Dybbuk

There was a seal on a set of doors.

It was no mish-mash of Kabbalist symbols with Biblical verses in Latin or Enochian or any other arcane language. This seal was old and straight, from the Lesser Keys of Solomon. The only reason Lina could read it at all was thanks to Jeri. The doors were no joke either, solid stone and no handle.

“What is that smell?” Wilc asked.

“The dybbuk.” Lina answered, “Ammonia and juniper are classic signs it’s near. And don’t worry, you’re off limits now.”

Wilc’s weapon was drawn the entire descent, Lina only a step behind.

“Can you open it?” He asked.

“Sure,” Lina slipped between the wall and Wilc, “This isn’t about keeping things out, but keeping them in. Look, once I get these unsealed, things are gonna go real bad real—”

The doors crashed opened.

Her ankles snapped together and pulled from under her by an unseen force. Shielding her head with her arms, Lina slammed into the ground and dragged into the chamber. Someone called her name, but it was lost as she scraped along the floor. The doors shut tight and reverberated through the stonework.

“How dare you.” Emmet shouted with Lina suspended upside down in the air. “How dare you interfere with my sacred work!”

She tried to focus.

The chamber was barely lit with a waxy light. It came from a chandelier covered in thick ropes and chains which hung low. She dangled just under it. There was the sound of pounding from the door way and muffled yells. Emmet stood below her, one hand held aloft. His glare sharp and filled with fury.

“Do I step in and muddle up your affairs when this city is in danger?” Emmet shouted, “Do I offer my opinion that your solutions are not good enough?”

He flung his hand out and Lina knocked into the chandelier, and then into the wall that rattled with the sounds of glass and wood. All around her that scent of ammonia and juniper seeped into her skin, and permeating her thoughts.

She was suspended again, right side up this time.

“Is that what you told your brother?” Lina managed to say through the pain.

“What did you say?” Emmet asked dangerously low.

“Ezra Ben Eylan ha Levi.” Lina said, “Your brother. Your first victim.”

Emmet let her fall and Lina cried out as she crashed into the stone floor. The pounding on the sealed doors grew louder. More insistent. As she lay there, trying to reclaim her breath and ignore the burn of twisted ankles, Lina looked further into the chamber and spied Jeri, trapped in a Circle. Candles and incense burned all around him. Braziers smoked with coals and nestled on top were two bronze sigils. Jeri looked at her, on his knees he was gagged, bound and helpless.

What did she interrupt?

Jeri made the sweeping motion of a circle. Look around, the movement urged.

She did.

That rattling sound she had heard after hitting the wall? Hundreds upon hundreds of little glass doors glinted in the weak light. They lined up from floor to ceiling, along the hexagonal chamber. A dread began to creep into her bones and Lina knew why she never liked the shop.

Why she didn’t trust its owner.

“He was not my first victim,” Emmet said quietly from over her, “But theirs. It was the spring of 1506 when the Catholics of Lisbon turned on us.” He circled around her, “They persecuted, tortured, and burned us at the stake with the name of GOD on their lips to shield their fears and pierce though our faith. Three days I breathed the ash of my family and friends. Tasted the salt of my tears as I prayed for their lives.”

As he paced over her, Lina noticed a Key, burned into the palm of his right hand. She hadn’t seen them before this, not with his work gloves on at the shop. Not in the dark on the Clear Water roof. There was another Key, similar to it burned into the left and something the dybbuk, Ezra—Emmet’s brother, had said came back to her.

“Even now I see your plotting.” Emmet pointed at Lina. “You see my great works, my great army and you fear it. As you should, yet you do not have to fear it. That great Seraph need not fear it.”

“Because you’re going to trap him?” Lina said, still on her back. “Force him to possess you like that poor Ibbur? A great sprit answered and all you did was use it for revenge.”

“I forced no one.” Emmet pushed the notion away, “Do not judge what you do not understand. That enlightened, scared soul of the Ibbur heard my cries and answered my prayers for vengeance against the city of Lisbon. Gave me the knowledge and the tools. My brother could not rest. He offered his nefesh, his soul to me to get his rightful vengeance. His nefesh was not the only one that cried out.

“So I gathered them all. 1,900 nefesh the Ibbur and I called. We collected and packed those souls safely in little music boxes as gifts for the guilty until every one of those loathsome murderers were given what they deserved. Now they wait here, ready to answer my call.”

A silence fell over the chamber.

The doors shook, rumbling with every steady hit they took from Wilc on the other side.

“Then why not let them go?” Lina finally asked.

“And risk it all happening again?” Emmet shook his head, “I could not.”

“But it did.” Lina argued, “over and over again. I have never known of a more persecuted people than yours. And what good did it do? Keeping all those souls? They have to be sustained, to keep them strong. So you feed them innocent families now? Even now, I bet that poor Ibbur stuck in your body wishes to be free. Your brother was driven mad by your inability to let go. All these souls perverted by your impotence against—”Lina was flung through the air.

She crashed into the glass doors, shattering them. Then up, up, up until her head hit the ceiling. Her ankles were free and she kicked out, but she couldn’t breathe. Emmett’s hand stretched out, slowly cinching together. The weight of her body pulled down, while he held her up by the neck.

He was choking her.

Jeri braced against the invisible wall of the Circle, free of his gag, yelling at Emmet to stop. To free her. He would do it. Takeover were the Ibbur had failed. He would do it for her life.

Emmet didn’t stop.

The room was growing faint, and a heaviness in her limbs began to slow her struggles.

There was a crack, like a snap and fall of a mighty tree or the first break of thunder. Slabs of stone exploded into the chamber while powder and dust rained down.

Still, with all that Emmet didn’t stop.

Then his hand burst in a shower of cartilage and blood, and Emmet screamed.

Lina slipped and slid down the wall, the stone floor eagerly awaiting her. Wilc was there, running. Hands outstretched, he caught her with arms that were strong and sure and together they collapsed into a heap on the floor.

No time for thanks, they were wrenched apart.

“You will not take this from me.” Emmet screamed. Working with his other hand, Emmet dragged Wilc towards him. Wilc spun, firing at Emmet, hitting his shoulder, his chest and still Wilc was dragged along the chamber straight to him.

“Hang him!” Jeri shouted from the Circle. “You have to hang him to stop his magic!”

Lina focused on Jeri, who pointed up.

The chandelier.

She followed the chain up into the ceiling, then down again to its extra links and hook. Lina pushed herself up, and ran for it.

Emmet flung the revolver away.

Lina grabbed hold of the chain and pulled with all her weight.

He bent down and took hold of Wilcs neck, lifting him up.

She felt the iron links bite into her skin and rub against the gauze and tender burn.

“Sateriel!” Emmet hissed, tossing Wilc like he touched something dirty.

The link unhooked, Lina let go. The chandelier fell.

It crashed right on top of Emmet, tangling him in its ropes and chains.

“Help me lift it!” Lina shouted.

Wilc scrambled up, joining her at the chain, he wrapped his hands around it and pulled. Hand over hand he yanked the chain faster than Lina. She let go and watched as Wilc pulled on the chain with inhuman strength, lifting the chandelier high into the air and with it, Emmet. His good hand wedged between his neck and the chains. He kicked and twisted in the air, eyes bulging and tongue protruding out his mouth. He gasped and gulped for air that would not come, and yet Emmet still wouldn’t die.

“The seal!” Jeri shouted.

Lina nearly slapped her forehead, of course the seal, the Ibbur was still stuck inside.

“Over there,” Wilc said as he struggled to hook the links. “It landed by the doors.”

Lina ran for the mess of doors and saw Wilcs revolver. She scooped it up, cocked the hammer and took aim. Emmet spotted her. He snarled and let go of the chain, sweeping his hand in an arc, Lina braced for impact. It never came, instead a gust of wind roared passed her and throughout the chamber, and as it did so every glass door fell open. Revealing the myriad of dybbuk boxes hidden within.

And Emmet laughed.

“Lina,” Jeri reminded her, “the seal!”

The roaring wind grew louder. It circled the chamber and wailed. The smell of rotting corpses and juniper flooded her nose.

“Shoot him!” Wilc shouted.

She lifted the revolver again, took aim at his outstretched hand, and fired. His hand burst into fleshy bits and Emmet continued to laugh. He laughed as a beam of light erupted from his forehead, releasing the captured Ibbur. Laughed as Wilc joined her side and watched Emmet’s body shrivel and seep, withering away as time caught up to his unnaturally prolonged life.

Then he was gone.

Nothing but a puddle on the chamber floor.

The gale sweeping around the chamber however, hadn’t stopped. It grew faster, louder as it screamed, battering them around, trying to separate them. Wilc reached out, steady as rock in a storm and took hold of Lina, bringing her close to his chest.

“What’s going on?” Wilc shouted, “Why hasn’t this stopped?”

“His army of dybbuks.” Lina shouted back. “That idiot released them to spite us. We need to stop them before they escape through that door you demolished.”

“You’re welcome.” Wilc shouted back indignantly. “Why haven’t they just left?”

“They will.” Lina looked for Jeri. “As soon as they kill us.”

The wail grew louder and Wilc held tighter. The Circle would be the safest place for what needed to happen next, but it seemed to take all of Wilcs strength to keep them rooted and not swept up into the maelstrom of dybbuks.

“Do you still have the Shofar?” Lina asked.

He nodded and reached for it.

“Blow it!” Lina ordered, “And don’t stop until I tell you too.”

Wilc put the Shofar to his lips, and blew. The peal was long and crisp and sweet. Nothing at all like the bleat of Emmet’s Shofar. The maelstrom trembled, slowing. Wilc took a breath and repeated the note. The horn gleamed with an inner light and for a second Lina could only stare in wonder at the man that held her. And again that question came unbidden… what was he?

Wilc looked at her, urging her to do whatever it was she needed to stop this.

One more peal, and Lina lifted her arm high above her head. The Key on her wrist grew hot, hell she didn’t even know if this was going to work. She took a breath and began to recite the first verse:

“I will say of the Lord, who is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust. That He will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence…”

The dybbuks whirled and spun, the Shofar slowing them down.

“Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night… of the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor the destruction that wasteth at noon day…”

The light from Wilc and the Shofar grew brighter.

The maelstrom descended, bearing down on them, and still Lina held her hand out.

“…For thou hast made the Lord who is my refuge… There shall no evil befall thee…”

Her Key began to glow in tandem with Wilc, who was so bright Lina could no longer look at him.

“For He will give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways…Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him…”

They fell into her Key. Hauled in with every word. Every peal of the Shofar. They filtered through her wrist and Key, bursting into embers as they exited.

“He shall call upon me, and I will answer him…”

It burned. They seared through her skin and tendons and bones. Her knees grew weak but Wilc held tighter. Supporting her when she could no longer stand, blowing the Shofar all the while. Lina didn’t stop. Even when the last verse was spoken and the maelstrom whirled about them, she started again, right from the beginning.

“I will say of the Lord, who is my refuge…”

She would say it over and over again until every last one of them was sundered.