
“But you can’t die. Right?”
“I’m sure I can. Particularly at the hands of demons. When we reach the sanctuary, your job will be to protect your brother while I exorcise Nibhaz from this world.”
“Okay.” Cassidy scraped away the last bit of candle wax with her fingernail. “Thank you for helping me, Ibis.”
“What we do tonight has much larger implications. An archdemon and his legion, made flesh and unleashed upon the world...there is simply no telling the scale of evil and destruction they might bring about. Lucifer himself must be behind the plot.”
“So can we call up some buddies in your secret priesthood? Tell them to bring their wands.”
“There is no one to call.” Ibis shook his head. “It is a tiny order scattered across a large world, most of them elderly now. There is no one who could arrive in time to help us.”
“Well, fuck. What do we do with these bottles?”
Ibis brought out photocopies of hieroglyphs. “I hope you don’t mind if we use an ancient Egyptian incantation. You will need to memorize the spoken spell.”
“Whatever works.”
“You must paint these symbols on each bottle,” Ibis said. “I can guide you and check your work, but you will do both bottles, one for each of us.”
“Why am I doing both?”
“Your power is greater than mine,” Ibis said.
“Are you sure about that?” Cassidy was surprised by his words, but also scared. She’d imagined she had some kind of super-powerful wizard guy on her side, and the idea that she was the more powerful of the two made her feel hopeless. “You’re seven hundred years old...”
“You are the witch of Darmoughan and the daughter of an ancient Druid,” Ibis said. “My powers are a sha
dow of yours. Trust me. Knowledge is my work, not warcraft.”
“Great.” Cassidy sighed.
She painted as quickly as she could manage, but each time she hurried, Ibis had to correct her. She would dab away the paint and start the hieroglyph over again, feeling the minutes tick away, feeling her brother grow more distant.
“Okay, let’s go,” Cassidy said, when the last symbol was painted.
“While the paint dries, we make our final preparations.” Ibis stood and took off his shirt, then unbuckled his pants.
“Uh, what are you doing?”
“You will paint us with symbols of protection.” He brought more photocopied hieroglyphs from his backpack, and Cassidy sighed and rolled her eyes. Her left hand already ached from trying to replicate the symbols onto the bottles. “They should help us survive the demons a bit longer. You will paint both of us, as far as you can reach. I’ll get your back.”
“You’re serious.”
“Our time has run thin.” Ibis kicked away his pants, standing in front of her in silk boxer shorts. “Paint.”
“Right.” Cassidy dug out her paints and her smallest brush, and began drawing hieroglyphs on his chest. When he finally turned, she looked at the blank left side of his back. “Hey, what happened to Count von Wildcat?”
“That was only a temporary illusion, for your benefit.”
“Did you ever consider not starting our relationship with a bunch of lies?” Cassidy asked.
“Would you have believed me if I’d introduced myself honestly?”
“Nope.” She continued painting. Part of her couldn’t help enjoying touching his warm skin and dark muscles, and she remembered how attracted she’d been to the smiling physical therapist at the hospital. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the centuries-old priest—assuming that story wasn’t another lie—but for now she was glad he was here.
When Ibis’s torso, arms, and legs were covered with hieroglyphs, Cassidy stripped down to her bra and panties. She struggled to paint on herself, since she had to work backwards and upside down, and finally she let Ibis paint her instead. He knelt to paint her calves, shins, and thighs. She trembled as he painted her stomach and breasts, and closed her eyes as he painted the small of her back.
