Bless the Child (17 page)

“She isn’t here.”

“I’ll find that out for myself,” he said, trying to push his way past her. Maggie body-blocked his passage, wordlessly. He tried to move around her, but she dogged his movements.

“Really, Maggie,” he said, with a contemptuous sneer. “Do you think your puny martial arts will keep you safe from me? Get out of my way!”

Maggie made a conscious effort to hold her temper poised at a controllable level.
“Use your anger, Maggie,”
Mr. Wong’s voice was in her head.
“Never let the anger use you.”

“You rotten, child-molesting son of a bitch,” she said, in a voice he hadn’t heard before. “I may not be able to take you down, but you better believe that I will
hurt
you before we’re through. You better believe I will
make you bleed!
”

The fox fights for his dinner, the rabbit for his life.

Eric’s eyes narrowed; Ghania had told him not to underestimate this one. And there was still the peasant with the frying pan to contend with.

Eric stared hard at Maggie for a long moment, deciding, then turned toward the door. “I’ll send you a message tonight,” he warned. Then he was gone.

When Maggie turned to look at Maria Aparecida, she saw that the woman was making the sign of the cross in the air, to ward off evil.

M
aggie checked the locks on all the doors, and windows, for the second time since dusk. She’d grown increasingly uneasy with encroaching nigh, and she’d been unable to reach Ellie all afternoon. “I’m like a child who’s afraid of the dark!” she chided herself aloud, trying to shame away the insidious fear that was seeping into her bones. Thank God Cody was safely back in her own room now playing Candyland with Maria, like in the old days.

Maggie picked up the phone and tried Ellie’s number one last time. No answer,
damnit!
She hesitated for a long moment, then walked decisively to the shelf where she’d left all the books on psychic protection.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she murmured, as she scanned the index for what she wanted. If she couldn’t reach Ellie, she’d just have to do it on her own. The whole thing was probably ridiculous anyway . . . but at least it would give her a psychological prop to help her get through tonight’s jitters.

“Okay,” she murmured, heartened by the decision, and needing the sound of a voice, even her own. “Here it is. How to build a protective Pentagram . . .” She scanned the list of needed equipment. Clean blankets, pillows, warm clothes . . . all freshly cleaned or new. “I wonder why?” She read further.

Anything dirty or decayed attracts negative energy like a magnet. The person needing protection must not provide the astral attacker with anything containing his or her personal essence. Everyone has heard of Voodoo doctors using hair or nail parings when they make their dolls. This is done because the debris of our bodies contains enough of our individual essence to make the energy
link.
This link forms a sort of etheric homing device the attacker can use to tap into it’s victim’s energy source.

Maggie jotted down the reminder of items: chalk, string, Holy Water, cups, white candles . . . She was relieved to realize she already had Holy Water and asafetida grass from Peter. She even had two of the five horseshoes called for, from a long-ago trip to Amish country. But mandrake roots, four female and one male, seemed a little out of the question. Maggie hesitated, then made a decision to proceed without them; maybe even a half-assed Pentagram would be better than nothing.

Feeling inept and foolish, Maggie explained to Maria that she had decided to try to construct a protective space for herself and Cody, where Evil couldn’t penetrate, just in case Eric tried to cause some kind of trouble that night.

Maria blessed herself rapidly. “Very wise, dona Maggie,” she responded with great seriousness. “
Sai pra
lá
Satanas!
The Evil One must not be allowed to enter. I will keep the child with me until you have done.”

Maggie touched her housekeeper’s arm, as she turned to go. “Maria do
you
feel endangered, being here with us, under these circumstances?”

“My lady,” the older woman replied with conviction, “I have a shrine to the Virgin in my bedroom . . . and my rosary, blessed by the Holy Father in Rome, hangs upon my bed. The Devil himself could not overpower such defenses.” She started to leave, then turned again. “For the little one, dona Maggie, I would fight to the death, anyone of this world, or the next.”

“I’m very grateful to you, Maria,” Maggie replied touched by the words. Moisture glistened in her eyes, as she turned to go.

Resolutely, she took a bucket and mop from the pantry and carried all the equipment she’d gathered to the library. The room was her favorite sanctuary, and the old leather furniture there could be moved out of the way more easily than in other rooms. It took some time to clean to the book’s specifications; but the scrubbing comforted her, a definitive positive act, in a world of sinister shifting sands. She turned again to the instruction book.

Measure off a seven foot interior circle, and a nine foot exterior circle in the center of the room. When that’s done, construct a five pointed star with its points touching the outer circle, and its valleys sitting on the edge of the inner one. The angles must be perfect, as Geometrical accuracy is essential to the potency of the defense this Pentagram will offer.

“Oh great!” Maggie murmured as she began to measure out the proper amount of string to make the first circle. “Like geometry is something I’ve really thought about perfecting over the last thirty years.”

Between the two circles in the instructional diagram were lettered glyphs and sigils that looked very ancient. The book said they were Words of Power that could repel Evil. Maggie studied them carefully in preparation for the lettering effort, then stretched out her hand to copy the words onto the pentagram.

In nominee Pa + tris et Fi + lii et Spiritus + Sancti! + El Elohum + Sother + Emmanuel + Saboath + Agia + Tetragrammaton + Agyos + Otheos +Ischiros + . . .
She attempted to re-create the elegant script. She recognized an Eye of Horus and other Egyptian symbols she had seen before, but some of the diagrams were utterly strange and alien; it took great concentration to reproduce their complexity. Maggie glanced from book to floor, book to floor several times before she realized the rings on her fingers
weren’t her own.

In fact, the hand and the arm she was staring at were not her own, although they seemed attached to her. But the long slender fingers holding the chalk were darker, the tapered nails painted blue. A massive sapphire ring covered the knuckle of the index finger, a smaller ruby and amethyst adorned the ring finger and an elaborate gold serpent curled up her arm . . .

Maggie yanked back her hand as if it had been plunged into fire, the chalk clattered to the floor.

She knelt back, shocked beyond further movement, one hand clutching the offending hand protectively. But it was
her
hand, again, the alien phantom hand had vanished. Maggie shook her head emphatically.
Hallucination
. That’s it.
I’m scared to death and I’m seeing things
. Oh God, this is serious . . .

She forced herself to pick up the chalk again. If she didn’t have
some
kind of protective device to rely on tonight she might just as well check into Bellevue. She better just finish the damned thing quickly and get to sleep.
Dumbo’s white feather!
That’s what this Pentagram would be. A magic placebo that would get her through the night.

Maggie hurriedly finished the rest of the diagram. She didn’t have all the necessary items, so she improvised with what she did have. Holy Water cups in each of the star’s valleys, lighted white tapers at each point. The book called for five horseshoes, horns pointing out, but she only had two, so she put one on either side of the Pentagram.

The book said to make the Sign of the Cross to seal each direction, and she did so gratefully.

“‘Christ was unquestionably the greatest planetary teacher for our epoch,’” she read out loud. “’His followers for two thousand years have created an immense collective unconscious—a sort of reservoir of prayer and holy intent that’s a very powerful bulwark against evil. By invoking the name and protection of a Deity, you place yourself energetically in the jet stream of that Deity’s power.’”

Maggie smiled to herself at the thought of what Sister Magdalene would have said about the notion of Christ having a great jet stream.

You can bring blessed water into the circle, but don’t drink it unless you must. Remember, you can’t leave the circle to use the bathroom. As a matter of fact, if nuclear war breaks out before morning, you can’t leave for that, either.

As a final gesture, Maggie built up the fire in the hearth; obviously, there would be no replenishing it before morning. Then, she carried the sleeping Cody to the makeshift bed she’d made at the center of the circle, wondering if the child would be totally traumatized by seeing all this bizarre preparation around her, when she woke up. She’d just have to make a pretend game of it, Maggie thought, to soften the unfamiliar. Cody’s been so traumatized by their departure from the mansion—to say nothing of all that had happened to her while living there—surely one more strange episode wouldn’t do irreparable harm.

Maggie murmured the ceremonial prayers from the book as best she could, hoping pronunciation didn’t matter much, since they were written in a language she did not recognize.

She pressed the silver rosary her mother had given her at Confirmation to her lips, and hung it on her wrist for safekeeping as she pinned the medal of Saint Benedict to her shirt.
“He holds the cross in one hand, and the Holy Rule in the other,”
Peter had told her.
“It’s said that Creatures of Darkness fear him.”

Maggie touched the sleeping child gently on her velvet cheek, buoyed by the normalcy of her sweet, even breathing. She looked so angelic in sleep that tears welled up in Maggie’s eyes. Oh dear God, please let me keep her safe from harm.

She glanced one last time at the book.

Whatever you see or hear or smell tonight, remain within the circle. Your lives and sanity depend on it! Satan himself cannot breach these defenses . . . unless you let him in. If you break the geometry of the circle, your sanctuary is no more.

Maggie’s teeth caught her bottom lip, resolutely. She had never felt more utterly alone.

Shadows flickered on the walls, headlights flashed occasionally by the windows. The wind rattled the shutters relentlessly, as she settled herself in beside the child she loved. Taking Cody’s small dimpled hand in her own, Maggie prayed, until she drifted into fretful sleep.

She was awakened by extreme cold, and the sure sense that
something
had invaded the library.

A book fluttered to the floor from a high shelf; Maggie’s head snapped around to see what had caused it.
Nothing was there
. She sniffed the air, a nauseating stench of putricity was creeping into the room around her, like a backed-up-sewer. A lamp in the far corner suddenly exploded, as if struck by a lightning bolt. Maggie snatched up the sleeping Cody and drew her tightly to her body; the child opened her eyes for a moment, startled by the sounds, then settled back into sleep.

A heavy picture frame crashed from the wall, splintering, but Maggie barely noticed it, because the couch had lifted off the floor and was skittering sideways. “This isn’t happening. None of this is real,” she said out loud; the terror in her own voice shocked her. A hissing sound pulled her toward the fireplace. As if an unseen water source had dowsed it, the flames flared up, sizzled, and died, to the last ember.

That was when she saw it.

Huge, black, reeking of Evil, yellow eyes glinting at her in the semi-darkness. It had no form; like an amorphous sack of malevolence, it pulsed and throbbed at the edge of the Pentagram.
Jesus, it was Evil.
And inhuman. Not of this plane of existence. From somewhere else. Somewhere terrible.

As she watched, it metamorphosed. The slug-like substance transmogrified into a male creature of infernal beauty. Pan. Dionysius. Lucifer.
Christ, it was beautiful.
Its eyes bored into hers, beckoning her, mesmerizing her. The malevolent intelligence that shone from it countenance was breathtaking. Sensual. It oozed sexuality in some alien and unspeakable way, seductive as Hell itself. Maggie could feel a vicious undertow of raw unbridled sex, pulling at her private parts, pushing and throbbing, causing her to
desire
. . . sex, not love. Unnatural acts. Violent, dreadful obscenities she had never dreamed of
. Need
tore at her.
Those
eyes, she couldn’t tear her gaze from those evil eyes. They drew her, commanded her, dragged her toward the edge of the circle. Help me.
Sweet Jesus, help me!
She screamed the words in despair . . . and the thing transformed again. Melting into leprous, scabrous rivulets of corruption. The demonic energy it possessed seemed to be growing, pulsing, oozing slime from a thousand hideous wounds.

A mouth, slobbering saliva over yellow fangs, formed itself in the pulsating, spineless
thing
, and grinned in an insane way. The mouth opened and the entity cried out to her, soundlessly, as it clawed at the edges of the Pentagram. Cody sat bolt upright and tried to reach the beast. Maggie lunged after her and clutched the child to her breast, but Cody, with far more than three-year-old strength, struggled violently to get out of her grasp. The entity was exerting some kind of powerful pull on the child; Maggie could feel the inexorable wrench of it, as the little body was nearly swept from her grip.

Cody beat at Maggie with frenzied fists, and clawed toward the edge of the Pentagram, only to be dragged back. She tore at Maggie’s hair and scratched her face. The child was a wild thing, with eyes glassy as window panes’ Maggie knew she couldn’t hold her much longer inside the circle. The entity was laughing, a hideous mind-bending sound that had never known joy. Its demonic gaze held Cody in its grip and the child’s strength was increasing.