Pockets of Darkness (25 page)

Thirty Four

“Yaqrun.”

“Yes, Bridget the-strong-willed, that is the name of the demon you released, and the one you must recapture. Say the name again and again so you will never forget it. Say it each hour of each day until you are ready to catch the beast. And if you do not say it often enough, I will say it for you.”

Bridget worried that months had passed in the blink of an ephemeral eye, based on the crops growing and being harvested—chickpeas, lentils, onions, lettuce, leeks. Barley and wheat were growing tall. She and Hilimaz traveled near the river, where homes were made of tightly woven reeds, and watched fishermen bring in their catch, from across the fields, hunters toted gazelle they’d speared. She worried that Otter and the others had left the pit, perhaps had been slain. She couldn’t pull her mind back to look in on them, Hilimaz held the leash too tight.

“I need the name of the other one, Hilimaz. The other one I released.” Again Bridget described the massive slab of Silly Putty that she’d watched devour the flaming museum guard. “More than that, I need the name of my demon, the toad-thing that shadows me. You promised to help on those counts. And I need to know if my son—”

“I promised to teach you. I’ve done that. Provide names?” Hilimaz shook her head, as she had the many other times Bridget had asked. “I never promised that. Enlil has not provided the names, little ghost, not today and not on the other days. Perhaps there are Aldî-nîfaeti Enlil does not know, and so you may never know their names and never have power over them, never be able to summon them into a piece of pottery. But you know the name Yaqrun.”

If Bridget had kept a piece of that broken pot she could have delved it and discovered the name of the Silly Putty beast through the memory of the person who’d trapped it. But she’d lost that shard on the subway.

“Maybe we should try to find the other witches who trap demons.”

“And how many times have you suggested that?”

“I have lost count.”

“And how many times have I said that is a foolish thought?” Hilimaz laughed. “What makes you think, little ghost, that because I catch Aldî-nîfaeti, I know others who catch them also? I do not. The mother of my long-dead husband, she caught Aldî-nîfaeti, and she taught me. And now I teach you. Before many more years pass I must find another one in this city to teach, pass the craft on.” She stared out across the river as if she was actually seeing something. “You may teach whoever you please when we are done.”

“I know only a couple of witches in New York. Lady Lakshmi, Goater, Beran, Adiella.” She said the last name like it was profanity. “There is not one of them that I would—”

Hilimaz made a huffing sound like sand blown across dry ground. “I say you are a witch, and that makes the learning easier for you. But one does not need to be a witch to catch the Aldî-nîfaeti. You need the name and the words, you need clay and the words. A strong heart helps. Anyone can say the words, Bridget the-strong-willed. Anyone who can learn the words and can stand up to fear.”

“Then … then … why aren’t there lots of people in this city who can catch the feckin’ Aldî-nîfaeti?”

Hilimaz laughed, long and musical. “I am old and ugly and blind, little ghost. If others knew how to snare the Aldî-nîfaeti in this village, the people would have no use for me at all. Better that I am needed and whispered about and feared and revered, that I am the only demon-catcher here. Better that they think I am important and mystical. So I will not teach my craft to anyone else here until my days grow even shorter. These people who I have helped … if they paid attention to my words, they could learn the snaring, too. But these people do not notice my words, the catching spell, they notice only the Aldî-nîfaeti that vexes them, and they are too afraid to notice anything else.” She paused. “You, I teach you because you are not really here. You are not a rival for my attention. You, I teach because you are a mystery and because I have your name and some power over you. You, I teach because it gives me something interesting to do. And above all things, you I teach because Yaqrun is in your very far away time and place city. I hate Yaqrun more than I love life, and you will catch that Aldî-nîfaeti.”

“My son—”

“Do not worry about your son, little ghost. The time you spend here is nothing.”

Bridget thought often about Otter and prayed that Hilimaz was correct, that he’d be there in Adiella’s pit when she returned.

“Now, we will recite this new spell again and again.”

Time shifted as Bridget committed more spells to memory and watched as the old potter engraved bowls, certain now that she could duplicate the characters. Each spell was a little different, various gods’ names invoked, but all had a central theme.

“Yaqrun,” Bridget said again one morning. It was fall, the crops were being harvested and the air, though still pleasant, had the faintest chill to it. “I am ready, Hilimaz.”

“So you believe, little ghost. But what of the other that you released? And what of this toad-thing you tell me follows you? Are you ready for them?”

“I have no names for them. And each damnable day I spend here you tell me you have no way to gain their names.”

“Sad little ghost.” Hilimaz’s expression was forlorn. “And that your toad-thing is bound to metal?” She made a tsk-tsking sound. “Metal cannot capture the Aldî-nîfaeti, or truly imprison it. Only clay. I have told you this in all the days you have spent here. I have told you this again and again, and yet you do not hear. That toad-thing is not a prisoner. It is something else. When will you listen?”

Bridget did nothing to hide her ire. “And I have told you in all the days that the feckin’ Aldî-nîfaeti who dogs me is caught, bound.…” She stopped herself. “Bound.” It wasn’t caught, not
inside
something, like the other Aldî-nîfaeti had been snared in the clay. Her demon had a presence and waddled around New York City at her heels. It had killed Tavio and Jimmy and certainly Dustin. It had killed women Elijah Stone knew and how many others through how many other years. It was a feckin’ serial killer. “It isn’t caught,” she said. “It’s attached, but not caught.”

“Finally. So long it took you to say those words, little ghost.” Hilimaz’s expression turned smug. “This Aldî-nîfaeti you speak of is bound, yes, but not imprisoned.”

“My curse.”

“Maybe,” she stroked at her chin. “Maybe it is not a curse. Who would bind an Aldî-nîfaeti? And why?” Bridget noticed the old potter had dry clay on her hands. Hilimaz had been missing things lately, the clay on herself, bumping into her bench and stumbling. The vagaries of age were catching up.

Just how long had Bridget been inside the bowl?

“Four years,” Hilimaz said. “You have been here four years, little ghost. And yes, you are ready for Yaqrun. But the others … with no names … you will have no power over them. Neither your god Cathol, nor Enlil, has given the names to you. Maybe you will never gain those names and those beasts will be forever free. A demon lives forever, you know. But you are ready for Yaqrun, and that is my only concern. Come visit me again, little ghost, and once more give me something interesting to do.”

O O O

“Mom? Mom!”

Bridget opened her eyes. Otter was on his knees in front of her.

“Mom!”

She opened her mouth to say something, but her tongue was like sandpaper and her throat was dry.

“Mom!”

Marsh shouted too, and Rob, Quin. She felt the rumble of a subway trundling along, and heard her demon babbling … and through the racket, she understood every single word the beast spewed. She’d learned Sumerian in her time with the old potter.

“Mom!” Otter shook her shoulders.

“M’okay,” she managed. Bridget realized the bowl wasn’t in her hands, it lay next to her like it had fallen out of her lap.

Rob thrust one of the awful energy drinks at her and she took it. The too-sweet syrupy drink felt amazing going across her tongue and down her throat.

“Mom! What happened? Are you okay?” Otter jostled her shoulders again.

She nodded and drank more of the Monster.

“You’ve been out of it for a while, boss.” This from Rob, who hovered. “Like two days. We’ve been stuck down here the whole fucking time.”

Two days?
Bridget had hoped she’d pull her senses back to the present shortly after delving the bowl, Hilimaz had suggested that would be the case, and that no “time was nothing.” But two days was better than four years—which the old potter had claimed she’d spent in ancient Sumer. It could not have been that long, could it?

She groaned and stretched, realizing nature and taken its course and her bladder and bowls had emptied while she’d been linked to the past. Her legs and arms and neck were stiff like she’d been turned to concrete.

Rob and Otter continued to chatter, her demon babbled too: “Bridget must unshackle all of the trapped Aldî-nîfaeti. Bridget must leave this cave under the world and unshackle us all, else I will unmercifully rip the heart out of Otter, unshackling him from life. Bridget unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti and release me. Please, Bridget.”

Every word. The demon spoke Sumerian, and Bridget understood every syllable.

“Two days nearly,” Marsh said. “We’re like mostly out of food ‘cept for one can of Pringles and half a jar of pickles. We didn’t know what the hell to do. Couldn’t snap you out of it. And we tried just about everything until—”

“—until I told them to leave you alone.” Adiella was in her rocker, hands folded in her lap, postcards spread on the floor nearby, nothing written on them. “I told them you would snap out of it … eventually.”

“But Alvin didn’t want to wait, Mom. He … he went out there.” Otter gestured behind him, to the crevice that led from the tunnel to Adiella’s pit. Bridget’s demon squatted there, four eyes opened and looking from one person to the next, fifth eye so tightly closed that it appeared to be a wrinkle on its warty forehead.

“We didn’t see what got him, boss,” Rob said. “Had to be that demon, the one that set your house on fire.”

“We heard my brother scream.” Quin was sitting on the cot, elbows on his knees and head hung low. “Heard him die.”

“I kept him from going after Alvin.” Rob again, pointing to Quin.

“
You
kept him? It took all of us,” Marsh said.

They continued to chatter, one question after the next as she sat in her own waste and tried to gain some feeling back in her limbs. “Did you kill the old man who left this pit? Bridget asked her demon in the Sumer tongue.

“Mmmmmmmmmm,” the demon replied. “Tasty, that old man.”

“Where were you, Mom?” Otter’s hands were still on her shoulders. “I mean, you were here, but you weren’t. Adiella said you look through things, like the bowl you were holding. She says it’s what you do, that you like very old things ‘cause you can see their story. Is that where you were? It’s what you were doing in the warehouse, too, wasn’t it? Looking inside old things?”

“Yeah, Otter.” Bridget flexed her fingers. “I was inside the bowl, my mind anyway.” Feeling was coming back, along with the uncomfortable sensation of a thousand little bees stinging her. “I was delving the bowl. I call what I do delving.”

“Delving. To figure out what to do about the demons, right? Somehow you were doing that?”

“Yeah, Otter. I got some of it figured out.”

“Good, then we can get out of here, right?” Rob started pacing, a short course because he had little space in the crowded room. “We can—”

“Help me up.” Otter tugged Bridget to her feet and she shifted her weight back and forth. “God, but I stink.”

“Well, yeah, there is that,” Otter said. “You sort of … sort of ….”

“Yeah, I stink.”

“So you can get us out of here now? I’ve missed school. I’ll get in trouble for that. I’ll need a written note. I’ve Dad’s funeral. Geeze, Mom, that’s tomorrow night. I’d set it up for tomorrow night. We gotta pay the place, and I’d set it up, put a notice in the paper, on-line, and for—”

“We’ll take care of it, Otter.”

“So you know what to do about the—”

“Demons? Give me a minute.” Bridget took a good look around. Rob paced. Marsh leaned against a wall, hands in his pockets, scraggly growth of beard. Everyone looked tired, bags under their eyes, fatigue clear on their faces. Except Adiella; the witch looked like she could step behind the counter of her bookstore and open it for business. Adiella met Bridget’s gaze, then looked toward the crevice.

Bridget approached her demon.

“Bridget is well. Good. Now Bridget must unshackle all of the trapped Aldî-nîfaeti. Bridget must release me, please. Together we will master the realm, crush the skulls of those who oppose us. Unshackle us all, Bridget, else I will unmercifully rip the heart out of Otter and eat it before your innocent eyes. Bridget unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti and—”

She crouched until she was eye-level with it, her still-stiff legs protesting. “You listen to me you gobshite.” All the words except for the last were spoken in Sumerian. “You’re not going to kill any more of my people. I’m through with your threats. Free you? Hell, I’d do it in a heartbeat if I knew how.”

“Release me, Bridget. Release me and I vow not to eat the hearts of those you love.”

“And how the hell do I manage that? Releasing you?”

“Say the words,” the Aldî-nîfaeti said. “I will tell you the words to say and—”

Bridget bolted upright. “What did you say, demon?”

Behind her Otter and Rob talked softly.

“What’s she saying?”

“Is that a language? Is she growling?”

“Do you think she’s talking to a demon? An invisible one? Michael said there was an invisible one.”

“Think there really is an invisible demon there?”

“Is that what got Alvin?” The last was whispered. “An invisible demon?”

“Bridget, I spoke that I will tell you the words you need to free me. I have no power with the words, but you do. And you must say them and—”

“So I can release you? Just like that? Just like the spell that caught your feckin’ Aldî-nîfaeti fellows in the bowls?”

“Say the words. I will tell you—”

“What if I don’t release you, eh? What if I keep you bound to me until my last breath?”