A Lower Deep

Chapter Nineteen

Jebediah used his athame to mark the circle of power in the dirt, eighteen feet in diameter, as he walked deosil-clockwise-in association with the course of the sun and stars. The other coven members took their places in a circle. Each of the four cardinal points were covered exactly, with me and Jebediah standing to the north, associated with earth, the pentacle, secrecy, and the color black. This purified space acted as a boundary for the reservoir of our concentrated will.

We made the correct cleansing gestures and began chanting, each word and phrase awakening emotions, memories, and visualizations of energies and eons. I could make out a faint silvery glow about each of us. Sparks began to bounce around the ruins as if the swords of the slain warring soldiers still clashed together.

The darkened sun loomed over us. The girls carrying the offspring of Fuceas could barely stand, and I imagined the yolk of the demon earl eating them from the inside out, ready to spring to life. The spirits of Janus and Rachel swam over them, jealous that their own profane children had never come full term and been born into the human world.

My father stood beside me, wandering to the edge of the majik circle, dancing along its edge and then stepping back. Self leaped to Dad and sat atop his shoulder the way I once did as a child.

Hey, mon, we should be on de island of sunshine and plenty, not here.

You sure about that?

This is bad juju, I'd know that even if I wasn't starving.

We get out of this one and I'll set you up with a lifetime supply of glazed doughnuts. With chocolate sprinkles?

Sure.

He ran his fangs over his bottom lip. I could taste blood in my own mouth. Too damn late.

And it always has been, hasn't it?

You said it, not me.

Jebediah began his opening invocation, honing the gathered psychic intensity of the coven. It rushed forward and receded like a tidal force. I saw Uriel cut off another knuckle and let it drop across the stones at his feet. There was no sign of Fane.

My lifeline kept prowling around in my hand. If I was going to make a different choice it had to be now. I didn't know what would happen if I stepped out of the circle. Any other time the invocation would be subverted and possibly backfire, causing a psychic recoil that might blind or kill any of the members. Jebediah's will swallowed us. But the spell had already gone beyond the coven. I could feel it. We weren't needed at all-Armageddon was already here, and we didn't have anything to do with it.

I stepped from the majik circle and nothing happened.

The silver light surrounding the others continued to glow, and Jebediah had thrown himself so deeply into his incantations that his eyes had rolled up into the back of his head.

Find Fane.

Why?

I don't know.

Well, that's helpful.

I think it might be important.

Now look who needs help.

I backed away and started searching the ruins for Fane. Self crept along beside me, feeling the same thing in his gut that I did. My dad started doing the Hustle and twisted into a few other disco craze dances. His rhythms started snarling in my brain. Shadows slithered together and parted around us. I thought I spotted a splash of red, a flash of pink, and a hint of steam in the chill air.

There, Self said, pointing. She's got him.

Fane lay on his back between two collapsed pillars, gutted but still breathing, sputtering blood from his frothing lips. He held both hands to his belly, trying to keep himself from spilling out. His stiletto lay on the ground beside him in a lake of his blood.

Self and I looked up at the same moment to see four miscarriages bobbing on silver cords overhead, their translucent, vein-heavy skin shimmering in the dark sunlight.

Another psychic cord trailed disconnected down in the dirt.

"Oh shit," I said.

Coincidence didn't exist anymore. I should've realized that I had met her on the plane for a reason.

Betty Verfenstein moved closer, holding a butcher knife, her pink hair curled into little wings from where it had been spattered with Fane's blood.

The elderly plump woman gave her defiant, rough laugh. Three days ago it had filled me with a pleasant warmth but this time it just scared the hell out of me.

Fane was trying to talk, sputtering as his belly continued to bubble up around his fingers. He stared directly at me. "Don't . . ."

I kneeled and thought about trying to console him, but Fane was in agony and I knew he enjoyed it. A martyr lives to die. "What?"

He seized hold of my arm with his dripping fist. "Don't bring me . . . back. . ."

"I won't," I told him, and he just had time to nod thanks before he was gone.

"He was going to kill you," Betty said. "He was sneaking up on you ready to cut your throat."

I believed her, but that didn't change a damn thing. I looked into her face more closely than I had before, and I finally noticed that she had a glass eye. My spell had worked three days ago, when I sent my curse back through time.

"Betty, it was you." My voice sounded delicate, much more frail than hers. "You murdered your own daughter."

"Sacrifices had to be made."

My mouth opened and it took me a while to get anything out. "But why?"

"I did not fail the test of Abraham."

Cool! What's your GPA?

Betty Verfenstein wasn't raving and didn't look insane. She was composed and calm and had the same air of controlled fanaticism as almost everyone else in this land of grudges. She had no more or less zeal about killing her family as the men forced to murder their loved ones and commit suicide at Masada.

"I had to keep you walking on the path, following the will of the Lord. The messiah is about to return. My daughter will sit in glory at the hand of the Father tonight, with all the martyrs, beloved and blessed above all others."

There's gonna be a full house sitting at the hands of God tonight.

Dad wandered past, playing with the floating miscarriages. Their fishlike faces peered at him and he peered back, prodding them with his fingers. The psychic cord lying in the dust had been chewed through. Theresa had learned the truth about her mother and had at last escaped the old lady.

"Who told you my name?" I asked. "I've always known your name."

"Who told you?"

"Since I was a child I've had visions. Our meeting on the airplane, your father's face covered in foundation, and wearing his ten-gallon cowboy hat. You were a ridiculous sight. I even knew you'd put my eye out, but it had to be done. Theresa dreamed of you too."

"It makes no sense."

"It had to be done."

"But why slaughter Bethany Shiya?"

"She'd achieved the goal set out before her. You laid with her and wailed for her as God demanded. Once that was done, the great harlot had to be purged. But the whore of Babylon wouldn't leave the woman's body, so she had to die. Don't look so shocked, could you really have expected anything else?"

"And Gawain? Why Gawain?"

She flinched as if struck. "That pariah! Don't speak of it. It did not belong in this world."

"He was my friend!"

Craning her neck, Betty looked over the mighty stone remains of Megiddo, watching the coven sway in harmony together, chanting. Her eyes bloomed with fear and frustration. She grew shrill. "They've already begun and you left the circle. How could you have done that? Why did you leave the circle?"

"It doesn't mean anything."

"You must fulfill your duty in helping to raise the returned messiah!"

She's working to assure the second coming of Christ? With a name like Verfenstein?

"You left the circle! You've a fate to carry out!"

"I am," I said.

"No, no, it's not supposed to happen this way. I've watched over and protected you. You must lead them. God told me!"

"I'm leaving. Whatever happens, I want no part of it."

"You fool, you damned fool!"

"Listen, lady, I'm sick of all you-"

She raised her knife and lunged for me before I could get my hands up. She had an amazing compact strength and her leap carried her right to my throat. Watch it! Self shouted. He dove but only caught a few pink wisps of hair in his hands. The blade descended.

My father shoved me out of the way.

The enormous blade drove into his belly up to the hilt, and he let out a soft chuckle.

He reached out with both arms and hugged Betty Verfenstein to him, pressing his painted nose to hers. She stared wide-eyed and started letting out choked, terrified cries. He planted a kiss on her forehead, and when he finally let her go she backed up into Fane's blood, slid, and tripped over his corpse. The old lady hit the ground hard, and her head snapped back and struck the rocky terrain with the sound of steak slapped down on a butcher's block.

She was dead in less than a minute.

It was too easy a resolution.

Whoa, Self said. That was quick.

Dad tugged the knife from his midriff and let it fall. There was barely any blood and it didn't affect him at all as he skipped back toward the circle.

The coven hadn't noticed a thing. They were beyond such dimensions. The ceremony continued on course, the twelve members lost at the bottom of the abyss inside themselves. They'd gone too far and too deep, and now struggled to remember who they were. In order to evoke a spirit you must have complete knowledge of it and the purpose it will serve. They stood at cross-ends, ignorant and unprepared. Motes of energy poured from Jebediah's eyes and bled into the air.

The sun became as black as a sackcloth of hair and ashes. My new flesh burned once again, and at the same time I was freezing.

Elijah's fury and love for Danielle swept over me so that my skin tingled and the center of my brain rang. If she hadn't loved me I would've become just as relentless and savage. A shadow blotted out the sky and fell across the entire width of the circle. Self tugged at my wrist. I slowly turned around.

The mammoth Nephilim had mutated further. Elijah's influence and delusions had altered its colossal body into the Beast of Revelation. It no longer drooled down its massive silken neck, but instead walked grim-jawed and frowning in rage. His ire fueled the great beast with seven heads and seven horns and ten crowns. Elijah's pride had given us the Red Dragon.

Man, Self said, that is just so nasty!

The Nephilim's mouth still hung open in a centuries-old cry. If Elijah was still in there, then he too had mutated, and so had his hatred. Perhaps the hybrid's two hundred angelic fathers screamed in some hollow between heaven and limbo.

The body of the Beast had matured, though it was no larger than before. I could see its heart stirring, that giant chest pulsing, though the Nephilim didn't breathe. Although it had no genitalia, or at least it hadn't before, Elijah knew shame and had covered the hybrid's groin with knotted sheets and blankets and woven rugs. Its digits had fully formed now, and those massive hands were partially clenched at the Beast's sides.

The skin was no longer paler than my father's whiteface. Like my new flesh, when the Dragon climbed into the sunshine it had burned. Hills of salt adhered to its shoulders and head, powdering its face. It must have lain in the Dead Sea for some time before finally standing, one foot on land and one in the water on the lowest spot on earth, fulfilling all the prophecies Elijah intended to live out.

I think we'd better run, Self urged.

How the hell did it get here?

I don't know. It must have other minions like Uriel who helped to carry out its plans.

Uriel stared at the great Beast and didn't seem to know what it was any longer. Perhaps he'd always understood that the Nephilim would play some role at the hour of the apocalypse, but to see it standing before him in the guise of the Dragon made his tongue unfurl. His already fragile mind shattered further as he took the sword and lopped off his left arm at the elbow.

Uriel held the spurting stump up to the Dragon Elijah. "Oh Lord," he begged, "free me from thy will."

Yes, it would definitely be a good idea if we ran away now.

"The locusts," Uriel whimpered, pointing the stump to the south. "The locusts have been set upon mankind."

There shall be a hail of fire and blood, stars will darken and fall. The locusts shall be released to torment the faithless, wearing breastplates, with tails like scorpions and faces of men. A shimmering dark cloud wreathed the Nephilim's broad head, surging and alive and glittering. Thin, broad wings beat frantically and glints of metal flickered. The sound was an incredible whirring and buzzing. There were already thousands of grasshoppers gathering in force, and their eggs sifted through the air in lengthy fibers like webs. Soon millions of locusts would cover the JezreelValley and sweep out across all the kingdoms of the earth.

Damn, those are ugly critters! Self said.

I'd taken those passages in the Bible as a symbol of the Roman empire, soldiers who crushed the Middle East and destroyed everything in their path like locusts. But, God, how I'd been wrong.

I realized that Jebediah didn't want to raise Christ for any human purpose or intent. He'd been power mad and hungry for revenge countless times in his life, but that was over with.

Now he simply wanted to bring about the end of the world.

The coven was still entranced by their communal link, and only Marcus looked as if he might be making an effort to break free. His jaws were clenched tight and the glow around his body pulsed erratically. He didn't feel me in the circle and it was me he wanted.

Jebediah leered. He thought I was trapped with him, raising Christ or only dragging up hell, in league with him in bringing about the devastation of everything. I wanted to kill him so badly that my mouth watered. Self growled, and I growled.

Uriel bled out quickly and fell. My father mouthed words to himself and glanced over at me as though he retained his mind. Dad reached for Uriel's sword but was too weak to wield it. The heavy point dragged in the sand as he dropped before it, on his knees, his cheek pressed to the sharp edge until his blood ran over the clown makeup.

Self suddenly leaped for him with his claws outstretched, ready to disembowel my father. He took one wild swiping slash at Dad before I got in front and struggled with him.

Stop!

Listen-

Back off!

Trust me!

And I heard something in Self's voice that I had never heard before.

He was pleading with me.

And with an overpowering clarity I knew then who had brought back Griffin to burn me down to the marrow so I might be reborn. Now I understood why Griffin had shouted, 'He loves you! He is your child, you are his child.'"

We needed trust but we didn't have it. Instead we were inextricable and eternally bound. We didn't need trust-we only needed each other.

I was his child. He was my child.

I turned and looked at my father and saw the four deep scratches in his chest and the knife wound in his belly.

I took hold of my father, who smiled as his tongue lolled. My hands began to flare-the black dazzling flash rising up my arms, the arcane flames heating the air until dust devils swept around us.

I reached into the center of my father and kept reaching, and pulled hard. My fists were on fire, but the harlequin costume wouldn't burn.

And from within my father came tiny fingers reaching out.

I gritted my teeth, grabbed hard, and hauled. I caught hold of a chubby arm and kept pulling. I yanked until a huge head like a hydrocephalic child's finally crowned, watching it slowly slide free of the flesh. My father began laughing, giving birth to this. Then came the archangel's fat face, the smooth pale shoulders, and the coarse tiny wings. Michael shook himself off like a wet dog, sneering in the midst of all heaven's enemies. His eyes rolled, bottom lip drooping, silly little wings unfolding. His misshapen head bobbed left and right.

Archangel Michael looked exhausted and stupid, or perhaps only insane.

I couldn't stop wondering who had the power to have imprisoned this great warlike prince of Seraphim this way, stuffed down inside a dead clown.

Gawain.

He must've gotten the idea from the baby hidden in Eddie's chest. I didn't comprehend how or why he did it, but I knew that I trusted Gawain more than I did Abbott John or anybody else. I tried to shove Michael's misshapen head back inside my father's chest cavity. The angel gave me a startled angry look and pulled, twisted, and heaved, working his dwarfish body free.

Self clambered up my back and screamed, What are you doing? Let him out! Let him out!

Someone else was there helping. I glanced over and saw Marcus shoulder to shoulder with me. Fighting Jebediah's spell had taken its toll on him-his hair had been singed and the stink of ozone clung to him. His lips were white, and the knotted veins at his temples stood out thick and blue as night crawlers.

His hands pressed against Michael's face and together we grunted as we grappled with the angel. Marcus reared back and started hammering Michael in his nubby nose as I tried to fold my father's separated flesh back over the small fists, but it didn't work. We were covered in blood and watery colored fluids. Dad kept giggling and wriggling as if he found this all to be ticklish.

With a loud and nauseating sound of suction, like a shoe being pulled from a mud hole, the archangel Michael emerged covered in ropes of mucus and internal juices.

His wings barely functioned well enough to carry his stunted cherubic body awkwardly over our heads. Dad clapped and made gestures urging him to fly. Michael grunted in frustration as he tumbled through the air trying to gain control of himself. His erratic flight led him toward my father again, where the general of heaven's armies crashed into Dad and bowled him over. They both hit the ground.

I grabbed Uriel's sword and found it incredibly heavy and unwieldy. My father hopped back up on his feet and grasped the handle with me. His slashed harlequin's suit lay wet and sticking all over his chest so that I didn't have to watch his naked pink lungs working like a bellows. Self yanked Michael up by the tip of one wing and forced him forward until he touched the sword.

Instantly the metal ignited with a fire that didn't burn. Its energy made the inside of my head hum until my back teeth sang. I didn't see how Michael could possibly bring down the behemoth without us, so I gently pressured my dad in the direction of the swing and hoped we could pull it off. The Dragon had not moved at all except for its seven heads shifting in different poses, each one completely expressionless.

Marcus squinted and covered his face. The fire and Elijah's hate were too much for him, standing this close. It blanketed the area like a radiation leak or a toxic waste spill. He was still too weak to fight this kind of venom. The locusts swarmed around us, their human faces on grasshopper bodies speaking in minuscule voices I couldn't understand. Self swatted and ate them by the dozens, and Hotfoot Johnson and the black owl Prickeare did the same, soaring between the Dragon's legs and over its shoulders. Imps jumped and bounced all over, feasting. Jamara dragged itself forward grabbing mouthfuls of the locusts and spitting out their brass breastplates.

I looked up at the Dragon. It's already dead.

Not quite.

Elijah 's not in there. He's abandoned that body. It's just a mindless hulk again. It's not the Beast of Revelation.

Perhaps it is. Or will be. We can't take any chances. We have to do these things even if they appear to be pointless.

His honesty stopped me and made me snap around to look at him. Why?

Self shrugged. You got me.

My father, Michael, and I hefted the sword together and drove it into the Dragon's gigantic ankle.

It was already a creature of stone, and as the fire from the sword moved up the Dragon's leg it seemed to absorb the crimson coloring and draw it from the beast. Once again the hybrid turned ashen, and fissures ran up the length of its marble hewn skin. Elijah's hatred animated it now, but his soul was on the loose. Boulder-sized chunks of its body began to break free and crumble around us. We ran for cover and I dragged my dad back toward the ruins. Michael's expression was one of confusion-even he didn't believe his war with the great Red Dragon could be won so easily as this. He shook his oversize head slowly, knowing that this was only a staged Armageddon of cardboard and smoke, and that he'd been betrayed and misused.

The archangel Michael, warrior hand of God and general of all heaven's armies, turned and glared at me with such intense malice, with the infinite and eternal hate so clear and bright in his eyes, that I trembled until I almost couldn't stand any longer. He sneered and pointed at my heart, and with his little wings flapping he flew off to the south, deranged and furious.

I knew he'd be back one day for his revenge.

He wanted this. Damn him.

Who?

Elijah.

Silver glow ebbing with the coming of evening, the coven began to awaken from Jebediah's spell. The two girls pregnant with Fuceas-spawn immediately dropped inside the magik circle and began to shriek and writhe as they miscarried the hellborn.

I sat in the center of Jebediah's majik circle for the greatest focus of astral energy, tasting the hint of his remnant incantations and charms. He was still smiling and the hexes bled even faster from his eyes. I tightly crossed my legs, feet pulled up so that they touched opposite thighs, spine straight and head back. Motes of black energy leaked from my mouth and wafted past, encircling my own eyes. My hands were at the center of my chest with fingers interlaced into specific placement. Pinkies, thumbs, and index fingers steepled, and these three steeples each pointing back at myself-thumbs aimed at the heart, pointers at my throat, pinkies toward the forehead.

I looked over and Marcus was doing the same, joining me in this invocation and on this journey, wherever it might lead.

Jebediah wasn't about to quit. He intensified his spell and the chanting of the coven grew louder. Even the girls aborting on the ground were still caught in the lace-work of his scheme. Their mouths spoke words while their bellies writhed and the bubbling pink yolk and eggs of the demon earl Fuceas ran out from between their legs.

I visualized his bitterness and I imagined his happiness, the same duality existing in him as in me. His chin leaked sparks and his scarred face lit with remorse, hopelessness, and the lonely intense wish for death and absolution. No wonder we had found each other. We were so much alike.

I saw his heart's desire and I would summon it. Jebediah felt my lengthy reach across the drawn veil, my will joined to Marcus's as we went beyond life and nature.

"What?" Jebediah said. "What is happening? You're doing something!"

I finally knew in my heart that he had not asked me to the place of battles in order to take over the world or do God's will or instigate Armageddon.

He only wanted me to save him.

What time is it?

The ninth hour, of course, Self said. You know what you're doing?

It's a little too late to ask now, isn't it?

It's always been too late.

You said it, not me.

Jebediah's hold on the others loosened and they began to rouse from their stupor.

"What is this?" he yelled, terrified because the world had not yet ended. "What are you doing!"

"I'm giving you what you want, Jebediah."

It was easy to draw power from him as his psychic lusts and ghosts, needs and dreads seethed, churned, and fermented deep within. I caught pieces of desires that weren't my own, each ripping at me like teeth and talons. The edges of my vision turned black and red. My hair stood on end and sweat drenched every inch of me. Waves of violent force pounded and twined around all of us. I spoke the necessary ancient words clearly, my tongue wrapping around the uncomfortable sounds and spitting them out. Self urged me on, shivering and trapped in the backwash of our making.

"You don't know what I want!"

"I told you once. This isn't about Christ," I said.

I summoned forth Peck in the Crown, purified and accepted into heaven.

Jebediah's familiar, his second self, dead as long as Danielle, slowly appeared before me in a maelstrom of eddying shadows and light. Dark jagged bolts of skipping energy erupted from the earth. He looked so much like Jebediah, and Self, and me, all of us there in his small dead face coming to life. He looked at me and smiled.

Peck in the Crown wandered free and looked toward Jebediah. Both of their mouths worked silently as they stumbled toward each other with open arms and embraced among us.

Marcus unwound from his position sucking air loudly and slumped onto his side, completely drained from aiding me. Dad shuffled over and peered at the stirring shadows. Something was wrong. Even though I'd ended it the spell of resurrection continued on its own.

There was another presence here, grabbing on to my will and forcing itself back onto the earth. For a moment I prayed it was Danielle, and then I was absolutely terrified that it might be her.

And from those swollen, swirling shadows of light and anguish came another.

He had eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet were of fine brass, his hair white as wool. He felt as empty and ethereal as the broken promises of heaven. I touched his hand, smooth and cold.

My mind throbbed with a rising scream that eventually made it to my mouth. Whoever had pulled the strings today-Jebediah, Elijah, Satan, or someone else-had not counted on the will of God. Now would begin the apocalypse. A third of humanity would immediately die, the oceans boiling and turning to blood, a plague of locusts loosed on mankind as starvation and war and pestilence ran through the nurseries and yards. As the stars fell from the night. sky the true Dragon would rise from the depths and begin a reign of torment, misery, and depravity that would last a thousand years.

I couldn't let it happen.

Betty's butcher knife still lay nearby in the dust. Self or I or Dad or all of us shrieked until our throats cracked.

I picked up the knife and stabbed forward into the light.

Sorrowful, sympathetic eyes gazed at me as hot blood sprayed across my hands. "Forgive me!" I howled.

Blazing eyes, dying but not forgiving. It was done.