The Deceit

23

‘Chu, Kouchos, Trophos, Kimphas, Abraxas.’

Rothley tipped the silver salver of blood over her head: the liquid ran down her face in warm trickles, in dark, salty and delicious rivulets. Francoise looked up at his handsome face, and his glittering eyes. ‘Yes, yes please. Please give it to me. Baptize me with blood.’

He wasn’t wearing robes this morning: was this really the special day? He was just in his jeans and the T-shirt with the picture of Hendrix, but he was so handsome. His eyes glittered: she couldn’t stop looking at them, looking at him. Like watching a film when she was a child, she was staring up and adoring something bigger, brighter, finer.

‘These are the names of the six powers of death, those who bring every sickness down upon every person, those who bring every soul out from every body.’

He poured a little more of her blood. Some of it ran into her eyes and it stung but Francoise tried to ignore it: she had to be strong, she wanted to be strong; this must be the end. She knew it now. This was the day; but she was so very faint, she was losing too much blood already, but she was going to be strong.

‘I adjure you by your names and your names and your powers and your places and the security of death itself, that you shall go to Francoise, daughter of the father, and that you shall bear away her soul.’

Too much blood: how much blood could she lose without fainting? She wanted to lie down now but there he was, Rothley. He had seen she was in pain and close to fainting and he’d paused, he had set the salver down and he was tightening the tourniquets on each arm. Yes! He was fixing them like a doctor, he was a doctor, a healer, her Saviour, her Christ, no, better than Christ.

The light from the windows was wintry and glorious, she could hear the last sounds of the London traffic, a sweet muffled music.

Rothley’s teeth were white and lovely as he bit on the leather straps of the tourniquets, cutting off some of her blood loss; she gazed patiently at him, yet she wanted him to bite her, she wanted him to bite her face, he could bite away her face, and kiss her too, like Jesus coming to kiss a child who says her prayers. She remembered the holidays in Normandy — her mother and her father, the sea and the sky, pearly-grey seas, and beautiful skies … long, long skies. Mont Saint Michel and the oysters, her first oysters, grey as the Normandy skies in winter.

Rothley dropped the straps of the tightened tourniquets and gazed into her eyes. His eyes were so dark, almost black, like the Devil; he was a beautiful devil with his black eyes, like a demon in the desert, seducing.

‘I adjure you, O dead one, by the manner in which you were seized. And by this punishment that has come upon you, which you have heard. And by the demons you have seen, and by the river of fire that casts wave after wave, you must bring your suffering down upon Francoise. As I place this bone here.’ He pressed a bone to her face. A collarbone, was it a human collarbone? He took the bone away and she saw that it was smeared with the blood on her face, her own blood, from her beautiful wounds, wounds like Christ; yet he was Christ, the Christ of Death, coming to take her.

‘Zarlai, Lazarlai, Lazai, Lazarlai.’

Burning leaves, burning cats, the burning cats, the way the cats burned, she could not forget it, ever, and then the Devil was Rothley and Rothley was Jesus, the Christ of the End.

‘Samakari, of Christ, I call upon Lord Sabaoth, Adonai Adonai, O child with the flowing hair, I place an oath upon you, O dead bone, in order that you bring forth suffering, from this corpse Francoise whose true name this is. Yaoth Yaoth Yaoth.’

The intonation made her sleepy, she was ready to sleep now. She gazed around the large empty room, at the altar with its saucer of severed rats’ feet, and the small steel sword, smeared with her blood, staining the white altar cloth; she gazed along, and down, at the little dead birds scattered across the floor.

So many of them. So many tiny dead birds — and there was the skull that ate all the birds. The skull had fallen over. It lay on its side on the wooden chair, staring back at her, choked with grey feathers stuck between its yellow teeth. Yes, that was the smiling skull he fed with starlings and little baby pigeons and her blood.

‘Iesseu, Mazareu, Iessedekeu.’

Francoise nearly swooned. In front of her was the hole.

She knew that was her coffin, she would have his child in the hole in the floor, which was her coffin: that was where she would give birth to his child, the child of death, a smiling dead baby, for he was the Father of Death.

Francoise looked down at herself. She had blood on her naked breasts and on her thighs; her whole naked body was soiled with blood and yet she felt cleaner than she had ever felt.

And now Rothley was writing words on her skin with her own blood.

‘By the calling of four demons, written on the body of one. Aromao, Tharmaoth, Marmarioth, Salabaooth. Adonai Adonai Adonai. From the flame of which they are made, the wrath of the scorching wind.’

His fingers lingered over her breasts, writing the words in sticky red blood.

‘By the fire of the scorching red river. The hatred that scattered, and the four hundred angels, scattered and written with hatred — and strife — and loathing.’

Delicate words, beautiful words, she was written with names and words, she was his page, her white skin was his parchment, his blank white page. Francoise murmured, in pain, ‘I am ready …’

‘You must char the face of Francoise, you must force the suffering from her.’

‘Yes—’

‘I invoke you today, Sourochcata, You who are strong in your power, who brings the rocks to dissolution, let my voice come to her.’

‘Come to me, dissolving me—’

‘You who dissolve the sinews and the ligaments and the joints, you who take her hands away, you are to dissolve the sinews of Francoise for all time, and give her this child, the child of her end, the child of her death, come now, and come forever.’

He was taking her by the waist, hoisting her to her feet. She was so unsteady she stumbled, the blood loss had been so great; but Rothley’s strong arms held her fast, and guided her to the space in the floor, where she would be buried; where she would die.

‘Yea, I adjure you, your names and your amulets. Lay her down here, inside this place, the house of death.’

The planks were scratchy on her bare feet as she walked to the void where the floorboards had been ripped out; was there enough space for her in there? Under the floorboards? It was dark. For the first time a shudder of fear trembled through her. What would it be like to be dead, to be buried under these floorboards forever?

‘As this daughter lies down, yea, yea, Jesus Christ, Beth Betha, Yao Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloueiu—’

Rothley pushed her head, he was pressing her into the crawlspace, into the dust and the darkness, under the floor. He was pushing on her body so she could fit under the floor; and now she was in, and he was putting the planks back over the space, and hammering nails, sealing the lid of her coffin, and as he did he called the words, still.

‘Gemas, Demas, Gemas, Demas.’

Francoise trembled with fear and joy, she could not see anything except a few cracks of light; she was in her wooden tomb, and he was sealing it shut, and she was happy and all she could hear in the darkness, as she died, was his beautiful voice in the distance, the Jesus of Death, calling her, calling her …

‘God who has bound the heaven and has bound the earth, must bind the mouth of Francoise, that she may not be able to move her lips.’

Francoise moved her lips, silently, repeating the words. It was nearly over now. The last nails were being driven in: she was in her womb of darkness. She fumbled to fill her mouth.

‘Lazarlai, Sabaoth, Eloim, take your daughter, bring her suffering, bind her silence, make her perfect. Zothooza, Thoitha, Zazzaoth, the saints of darkness, come at once, at once, at once. Amen.’