Paying the Price
By
Philip Roberts
They sat in the middle of a dark, empty bedroom. They sat cross-legged, across from each other, both nude, the floor around them properly marked. They were supposed to be motionless with their eyes closed, just as Byron was, but across from him, even with his eyes closed, he could feel the slight tremors running through Julia’s body. He didn’t allow his mind to focus on it. The ritual needed his undivided attention. He had done this before, always alone, of course, but Julia’s presence wouldn’t hinder him.
He didn’t know what the words meant even as they slipped out of him. He didn’t know the name of the god he spoke them to. All Byron knew was the purpose of the ritual, just as he had known the purpose of the previous rituals, and that was all he needed to know. Most importantly, he knew it had to be perfect, which was why for the first time he felt the nervous twitch in his stomach.
His eyes opened to see Julia’s wide-eyed gaze, her face pale. Had her eyes just opened as they were supposed to, or had they been open before, Byron asked himself.
The air felt heavy, just as before, another presence surrounding them, listening, the preparations complete, the being, whatever it was, summoned, and now Byron discarded the language of the dead, and asked, “Please grant us success in the relationship ahead of us, and help me through this transition in my life with your guidance, and influence.”
His eyes fell from the faint image of something swirling through the air in the hot room. They fell until they grabbed hold of Julia’s pale features, her lips trembling, her fingers gripped so tightly on her knees Byron could see the light red where the nails dug in. He urged her with his eyes to speak her part and ask for the same, but her eyes only wavered with fear at whatever surrounded them, the atmosphere too much, shattering whatever convictions she had had.
The four candles went out. A deep rumble ran through the room, like a beast awakening from a long hibernation without food, and Byron knew then the ritual had failed. More so, he knew the cost for his failure. He hadn’t told Julia before it all began. It was best if she didn’t know what was coming.
Byron sat in a plush chair, dressed in an eleven hundred dollar suit, staring across a well crafted, mahogany table at the angry face of a man he’d known for nearly ten years. Charles Kamen, in fact, was the man responsible for the first job Byron got in Charles’s company, along with five promotions over the years. A bit of good luck, Charlie had always joked, his hand on Byron’s shoulder. What would the man have thought, Byron often mused, if he had seen the ritual preformed just three days before Charles’s chance meeting with the young Byron, had he seen him nude in the middle of his nearly empty apartment, chanting words Charles would never hear in his life-time.
Now, Byron didn’t put much thought to any of that. He stared instead at the crinkled brow of a man pushing sixty, the normal good cheer so thoroughly gone that Byron had to question if this face before him was even capable of smiling.
“What have you to say?” Charles asked him in a tone Byron had never heard. This, he realized for the first time, was the man who had formed the company to begin with, and always lurked behind the façade Byron had foolishly assumed was all there was.
What Charles held and slapped down on the table was a printout of three emails. They were only three of many, and Byron knew Charles had certainly read most, if not all, of the two years worth Byron had foolishly allowed to accumulate on his computer. They were hardly out in the open, and some had even been deleted some time ago, but Byron had known full well they weren’t completely gone, there for anyone to find should they do any kind of real check into his computer. But then, why should he worry about such meaningless things when he had a higher power guiding his life, ensuring something such as this would never happen?
“I know I shouldn’t have used the company computer for personal matters,” Byron said in a poor attempt to smooth over the permanent damage that had been done. This went beyond something so meaningless as misusing company time or property. Charles was a man of strict morals.
“And just who is Julia Grace?”
Byron had no words to answer. He wasn’t even nervous, he realized, didn’t dread the obvious outcome of this little meeting. His career, at least with Charles’s company, was dead. No emotions boiled up at the realization. All he could see in his head was Julia’s stricken expression right before he moved across the room.
“Fine,” Charles said while slamming his hand down on the desk. “I had hoped that maybe someone else had been using your computer. Foolish of me, but I had hoped. I think you know perfectly well what this means, don’t you?”
“I understand,” Byron said with a nod. This didn’t matter. Losing his job was completely meaningless in the face of what he had thought was already taken care of.
So he left Charles’s office without a word or glance back. In his own he saw on the computer screen the last email he’d sent still up on the screen, Julia’s name in the center of the screen. Swiftly he yanked the cord from the wall and sent the screen into darkness.
Home was a three story, lavishly decorated building with a pool in back, a three-car garage, and a lawn filled with both flowers and small spruce trees. The garage door was up when Byron rolled his car to a stop. The sight wasn’t commonplace. Within the open door he could see Veronica’s blue Mercedes.
He didn’t even bother to take his suitcase into the house with him. Light fell from the living room window into the gloom of dusk. Before entering the garage Byron couldn’t help but glance up at the sky and the gray shape of the clouds looking back at him.
On a night nearly eight years ago, Byron envisioned while stepping into the darkness of the garage, he had seen Veronica at a grocery store nearby, just one of many times he had seen her there, but on that night Byron finally decided she would be his. He had gone home to his significantly larger apartment than the one he had first summoned a god into, and repeated the ritual. The next day he asked her out on a date. A year later they were married.
Now Byron stepped through the open kitchen door into a house unlit save for the living room lamp he had seen from outside.
Veronica sat in a chair by the lamp, a familiar shoebox open in front of her, make-up smeared on a face red from recent tears. The shoebox had been well hidden, assured she would never find it, at least not if she wasn’t looking.
But this question was immediately answered, when Veronica said, her voice nearly cracking, “The police called. They wanted to talk to you.”
And they had, shortly after Byron’s meeting with Charles. It seemed a friend of Julia’s had reported her missing, and given Byron’s name to them. Of course, they had no way to prove he had done anything to her. He hadn’t even been the last person seen with her before her disappearance. They had sneaked away that night to ensure they’d have peace.
“I talked to them,” Byron said.
“How long?” she asked. Her reaction was stronger than he would’ve thought. But then, was it her own love fueling her sense of betrayal, or one instilled in her by Byron’s ritual? Who could say anymore?
“Does it matter?” he said with the same dull tone he had used when addressing Charles.
She grabbed hold of the shoebox filled with both pictures and letters and flung it at him with more fury than he’d ever seen in her. He brought up his hands just in time to ward off the blow, the air filled with his guilt, fluttering slowly to the floor. Only as she pushed herself up from the seat to move past him did the idea appear. For the first time his stoicism was momentarily broken, aware the anger emanating off of her was so similar to what he’d seen in Charles, too similar to be coincidental.
But before he could say another word the kitchen door to the garage slammed shut. Byron didn’t chase after her. On the floor he stared at his relationship with Julia in the dim light from the lamp.
He rarely went to the bar Cynthia would find him in an hour later. Alcohol wasn’t what drove Byron into the bar but a need to be away from the house—a need to think. But all he thought about was his time with Julia, of the nights of warm embraces, idle conversations. Perhaps the simple fact that the relationship had grown out of nothing but her interest in him was what made him love it the most. Nothing else had guided her into his life.
Warm red trickled down his hands, splashed his entire arms, soaked through his shirt, but the illusion didn’t hold. Byron stared at his clean arms and let the memory slip away, aware he wouldn’t be rid of it so easily, but for the moment he found some degree of peace, until Cynthia marched into the bar.
He saw her almost as fast as she saw him. She had come here, he knew before she could reach him, to talk specifically to him. How she had found him was a very good question.
Rather than sit across from him in the booth she stopped before it. Byron’s gaze rose to meet her anger.
“Where is she?” Cynthia shouted so loud everyone turned to look. There would be no chance to think over the situation.
So Byron finished the rest of his drink with a large gulp and slid out from the booth. He ignored Cynthia even as she followed him. Both ended in the parking lot next to Byron’s car. Before he could insert his keys Cynthia was grappling for them in a poor attempt to stop Byron from leaving.
“Tell me where she is,” Cynthia screamed even louder into the night. Reluctantly Byron shoved her back hard enough to slam her into the car across from his. He couldn’t really bring himself to blame Cynthia for being Julia’s friend.
“You’re the one who reported her missing, huh?” Byron asked.
“Just tell me she’s fine,” Cynthia said, still on the ground from her fall, head leaning against the side of the car.
He opened the door rather than answer her. She didn’t try to stop him again, but before he could pull away she stood and shouted to him, “Julia told me things about you, that I haven’t told the police yet, but I will, Byron. If you don’t tell me she’s OK I’ll have them tear your life apart.”
He peeled away with her words heavy in his mind.
The grave he had given her was horrible. Byron had never been one for manual labor, especially while his head swam with fear. Everything he'd done just less than two weeks earlier had been accomplished in a state of fear greater than any he’d ever felt before. Putting the final shovel full of dirt over her corpse had given him a small sense of relief, which he had clung to with his entire mind up until today.
And now, Byron stood over the patch of dirt in the woods behind the apartment complex he’d killed Julia in. He slammed the spade into the dirt and heard her scream in pain. The knife they were supposed to use to draw a drop of blood had torn into her stomach in a frenzy. Conscious thought hadn’t played any part in the lunge he’d made. The heavy feeling in the room, of something from so far above him, watching his mistake, had been more than his mind could take.
He still wore his suit from work earlier in the day. His jacket lay discarded on the ground beside him. Large circles of sweat hung below the armpits on his white shirt. He ignored the pain in his shoulders as he swung the spade again and again.
All his success had removed the fear of mistake, until the idea of bringing Julia into it hadn’t seemed like a particularly risky idea. After all, he had managed just fine, so why wouldn’t she? Normally he would’ve done it all himself, but the simple knowledge that his marriage was the result of a previous favor had made him desire a stronger ritual in order to overcome it, and in order to do that he needed someone else with him.
The spade struck the dirt beside him. Byron fell to his knees. With one hand clamped tightly over his nose he reached down with his other to pull loose the corpse. She hadn’t even been given the honor of a coffin. Why would it matter, he had thought at the time, when she would never be found again anyways? Now he yanked the decomposing form from the dirt and stretched her out on the ground.
Biting back the vomit, Byron picked her up in his arms like he would a child and started for the apartment building. It didn’t matter if anyone saw him anymore, and no sooner had he reached the steps then he heard movement from behind him.
“Oh my God,” a voice whispered, followed by movement, but by then Byron was marching up the stairs, fishing out his keys, and allowing himself entry into the room Julia’s life had ended in.
A bright bulb showed him the wooden floor still stained with blood, along with the symbols he’d drawn. He locked the door behind him. It wouldn’t be long before the police arrived.
Even on the night he had lunged for her, something in Byron had known his mistake. Her death had had nothing to do with making amends for failing in the ritual. He had tried to tell himself it was the case, that she was the one who had faltered, and she should be the one to die, but all of it had been in order to avoid the real payment.
And perhaps, he thought as he lowered her corpse onto the floor, he could’ve merely lost everything he had today as payment, but now, there was another price, or better put, a mistake to correct.
Through the closed blinds he could see the flashing lights, hear the screeching tires. Slowly he closed his eyes and let the rest of the world slip away from him. He began whispering familiar words. Her murder weapon was still on the floor. That was good.
Someone shouted on the other side of the door. Byron picked up the knife. Pain slid slowly across his wrist as his voice grew louder. He didn’t see the watery red dropping onto Julia’s ravaged face, on her shredded stomach, but he was aware when the voices faltered. They could hear him now. They weren’t the only ones listening.
The presence slowly returned, watchful, though Byron refused to open his eyes to see. He dug the knife in deeper. The blade, slick with red, rose to his throat.
He gathered all the strength he could before the final thrust. His eyes opened against his will to see the swirling air, the hint of a face hidden behind it, one Byron found he didn’t want to see, and so he shoved with everything he had until his world exploded with pain.
Barely, Byron was aware of the floor against his cheek. He was aware of the flesh just beside him, still rank, but it wouldn’t remain like that forever. As the life flowed out of him he could see the side of Julia’s stomach, still covered in dirt, but the flesh itself practically shined with vitality from beneath it.
His shaking hand fell across her stomach, felt for a second where a blade had torn through it, only smooth flesh remaining.
Behind him the door tore open with a sharp crack. A jolt shot through Julia’s body right before Byron’s eyes closed completely.
He heard her scream. He heard a man asking her if she was okay. He heard the sound of a voice incapable of truly being understood, uttered from the mouth of a being beyond anything he had attempted to understand, and now it hovered over him, waiting for him to open his eyes.
Only then did the idea occur to Byron that everything he had asked for, everything he had been given, had come with its own price. He had seen the price of calling forth this being only to fail in the ritual. What was the price, Byron asked himself for the first time, for the success?
Thunder rolled through the air. This creature was laughing. All Byron could do was open his eyes.