by Unknown
I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror, and even I want to fuck me.
We bump down the dirt road, steadily headed to Sydney and from there, Nashville. I pretend not to notice him stealing glances, but I’m careful to look his way and smile when he's not looking.
“So what brings an American to the Outback?” I ask. I already know the story, but I need for him to stay fixated on me. He can't retreat into his own head, especially now that I'm not touching the Phoenix Eye. I hate not being able to monitor every little bean that bounces around in that tin can of a skull, but it's too distracting. I don't need it anyway. The fat schlub is in love. He's ready to leave his wife for me, leave her to eat their squirming offspring before he spends a dime on anything but his aboriginal queen. He has to be in deep enough to pay for my first-class flight to America; I won't settle for anything less. The wretch certainly has the money; let him show his love for me.
I could practically storm into Mr. Harworth's home, letting my pet Bob bust the door down. He would certainly die in the fight, but what greater death is there than being a martyr to love? I hope the police don't make me put a leash on poor Bob. I picture Bob wearing a collar, foam-spittle flying as he roars at passing men. It makes me laugh, and for a moment, I'm almost embarrassed to interrupt Bob's masturbatory story of being the greatest man alive. But Bob isn't talking anymore. He hasn't spoken in some time. We've slowed down and are pulling onto the shoulder of the road.
I take hold of the Phoenix Eye—my God, I have to have her I have to make her fucking cum and squirt her goddamn juices all over me I love her I need to be inside her make her scream and cream wet and wild—and I drop the crystal as the world spins, my mouth filling with the copper taste of blood. I don't know what's happening or which way is up until my face is slammed into the dashboard. In the distance, I hear my nose break, and blood pours down my throat. I slap my hand against the window, trying to make the Ring of Archatapias resonate, but he can't hear it. He's screaming about how much he loves me while killing me. I hear his zipper come down and I catch a glimpse of his erect penis.
He's pulling my pants down, and I wonder what will happen when he realizes that his whore-queen is actually a gigolo-king. He'll bite my cock off and rip out my eyes. He's in a state of frenzy, and I can't stop him. I've wasted away for months, languishing on a diet of poisoned booze. He can break me over his knee like so much kindling. I'm about to die. I'm weak and powerless, trapped in the sweaty hands of death. The thought of what's about to happen sours my stomach and I vomit, the smell of it overwhelming as it flows back to fill my nostrils. He has me on my back and is fumbling with the button of my jeans. I pushed him over the edge, and he's going to rape me, kill me, break me—I —
No. He will not.
I scream, focusing all of my imagination on my glamour. I envision tentacles, three-jawed mouths that fill with bloody meat as they chew their own tongues into jelly. Eyes grow everywhere, growing bloated before rupturing, spewing maggots into his face. His goddess transforms into everything too horrible to exist.
He’s screaming. My fist rockets forward, punching the window with enough force to break the glass and shred my knuckles, but the Ring sings like never before. The siren song resonates through the car, turning it into a tuning fork for the music of the Sea of Tears. Where there was a sunny sky just seconds ago, the sky is black with storm clouds, and torrents of rain slam against the car like hailstones. Outside the window, I can see them: the mermaids. Their blurred images surround the car, rocking it, trying to get to the warm morsels within. Their skin is paper thin, but hangs in veiny, white slabs. Patches of it rip off as they strike the car again and again, singing their horrifying song. I can barely hear the rain or the moaning, though, because Bob Coullette is screaming in abject horror. He's seeing unspeakable beings from beyond, and what little sanity he had crumbles. I did this to him. I destroyed his life, forced him into a nightmarish existence. It's all my fault.
I wish he would shut the fuck up.
I punch him square in the jaw with my shredded knuckles, pain driving icepicks into my skin and down my arm. But he shuts up and, with him, everything else. The mermaids, the rain, it all goes away. I throw open the car door and drag him into the mud. He's crying, whispering for his mom, reeking of shit. I slap my hand against the car, silencing him.
“Give me a cigarette. Right now.” He does so without question, holding one to me in a shaking hand. “Lighter! Give me a lighter, you fucking tit!”
I light my cigarette, taking a long drag. “You're a piece of shit, you know that? You are a syphilitic cock and your mother is a goddamn terrorist for not swallowing you when she had the chance.” I take another puff, thinking.
“I'm sorry, I—what are you? Who are you?”
“I'm the devil, that's what I am. I'm gonna torment you in Hell forever. I've been hiding under your bed and in your closet all your life. I'm the rabid dog that tried to eat your friends and the spiders in your hair when you walk through the woods. I'm everything you've ever been afraid of, and now you're mine.”
“Please, I'm sorry. I don't know what—”
“I do. I know exactly what happened. You thought I was just some helpless girl you could use like your own pocket pussy. That's all you think about, you fucking dog. I've been inside your head and that's all there is to you. You're one evil son of a bitch, but you know what? I'm the fucking devil. And I want you to eat that cactus. Just shove it in your mouth and chew it up and swallow it. And when you're done, I want you to eat the one beside that and the one beside that. And when there aren't any more, you're gonna eat dirt and rocks until your stomach pops.”
He does what he's told. He shoves the first one in his mouth, crying and screaming, but he does it. Every time he slows down, I tap the ring and force him on. After the first few bites, I take his wallet out of his pocket. And the rest of his smokes.
We're gonna be here a while.
***
On the outside, a storm rages. Winds scream with the fury of a heaven denounced, abused, and forgotten. Lightning flashes, ripping the sky open as rain hemorrhages to the earth below. The plane flies on, an aluminum foil that pierces the domain of the gods, destroying all aspirations of divinity. Upon reaching space, Yuri Gagarin famously said that he saw no god there. Perhaps there had been once upon a time, but he was snuffed out in the faintest of whispers when the first man gazed upon his presence. He may have existed on the outside once upon a time, but that doesn't matter. The outside doesn't matter.
On the inside, the plane rocks and trembles. A businessman fills the air with the stench of vomit as he doesn't quite get his chicken dinner into his bag. A child wails, reeking of filth that cannot be removed until we're allowed to unfasten our seatbelts. Some of the braver passengers laugh nervously at the in-flight movie, something involving Adam Sandler babytalking for the audience. He's paired up with some starlet that would never give him the time of day in the outside world, but that doesn't matter. The outside doesn't matter.
On the outside, I look like obese, happy go-lucky Bob Coullette. One endearing stewardess brings me another whiskey, emboldened by the hundred dollar tip I promised her, courtesy of Bob's not-stolen credit card. She hands me another glass of the good brown, trying not to spill it as she brings it to her cash cow. She smiles at me, making some joke about the weather that I don't hear, but I laugh anyway. I'm not laughing on the inside, but that doesn't matter. The inside doesn't matter.
On the inside, I'm in agony. Beneath the bloated glamour of Bob, with its hairy knuckles and burst capillaries, I'm slick with blood and sweat. I'm chewing a bitter root, trying to dull the pain of my wrecked face. The breath wheezes through my swollen sinuses, and I can wiggle a molar with my tongue. I keep having the stewardess fetch me paper towels with my drinks, dabbing at my nose and pardoning my dripping sinuses. Allergies are just killing me this year; you know how it is. I shove them into a barf bag so nobody sees them. On the inside, they're soaked with
blood, but it doesn't matter. The inside doesn't matter.
On the outside, it seemed like I enjoyed killing Bob. He was a wretch, a waste of skin. I was surprised when he actually finished the first cactus, more so when he actually ate the second. I had congratulated him on ordering the salad. It was about time he ate healthy. He had laughed because he had no choice. I had offered him a beer to wash it down, cracking open a bottle of the American piss he kept in his travel cooler. He had turned it down because he had no choice. When he started eating rocks, he had pleaded for death. He spat out broken teeth and blood, tears pouring down his face. His eyes were wide, lips pulled back to reveal broken stumps of teeth, all lined up like crumbling tombstones. I bashed his head in with a rock, ending his misery, and burned his body in the desert. On the outside it had appeared that I had shown pity, but it didn't matter. The outside didn't matter.
The inside didn't matter. The outside didn't matter. In the end, nothing matters but the end.
There are dozens, probably hundreds, of other passengers on this plane. In my compartment alone, there are men and women, half a dozen different races, any number of political and religious beliefs. Everyone is different, but everyone is the same. None of them care about each other, not in the way they think. If the plane were going down and there were only one parachute, every last one of them would scramble for it. Everyone is someone else's supporting cast, just an extra in the story of their life. How many of these people are gay? How many of them enjoy reality shows or country music? How many of them are vegetarians or thieves? How many of them are murderers?
We're all wearing peoplesuits, but mine is the only one that can be taken off.
How many of them are murderers? At least one that I know of. The one that matters. Bob isn't the first man I've killed, not by a long shot. How many people had grown a nice garden of tumors in their lungs, despite having never smoked? How many had come down with AIDS and never been able to figure out who gave it to them? Mysterious car accidents? Drowning? Snake bites? Had I killed twenty? Thirty? A hundred, all by drawing sigils and casting bones? But Bob had only been the second to die by my own hand.
The oily fingers of intoxication are wrapping themselves around my consciousness, making me slip away. I look at the ring on my hand. It would almost be pretty, if it weren't so horrible. It seems to have a blue stone in it, a stone that seems to disappear the closer you look at it.
Look even closer and see how everything disappears on its surface. You realize the silver band is almost black, unable to reflect anything but shadows. Look even closer than that and you notice the writing carved into it, but you just can't make out what it says. Don't look any closer. Never, ever look closer than that.
His name was Phillip. He was more than another warlock in the coven. He was my friend, a man I would proudly call my brother. He was older than me then and younger than me now. Though he was quiet and always seemed to be brooding, he could always make me laugh. He would never tell me about his past, but was quick to talk about society's. He hated anything modern, especially when it involved pop culture. He could talk for hours, explaining why the world would be a better place if everyone could accept their love for David Bowie and Queen. He always had something new to say about something old, some new insight into a Stanley Kubrick movie or what caused the rise and fall of disco. He always lived in the past, and now that's the only place he continues to live.
The last months of his life had been his happiest, right up until the end. There had been an electricity inside him, like a thunderstorm was building up. I've never heard a man talk so much about what he was studying without saying a damn thing. He was hiding something from me, but whatever it was made him happy, and that made me happy for him. He spent his nights reading through tomes and searching the basements of some very old cathedrals in France. There was a passion in him, a frenzy that bordered on the insane, and I encouraged it. It was better than seeing the man I cared for, even loved, underneath the black cloud that always seemed to follow him.
I had been at home when he had called me, so excited.
“Brad! I've found it! By the gods, I've finally found it! I have such sights to show you. I need your help getting this, but it's something I want you to see!”
“What, Phil, what did you find?”
“I want to show you. You won't believe me if you don't see it!”
“Brother, I don't have the money for a plane ticket. Can't you just tell me?”
“You don't need a plane ticket, I'm not two hours from you. I'm at an old church outside of Newcastle. I can't believe it was here; here of all places! Get your ass here!”
It was almost ten when I found the place he had called from. I would have found it sooner, but I was looking for a church, not for walls with barely enough roof to support the cross above. It was a dump and very old, probably from back in the colonial days. The hedges were massive, half-dead, yet very much alive. They were like ancient power lifters, and were probably the only things holding up the walls. The lot was choked by weeds and grass that had grown to waist height. I was almost surprised when I didn't get bitten by a snake.
He greeted me at the toothless maw of a doorway, grinning and starry-eyed, like a balding Cheshire Cat.
“What crawled up your butt and said I love you? I've never seen you this excited.”
“I found it,” he said, holding out his hand to reveal a ring. The ring. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have found some way to destroy the goddamn thing. I didn't have a Mount Doom, but I could have found some way to get rid of it.
“Well this is a bit sudden, but yes. You just made me the happiest girl in the world,” I joked. He didn't laugh, just kept on smiling in that strange way.
In my memory, my future is a silent witness, unable to speak but doing a good imitation of Munch's Scream. I don't want to see this again, but I will. I never want to see it again, but I always do. More times than I can count, I've watched events unfold and can't do a damn thing differently. Was there anything I could have done? Could I have stood in the way of his passion, his magnificent obsession, without being ground to dust beneath his desperate heels?
The altar didn't have the usual tools of the trade. There was no athame, wand, or sword. There was no circle, square, triangle, or star, all the shapes we learn in school without ever knowing their power. There was just a drinking glass and a skull. The glass was no ceremonial goblet, with jewels or sigils, but an ordinary wineglass you would find at any market. The skull had been picked clean of all flesh and was in pristine condition.
“What is this?”
“The Ring of Archatapias. Worn by the Lord of the Lost himself. I read a story once that Saint Cyprian had fallen into a deep sleep and found himself on the wrong side of the veil. He wandered the land for years, eventually stowing away on a ship that was blown off course and was stranded in the Sea of Tears. Nobody knows how he found the ring, or how he escaped from Archatapias, but some scholars think he was tortured to death by agents of the pissed off Elemental posing as Roman soldiers. Before they could grab the ring, the local centurion cut it off Cyprian's hand and kept it for his own. From there it became something of a relic, just passed around from church to church until it disappeared.”
“And that means what to us? Why are we here? I mean, that's a great story and all, but what can we do with it?”
“This story said that dreams were a doorway to the other side, and Cyprian would use it to find what was lost and lose what was found.”
“Is it true?”
“We're about to find out.”
“What do you want me to do? Do you need my help?”
“Just watch my back, okay?” he said, and began.
There was no ceremony to it, no real preparation. He set one hand on the skull and slipped the ring onto the other. He touched the glass with his fingertip and began working circles around the rim, making it resonate. With every circle around the glass, he moved his hand forward, raising the p
itch of the tune. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing tall, and I noticed how cold it was getting. A bird was fluttering in my chest, trying to break from of its bone cage.
There was a presence in the room I had never felt before. It seemed to suck all of the spit from your mouth and burn the eyes. I could almost see it, wavering behind the altar.
The ring touched the glass and the world broke away. There was no other sound but the singing. I could smell saltwater and something else, something I was very familiar with: rotting flesh. The altar groaned and collapsed downward, falling into the floor. It took the drinking glass, skull, and Phillip down with it. He fell hands first, reaching out for something, anything, to keep from plunging into the...water?
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled, just killing his momentum enough to stop him from taking a swan dive. His hands plunged into the murky pool where the floor had been, sinking in up to the elbow. At first I thought he was pulling them out, but then I saw the hair. He wasn't pulling, he was being pushed. He had never let go of the skull, and now it wasn't quite as naked and dead as I had first thought. A head of lank, black hair rose from the black water, followed by shoulders. A woman in a white dress had risen from the waters, her skin plump with water fat and dark veins. It was the first time I'd seen a mermaid or heard their song.
The hiss and gurgle and whine was more than I could bear. It filled my head with emptiness. I saw my puritanical parents, screaming at me about the books on witchcraft they had found. I saw the police kicking me for squatting in front of a convenience store. Everything I had left behind was there.
For Phillip, it was worse. He took the hem of her dress in his hands and bawled apologies. He loved her so much and should never have left her behind. She didn't say a word, just kept on singing and staring at him with red-rimmed blue eyes that were pouring tears.
