by Rick Wayne
After a gap of thirteen days, they answered, and a deal was struck. The Nameless, the ancient lords of the earth, promised the king that his beloved Babylon would never die. He had only to record a tome, which would be whispered to him, one chapter at a time, over a period of six days and six hours and six minutes—a gift to all mankind from the emperors of the high dun.
The king agreed and set . . . as an infliction . . . But Nebuchadnezzar was no fool. He knew that which was whispered to him was nothing less than a return to ancient bondage, the architecture of eternal night. So he locked himself inside his treasury, the most secure vault yet constructed, there to trick the tricksters. He honored his bargain but recorded the tome in a language that had never been spoken: its alphabet, his own devising; its grammar, allegory; its syntax, so recursive and arcane that he had hope it might never be deciphered. And when finally he emerged, shrunken and disheveled, to test his invention before the wisest men of his court, he found there were none who could decipher it, not even the brilliant Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar rested, believing he had . . .
But even a king is human, and in the years that followed, Nebuchadnezzar could not easily forget the murmurings he had heard in the dark, nor the strange and abominable recipes he had transcribed into a stillborn tongue. In the end, history records that King Nebuchadnezzar went mad and took his own life and . . . There is no mention, by Daniel or any others, of the book he composed while locked away, feverishly scratching until his reed split and his fingers cracked and his own blood flowed as ink. . . . but they knew of it, and its dark purpose. That is why Daniel had called the king ‘the destroyer of nations.’ It was why he filled his eponymous chronicle with cryptic warnings about the end of days. For he dared not speak the truth. He dared not reveal to the world that such a book existed. For in the king’s madness, the Book of Shadows, as it was called, had disappeared . . .
As for Babylon, she is the name long given to decadence, which rules everywhere.
—translated from the German by Reinhardt Stolz
(L'Entrée) To the White of the Bone
Title
08 SEP 13:46
24 SEP 21:52
25 SEP 09:14
26 SEP 11:22
27 SEP 07:37
29 SEP 23:43
30 SEP 08:54
01 OCT 15:49
02 OCT 18:16
04 OCT 14:27
05 OCT 10:45
08 OCT 11:28
09 OCT 17:57
12 OCT 03:05
12 OCT 10:24
13 OCT 15:00
16 OCT 11:36
19 OCT 14:53
22 OCT 09:21
23 OCT 12:19
24 OCT 08:10
25 OCT 18:39
27 OCT 21:44
29 OCT 02:53
Continue the Adventure
Explore THE MINUS FACTION
Credits
He was making a proper nuisance of himself, whoever he was. I could hear the screams from the street. I stepped from the car and met the officer in charge, a woman named Ballantine. I didn’t know her, but I’d seen her around—at PEA meetings, I think, back when they still thought I might make a good role model for the junior officers. She had a potential shooter upstairs but seemed more terrified at the immediate prospect of having to explain why I’d been summoned in lieu of SWAT.
“Thanks,” she said, extending a hand in greeting.
“Sure, sure.” I looked up at the building. The fire escape zigzagged down all six floors of the brick facade. Window-mounted AC units stuck out like bit tongues. “What do we got?”
“I know this isn’t really your thing, but—”
“It’s all right. Usually by the time I arrive, there’s already a stiff. Nice to get out in front of one for a change.”
“Luckily, we have him isolated. Before there are pictures of us charging in, guns blazing, on the evening news, I thought we should at least try and talk him down. Word is, you speak this guy’s language, if you know what I mean.”
The yelling resumed and she led me in silence to the door.
“And what language is that exactly?”
Ballantine led me up the stoop. “One of the patrolmen is the son of a rabbi. He said it sounded like Aramaic.”
“Do people still speak Aramaic?”
She shrugged. “This guy does.”
Another bout of shouting filled the foyer as we entered. Mailboxes were on the left. Stairs were on the right. The super’s residence was at the back. Somewhere not too far away, a baby was crying.
“Fifth floor,” Ballantine said, making it clear she wasn’t coming. The noise was louder inside, and she had to raise her voice. “The sarge is up there. Fair warning. He’s not real good with female officers.”
“And the family?”
“Taken away by ambulance. Father, mother, adult daughter.”
“Hurt?”
“No.” The sounds stopped again and her voice fell to a whisper. “Just really shaken up. The mother has some kind of illness, I gathered. Supposed to be serious. The ambulance was mostly for her. The other two went to make sure she was okay.”
“Anyone else in the unit?”
“Just the evil spirit.” Ballantine smiled in jest.
I started up the stairs, four flights to the top. The yelling came and went and got louder around each turn. Residents, who I’m sure had been directed to stay inside their homes, peered from behind cracked doors. As I passed the third floor, I felt a pulse hit the inside of my skull and leaned against the wall for a moment. I pressed my palm flat against my temple. I smelled cumin and coriander. On the fourth floor, I smelled new carpet. The scent itself was pleasant enough, but I figured it was a mixed blessing for the tenants who had to wonder, as I did, what had happened in one of the units that was serious enough to leave the landlord of that place no choice but to spend the money.
A patrolman was crouched against the wall on the final landing, just below the fifth floor. He looked to be about half my age. I removed my firearm, holster and all.
“Hold this.”
He looked at it. “You know he’s armed, right?”
“That’s what they said on the radio.” I kept the weapon extended.
He looked at it. “Your funeral.” He took it with a shrug.
“Just follow your damned orders!” The uniformed sergeant at the top of the stairs barked down in an urgent whisper.
I walked up as the screaming started again. Our guy was in 507. He was pissed about something and letting the whole world know. Language definitely sounded Semitic, like Arabic or Hebrew, with lots of soft consonants and recurrent syllables.
I stood close to the sarge and kept my voice down. “How long’s he been in there?”
“Not sure.”
The man’s name tag said Rollins, and he was as haggard as you’d expect for a man who remained a sergeant into his late 50s. His ruddy jowls had started to sag, along with his uniform, but he had hard eyes that I suspected had gotten harder every year. He used them to glance over me. Nothing sexual. Just checking me out, deciding if I was up to snuff.
“Few hours maybe,” he said. “A few of the residents mentioned they heard sounds of fighting a little after lunchtime. Walls here aren’t real thick, in case you haven’t noticed.”
I heard the baby cry again, fainter this time. “Shouldn’t we clear the building?”
“Headquarters didn’t want to cause a panic,” he said sarcastically.
I nodded. “We have an ID?”
He shook his head. “Supposed to be some kinda faith healer. Family’s from Nigeria or Ghana or some shit like that. Wife had meningitis and they brought this asshole in to take the evil spirit away. Then he went nuts or something. I don’t know.” He squinched the side of his face like it was all a bunch of hooey.
“You been inside?” I motioned toward the half-open door just down the hall.
He nodded in the affirmative.
“Any mirrors?”
&nbs
p; “Mirrors?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know, reflective glass. Shows you what you look like.”
He scowled. “Didn’t notice. I was too worried about the raving asshole with the gun. And getting the family to safety.”
“What about a TV?”
He thought for a second. “Yeah. Flat screen in the living area. Why?”
I took off my sport coat and tossed it over the balustrade. It would only constrict me if there was a tussle. I unwound the chain on my wrist, the one dangling the little silver talisman, and fastened it around my neck like an ordinary necklace. The chain was visible but not the carved silver disc, inlaid with a drop of polished obsidian, which hung below the line of my dress shirt.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay in there? Patrolman Meyers is an ass,” the sergeant said, motioning to the kid holding my gun, “but he’s not wrong. Guy’s got a gun.”
I nodded as I rolled up my sleeves. “Just keep everyone back. No matter what you hear. No matter how crazy it sounds. Alright? Keep the trigger fingers out until you hear from me. You’ll only make things worse.”
“Whatever you say, Detective.”
He was being sarcastic again, but I didn’t care. Sgt. Rollins had the demeanor of a man who knew how to keep control of his men, which is all that mattered. I trusted him—in a way. I trusted that after two and a half decades on the force, he would do everything he could to make it the last few years to retirement. He wasn’t going to play hero.
I stepped lightly to the door and peered in. The guy must have caught sight of me, because he started screaming again in that unusual tongue. Now it was the same phrase over and over, like he wanted me to do something—get back, maybe. Or let him out. He was on the floor in the living room kneeling near the inside edge of a large, heavy salt ring. He definitely had a gun, but judging from how he held it—by the barrel—may or may not have known what it was for. I pushed the door open slowly, my body turned in profile to make myself less of a target—just in case. I took a step and waited for a reaction. There was a closet door to my right and a small enclosed kitchen to my left, where a light was flickering randomly. There was a couch and a tall potted plant across from the worn Ikea bookcase next to the TV. There was a slider door at the back, bolted shut. And no balcony.
Only one way out.
The room had bright, colorful African decor. A zigzag-patterned rug had been rolled up and put out of the way, probably to make room for the salt. An open thirty-pound sack of the stuff sat next to the TV stand, topped with an inverted steel funnel. The ceiling glistened slightly as if covered in a thin layer of sweat. A few drops ran down the walls.
The guy inside the ring was clearly African. He wore a white kufi cap on his head and matching gown. There were dots of white pigment across his cheeks and brow. His right hand gripped a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. He was white-knuckling it. His left hand held a wooden figurine.
He yelled again and shifted his grip on the gun. It went up, properly this time.
There went that theory.
I opened my hands and arms wide. “I’m not armed.”
He uttered what I’m sure was an insult—terse and angry. His voice didn’t quite match his body. Too deep. And there was a slight lag between the sound and his lips, like a soundtrack just a bit out of sync with the film.
I pulled my eyes from the gun barrel pointed at my chest and stole a quick glance at the earth-stained figurine in his other hand. It was about a foot tall and shaped like a fat peg or stake. He gripped it by the tapered end, which wasn’t needle-sharp but definitely wasn’t dull either. The top and center of the piece had been carved to resemble a head and body. The face had a simple, snarling visage. There was a thin, angular chain wrapped five or six times around the torso. It was the color of cast iron and looked hand-made. No two links were the same size or shape. Dangling from one of them was an open padlock, also cast iron. I guessed it was a spirit totem of some kind. I hadn’t seen one like it, but the symbolism of lock and chain are darn-near universal.
“Who’m I talking to?” I asked as I shut the door behind me. I reached back and locked it without taking my eyes off the man.
He laughed desperately. His dark skin had the kind of crosshatched wrinkles you get after a life in the sun, especially at the corners of his mouth and eyes, which were crazy bloodshot. But under that, he looked like someone’s thin, aged grandpa.
“So what do I call you?”
He laughed again, longer and louder. He wasn’t stupid enough to tell me his real name, which is the easiest way to bind an entity. That’s why all the old medieval texts had three or four names for every “demon.” It was a ruse on their part to evade capture. Most of them weren’t true demons, of course, just plain ol’ malignant spirits, like this one—opportunists, for the most part, no different than a vulture or a coyote, and just as skittish, easily frightened by guardian statues and sacred objects. Most tend to hunt at night, when the pickings are easier. As long as you had the right tools, they’d usually flee and take their chances on an easier target. But this one hadn’t. Best guess, the witch doctor had managed to get the bastard out of the sick wife but something went wrong and he couldn’t lock the chain in time. Maybe his hands shook. Maybe the lock was stuck. Who knew?
“What do you want?” I asked.
His bloodshot eyes glanced to the salt ring.
“Well, see, that’s a problem.” I took another step forward.
He cocked the revolver calmly and deliberately. I heard the click in the now-quiet room. I had the sense that everyone in the building was holding their breath, trying to hear our words, which I’m sure rumbled through the thin walls as an undecipherable baritone.
I looked at the gun barrel. I was very aware that at that range, there wasn’t much chance he’d miss and that any hit had a decent shot of being fatal—or at least making sure I had to shit into a bag for the rest of my life. At least the old shaman had made a good-sized salt ring—not just wide but thick as well. That, plus the protective dots under his eyes, suggested experience. Pouring a ring like that takes a lot of salt and a lot of time and is a bitch to clean up after. Folks who don’t know any better read the instructions in a book and think any old ring will do. They use half a box of Morton’s, make a thin circle barely big enough to move in, and call it a day. But all it takes is one misstep to scuff a ring like that, and then it doesn’t matter how good you are. It’s game over.
This guy had played it safe. He knew not to take chances. But then, he also hadn’t been too worried. He’d used a salt ring rather than something durable, like a painted conjuring circle with binding runes. That said to me he’d probably done simple exorcisms all the time back home, wherever that was, and hadn’t expected this one to be any big trouble.
It was a mistake—one I wasn’t going to repeat. I needed to know what I was up against.
I kept my arms open and nonthreatening. “You can shoot me if you want. I can’t stop you. But if you do, my friends are gonna shoot back.” I nodded toward the hall. “I’ll be dead, and so will that man you’re in, which means this whole place will turn into a crime scene and no one will touch anything until the forensics guys get here, which could take a while, especially since we’re coming up on rush hour.”
I nodded to the round plastic clock on the wall, just over the TV. I didn’t need to. I knew what time it was. It was just an excuse to glance down at the blank screen and confirm, up close, my suspicion that the two of us were alone and that the man’s reflection matched his appearance. Which it did. That ruled a few things out.
Easier things, unfortunately.
I took another careful step forward. I wasn’t more than ten feet from the ring by then.
“You’ll be trapped in that circle,” I said “for hours, unbound and without a host. How long can hold your breath?”
His hand clenched the gun in anger. He was sweating. The walls and ceiling were sweating with him. I tried to swallow the lump in my throa
t nonchalantly, but it was as stubborn as the ghoul.
Here’s the thing. Exorcism is tricky. It’s not a fight as much as a hostage negotiation. And a process of elimination. You start by ruling things out. It was always possible I was facing a witch possessing the old man from afar. But then, any human probably wouldn’t be speaking Aramaic—or whatever it was. More than that, a salt ring doesn’t have any effect on the living, except to annoy whoever has to clean it up. So if it was a witch or warlock, he or she could’ve gotten up and walked out hours ago.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t demonic either. True demons are powerful entities that aren’t readily trapped by salt rings and the like. You need a ring of living wills, priests and paladins untainted by sin and strong enough to stand against a demon and so to trap it. And anyway, the saints locked up all the demons ages ago.
It could’ve been a ghost, the free-floating spirit of a dead person, but they generally can’t possess the living—at least, not unless the host is a medium or other sensitive. But ghosts aren’t rational. They don’t realize they’re dead, which is why they’re stuck here reliving the trauma of their lives. That’s why a ghost is always dangerous, by the way. Even the friendly ones can turn violent without warning, like a wild animal. And because they’re reliving old trauma, their actions are detached from their surroundings, which is creepy as fuck when you see it. They speak in strange non sequiturs and move through walls where once there were doors. They don’t do things like calmly point guns and ask to be set loose.
Given the mirror test, and Ballantine’s report that the wife was seriously ill, I was 99% sure this old scratch was a “carrion ghoul,” for lack of a common name. They’re pretty much everywhere—opportunistic spirits that pray on the sick and sinful. In the Philippines, they’re called aswang, and it’s said that in daytime, they appear as the living, but with a nervous tic and bloodshot eyes—like this guy. At night, they become incorporeal and waft through the streets in search of the sick and dying so they can slurp their intestines. Those kinds of details are usually exaggerated, but relevant. In the old days, for example, intestinal disease is how most people got sick and died, so it would’ve been the spirit’s key point of entry.
