The Demons of King Solomon

by Aaron J. French

  Careful.

  Yeah, right, she thought.

  They moved on and within another minute heard the sound of human voices. Singh signaled for her to draw her gun. She did, but it felt heavy and strange in her hand, as alien as if she had never touched it before. And in an odd way it seemed out of place down here. As if tunnels as ancient as these did not welcome something from the modern age. That was another odd thought, but this time Lizzie did not even try to chase it away. Her iron resolve about what was real and what was impossible was slipping.

  It doesn’t want you here.

  She almost growled at her mind to shut up.

  But she did not.

  They went to the end of the corridor and paused, peering around the corner to what lay below.

  A set of stone steps curled around and down, clinging to the walls of a circular chamber that was like the inside of a tower except that it was cut into the naked rock. The stairs were unusually steep and broad, as if cut for feet much larger and a gait much wider than that of an ordinary person. This was particularly odd since the average height of an adult male from this region back when the Turquoise Mountain was built was about five-foot eight. Roughly two inches above Lizzie’s height. These steps were so steep that even the tall Singh would have to descend with difficulty. Why build this place that way? she wondered.

  The walls of the chamber had long ago been painted a red as dark and vibrant as fresh blood, though time and oxidation had faded it to sandy paleness. Even so, Lizzie immediately thought of it as The Red Library, and somehow she knew that name to be true, to be the one it had been given all those years ago.

  The Red Library of Firozkoh.

  She automatically counted the steps. Fifty-eight. That sent something—some fragment of knowledge—skittering across the back of her mind. If she had been calm and had been elsewhere, she was sure the fleeting reference would jump into clarity. But what was happening below crowded out any chance of clear thought.

  At the base of the circular chamber, six ISIL soldiers stood around a stone platform on which a heavy bronze chest had been placed. The chest was huge and whoever had brought it here had gone to great pains to make sure that it would never be opened. It was crisscrossed with thick bands of heavy iron, and long spikes had been driven deep into the stone of the platform. Chains as thick as Lizzie’s wrist trailed off from a dozen rings set into those bands and they were anchored to the floor and the walls by fist-sized bolts.

  However those chains now hung slack, their iron melted by a heavy acetylene torch the soldiers had brought in with them. Many of the bolts had been torn from the stone by pry bars and brute labor, and the lid of the chest was thrown back, its contents removed.

  The chest had been built to house a book.

  Lizzie felt dizzy as she considered how much effort had gone into keeping anyone from finding the book or opening that chest. Thousands of pounds of iron. A chamber cut deep into the living heart of the mountain. Tunnels blocked and traces erased for centuries.

  And now these men—these terrible men—had found it and torn the book out of its vault.

  Beside her she heard Singh murmur an almost silent prayer. His voice trembled and when she looked at him she could see that his olive complexion had paled to a sickly gray. Even the gun rattled in his unsteady hand.

  The ISIL soldiers were trying to open the book. The leather cover was closed with more bands of metal and they had so far managed to force all but one band open. Three of them were bent over, using crowbars and heavy screwdrivers against the remaining lock and hasp. It was clear that they were not planning to destroy the book, as Lizzie had assumed, or else they would have used the acetylene torch. No, this was what Singh had been afraid of—that they believed, in their madness, that they could use the book.

  To do what?

  To raise a demon?

  That was insanity. And it was also against the teachings of the Koran. These men had to be out of their minds.

  Save me!

  Lizzie flinched as if those two words had been said aloud. She looked around for the source. They could not have come from inside her own head because it wasn’t her own voice. Not even the sarcastic voice of her thoughts. No, this sounded—weirdly, absurdly—like Hans, her co-worker back at Yale. Hans, who now ran their department solo.

  Why would she think those words in his voice?

  Below there was a cry of triumph as the last restraining band broke open with a metallic bang as loud as a gunshot.

  Save me! This time it was a shout. Save me save me save me save me!

  “I…” she began then clamped her free hand over her mouth. But it was too late. All of the men below jerked at the sound, turning, raising their faces toward the top of the stairs. Seeing Singh. Seeing Lizzie.

  And from there it all went to hell.

  15

  The Red Library of Firozkoh

  Ten Minutes Ago

  Singh did not hesitate. Despite his fear he raised his pistol and fired even as he began running down the steps. They were so steep he had to jump down, crouching to absorb the impact, firing as he rose and then taking the next step, and the next.

  Bullets struck men, but the ISIL fighters dove for cover behind the platform. Singh’s rounds whinged and pinged off of the chains, the chest, the walls, filling the air with ricochets that buzzed like a swarm of furious bees. The soldiers cowered, two of them screaming from injuries, and their first return fire was misaimed and erratic, adding to the confusion.

  Lizzie screamed as bullets chopped a ragged line an inch above her head, and then she, too, was running. She was shorter than Singh and the steps were so tall that each jump down sent darts of pain through her ankles and knees.

  Singh ducked and twisted to avoid being killed outright as he fired his gun dry and swapped in a new magazine. When he was eight steps from the floor, he leaped over the edge, tucked into a roll as he landed, and came up into a wobbling run. She heard him cry out in pain and twist away, and at first she thought he’d broken his leg. It was worse than that, though, because bright red blossomed on the side of his shirt.

  Singh had been shot.

  Sudden fury overtook Lizzie and she raised her own gun and fired. It bucked in her hand, throwing the first round high. She had to force herself to remember to squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, and her next round knocked a chip of stone from the top of the platform and sent it scything across a soldier’s cheek. He cried out, spun and snapped off a shot that punched through the air where her head had been a moment before, but Lizzie was jumping down, step by step, firing as she landed, jumping again.

  One of the ISIL fighters rushed at Singh, his weapon clearly empty; he swung the stock at the Sikh’s head, but Singh ducked under it and shot the man in the stomach. The man screamed but did not go down. Instead he threw his gun at Singh, catching him on the wrist and knocking the pistol away. Then the man lunged forward with a sloppy tackle and tried to bear Singh down.

  Lizzie did not trust herself to shoot him, but she fired three shots at another man who rose up behind the platform with his rifle aimed for a kill shot that Singh could not hope to avoid. Her first two bullets missed.

  Her third did not.

  It hit the stock of the heavy rifle and the man dropped it and began screaming and clawing at the metal splinters that had turned his face to red horror. Singh clubbed down at the man who tried to tackle him, but the falling man caught one leg. They both fell.

  Two other men took that moment to rush the Sikh, and he emptied his gun at them. They all vanished into a screaming, thrashing pile behind the platform.

  Lizzie was near the bottom now and there were still three ISIL fighters left.

  One stepped out of cover and raised his gun and Lizzie shot him.

  Shot him, this time. Not his gun. Her bullet punched a neat red hole in the man’s throat and blew out the back of his neck. He died. Right there and then, the brain stem destroyed, taking all of its electrical nerve cond
uction with it, blowing the man’s brain dark in a microsecond.

  She stopped and stared, watching the man fall.

  Watching a person she had killed, fall.

  Watching a life end.

  The horror of it nearly killed her. And Singh.

  And maybe the world.

  The second ISIL shooter raised his gun to use that moment of shock to win the fight.

  And Lizzie Corbett shot him, too.

  She had no idea that she was going to do it. She wasn’t even aware of the gun, the hand that held it or anything else except the man she’d killed. But her finger moved. The sensation was strange, as if it was happening to someone else’s hand and she was merely a witness.

  No. That wasn’t right.

  It was as if some unseen hand had overlaid hers and gently, firmly pushed her finger back against the trigger. That was exactly how it felt. Alien. Dispassionate. Precise.

  The bullet drew a tiny black hole in the center of the man’s forehead.

  He fell. Without a word or a sound. Without drama. He merely ended. The slide locked back on an empty chamber. Lizzie felt the unseen pressure vanish and her hand sagged open. The pistol fell and clanked on the stone step and disappeared out of sight.

  Save me, cried the voice in her mind.

  “I’m coming…” she said, almost dreamily.

  She jumped down the last few steps.

  Singh was fighting with two men on the ground. She could hear them but not see them. Grunts and the meaty thud of fists on flesh. She heard screams that did not sound like the Sikh’s voice.

  The last of the ISIL killers was standing directly in front of the platform, trying to fit a fresh magazine into his rifle. If he managed it, Lizzie knew, he would kill her and then Singh. She glanced at her own hand and was surprised to see that she no longer held a gun. She didn’t remember dropping it. She fumbled for her knife and that was gone too. It must have fallen out of its sheath while she was jumping. She had no weapons at all.

  Save me, said the voice, and somehow it seemed much closer than before, as if Hans—or whoever spoke in Hans’ voice—stood a few feet away.

  As if he stood right beside the book.

  As if he…

  The ISIL soldier slapped the magazine home.

  Lizzie snatched up the heavy book and hit him in the face with it. His gun went flying. His nose broke. But he did not fall.

  “Whore!” he snarled at her.

  She hit him again.

  “Bloody whore,” he bellowed, spitting blood. He did have a knife and he drew it and rushed at her.

  16

  The Red Library of Firozkoh

  Now

  Lizzie screamed, raising the book like a shield and the tip of the blade bit deep into the blood-smeared leather cover. There was a sound. A huge sound. Massive. The loudest sound Lizzie had ever heard. It exploded in her mind like a gigantic white bell, blotting out all sight, all thought, all everything.

  For a moment there was absolutely nothing.

  Lizzie was somehow aware that she was not even thinking, though she did not understand how she had the thought that she wasn’t thinking. So… logic and sanity seemed to have gone away, too.

  The whiteness remained. It surrounded her and even seemed to fill her.

  Then slowly… slowly… details emerged, as if the whiteness was the reverse of deep shadows and she was adjusting to it.

  She saw the book lying open on the top of the platform. The chest stood open and the chains were still broken, but the burned ends gleamed as if they were still molten hot. Then the rest of the Red Library came into view.

  Singh was not there. Nor were the ISIL soldiers. Not at first.

  When Lizzie turned in a slow circle, she saw no one, but when she looked up she saw the soldiers and Singh hanging in the air. Not hanging from anything, just… hanging. Suspended by no visible means. Their eyes were open and empty, as if they were deep inside trances.

  Lizzie looked down to see if she, too, was floating, but her feet were on the ground.

  “This isn’t real,” she said, but it came out crooked and weak. She cleared her throat and said it again. “This is not real.”

  “No,” said a voice behind her, “it isn’t.”

  She spun around, her hands coming up in a sloppy approximation of a karate guard position. A person stood a few feet behind her. Short, chubby, dumpy, untidy, not particularly good looking, with mousy brown hair and thick Coke-bottle glasses. Lizzie gasped and almost screamed.

  “Hans?” she cried.

  Hans, her former partner from Yale, smiled at her. That old familiar, crooked smile of his. Bad teeth and all.

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  Lizzie said, “What?”

  “I mean, yes, I’m the Hans you knew, but no, Hans is not my name. Not really.”

  “I… don’t understand.”

  He walked past her, crossing to the platform and stopped, leaning over to look at the book. He raised the cover and examined the bloodstained and damaged cover. “Oh dear,” he said. “That’s not good.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute… what the hell is happening here?”

  “Hell,” he mused, “is a rather unfortunate choice of words. Or, I guess, apt. Not sure.”

  “What?”

  Hans smiled at her. “You’re messing with my expectations, Lizzie. You’ve always been the sharpest knife in the academic drawer, even at Yale, but you’ve lost your edge.”

  “I…”

  “Take a minute and work it out. You should be able to put two and two together.”

  She took a minute. She took two. Three.

  “Fifty-eight steps,” she murmured.

  “Ah,” said Hans, looking pleased. “Keep going.”

  “That book. It’s an older version of the Clavicula Salomonis Regis.”

  “Much older,” agreed Hans. He lifted a single page. “See? This isn’t paper, it’s papyrus, cut and bound into a book. It was cut from a scroll that was copied from parchment, that was written down from writing on a wall. I’ll give you a hint… 832 B.C.E. What does that tell you?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  Hans snorted. “Lizzie, your Sikh friend and a bunch of bad guys are floating in the air, and I materialized out of nowhere. I think ‘impossible’ sailed, hit an iceberg and sank.”

  “But… but…”

  “Come on. Keep putting the pieces together. You love puzzles. You always have. You know this is happening. You know that I have to be something pretty weird to have shown up here out of the blue. You know that this book is what the Clavicula Salomonis Regis is actually based on. There are fifty-eight steps. Now… add to that the fact that I gave you the notebook that ultimately led to your finding the greatest treasure in history. Come on, those are all puzzle pieces. Put them together.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t want to, Lizzie,” said Hans, “and that’s not the same thing.”

  She kept shaking her head.

  “What am I?” asked Hans. “Go on. Say the word. This will all be easier if you say it.”

  It hurt her to say it. It hurt who she was and what she believed. It hurt all that she knew about the world. It even hurt her mouth to speak the words.

  “You… you… you’re a… demon.”

  “Ah,” said Hans, “there we go. Now wasn’t that easy?”

  “Fuck you,” she snarled.

  “Ouch. Okay, let’s dial that down.”

  Then the fear hit her. Every horror movie and TV show she had ever seen, from The Exorcist to Penny Dreadful collided in her mind, smashing around, nailing ugly images to the walls of her brain. Her legs buckled and she almost dropped to her knees, but Hans darted out a hand and with surprising strength caught her and steadied her. The smile was gone from his face.

  “No,” he barked, and looked genuinely upset. “No. Don’t do that. Don
’t kneel. Not even by accident. It… umm… sets the wrong things in motion.”

  Lizzie stared at him and then staggered over to the platform and looked at the book. It lay open and she stared at the pages that were visible. The text was written in ancient Greek. She could read it as easily as English.

  The pages were an entry describing how King Solomon used a magical ring to conquer and suborn seventy-two powerful demons, bind them with sorcery, and force them to build the First Temple of Jerusalem. The demon that was the focus of the open pages was the fifty-eighth to be conquered. She knew it would be. The fifty-eight steps were not an accident.

  The demon, as was common in ancient beliefs, was not a monster bent on destruction, but a bringer of knowledge. He taught the liberal arts and astronomy, and he was thought to inspire rulers to make decisions that were positive and beneficial. And he revealed treasures to those who knew how to ask, or to those who knew the spells that could force him into slavery.

  Treasures.

  The demon was known by many names. Hanni. Auns. Amy. Hanar. Others, some lost to antiquity.

  There was a sound. A whump that shook the whole chamber.

  “Another heartbeat gone,” said the demon. “We’re running out of time.”

  Lizzie raised her head and looked at Hans.

  But he was no longer there. In his place was Ami Filou, the graduate assistant from the Sorbonne. Ami, who had been with her when Lizzie found the riches of the Knights Templar.

  “What is my name?” asked the young French woman.

  “Ami,” said Lizzie hoarsely. Then said it again without the French inflection. “Amy.”

  “And…?”

  “Hanni,” said Lizzie. “Hanar.”

  “Hans,” said the demon.

  “Oh my god.”

  And suddenly he was not Ami or Hans. He stepped out of the illusion and was himself. Eight feet tall, robed in crimson, with a face like a gargoyle and horns that curled above his nightmarish face.

  “I have looked for you, Lizzie. I looked back and forward in time to find you,” said Hanar the demon. “I have done what I could to guide you, to help you, to put you on the path to find me.”

  “Why… why me?” she asked, terrified.