Chapter 107

"Are you finally taking it then?" she said after a while.
"It's not my place to have it."
"Strange thing to buy then."
"I had my reasons. And you won't agree to help me until you know what they are, will you?" Although Taph sat facing him, he was looking away—at the box in his lap, or perhaps over the edge of the rooftop again, so that his face was in profile against the light reflecting off the glossy black windows of the building next door. Even in the dark, she could make out most of his expression: open, vulnerable, guileless. She couldn't remember the last time she met someone so shamelessly transparent. He really is quite handsome, she thought without meaning to.
Clearing her throat, she said, "Mr. Callum, you want to buy my help—I'm happy to sell it. But I've got to understand what you're really asking me for. So what's it going to be: Fill me in, or is this the end of our dealings?"
Rather than answer directly, Callum took a single sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it neatly—it was entirely blank, she saw—and laid it on top of the box. With his other hand he began rubbing a piece of colored wax across it, keeping his eyes assiduously on his work as he talked.
"You've heard of Solomon?" he said.
She blinked. "From the Bible?"
"The Talmud. He was the king of Israel, the son of David. One of the 48 true prophets. A wise man, a good man."
"Kind of a louse, if I remember."
"Nobody's perfect. A story they don't tell you in the Talmud—or the Bible—is about Solomon's ring: It was a gift from the archangel Michael, and with the seal Solomon could impress and command all manner of demons. All the way up to the very kings of Hell themselves, they all did his bidding."
"Like what?"
"Anything he liked: reveal the secrets of the universe, tell him where treasure was, teach him art, history, geometry—sciences far beyond that age, you understand. He forced them to build his great temple—the First Temple, in Israel, the most beautiful temple, before it was destroyed. And he'd send them on lesser errands too—capturing runaway virgins, for example. All because of the power of that ring and seal. This seal."
He held up the paper, where the wax rubbing revealed—what was it? The surface of the box was so old and faded that it was almost impossible to tell, and yet, with Callum's help, she swore she really DID see a symbol there, with a six-pointed star in its center.
"Of course, no good could come of such things. Eventually, Asmodeus, greatest of the demon kings, stole the ring, and with its power he ruled the world. It only took Solomon 40 days to steal it back. But in even that much time, the damage done—awful, awful. So to make up for his hubris, Solomon took the 72 most powerful, most prideful, and most troublesome demons in the universe, and he imprisoned them."
Here Callum paused, and then with just the tips of his fingers he hefted the container on his lap.
"In this box. Where they are still."
He paused again, just long enough to take a breath before adding, "And where they're meant to remain forever."
Taph waited for the rest. Nothing came. Now Callum's face was in shadow, and impossible to read. She felt a laugh coming on, but when she opened her mouth it was just a small thing, barely louder than a cough. Then she said:
"You're not serious."
"I'm never not serious."
"This isn't a con?"
"I'm never conning either. My entire life I've only even told a lie once; I wouldn't add this one on now. This is the vessel into which Solomon conjured the 72 high demons. Here, you can still feel the engravings around the lid with the true names of each of them."
Without warning, he took her hand and guided it to the spot he meant. There WAS engraving there, though she'd never noticed it before, circular symbols, their interiors filled in with mysterious, sinuous lines and whorls that had almost but not quite completely faded away...
They sat like this for sometime, the box between them, their fingertips touching. In spite of herself, Taph felt a frisson of excitement. "What makes you sure that this is the one?"
"Partly that I've seen and held and in some cases bought all of the others that anyone ever claimed were the right one, and none of them were. But mostly it's other things: the age, the craftsmanship, the million tiny variables, like a fingerprint or a melody—difficult to describe, but unmistakable. I think—I know—that this is it. How your father came to have it—but he couldn't have known what it really was, could he?"
This thought Taph pondered in silence for sometime. Then another thought occurred to her: "Wait. You said you want me to destroy it?"
"I do. Through very particular means, the only ones that will be effective."
"And that will, what, destroy the demons?"
"Of course not. If they could be destroyed, why would Solomon have settled for merely imprisoning them?"
"I don't understand?"
"Be that as it may, now you know everything. Or everything that you're going to find out, at any rate."
He let go then, and retreated—not just drawing his hands away from the box but, seemingly, retracting his entire body deeper into the shadows. Taph longed to see his eyes and gauge what he must be feeling. But she was left staring into nothing at all.
His voice sounding polite but constrained, he said, "So now you know. And you know how much I'm willing to offer if you'll help me. The only question is: Will you?"
The box sat on Taph's lap again. She traced the indecipherable symbols around the edge of the lid. It seemed much heavier now than it had before. In fact, she was amazed that she could lift it at all. She had another frisson, but not one of excitement. The chill she felt was much colder and much deeper now.
Realizing that her mouth was too dry to speak, she drained her glass, and then crushed the ice between her teeth. The sharp, shocking coldness on her tongue revived her blood flow and broke some of the spell that Callum seemed to have cast on her. Licking her lips to wet them, Taph said, "I...need to think about it."
"Of course."
"In the meantime, you said there was something special about the way it had to be done? Something that needs preparation?"
"Yes."
"Send instructions then. I'm not saying I'll do it; but give me some idea of what the necessaries would be."
"Of course."
"And you still don't want to keep the box for yourself? "The shadow that was Callum shook its head again. Putting it back into her bag, Taph nodded. "I'll hold onto it. Until...until we know what's going to happen, I guess."
"Until then," he said.
And she left.
***
It was another two weeks before they met again, and this time she said to come to her place.
She rented a live/work in an old factory on Bryant Street, with high ceilings and only a few neighbors. A spot that should appeal to his predilection for privacy—or solitude.
"I've decided," she told him over the phone. "I'll do it."
"How much do you want?" Callum asked, but Taph wouldn't discuss payment over the phone. He'd have to come to her if he wanted to seal the deal—fair's fair, after she came at his beck and call twice in a row.
So now she waited for him, not allowing herself to acknowledge how much she anticipated his arrival. An old freight elevator serviced the building, but Taph always took the stairs herself. Now when she heard the aged cables grind to life she sat up a little straighter and did breathing exercises to slow her rapidly beating heart.
The old doors clunked open and Callum's footsteps—hesitant, it seems, clicked on the cement corridor leading up to her front door. He came in without knocking, or even announcing himself. Taph sat on the edge of the chaise with her hands clasped on her knees and smiled as wide as she could when he came in. His return smile looked a little weak.
"I'm glad you came," she said, taking his hand and leading him further in. The Oriental rugs covering most of the floor muffled their footsteps; only about a third of the lights were on, and she'd drawn shutters over the floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving much of the apartment clothed in shadows.
"I admit had to give it some thought," Callum said, his voice tight.
Taph paused. "I thought you'd be happy," she said. "You were pushing pretty hard for this."
"Happy, yes," Callum said. "Of course. But it's hard too—there's been a lot leading up to this. A lot of decisions to make, difficult things that had to be done. Now that it's all about to be over, it's hard to know how to feel."
"I know what you mean," Taph said. "I guess it must be the same as when I decided to sell Dad's collection. I was happy to be rid of it, but at the same time, anything you put that much time and emotion into, it's going to leave its mark on you."
"Yes," said Callum, "that's it precisely." And then he paused as he looked around fully for the first time. "What is all of this?" he said.