Pockets of Darkness (26 page)

“Please, Bridget.” The beast’s voice had changed. It was softer, and its eyes were cast down. “Freedom, please. Else I will rip out Otter’s heart and eat it before your innocent eyes. I will kill your son.”

“No you won’t. I forbid it.” She felt the vibrations of another subway train and heard Otter and Rob talking. Quin mentioned something about his brother, and Michael grumbled and sat on the cot next to Quin. “You’re bound to me. I didn’t understand that before. And because you couldn’t understand me … because I couldn’t communicate.”

“Please, Bridget. I will eat Otter’s hot beating heart unless you—”

Bridget slammed her fist against her hip. “Dear God.” This she said in English. Instantly the pit behind her quieted. “Oh, dear God.” She went back to the Sumer language. “You’re bound to the buckle. You’re bound to me.”

“Bridget, please—”

“I’m right, aren’t I? You’re bound.”

“Yes, Bridget.”

“I can order you around. You have to do my bidding, not the other way around. It was never ever the other way around. I don’t have to free the damn demons that were sucked up in old pieces of pottery. That’s just what you
want
me to do.”

“Yes, Bridget, I want my Aldî-nîfaeti brethren free.”

She remembered what Hilimaz had told her only minutes … years … thousands of years ago: “Your toad-thing is bound to metal? Metal cannot capture the Aldî-nîfaeti. Only clay. I have told you this in all the days you have spent here.”

She thought back to her delve of the buckle while she sat in her warm study on her oushak rug. A man’s voice had said: “She can make a slave of evil that will in time conquer. That will allow us victory. A slave that she can bind like a mother unto a child.” Bridget had heard then that her demon was an instrument; she just hadn’t understood. She’d let it be the master.

“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti, Bridget. Free me. Together we can—”

Again she dropped to a crouch until her eyes were even with it. The stench from it overpowered her own stink and her eyes watered. “You’re bound to me, demon, to this metal. She pulled the buckle out of her pocket and dangled it in front of him. She’d delve the buckle again later, when she was clean and rested, no matter the physical and mental cost. She’d delve it to be certain. But she played her hunch now.

“You’re bound to this metal and so to me.”

The demon regarded her icily.

“You’re mine,” she continued in the Sumer tongue. “Aren’t you? It just took me some thousands of years to realize it. And if I’d been able to
really
talk to you from the very beginning all of this would have played out differently, wouldn’t it?
You’re bound to me
.” Her lip curled up in anger. “If I had figured it out, Tavio would still be alive.”

“Mmmmmmm Tavio.”

“What’s she saying?” This from Otter, who must have recognized his father’s name.

“Jimmy, he’d be alive.” A pause. “Did you kill Dustin? Did you eat his heart?”

“Mmmmmm Dustin,” it said.

“You fecker.”

“Bridget unshackle all the—”

“What’s your name, you damnable beast?”

“Ijul,” it replied.

“Yaqrun,” Bridget said.

“You unshackled the mighty Yaqrun,” the demon said. “Slayer of farmers, burner of children, destroyer of—”

“Yeah, I freed him. Your name is Ijul.”

“Ijul of the Seventh Waste, decimator of—”

“Let’s just go with Ijul.” She stood again, her legs cramping.

“Mom, what’s—”

She waved Otter’s question away with an impatient gesture.

“Close your eyes, Ijul.”

The demon did.

“Turn around, Ijul.”

The demon complied.

“Christ on a tricycle,” Bridget said, those words in English. She felt a wave of weakness crash through her. If only she’d realized, she could have saved Tavio and Jimmy and Dustin, kept the museum guards alive. Hell, she wouldn’t have released the Aldî-nîfaeti in the museum.

Sumerian again: “Turn around again and face me, Ijul.”

The demon did.

“Twitch your tail, Ijul.”

It did.

“You are bound to me.” She continued to speak in Sumerian, so effortless a language now. “Ijul, you are not to eat another human heart. Ever. You are not to harm my people. Do you understand? I command you.”

“As you command, Bridget,” Ijul said. “As you command, I obey.”

“You are not to disappear on me, Ijul. You are not to leave my side.”

“As you command, Bridget.”

Son of a bitch!
Bridget thought. If only she’d commanded it from the first, ordered it—in a language it could understand, used its name as that was power over it—she could have kept Tavio and Dustin and Jimmy alive. Otter would not be with her now; he would be in school, chatting with his girlfriend, talking about swim competitions. The museum … it never would have happened. The buckle had never been meant as a curse, it was a means of control. The buckle was the leash that connected the dog to its owner. She’d just not known she could tug on that leash. Her demon, not commanded, had been free to roam on its own and slay who it desired. The dog analogy fit: a dog with no boundaries, no instruction, was free to wander and do what it will. She wouldn’t free it—not yet—even though she wanted to be free of it. It would go bounding away to cause death and havoc. If she kept it, she could keep it in check.

“Yaqrun,” Bridget repeated.

“Slayer of farmers, burner of children, destroyer—”

“Yeah, that son of a bitch. We’re going to get Yaqrun, Ijul. You understand?”

“Please, Bridget. Please do not—”

“Please, Bridget your sorry ass. You’re going to find Yaqrun for me. Can you do that, Ijul?”

“As you command, Bridget.”

“Yeah, I command. We’re going to deal with the slayer of museum guards and the burner of children.” And then we’re going after the other fecker, too.

“Mom?” Otter had crept up behind her. “Mom, what are you doing? Is there something there? Are you possessed? You’re talking gibberish.”

She stood and rubbed her thighs. “Is there any more of those nasty sweet drinks?”

Otter shook his head. “We’re pretty much out of everything. Are we gonna—”

“Get out of here? Yeah, in a while. I need you … all of you … to stay here a little while longer. Can you do that? Just to be safe? I’ll come back for you. Then we’ll all go out to a fine dinner. You must be hungry.” She looked around Otter. “Michael, Adiella, please keep everybody here.” A pause. “Adiella, do you have a spare change of clothes in that trunk?”

“Please, Bridget,” the demon said. “Do not do this. Together we can crush the skulls—”

Bridget grabbed the clothes Adiella reluctantly offered, stepped through the crevice and beckoned her personal Aldî-nîfaeti to follow.

“Yeah, well together we’re going to deal with Yaqrun.”

“The slayer of farmers,” the demon said.

Bridget paused as she stepped over the heartless body of Alvin, crossed herself, and felt the vibrations of a subway train purr up through the souls of her boots.

***

Thirty Five

Bridget borrowed a phone book at a corner convenience store and scanned the Yellow Pages. The clerk behind the counter gave her a serious up and down. She’d cleaned up in a restroom in the subway as much as possible, discarding her old clothes, save the coat, and changing into the outfit Adiella had provided. The witch was smaller than Bridget, and so the pants fit tight and were effectively capris. They were orange, the sweater—three-quarter length sleeves to her—was a thick cable knit mud brown, the colors looking more suited for fall and pumpkin harvesting than walking the New York City streets in the height of winter.

Bridget thought she still smelled funky, the sink and hand soap not enough. Maybe it was the demon’s stench. She wrinkled her nose and traced her fingers down the entries. Outside, she heard horns blaring, sirens keening—though softly, indicating they were several blocks over. She’d emerged in the wee hours of the morning, and so the sidewalks had people, but not the rush of to-work or to-breakfast or heading-home. Music played, some Latin station with words she couldn’t understand. Maybe that’s why her finger gravitated toward a Latin-owned pottery shop. It had a small boxed add: Full Range of Classes for Children and Adults, hand-thrown, and wheel. Eight-week sessions, low-cost materials fees. It was on West 26th, only a dozen blocks from here, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

She and Ijul would hoof it; the cold air would keep her alert.

“Thank you,” she told the clerk, passing back the book and handing over a five for a steaming cup of coffee, which she finished it before the end of the first block.

Lord, but she loved this city.… the bigness of it, the brassiness, all of the clamor and the color, the people of all stripes, the trash and the glitter, and the buildings that stretched like long skinny fingers into the sky grasping for the clouds. Bridget loved the feel of it too, from the brush of women hurrying past her on the sidewalk to the swish of air caused by a passing subway car to the vibrations that pulsed up through her feet. Sending her mind back to Sumer had intensified her passion for New York. The land was so quiet, and though that ancient city was sizeable there’d been nothing tall, no steel fingers aimed skyward, and no rattle from cars. She smiled at the recollection of the goats and sheep, and their funny sounds; she’d enjoyed watching them, rather relaxing while Hilimaz pulled clay from the riverbank. But she hadn’t been able to touch anything there. Odd that she could feel the breeze and smell the air that was so clean it barely carried a scent, and she could sense the warmth of the sun. But true tactile sensations had been denied to her.

Bridget stopped outside of the shop and placed her fingers against the building. It was red-brown brick, sooty from the city, cold to the touch and rough as her fingers rubbed against it. She concentrated on the feel of it as she caught her breath. Bridget had taken the dozen blocks at a fast clip. She hadn’t realized she’d been delving, the brick’s memory flooding at her as easily as the memories had come from her prized and lost Turkish oushak rug.

“Momma I don’t want to wait here.” In her mind’s eye, Bridget saw a girl, about twelve, leaning against this wall, back of her head pressed against this brick. Judging by her clothes, it was the 1960s, and it was summer. The brick held other memories, but this one was the strongest. It flashed forward and Bridget saw the girl wait until dark, mother never returning, but eventually a policeman came and tugged her away. Bridget shook off the memory and went to the front of the shop: Arcilla Mundo, the sign read. Smaller words under it were in English: Clay World.

She’d walked around the city long enough that hours had melted. It was a little past ten; Bridget saw a clock through the storefront window. They didn’t open until eleven. She retreated to the corner and leaned against the building, letting her fingers play over the bricks and—with a little work this time—taking their memories. The conversations in her head helped deaden the chatter of the damnable demon. God, if only she’d known, if only she’d been able to truly communicate with it from the beginning. She pushed thoughts of Tavio, Dustin, and Jimmy from her head and listened to the bricks.

“Ijul,” Bridget said an hour later when she heard a bell jingle and the shop door open. “Follow me.”

“As you command, Bridget.”

The shop was warm and the strong scent of clay reminded her of Hilimaz’s pottery shop. Finished pieces were arranged on shelves. Some were beautiful with bright, glossy glazes, solids and patterns. Others looked crooked and primitive, and the signs underneath indicated the young age of the potters.

At the back of the shop was what Bridget was interested in.

“Can I help you?” The woman who walked up between the aisles of pottery was tall and stocky, gray-brown hair pulled back in a bun, and her face was dusted with only a smidgen of makeup. Bridget guessed her to be about sixty.

“I want to throw a couple of pots. I see you have a wheel.”

“We have afternoon classes. Eight-week sessions—”

“—for three hundred dollars. I saw your ad in the Yellow Pages.”

The woman smiled. “Beginners to advanced and—”

“I’m a little of both.”

The demon started chattering at her side. “Rip out the heart of this woman, Bridget, I could. Smash the skulls of—”

“How about I pay you three hundred for a couple of hours?” Bridget still had a wad of cash from when she’d escaped from her brownstone. She peeled off three hundreds and pressed them into the woman’s hand. “I only want to make two pieces and get them fired.”

A few minutes later, Bridget was working the clay on the wheel, sluicing up the water like Hilimaz had done. At first her efforts resulted in something silly and crooked-looking, but she kept at it, the demon softly babbling the entire time about his Aldî-nîfaeti allies and what all of them could do to “take control of this land with Bridget leading the way.” Though she’d not worked the clay in ancient Sumer, she’d watched Hilimaz each time she’d made a bowl, so closely it seemed like her own hands were doing the forming. Bridget recalled an old movie she’d watched many years ago: Patrick Swayze’s
Ghost
. There’d been a sensuous scene where Demi Moore was working clay on a wheel, and Patrick Swayze was there with her. At the time she thought pottery might be a good activity. But the movie over, a young Bridget lost interest in that notion.

She actually liked the feel of the wet clay against her fingers, and she wished she’d brought Otter with her. It would have been a good idea to let him watch, hear the spell she would work into the clay. Hilimaz said anyone could catch a demon if they knew the words. And though Hilimaz also said that women were better suited to such work because of their clever minds, Bridget knew her son was very bright. She ought to teach him this one arcane thing; if demons indeed lived forever, who knew how many were wandering around in this present day? She had half-glimpsed odd and shiver-inducing things during some of her forays into the subway and particularly with Jimmy. Maybe there were demons down there.

The shop owner was fortunately busy with other customers when Bridget started engraving the spell. She kept her voice low, with a melodic sing-song lilt that she’d heard Hilimaz use.

Bridget started at the center of the bowl, where she drew a stick figure using the tip of a key she pulled off a ring. The key was useless; it had been to her beloved brownstone. The characters she etched spiraled away from figure. “I Bridget the strong-willed call Yaqrun, Aldî-nîfaeti, slayer of farmers, destroyer of children. I take her by the tentacles. I pierce her dark and evil eyes that she may no longer look upon the people of New York. Sahtiel help me in this catching. Aid me that I might grab Yaqrun by her many limbs and by her thick neck and say ‘remove the curses and the pain from the hearts of those you have raged against.’ I adjure you in the name of Ruphael and Sathietl and in the name of Prael the great and under the eyes of Inanna of the morning and evening. Bother no more the people of New York City. They must be teased no longer, teased nevermore, cursed no more, Aldî-nîfaeti-vexed no more. I am Bridget the strong-willed, the binder and the cleanser. I turn away all things fetid and foul. I protect the people of New York City. I bind. I bind in clay and powerful words. I heal and annul. With these words I catch I bind. Weapon of clay, mother wet-earth, in the names of angels Sariel and Barakiel and Prael the great. Under the gaze of Inanna of the morning and evening, I Bridget the strong-willed shackle the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun, slayer of farmers. In so doing I free the hearts of the people of New York City. I ease their troubles. I Bridget the strong-willed protect this city from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti named Yaqrun.”

“Bridget, please do not do this thing,” her demon practically whimpered.

She placed the finished bowl aside and reached for another clump of clay, starting the process over again. “Ijul, what is the name of the other Aldî-nîfaeti that I released with Yaqrun?”

“Bridget, please! Together we can attain greatness and rule this land, crush—”

“Give me the feckin’ name of the putty-beast, Ijul. Now.”

“Kaliv-re, Bridget.”

She stopped herself from saying “Thank you.” This bowl did not take as long, and she’d made both relatively small and thick. In her time with the old potter she’d learned that the size of the bowl didn’t matter—so long as they were large enough to hold the words to the spell. Hilimaz had made them various sizes depending on her mood and how long she wanted to work at the wheel. Neither did any glaze or paint need to be poured across the characters for them to be more easily read; that was just for esthetics, to make her customers believe more work and magic had been incorporated.

“I need them fired,” Bridget told the shopkeeper. Hilimaz hadn’t always waited for her pots to dry before using them to catch Aldî-nîfaeti. But the ancient Sumer city was nothing like New York. There were so many people here in a hurry, jostling each other on the sidewalks and in the subways and on the busses. Bridget had never seen a soul bump into Hilimaz. “They’re stronger fired.”

“Definitely. I’ll have a load ready to fire in three or four days.”

Bridget peeled off another hundred. “I need them fired now.”

“Well … all right. Still, it takes time. I mean, I fire them now, you’re not going to get them until—”

“How long?”

“If I fire them now, the kiln should be cool enough to open tomorrow. We open at eleven. So you could come back then.”

Bridget pulled out the rest of her money, keeping a hundred and twenty back in case she needed something for bus or subway fare. “Open early. Really early.” She waved the money at the woman, who screwed up her face in puzzlement.

“Eight,” she said.

“Seven. And all of this …” Bridget counted the money, reserving the hundred and twenty. “Three hundred and sixty-three dollars. I’ll give it to you at seven tomorrow morning.”

Bridget didn’t stick around waiting for the potter to ask what the rush was for.

Ijul in tow, she stopped at a Chinese take-out place and spent the hundred dollar bill on an assortment of dishes and a two-liter bottle of Coke, then went back to Adiella’s pit to tell Otter she hoped to have the demons caught in plenty of time for Tavio’s funeral.

“I’m not ready to say it’s safe out here yet. Give it a while longer.”

“Dad’s funeral tomorrow,” Otter prompted.

“We’ll make it in time.”

She ordered Ijul to stay put in the crevasse, and to not touch a single human, even though he mentioned to her again just how delicious warm hearts tasted. Bridget briefly entertained the notion of delving the buckle. Indeed, she intended to do that—get to the crux of the entire matter with Ijul, but not now. She worried that she might encounter another witch like Hilimaz who could hold her in the past; she didn’t want any more days passing by down in the subway. She wanted Yaqrun and Kaliv-re securely ensconced in clay, Tavio laid to rest, and Otter and the others safe.

Then she’d peer into the buckle.

Bridget propped herself against a wall and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. She didn’t want to deal with all of their questions, especially with Quin asking if she’d seen his brother Alvin. She would tell Ijul to move the body before the night was up. Through the stone, she felt the faint and pleasant vibration of a subway train and inhaled the scents of Chinese cooking.

***