by John Everson
Something had puddled on the tile in front of the altar. The drip marks trailed down from the top of the altar, where, on top of that large oblong stone, the source of the drip had dried. Joe licked his forefinger and drew it across the dark smudge. The fingertip came back dusky red.
“Hmmm,” Joe mused. “Could have been wine, I suppose. But somehow I doubt it.”
He didn’t lick the finger clean. Instead, he considered what might have been sacrificed there, and shook the image away. Sure, it could have been a goat. Or a chicken.
But he still had vivid memories of a girl named Cindy laid out on a stone dais in a cave near the ocean, blood leaking from cuts all over her body and a knife raised above her, primed to loose more. Sacrificing animals was for pretenders. If this place really had been used as the seat of a demonic ritual… he had just wet his finger with human blood.
A chill ran up his spine.
Who had died here? And when? And had the sacrifice opened a crack in the edge of the world? Had Curburide demons slithered through the hole in the world and floated in the air here, soaking up the blood and lust and pain? Looking for a way to stick around?
He pivoted and stared all around the room. A decaying, forgotten, dirty space. Empty now. But had it been a doorway? Was it still used?
Standing here in this silent space was not going to give him the answers. Joe walked across the room to a dark hallway on the opposite side from where he had come in. He crossed its length, noting a handful of empty rooms, and finding a staircase at the end. Presumably, this led to the lookout tower. Joe shrugged and stepped up the first of the stone stairs. Only one way to find out.
It grew darker as the steps corkscrewed around the center twice. He was holding on to the wall to guide himself by the time he finally arrived at a door. The knob turned easily on this one and he was instantly blinded by the noon sun and a blast of warmer air. He stood on the top of the lookout turret. There was barely enough room for four people to stand together, but from here he could see for miles in every direction; his eye traced the road back to the Old Santa Fe Trail on one side, and down the hill towards the Rio Grande Valley on the other. The floor was stained with spots of something dark; a coating of desert dust obscured, but didn’t hide it completely.
A plume of smoke rolled off the road. Whatever kicked it up was headed in this direction. Joe’s stomach sank. He didn’t need a run-in over breaking and entering. And it was too late to get down and out to the car. Whoever it was had already left the road and was pulling up to the front of the building. But then…
Joe watched and crooked an eyebrow. A beat-up, old silver car pulled up next to his own Hyundai. It slowed, circled his car in a careful gravel-crunching creak, and then accelerated back out and down the road the way it had come in. Could be someone had come down the wrong road and was just turning around. Or it could be that his being there had scared somebody off.
He didn’t stick around to offer a second chance.
“Talk to me about the Birchmir,” Joe said, pushing a fresh beer across the copper clad bar in front of Arnie. An offering. It was after 9 p.m. at the Cowgirl BBQ, and Arnie was already talking loose and loud. He was well into his fourth or fifth beer of the night, and Joe figured that was the best time to get the story. Whatever story this crazy drunken bastard had to tell, anyway.
“You lookin’ to lose your soul?” Arnie asked. At the same time, he reached for the new pint, pulling it possessively closer. He was an opportunist and a storyteller.
“No,” Joe said. “But I heard what you said the other night, and I’m curious.”
“Curiosity killed the moron,” Arnie said. He took a deep pull on the pint. “But some just ain’t afraid to die. So what the hell, I’ll tell ya.”
Arnie screwed up his face until the fine wrinkles looked like fissures. He looked like Robert Plant – if Robert Plant was eighty-five years old.
“The Birchmir is a cursed, hateful place,” he said. “Best to leave it fade to dust out in the desert. Give it your attention, and it will only come back to life. And trust me, that is not a life you want to see.”
“You talked about demons coming through the walls. Tell me about that? How can they do that; what brings them through?”
Arnie shook his head. “You know it’s an old Spanish mission, right?”
Joe nodded.
“Well, as a mission, it was a holy place. That’s like an electric light in the darkest night to a demon. It calls them like the moths to a backyard porchlight in August. They swarm. But usually, the very thing that calls them stops them from coming through. That was the way it was with the Birchmir when the Church owned it. The ‘holy’ kept them at bay. But once the friars walked away… well… there were others who wanted to twist that holiness that used to hold the devils away and subvert it. They didn’t want to keep the demons away. On the contrary; they wanted to let them come through.”
“But why?” Joe asked. “That seems a bit… self-destructive.”
Arnie shrugged. “Some people’re never satisfied. Think they’re going to get power from demons. They never get nothing but death, but you just try ’n tell people that. It’s like telling people to stop drinkin’, else it’s gonna kill ya. They don’t listen.”
Arnie stopped and raised the free beer to his lips. “That kind of talk ain’t going to stop me. I believe it’s going to make me feel better, not kill me.” He wiped his lips and grinned. “See what I’m sayin’?”
“So, what did they actually do?” Joe asked.
Arnie’s eyes grew wide. “What didn’t they do! All manner of unholy, wicked things. They stole consecrated hosts – the body of Christ! – and pissed on them right there on the altar where the mass used to be said. They held blood orgies; they let men perform dances on the altar dressed as women, and women strapped on devices to bend them over and act like, well, you know. Obscenity. Blasphemy. Filth.”
Arnie stopped and took a drink of his beer, which now was nearly gone.
“Who knows what other things they did. But they broke into that place of lost mysteries, and blasphemed and committed one atrocity after the other, all in the name of the devil. In the end, they were sacrificing animals and people on the altar where the body of Christ had once been consecrated. And in the end, they brought the devils through. I’ve seen ’em. They come right out through the cracks in the walls some nights when it gets cold and dark out there and you’re feeling all alone. They can feel a new soul in the middle of that lost Church, and it pulls them right through.”
“And then what?” Joe asked. “What do they do when they come through?”
“They ride people.”
Joe’s eyebrow creased. “That must look pretty strange.”
Arnie shook his head. His eyes rolled in disgust. “You can’t see them pop outta nothin’ and start walking around, fer chrissakes. They’re demons. When I say ride, I mean, they take over some poor soul and twist him or her to be their slave.”
“But you said you’d seen them.”
Arnie suddenly looked cross. “You calling me a liar?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Joe said. “You’re standing there in the old mission, and these nuts do a pornographic ceremony, and… you see demons come out of the walls? Or people just start acting funny because you think they’re possessed?”
Arnie stared at him hard for a moment. Then he put the pint to his lips and drew a long sip. When he finished swallowing, he composed himself and spoke slowly, deliberately.
“I followed these people for a long time,” he said. “I wanted to know what they did in the old chapel, and so I got myself accepted by them. I went, and I watched their ceremony. It made me sick. But I tried to pretend that I enjoyed their sicko shit. And I am telling you. When that night reached its peak, I saw them come. I heard them come. The room shivered; I felt like we were in a small earthquake
or something. And when I stared hard at the walls… I could see them. Just barely. I could see the wall through them, but if I stared hard, I could see them pushing their way through, hungry. Cruel faces. Long fingers reaching out. They were almost invisible, but not quite. And then they would touch one of the people at the altar, calling them, and… disappear.
“Where?” Joe asked.
“Inside the people, what do you think? That’s what I’m telling you, they rode them.”
“And what happened when they went inside someone?”
Arnie’s eyes looked ready to pop out. “The obscene,” he hissed. “I can’t begin to tell you. If you want to know, you will have to go see for yourself.”
Joe leaned closer, suddenly intrigued. “You mean, they are still doing it there?”
Arnie nodded. He took a slug of the last dregs of the pint, tilted it high, and then slammed it back to the bar empty. As if daring Joe to fill it again.
“Yeah, they are still doing it. The ones who’re still alive. They love to be ridden. They’re all perverts. And idiots.”
A new voice interrupted the conversation. “Arnie, you know you’re not supposed to get on the soapbox here.”
It was Cindy. She slipped her fingers around Joe’s wrist and squeezed. “And I told you, don’t get him going!” She said the last in a whisper, but it was a fierce one.
Joe nodded. He didn’t want to piss her off. And he could see that Arnie was getting agitated. But he still needed a little more.
Cindy squeezed his wrist once, and then went down the bar to help another customer. An older guy, in black slacks and an expensive striped polo. Even after just a few days in Santa Fe, Joe mentally looked at the man and internally said, “tourist.”
As if he wasn’t one himself!
While Cindy was occupied, he looked back at Arnie and said, “Tell me how I can see the demons.”
CHAPTER 6
SIX FINGERS CURLED around Alex’s neck and shoved her hard against a rock wall. At least, she supposed there were six fingers because that’s how many that there were on the hand that pinned Ariana to the wall across from her. The realization chilled her when she absentmindedly counted the fingers around Ariana’s neck… and then counted them again to be sure.
They were long, dark, gnarled. The demon itself – well, at least Alex assumed it was a demon – leered at her with teeth that seemed too large for its heavy jaw. They glistened in the dim room.
“Were you looking for something?” it asked. The voice was a low growl; like a chain dragged across an iron bucket.
Ariana answered, from the opposite wall.
“We were looking for you,” she said. Her voice was artificially sultry. Alex wanted to barf. The woman was smooth as plastic, and just as real.
The demon didn’t buy it.
“Yeah, and I was looking for dinner. Thanks for coming when I called.”
He leaned in and bared dark teeth. It looked as if he were going to chew out Ariana’s neck.
But then she dropped the act.
“Wait!” she demanded. Her voice was cold. Hard.
The demon stopped. It raised an eyebrow. Or, at least, the ridge where a human eyebrow would be. This creature didn’t seem to have any hair. It resembled a human close enough, but obviously differed too. Its eyes were longer, as if someone had grabbed it by the corners and pulled. It wore no clothes, and its chest and belly were scarred with the dark lines of past wounds. Its sex looked heavy, and dangerous. Alex thought there might be spines at its end. She didn’t lust to become the object of its “affections.” It might be a tryst she wouldn’t survive.
“I can help you,” Ariana said.
Alex raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t wait to hear where this was going.
“No place good,” Malachai whispered in her head.
The demon laughed. “I wasn’t looking for any help,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of ripping the two of you limb from limb by myself. And I don’t think you’d want to help me with that anyway. What are you going to do to help me?”
“I can help you open the door between worlds,” Ariana said quietly.
The demon paused. It looked at her more closely. Considered.
“And why would I believe that?” it asked.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Ariana said. “How do you think that happened?”
“How do I know you are the one who found your way through? There are many of us who have reached through the walls between worlds and brought back a toy. I’d guess that you are the toys of someone else. Someone who will probably be looking for you. Them, perhaps?”
The demon gestured back in the direction they’d come from. There was noise at the entrance of the hall.
Voices. Feet.
“If you don’t get us to someplace safe quickly, I won’t be able to prove anything to you,” Ariana warned. “You know they will torture and play with us until we are dead.”
The demon nodded. “As will I.”
“If you don’t get us out of here in about ten seconds, you’ll never know what you had.”
The hand tightened around Alex’s neck until she choked.
“If you are not serious, I will make sure that your death is far slower and more painful than you would have received at the hands and feet of the mob,” the demon said.
It yanked them from the wall, and pushed them in front of its legs, already in motion, forcing them to a staggering run. After they rounded a corner, it stopped, and slipped one arm around each of their waists.
Alex felt her feet lift the ground and her head tilt forward. And then the demon was carrying them, and they were flying through the dark. Twisting through silent corridors and vaulting up winding stairwells. The air grew warmer, and smelled of something heavy and bitter.
The sounds of the other demons disappeared behind them, and eventually, their captor slowed his pace. Alex’s feet touched the ground but she wasn’t free. The demon’s long fingers crushed around her arm, and dragged her into an alcove in the black rock of the corridor. She was pushed ahead, and Ariana’s bare skin suddenly plastered itself against hers. The demon held both of them with one arm, as it opened the door ahead.
“Welcome home,” it growled, pushing them into the dark room beyond.
A flame guttered into existence on the wall ahead and suddenly Alex could actually see the room. The fire flickered and grew on its sconce. There was nothing else on that wall, but there was a collection of trophies displayed on the far one. A human skull decorated the center, but around it was a mélange of bones and other skulls; she saw what looked to be a ram’s head, with curled horns hanging from the wall, but most of the bones were from creatures that Alex couldn’t identify.
She didn’t have time to try; the demon hustled them through the room and opened another door. Without warning, a heavy hand shoved her in the back and Alex fell forward. Her feet left the ground and she landed on her shoulder, rolling down a short ramp to crack her head against the ground at the bottom. Ariana’s hip smashed into her face. She cried out from shock and pain. From above, the demon laughed.
“Make yourselves comfortable. When I come back… we’ll have much to talk about.”
With that, the door at the top of the incline closed, and Alex and Ariana were left in absolute darkness.
CHAPTER 7
DARIN DELNICK was not an evil guy. At least not by the definitions he’d read. He’d looked the word “evil” up. Many times.
Darin thought a lot about the nature of evil, and his own small place in the universe. Living in the midst of the desert, there was ample time for self-reflection. Evil was usually defined as an immoral act; but Darin considered himself amoral, not immoral. People who thought that life should or could be defined by Ten Commandments were foolish. The universe was so much more than a stage divided by a line of rig
ht and wrong, black and white.
When a lion took down a gazelle in the wild, was that evil? No. It was self-preservation. Did the lion enjoy the kill? Darin was sure that it did. There was satisfaction in a hunt that ended with prey. There was a feeling of accomplishment, as well as a hunger assuaged. Did that enjoyment of killing make the lion evil? No!
Like the lion, Darin did what he felt he needed to do to survive. As it turned out, his knowledge of the universe was probably a bit broader than most people’s… so his definition of survival was also, perhaps, a bit different.
For Darin, survival meant making his way in the universe, not simply in the United States of indentured corporate slavery. And Darin knew that the universe held more devious and deadly creatures than corporate executives. He also knew that it offered more rewards… to those who could prove themselves.
Darin intended to do just that. He had spent years researching the work of those who had gone before him. Those believers in something more than simply a universe of good and evil. Those who had left something behind.
There were many dead ends, and many theories that held as much truth as a bad dream. But there were also those who had found some piece of the truth. He stood in his front room, and fingered the old leather volumes he had collected over the past decade.
Books bound in animal skin.
Books bound in human skin.
Books that had never been produced in more than a handful of hand-written copies. He had sought and stolen and brought a library of secret knowledge here, to the desert. They said you could find anything on the ’net, but they were wrong. There were some buckets of knowledge that were not only not “public,” but were only transferred to a couple people per generation. Knowledge that was guarded. Knowledge that was dangerous.
Darin had always believed that the universe had more going on than a bunch of humans raping a planet and then taking the spiritual elevator up or down after they’d wound their way around the corkscrew of their mortal coil. He’d read plenty of foolish theories – really alternative religion fodder – when he’d researched the occult via the library, Amazon.com and some unsavory mail order catalogues. But all that had been like, a prequel to the real story.
