The Book of Shadows (22 page)

“Tell me now,” said Sebastiana, busy beside me, working her hands over the contents of the case, “did everything go as planned in the nun's cell?” I'd assumed she addressed Asmodei, but it was Madeleine who responded:

Yes. Yes,
said the succubus.
Perfectly as planned;
and then she went on to tell how she'd appeared to Sister Claire in her cell. How she'd taken the shape of
“the other one”
(only later would I learn that she meant Peronette) and had “
sexed the woman good
.” Given her what she'd long desired and denied. Made a mockery of her desire and denial. And, laughing, Madeleine told how, in the throes of passion, she'd shape-changed and bled her own blood all over the impassioned nun.
Quite a show, it was
, said the succubus to me.

It seemed that Asmodei had appeared just as Sister Claire tasted the succubus's blood and started to scream; as planned, he silenced her, restrained her, and relieved Madeleine, who returned to Father Louis and me in the library. (Here again she referred to me as a witch—“
Louis and the witch,
” she said.) So she hadn't been in the shadows all night; she'd visited with Sister Claire as Louis had visited with me; but where Louis had sought to teach, to pave the way for belief, Madeleine had sought to terrify, to torture…. I could not,
cannot
imagine what she might have done to Sister Claire.

“And you, Asmo?” asked Sebastiana. “I was a bit worried. It's been a while since you—”

“Yes,” admitted the man. “It's been a long while; and as you know,” over this they shared a smile, “I have never been one for the subtleties of your craft.”

“To say the least,” concurred Sebastiana.

“And making a golem,” said Asmodei, “…
c'est difficile
. The infernal words of that spell…”

“Infernal, indeed,” said Father Louis.

Asmodei went on: “I stumbled a bit over it all, yes, but in the end it worked. It worked quite well, in fact.”

“Excellent,” said Sebastiana. It was then I saw she worked her fingers over a collection of silver needles, such as those Father Louis had suffered long ago in his attic cell. I said nothing. Sebastiana spoke:

“Creating the likeness from the soil and clotted blood,
that
is the easy part,” said she. “It's animating the golem that is tricky.”

“But a golem is not animate,” said Asmodei. “That would be an effigy, no? That is what we must do here. Is that not the plan?”

“Yes, of course,” said Sebastiana; “…minor distinctions….” She looked up from the needles, which she held fanned in her hand, and asked, almost dreamily, of Asmodei, “Do you remember back in Paris, on the eve of the Reveillon riots, when we—”

Please,
moaned Madeleine.
We haven't an eternity!

“No, dear,” returned Sebastiana. “But
you
will, if I fail here due to your distraction.
Hush!
” Sebastiana, ignoring the specter's sulky response, said to Asmodei, in summation, “It went well then, upstairs?”

“As planned,” said he. “A likeness now lies upstairs on the nun's pallet. Dead, or so it will seem to whoever finds it…rather, finds
her
there.” He spoke quickly of the fun he'd had stabbing a dagger down into the golem while Sister Claire watched. “Running it through, thinking all the while of
this
one!” He must have pained Sister Claire then, in some way, for a muffled cry escaped from her. Father Louis, too, took a turn: her cry built to a terrible moan, and under it he and Asmodei laughed lightly.

“Boys, no,” said Sebastiana, unhappily distracted. “Wait.”

Asmodei, as if to recap his achievement, told how, when Madeleine returned to check his progress, he'd had her splatter the nun's cell with her own blood. “No one,” he concluded proudly, “no one will doubt that the newly named Mother Superior was murdered in her sleep.” What's more, he'd had Madeleine leave a blood trail between the nun's cell and the lesser library, “to help the simpletons put all the pieces together.”

“But the blood, it fades in a few hours,” said Sebastiana.

And so they will have a slight miracle, too,
answered Madeleine.
Now on with this, please! The girls are asking after Sister Claire, wondering why she has not yet descended. They speak of sending a party up to her cell.

“All right, quickly then…” This from Sebastiana, who placed the cool back of her hand against my cheek, caressed me, and said, “This will hurt, dear heart; but it
must
hurt if it is to work.”

“And it won't hurt you nearly as much as it will hurt
her,
” added Father Louis; I could see him nod toward where Sister Claire lay beneath Asmodei's ministrations. “Take solace from that,” said he, “from your accuser's greater pain.” Again, visions of Father Louis suffering the Question, the search for the Devil's Mark, the consuming flames.

“What…what are you going to do to me now?” I asked.

“Do you trust me, totally?” asked Sebastiana in response.

I said I did. I heard again her words:
You are safe
.

“Good. Let us begin,” and as she signaled Asmodei thusly, I saw the silver needles glinting in her grip. Each as long as my first finger. Each so sharp the tip was invisible. In her other hand was a small, crudely shaped wax figure. A doll. Fashioned, I saw, from the candle that had burned all through the night, until Father Louis had put it to illicit purpose.

“Close your eyes,” said Sebastiana.

Yes,
counseled the succubus.
Do
.

I prayed that whatever would come would come quickly; and I braced for the pain. “That's a good girl,” said Sebastiana; and at this, Asmodei laughed till silenced by the succubus:

Three girls are on their way up to the nun's chamber,
said Madeleine.
Please, hurry!

Sebastiana bent over me now; she'd plucked hairs from above my right ear before I even heard her apologize for doing so. My eyes flew open as though those hairs had been strings tied to my very eyelids; and I watched through tears as Sebastiana wound the hairs around the head of the ill-formed doll. She said something. Part of a spell.

“Very…nearly…ready,” said she. “And you?”

“Yes,” said Asmodei. “Much easier on my end: no doll to worry about. I just stick the needles right into the flesh, correct?” Sister Claire screamed, screamed till she choked on the gag, beat her heels against the oak. Asmo, apparently, had needles of his own.

“Oui,”
affirmed Sebastiana. “As I stick the doll, and no sooner. Remember: timing…
c'est très important.
”

Father Louis stood over me, across the table from Sebastiana. He took my hand, and it was then I knew, truly
under
stood
that what they were going to do would hurt. And, though I am ashamed to say it, knowing that the rite—whatever it was—would hurt Sister Claire
worse
than it would hurt me did lessen my pain.

Madeleine reported that the girls were knocking now on Sister Claire's door. Indeed, I could hear them.

“Witch,” said Asmodei with impatience, “what is taking so long?”

“Silence,” commanded Sebastiana. “I haven't fashioned an effigy since, well…it's been some time.”

“Perhaps you should have practiced.”

“Perhaps I should have. On you….
Now silence!
”

A muffled cry from Sister Claire. And light laughter from the incubus, who looked over my head at the nun. What was Asmodei doing to Sister Claire? Whatever it was Sebastiana told him to stop, and he did, countering her command with, “Get on with it then, or I'll simply strangle this one and we'll leave the other!” He meant me, of course.

No!
begged Madeleine.

“Brilliant,” said Sebastiana. “Litter the convent with corpses and arouse all suspicion. Start an inquiry that will—”

“Surely you're not afraid of these fools?” asked Asmodei.

“Of course not. But neither can I be
bothered
with them.”

Please, do not abandon the witch.

I heard Father Louis whisper to Madeleine, “Do not worry. They want her as badly as we need her. She,” and he meant Sebastiana, “
has
to save her. It's part of their creed or…or some such thing, is it not?” Sebastiana said nothing.

We all of us heard then the cries from the girls at Sister Claire's door—cries that summoned townsmen upstairs. This was followed by the slow beating down of Sister Claire's door. Madeleine had bolted the door from the inside after Asmodei had taken Sister Claire away.
Hurry,
said Madeleine now.
They are almost in the nun's cell
.

“Genius, to have slipped the bolt that way,” said Sebastiana. “We'll need the few moments that bolt will earn us.” She wrapped pieces of the pink dress around the doll. “Genius,” said she again.

“Thank you,” said Asmodei. He was teasing Madeleine, whose response was:

It was
my
idea. I ought to be commended
.

“What I
ought
to do,” said Sebastiana, “is leave you to bleed through another century or two…. Silence, both of you!”

How did Madeleine and her bleeding factor into all this? Why did she seem so intent on effecting my escape? What was this “plan” of theirs? I knew not to ask such questions. Still, Father Louis, mercifully, offered an explanation of sorts.

While Sebastiana worked, while Asmodei waited to play his part on the body of the nun and while Madeleine stole through the halls of C——unseen, Father Louis explained. “It's simple, really,” said he. He bent over and whispered in my ear so as not to disturb Sebastiana, who worked the wax doll and seemed to struggle a bit with the requisite spell. (I know now that he sought to distract me from the coming pain, too.) “Madeleine left the library earlier, during our…tête-à-tête”—here he smiled and tightened his cold grip on my hand—“and met up with Asmodei in the nun's cell. She slipped into the cell, visited the nun in the shape of your lost one, Peronette—that was her name, was it not?” I nodded. “Madeleine worked upon the nun, who took it all to be delirium, some sublime dream. A dream she'd had a hundred times before. But then Madeleine…my sometimes mean and mischievous Madeleine, changed shape. I don't know what shapes she took. Perhaps just her own—that can be frightening enough to a mere mortal.” Here he laughed. “Then again, in the past, she has been wont to adopt the shapes of the most
ghastly
hags.”

Sebastiana worked on the wax, the words of her spell having fallen to a whisper. Asmodei stood silently by. Sister Claire was still. And Madeleine, I assumed, checked the progress of my accusers.

“Meanwhile,” continued Father Louis, “Asmodei worked up a golem from soil and blood. A simple spell and such golems take the shape of the intended.” I wondered, Is this Asmodei a witch, or a warlock, or a wizard or whatever one calls such a…? “No,” said Father Louis, reading my thoughts. “But he has…access, if you will—access to…let us just say he has access to aspects of the craft.” The incubus said that Asmodei had left the likeness in the nun's stead and carried the true and struggling Sister Claire down to the library.

So far I understood; and I nodded when he asked as much.

“Now Sebastiana is making an effigy. A likeness of
you
; but unlike the golem, this one will be alive…. A much more difficult task.” It seemed he couldn't help but laugh. “Oh, I know,” said he, “believe me, I know how hard it is to understand all this. Indeed, it's only slightly easier to explain. But you'll see for yourself soon enough.”

Finally, he spoke of the plan's end, said we'd leave Sister Claire—who'd
appear
to be me—in my place and make our escape.
Escape
. I clung to the word.
That
I could understand.

“As I say, you'll see for yourself.” The incubus stood and shrugged his shoulders at Sebastiana, as if to say, That is the best I can do.

Madeleine reported that the door to the cell was indeed down. She said too that they'd discovered the
“dead”
Sister Claire de Sazilly.
And the blood trail as well. They're taking fast to it now,
said she.

“I am ready,” said Sebastiana; and then two things happened simultaneously: Sister Claire let go a pained noise and I felt a quick, sharp stab in my chest.

“Hold her,” said Sebastiana to Father Louis, adding, to me, apologetically, “The first one hurts the worst. Just twelve more now…”

She was piercing the wax doll with thirteen silver needles. And as she was sliding the thin needles into the doll and causing
my
pains, Asmodei was driving his set of needles into Sister Claire's very flesh.

“Count with her, Louis. Twelve more.”

The next pain came to my right hand. Then the left. Tolerable. Though not so for Sister Claire: she rocked the table and screamed despite the gag that choked her. Her screams were more than matched by Asmodei's laughter, which rang like a cracked bell and resounded through the lesser library.

“Nine more,” whispered Father Louis. “Nothing to it.” A cold kiss at my temple.

Each foot. My forehead. “Eight, seven, six,” said the priest.

They're coming. Hurry!
said Madeleine. Sebastiana tensed. The distant screams no longer seemed so distant. Asmodei no longer laughed. They were coming, indeed.

The final five needles were the worst. My breasts. My navel and my anus. The very last one was in my mouth, at the center of my tongue. “That's so she'll sound like you when she speaks,” said Father Louis. “Or rather, screams.”