by Rita Vetere
Jasmine nodded and motioned for him to continue.
"By the time your mother came to me for help, she was nearing the end of her pregnancy. She was in bad shape, to put it mildly. I thought..."
...he thinks something terrible has happened to her.
"Lilli ... come inside."
When she's settled in the living room, he says, “Tell me what's wrong."
Lilli's face becomes calmer when she hears his words. Then she turns those haunted eyes on him and says, “Do you believe in evil spirits, Tom? Because I think a really bad one is after me."
She tells him everything, from the beginning. The trip to Marrakesh. Charlie's purchase of the pendant, and what happened in the riad on the night Charlie died. She tells him about the entity that arrived to seduce her, the one that killed Charlie. She tells him about throwing away the pendant, the bad vibrations she felt coming from it. She even hands him a small book in which she's made a drawing of the pendant, which she's convinced is responsible for the misfortune that has befallen her. The book contains other scribbled entries. She continues with her shocking story, telling him about the spirits plaguing her and how they torment her.
Then she tells him something that rocks him to the core.
"I don't think this baby is Charlie's, Tom. I think it's ... his. The one that raped me. And I think he's coming back for it."
When she's done, she turns her jade eyes on him, pleading silently for his help.
"You have to understand, Jasmine, I'm a doctor. I knew your mother had just gone through a very stressful time and I—God help me, I didn't believe her. I was convinced she'd had a breakdown caused by the stress of everything that had happened. I'd heard of similar cases and felt she was losing touch with reality. I called a psychiatrist, a friend of mine, and made an appointment for her for the next day, telling her I would accompany her myself. I thought I was doing the right thing, getting her the help she needed. Afterward, she just looked at me. I could tell it wasn't what she wanted to hear. Then she left, telling me she'd see me the next day. As it turned out, I never saw her again. She died that same night."
He stopped at this point. Jasmine could tell he was trying hard to pull himself together. But she was too stunned to offer him any comfort. She looked at the pendant hanging from her neck and knew it was the same one her mother had spoken to him about, the one her mother had been wearing in the picture. The one Aunt Dora had given her on the night of her birthday.
"Did Aunt Dora know about any of this?” Jasmine asked, confused and shocked by what he had told her.
"I tried to talk to her after Lilli died, after I checked the records and found there were marks on Lilli's body no one seemed able to explain. I still wasn't convinced everything Lilli told me was true, but I just couldn't believe she would try to hurt herself, that she would put her unborn child at risk. She wasn't like that. I wanted Dora to know what Lilli had said to me. She was afraid something was after her, something that might be a danger to you, but I didn't get very far. Dora..."
...she looks at him like he is a monster. “Why are you doing this? What right do you have coming here, spewing this garbage to me about Lilli. Lilli had a difficult time coping with what happened to her, but she wasn't crazy, Tom. You of all people should know that. There was a time I thought you loved her,” she says with reproach, holding Lilli's baby close to her bosom. “Why are you tarnishing Lilli's memory by spreading these lies about her?"
He looks at her, thinking he should have waited until her grief had abated before coming to her with this. “Dora. I did love her. I still do. That's why I'm here. She was terrified when she came to me. I was as shocked by what she told me as you are now. I didn't believe her. I thought she needed medical attention and tried to arrange it for her. But when I found out about the marks on her body after she died, I began to wonder if there wasn't something to what she was trying to tell me. What if the baby's in danger? What if—"
"That's when she snapped. Dora threw me out and told me never to come back. She said if I ever went anywhere near you she'd call the police. We never spoke again."
Jasmine looked at him. “But you kept track of me, didn't you?"
He nodded. “I thought it's what Lilli would have wanted me to do. Then, one day a couple of weeks ago, I saw a patient who reminded me of your mother. I hadn't checked on you for a while, and something told me to show up at your place that night, to make sure everything was still all right. I saw you getting into a taxi as you left the house and noticed you were wearing that.” He gestured toward the pendant around her neck. “I knew something was wrong. Lilli swore she threw the pendant away in Morocco. She described it to me in detail and showed me a drawing of it, but I couldn't be sure it was the same one you were wearing without getting a closer look, so I followed you.” He paused, and then asked, “Where did you get the pendant, Jasmine?"
"Aunt Dora gave it to me on the night of my birthday,” she replied slowly, her voice barely a whisper.
Now it was his turn to look shocked.
"Tom, did you tell Aunt Dora about the pendant?"
After a long silence, he said, “No. I remember my entire conversation with Dora. I never got that far. She told me to leave before I had a chance to mention it. I can't imagine how she came to have it."
They looked at each other, neither of them speaking. Then a terrible thought occurred to Jasmine.
"The man, or whatever he was, that my mother said raped her. You think he was the man we saw that night, the one you were trying to protect me from?"
He pulled something from his jacket pocket, a small book. He flipped quickly through it and handed it to her, opened to a page near the front. “Judge for yourself. She wrote some of it down. At the time, it read like something out of a bad movie, but when I saw him, I knew ... I just knew."
Jasmine's stomach did a slow turn and her heart felt as if it were suspended from the back of her throat as she read the passage from the open book, written in her mother's hand.
I thought an angel had appeared to me when I first saw him. His features were too perfect, too beautiful to be human. His hair was long and black, and fell like silk to his shoulders. He was tall, his chest and arms muscular. He had the most startling eyes, blacker than black, and ringed in gold. They seemed to radiate heat, an invisible fire that ran through me, drawing me to him. His physical beauty took my breath away, but I know now it was nothing more than a clever disguise for the evil that hid beneath. He raped me, even though he didn't use physical force to do it. Whatever spell he cast on me did not break until he disappeared into thin air afterward.
The enormity of what she had just learned dropped on Jasmine like an anvil. She was indeed the product of a union between a mortal and an incubus. Ahriman had fathered her.
Tom spoke again. “Pretty fair description of the man we saw, wouldn't you say? And he felt, well, dangerous, for lack of a better word. That's why I had to come. If that man, or whatever the hell he is, tries to approach you again, I want you to call me. Right away. I need your promise on this, Jasmine."
She felt the blood drain from her face. Her hand seemed disembodied from the rest of her as she held out the diary to return it to Tom.
"No, that belongs to you. Read it. There are other things in there you might need to know.” He walked over to her and pressed a business card into her palm.
"My home address and numbers are all listed there. Call me any time, day or night, even if you only need to talk. I know you need some time to digest all of this, but promise me you'll call if you see anyone who looks even remotely suspicious. I don't live far from here. I can get to you in five minutes."
Jasmine's head was spinning. She opened her mouth, about to tell him everything, and then closed it again, unable to speak the terrible truth about what she'd done. She needed time to process what she had learned, and to think about what to do next.
Before he left, he turned to her and said, “You should get rid of that necklace. I don't
know how Dora came to have it, but your mother wouldn't want it near you, I'm sure.” He added, “I know how crazy this all sounds. But don't let that stop you from taking what I've told you seriously. I made a mistake with your mother a long time ago, and I've never forgiven myself for it. I owe it to her to be here for you. And I will be."
After she shut the door behind him, Jasmine hurried upstairs and found Aunt Dora's security box in her bedroom closet. She removed the pendant, not wanting it near her another minute, and locked it inside. It was two in the afternoon. Ahriman had told her he would return tonight. She had to figure out what to do before then, but first she needed to finish reading what her mother had written. Grabbing her purse, and her mother's diary, she left the house. Although Ahriman had told her he would return at night, who was to say he would not come back sooner? She decided to take no chances. Once outside, she ran as far as Bayshore, where she knew plenty of people would be around, walking, cycling or jogging, and sat on one of the benches facing the ocean on the busy sidewalk. With a sense of rising dread, she picked up the small diary to read the rest of what her mother had written. Her hands shook as she opened the book to the first page.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 16
The hastily scribbled notes comprised only eleven pages. Not much, but enough to provide Jasmine with a peek into the soul of the woman who had given birth to her and whose absence she had felt so keenly all her life. By the time she got to the blank pages following the last entry, the extent to which her mother had been terrorized during her last days on earth was heartbreakingly clear. And Jasmine knew exactly who had been responsible for it.
The pencil sketch her mother had made of the pendant on the second page was surprisingly accurate, right down to the small symbols on the two tiny coins suspended from the bottom. The notation below the sketch contained a shred of hope:
The more I think about what happened, the more I'm sure it was the pendant that drew him to me. The shopkeeper who sold it to us said it was rumored to have been cursed. Charlie thought it was superstitious nonsense, but I should have trusted my intuition. Maybe he'd still be alive if I had ... Thank God I threw the disgusting thing away before returning home. I don't think it can harm me now.
A chill ran through her as she read the words. Whether or not the pendant had been cursed, it was definitely evil. It was, Jasmine now suspected, the gateway through which Ahriman entered the mortal world. Somehow, Ahriman had found a way to return the pendant to her mother after she'd thrown it away in Morocco. Snippets of what her mother had written jumped out at her.
He commands many spirits on earth, the souls of evil men and women that remain earthbound. I can't see them, but I can hear them. They torment me relentlessly. They have the ability to inflict pain, both physical and mental, and they do it at his bidding, that monster.
The last few entries were almost illegible and Jasmine's instincts told her they had been written right after her mother's encounters with what she referred to as “the dark souls".
They're gone for now, but I know they'll be back to hurt me some more, if not tomorrow, the next night. I can't sleep anymore for fear of them and what they might do. They're clever bastards. I should be black and blue, but they know how to hurt me without leaving too many marks...
and
...There's no question now, it's the baby he wants. I heard them, whispering among themselves before they started in on me. They hurt me so bad I almost passed out. My lip is cut. I'll have to tell Dora I banged it. I can't drag her into this. They love to hurt me, but they won't kill me. They have to keep me alive because of the baby. But Dora. I think they'd enjoy killing her, just to make me suffer...
Oh, God. Aunt Dora. Had she died at the hands of the dark souls described in her mother's journal? The thought rang true, and deep pain seared her heart at the idea of Aunt Dora being attacked by the evil entities.
The last entry was the most chilling, written on the night before her mother died:
I can't wait any longer. Whether I'm insane or whether this is really happening, I have to get some help. Last night was the worst yet. I can barely move after what they did to me. And it's almost time for the baby to come. I know there's nothing wrong with the baby, I would sense it. It's innocent, my flesh and blood. I have to find a way to protect it from him. I know what he has planned for the tiny daughter still inside me. He needs my baby because it's a girl. I don't know how, but I have to find a way to stop him. He will not take my child. I've made up my mind to go see Tom tomorrow. He said he loved me once, maybe he can help me. I don't know who else to turn to...
Jasmine was moved to tears as she read the last words her mother had written. Her mother. For the first time in her life, the woman felt real to her. Her mother had died trying to save her. In that moment, her heart turned to stone against the being who called himself Ahriman. Her mother had not been able to stop him. But her mother was not a Cambion, like her. She would have to find a way to do what her mother had not been able to.
The pendant had to be destroyed. Her mother had been right to fear it. And Tom had been right in telling her to get rid of it. It was important, and Jasmine knew why. If she destroyed the pendant, she might be able to prevent Ahriman from entering the mortal world again. She had to hurry. Ahriman had promised to return tonight and it was already three o'clock.
Armed with new knowledge, she got moving. She tucked Tom's card inside the small book and raced back home. As she ran, she contemplated the best way to destroy Ahriman's portal. Throwing it away would do no good. He would find a way to send it back to her, as he had done with his mother. Just before she arrived back at the house, the answer came to her. Fire. Fire was the best way, the purest form of destruction. She hurried into the house and placed her mother's diary in one of the drawers of the mahogany desk in the living room, burying the book beneath a stack of papers. Then she raced upstairs to retrieve the pendant.
She moved to the fireplace, which hadn't been used for quite some time, and opened the flue. There was kindling and wood in the backyard shed, she knew, and she ran back and forth carrying in logs in until she had enough to build a roaring fire. She felt certain the old silver would melt if it remained in the fire long enough. Then she would throw the molten remnants into the ocean.
Fifteen minutes later, perspiration rolling down her face from the heat of the roaring fire in front of her, she tossed the pendant into the fireplace and watched as the licking flames surrounded it. She waited.
Just over an hour later, she used a poker to fish around in the hot embers for the molten pieces. The poker caught on something, and she pulled it out of the ashes. Stunned, she looked at the silver chain dangling from it, the pendant still attached. Incredibly, it was intact, and unmarked. She touched it lightly with her finger. The silver did not feel the least bit warm, even after having been placed in a roaring fire for almost two hours. She extricated the necklace from the poker and held in the palm of her hand, unable to understand how it had survived the fire unscathed.
Now what? Gripped by a sense of urgency, she decided to throw the damned thing in the ocean. What else could she do? It was after four already. As she ran for the front door, ribbons of silvery mist began to ooze out from the pendant clutched in her hand. Energy, like a small force field, formed around the pendant. Panicked, Jasmine realized Ahriman was in the process of coming through from the other side, even though night had not yet fallen.
In no time, the room filled with a strange, bright mist. Mesmerized, Jasmine watched as Ahriman's transmutation from spirit to flesh took place before her eyes. Her hand released the pendant. It went clattering to the floor.
The mist seemed to condense, gathering itself together and coagulating into the spectral shape of a man. Ahriman's piercing eyes and other-worldly face emerged first, surrounded by loosely flowing waves of his hair, so his head seemed to momentarily float in front of her. Then the rest of him manifested in gradual downward increments. The
air between them shimmered and bent before settling back into place. The static charge of electricity ran through the room. A moment later, he stood whole before her, a spirit made flesh and blood.
Jasmine steeled herself against the pull of his beauty, doing her best to utilize her newly found hatred of him for what he had done to her mother and Aunt Dora. She closed her mind to him, sending her thoughts downward to a place where, instinctively, she knew they would not be detected by him. She focused her hidden thoughts on the evil that dwelled inside the darkly beautiful creature standing before her in an attempt to prevent him from glamouring her, and avoided his shadowy stare, averting her eyes to a spot just over his head. Even so, an overwhelming compulsion to go to him, to touch his face, his mouth, to feel one with him again, came over her. She managed to stand her ground, willing herself not to move.
Jasmine...
"Speak out loud to me,” she said, frightened his probing mind might discover the knowledge she now possessed. She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded in comparison to her frenzied thoughts.
"As you wish."
She felt his mind furiously probing her own and breathed a sigh of relief when she felt it withdraw, certain it had not detected her knowledge. Her relief was short-lived, however. The very sound of his voice pulled her to him; it was deep and sonorous, almost as compelling as his flesh. His eyes dragged her gaze toward him like magnets. She understood at once that her only recourse would be to confront him. She would not be able to resist his allure for much longer, and she had no intention of allowing him to defile her again without a fight.
