Tom Piccirilli - A Lower Deep

The first Christian hermits lived on the shores of the Red Sea. They soon joined with the Therapeutae pagan ascetics and consequently moved into upper Egypt to avoid Roman persecution in the third century. Pachomius and Anthony Basilica were the first to be called monks, and their lessons are written in the bronze door friezes and bas-reliefs that surround the monastery's chapel.

Even from the river's far bank the gleaming honey-colored stone and wood of the service buildings can be seen like flashing threads of silver, grouped around a cloister south of the church.

Silhouetted against the moon, the steeples, turrets, and angled spires of the abbey appeared to be basilisks appealing to heaven in the falling snow. Empty branches of ash-gray trees partially obscured the large peaked roofs. Sheep were still kept, but more for the symbolism of lambs and shepherd than for any practical need. Bleats poured down the precipice like hymns gone astray.

The mount is a city unto itself where few have been turned away but even fewer saved. Penitents came from a hundred nations carrying beliefs that sporadically conflicted with one another. Though the shadow of Babel fell on them there were hardly any strangulations or midnight stabbings anymore, and only a few dozen nuns had become pregnant in the last five centuries.

I'd spent six months here a decade ago recovering from the last sabbat. Once I'd thought the monks and nuns too sequestered from the rest of the world, but I'd learned their distance gave them resolve that could only be weakened by contact with society. This was the final sanctuary where the despondent came seeking refuge from their sorrow and distress, from their knife-wielding ex-husbands, their greasy uncles' paws. Anguish that sometimes still drove them to jump a thousand feet down onto the crags and into the waters until the ice was thick with suicides.

I was sick again.

I came starving out of the mountain passes. Every breath rattled deep in my chest and felt like serrated blades sawing at my lungs and catching in my ribs. My phlegm had turned a dark gray and became speckled with blood two days ago. I kept blacking out on my feet and waking up lost in the snowbound forest. Phantoms held at bay for years were invited in to taunt me again. I couldn't protect myself. I talked out loud and saw my father dancing behind bushes. Maybe he was there or maybe I only dreamed it. The bells on his little hat chimed as he peered at me with that hideous harlequin smile, but at least he led me toward the water.

My vision grew too bright around the edges. I awoke on my hands and knees at the shore of JamesLake, staring into a wavering reflection I didn't quite recognize. Danielle's mournful cries echoed against the precipices of the cliffs and the jagged ledges of my mind. My second self nuzzled at my neck, with my erratic pulse driving against his fangs.

You handed your heart away , he said. Take it back.

She deserves it.

They won't even bury you next to her .

Sweat streamed off my face. Self licked salt, the witch's bane, from my brow and then spat it aside like drawn-off venom. Black motes of energy flickered against my forehead, spelling out my sins. Ancient words from the Suleimans bubbled over, and I lost control of incantations. Hexes went haywire and the frost boiled beneath my feet until the earth dried and cracked, and the smoldering brush withered around me.

Self said, Hey, watch it! Lower-caste demons bounced around confusedly and gagged in the smoke, mewling questions and threats, begging for a lick of flesh, their tongues unfurling from their eyes. A few bowed and begged my forgiveness; I could only guess how they'd influenced my life, or what they'd done so that I should be merciful. Sometimes it got like that.

Dit Moi Etienne, who'd answered one of my earliest invocations, buzzed and worked its mandibles into the dirt, as if hoping to hold on to the world through the storm it knew to be coming. Self took my hands and forced my digits into the proper positioning-interlaced, with the tips of index fingers together in 'a this-is-the-steeple fashion, thumbs pointed over my heart-and growled words to send the imps squeaking back up the boulders. I wondered why he didn't just tear them to pieces, and whether it was a matter of pity.

They croaked, scrabbled, and cursed him. Talons scratched on the stones, throwing sparks into the river. My familiar waved and blew kisses, carnage in his sharp smile. Sorry, boys, you wouldn't like it here much anyway. No cable . He turned to me and threw his arms up in a patronly manner, cocking a grin. They're big on the Playboy channel . Beneath the mask of poise, however, there was fear. He sliced open his palms with his claws, and I understood that death hung by closely. He kept spitting over his shoulder, hoping to ward off Azreal, angel of death, who can't be dissuaded. I knew because I'd tried and failed before.

I fell face forward into the snow and gasped, my breath hitching painfully in the center of my chest, and soon found myself weeping bitterly. The ice steamed where I touched it, my fists burning with other charms of my making. He did his best to minister, but the virus had gotten too far inside my head. Too much had already gotten out. I turned and turned again, hearing my mother singing behind me. Danielle gestured and whispered. My father waved and stuck his tongue out at me.

I tried to keep the pleading out of my voice, that whine working at the back of my throat, but it came through anyway like a scream. Don't let me die yet .

Self grinned because he always grinned, full of life and the happiness I'd always wanted. You won't die.

No?

You can never die.

Where's the ferry?

Less than five miles. I can help . He glanced toward the towers, and the muscles in his throat rippled. Fiery glyphs burned as he spoke, fumes of the blood scent wafting from his mouth. I knew what he was thinking: He could rape, maul, and kill one of the nuns in a half hour, and feed me the strength. Let me help, damn you.

Stay away.

His tongue snaked over his lips at the thought of the red pouring onto the white, a pair of broken hands clasped in prayer, legs spread wide, the agonized look on the faces of the crucifixes as the various Christs watched. His joy was overwhelming, and I bit down my nausea. Stop it!

You'll thank me later, you know.

I wanted to live, and the most clever part of his temptations was that I could always shift the burden of my conscience onto his shoulders. He couldn't offer to do anything for me that I hadn't already thought of on my own. That bait dangled, the trap set.

More hours of insanity passed. Through Self's eyes I saw myself twitching and lurching in violent shrieking fits. My howls swung up the gorge, and perhaps a keen-eared sister heard me, nodding without satisfaction that someone was growing closer to God through penance. It was always possible. They were used to the lamenting, and the timbre of contrition: they flagellated themselves nightly, and most of them still didn't know anything about pain.

Danielle came to me again as she always did, arms outstretched, skin tan and glistening from the pond where we'd made our love so many times-at once beautiful and betrayed, with a mouthful of blood. She stood superimposed in my vision, dark and glittering, and no matter where I looked or how I thrashed my head she remained directly in front of my face. The world could move but we never would.

Whatever happens to me, don't let Jebediah finish raising her , I told him. She deserved her freedom and peace. Promise me.

What?

I charge you with that duty.