The Golem Part 8

"Oh, sure," Rosh said but thought, You're d.a.m.n right I remember. I'm the one who paid for the hit.

"Yeah, that one was kind of over the top, too," Stein said. "Didn't the chick have her arms cut off?"

"Not both arms-one arm and one leg," Cristo embellished. "And they weren't cut off; the M.E. said they were torqued off. And this crew in here..." He gestured toward the house. "Looks like the same thing. There's no hack marks on the necks or joints."

Rosh raised a dramatic finger. "And the diligent crime-scene investigator is perplexed because he can't for the life of him deduce how a human being could be strong enough to torque heads off of necks and limbs out of sockets. Well, then, let me alight you to the fact that rival drug dealers are known to frequently bestow such gestures upon their enemies. You tie one arm to a tree and the other to the back b.u.mper and step on the gas. Presto. Instant dismemberment."

Cristo frowned. "I'm aware of that, Captain, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, on that sixty-four last spring, I did a lot of the pre-post work on the dead girl-"

"The dead girl's pieces, you mean," Rosh said and cracked a chuckle.

Cristo all but groaned. "Yes, sir, and do you remember the details of prelim?"

Rosh stalled. "I...regret...that the everyday pressures and responsibilities of being a police captain have left my overstrained mind unable to recall such minutia."

"I found a perimortal residuum on the body parts, Captain."

"A perimortal residuum-hmm. What the f.u.c.k is that?"

"A foreign substance left on the body-a residue-at the time of death," Cristo defined. "It was like soot or something but lighter, or...I thought it was dust."

Rosh crossed his arms. "Cristo, could you please get to the point? I'm dying to pick up a double fish before Mc-Donald's closes. You ever have a double fish? They're great."

Cristo shook his head. "The M.E. authorized me to send a sample to the lab in Germantown-"

"The perimortal residuum." Rosh stretched the term for effect.

"By the time the lab sent the results back it was several months later, and the homicide had already been cold-cased but, you know, I swear that same type of residue is on a lot of the body parts in the house."

"Fascinating," Rosh said dully. "But in your probably incorrect implication that the guy who killed the girl last spring is the same guy who killed all the losers in this house, you haven't told us what the residue was!"

"Oh, right," Cristo admitted. "The lab in Germantown said it was clay."

CHAPTER THREE.

July 1880 I.

"Step into the Circle of Ten Circles and see how the flame brightens as you near..."

The Gaon stood solemnly as two disciples stepped within. There were ten torches, one for each circle, and one circle for each of the Ten h.e.l.ls.

The Gaon was already beginning to feel ecstatic.

Only faith can save us now, my holiest melech, our black redeemer.

His heavy thoughts drifted further.

Empower us to night, I beg thee.

Ten small circles of stones had been arranged to form the great circle, while the holy Eleventh circle formed the center. All of the stones were slick with the freshly spilled blood of dogs or jackals. The torches crackled, heating even the hot night. It will be much hotter very soon.

The Gaon contemplated the Zemu'im, the Secret Discipline from the time of Adam, and all three of them had followed it to the letter: the Drinking of the Blood, the Fast of Eleven Days, the Burning of the Oils and the Myrrh.

"Gaon," cried Ahron, coughing at a draft of torch smoke, "I fear-"

"Have faith!" the Gaon snapped back, his voice amplified from an impossible echo. "My brothers, we are all believers- hence we must believe, we must believe to the end..."

"Yes, Gaon," both Ahron and the third, Eli, intoned. And there the three men stood, dark in their canvas cloaks, within the outer margin of the ten circles. The Gaon knew his attendants were afraid. Only he himself was not.

"What you see with your human eyes you must see instead with the eyes of your neptesh."

"I know, I know, my Gaon, but-"

The Gaon smiled. "Then you now know the power of S'mol, our holy melech, to be great. What will happen here to night will seem beyond the realm of things possible, as this crowded circle of anointed stones-a paltry boundary-will stretch out to the illimitability of our redeemer himself."

"Yes, Gaon!" Ahron shouted, now joyous.

At their feet lay the wider Eleventh circle, which none had yet entered.

"And now bring in our fodder."

Ahron and Eli left the scarlet circ.u.mference; moments later they dragged in two dirty, naked men-two of Conner's despicable clan. They'd been bound and gagged but were very much alive, their eyes propped open by fear, their bodies trembling.

"Do we have enough for two, Brother Eli?"

"Yes, I pray we do, Gaon. Just barely, but-yes, enough. We must pack them thinly."

"So be it."

Ahron's eyes now fixed on the two quivering men. So great was their fear that their hearts could be heard.

"More is on your mind, Ahron." The Gaon could see. "Speak."

"But...but...must we kill these men? Questions would surely be asked. Conner would level suspicion against us. Would we not be safer to exhume a pair of corpses?"

"Have faith," the Gaon repeated. "These men are heathen thieves who sully our women and ravage our land."

"They are rapists, Ahron," Eli a.s.serted, "and it is our women, even our children they've raped. The Zemu'im allows us, my brother."

"Good, good, Eli," the Gaon praised. "You haven't forgotten the Word as Brother Ahron has. The Zemu'im and the Calling of the Seals not only allow it, they demand it. Evil for evil."

Ahron gulped. "Yes, Gaon."

"Now we will close our eyes, and embodied in faith, we step together into the Eleventh circle, and you will drag these two filthy animals with you."

The act was done. Now they stood within the wider circle in the center. Conner's men squirmed at their feet.

"And when we open our eyes, we know the Circle of Ten Circles will have increased to eleven times its former circ.u.mference..."

A breath caught in Eli's chest. Ahron gasped. Now the torches guttering in each circle of stones seemed a hundred feet away.

"And we bow our heads now and hold our eyes fast to the ground..."

The Gaon recited more of the arcane Calling of the Seals. But Ahron only half listened to the holy words because...there was something else he heard in the new-found distance.

Footsteps?

"And when we look up again, we do so in the a.s.surance of S'mol's immeasurable power founded by the Secrets G.o.d has whispered of but once..."

Ahron cried aloud now.

The torches within the circle were now easily a hundred yards away.

It was as though the world they lived in had been taken away. Where they should've seen Rabbi Jacob beyond, and the great larch forest, they saw only the queerest, pink-tingeddarkness.

Howls and a hideous scrabbling, even in the now-great distance of the circle's border, could be heard rising.

And footsteps-yes, footsteps-were approaching. Ahron noticed several figures. They came from beyond the perimeter, and when he counted, he saw that there were ten such figures.

"The torches are burning blue, Gaon!" Eli cried.

The Gaon nodded. "As we always knew they would..." He sighed a vast thanks for the powers granted him, now proven. Suddenly it was very hot.

Ever so slowly, the figures drew closer, and as they did so, the glow of the torch fires grew a deeper and deeper blue.

The Gaon thrust his fist straight out; in it was a knife. Like a divining rod, his hand began to edge toward Eli, but just as Eli reached out to take the knife, the Gaon's fist snapped around.

To Ahron.

"Take the knife, Brother Ahron," the Gaon's voice echoed deeply now, "and cut the flesh off of these two rogues."

Ahron's word droned as his heart raced. "Yes, my Gaon." And then he took the knife, fell to his knees, and began to cut.

Only yards away from them now, the figures from the abyss stopped. Only the predominant one continued on, its ghastly face intent, its body like blackened cinders. It held out its abominable hands as if expectant of an offering. The Gaon looked at the two squirming men, then raised the two loaves of corrupted bread, and handed them to the glorious thing before him.

The figure seemed pleased, accepting the loaves. It leaned forward and began to whisper into the Gaon's ear.

Jacob was the only rabbi who remained outside of the Ten Circles, to stand watch with a rifle in the event that Conner's men noticed what was taking place...though he never once thought that would happen. He knew that the melech would keep them away. The sight was spectacular: the way the torches glowed blue, obscuring the activities within.

Jacob had faith.

He could hear the Gaon's voice uttering the intercessions of the Calling of the Seals.

Great glory, he thought and could've cried in joy.

Even yards away, though, Jacob could feel the rising heat. Suddenly- POOF!.

-the torches fanned outward, creating a dome of fire atop the Ten Circles.

Flames shot high. Glittering smoke mushroomed overhead.

Jacob stood and watched.

And prayed.

His faith never swayed.

It was Eli who first emerged, dragging one of the filthy corpses from the inferno. Then Ahron did the same. The dome of blue fire roared now, surely hot enough to incinerate any who stood inside. It illuminated the fallow field around them.

No one spoke.

Their eyes held on the blaze. A minute. Two. Three. Ahron's nervousness returned, while Eli's expression tightened in concern. Where is he? Jacob wondered, and perhaps even his own faith had begun to bend.

The heat blasted their faces; they all had to step back, lest they be singed. It was Eli who said, "To je spatne," and then Ahron exclaimed, "He hasn't come out!"

When Jacob resolved to enter the blaze, his heart froze-Great S'Mol!

-and the Gaon came out just as the arch of blue flame collapsed. "My great brothers in faith-all of us," the Gaon said, and then Jacob rushed forward and embraced their leader. The man had been inside an inferno for many minutes, yet-Jacob could discern-his hair remained un-singed. Even his clothes remained cool.

The fire began to die.

A strange tranquility swept across the Gaon's face. His hand extended to the pair of pitiful corpses at their feet.

"It is done!" Jacob celebrated.

The two men were far less than human now, their flesh having been crudely cut off, their faces flensed. Only the scalps remained, keeping intact the long dirty hair. The upthrust rib cages glistened scarlet, and beneath them no organ remained. All those hanks of muscle and all those innards could now be smelled burning under the waning flames. In particular, the aroma of roasting livers hung heavy.

Jacob made hand signals toward the woods, and a horse-drawn wagon arrived swiftly. The corpses were loaded, and the wagon was off.

The Gaon addressed his brethren with a smile. "The time for our vengeance draws ever closer..." The men walked in silence back to town.

II.

The Present Seth awoke feeling different-better-than he could ever recall. He smiled even before his eyes opened, and in that moment of cerebral gray area between sleep and the waking state, he feared that the joy in his heart was corrupt, some cruel dream, and he would groan out of bed to find himself sitting in the middle of an alcoholic's going-nowhere-but-down life. Instead, he awoke, blinked, and thought, It's all true.

He was out of the city for good, gone from all its awful memories of loss and three-day hangovers. He finally had his house out in the country, and he was a self-made millionaire...

And I'm still in love, he added, a state he thought he'd never regain after Helene's death.

Frantic clicking and squeals grew more precise as he came fully awake. Judy sat naked at the desk by the window, her fingers a blur as she shot her way through the next level of the game.

"d.a.m.n-oh! Gotcha!" she exclaimed amid the reports of the Surgical Laser.