Spectral Evidence

“Gabriel, in The Prophecy. Viggo Mortensen played Satan.” Goss squinted. “But these sort of look like...Pazuzu.”

Hynde nodded, pleased. “Good call: four wings, like a moth—definitely Sumerian. This one has clawed feet; this one’s head is turned backwards, or maybe upside-down. This one looks like it’s got no lower jaw. This one has a tail and no legs at all, like a snake...”

“Dude, do you actually know what they are, or are you just fucking with me?”

“How much do you know about the Terrible Seven?”

“Nothing.”

“Excellent. That means our viewers won’t, either.”

—

They set up in front of the door, before they lost the sun. A tight shot on Hynde, hands thrown out in what Goss had come to call his classic Profsplaining pose; Goss shot from below, framing him in the temple’s gaping maw, while ‘Lij the sound guy checked his levels and everybody else shut the fuck up. From the corner of one eye, Goss could just glimpse Camberwell leaning back against the point truck’s wheel with her distractingly curvy legs crossed, arms braced like she was about to start doing reverse triceps push-ups. Though it was hard to tell from behind those massive sun-goggles, she didn’t seem too impressed.

“The Terrible Seven were mankind’s first boogeymen,” Hynde told whoever would eventually be up at three in the morning, or whenever the History Channel chose to run this. “To call them demons would be too...Christian. To the people who feared them most, the Sumerians, they were simply a group of incredibly powerful creatures responsible for every sort of human misery, invisible and unutterably malign—literally unnameable, since to name them was, inevitably, to invite their attention. According to experts, the only way to fend them off was with the so-called ‘Maskim Chant,’ a prayer for protection collected by E. Campbell Thompson in his book The Devils and Evil Spirits Of Babylonia, Vols. 1-2...and even that was no sure guarantee of safety, depending on just how annoyed one—or all—of the Seven might be feeling, any given day of the week...”

Straightening slightly, he raised one hand in mock supplication, reciting:

“They are Seven! They are Seven!

“Seven in the depths of the ocean, Seven in the Heavens above,

“Those who are neither male nor female, those who stretch themselves out like chains...

“Terrible beyond description.

“Those who are Nameless. Those who must not be named.

“The enemies! The enemies! Bitter poison sent by the Gods.

“Seven are they! Seven!”

Nice, Goss thought, and went to cut Hynde off. But there was more, apparently—a lot of it, and Hynde seemed intent on getting it all out. Good for inserts, Goss guessed, ‘specially when cut together with the spooky shit from inside...

“In heaven they are unknown. on earth they are not understood.

“They neither stand nor sit, nor eat nor drink.

“Spirits that minish the earth, that minish the land, of giant strength and giant tread—”

(“Minish”?)

“Demons like raging bulls, great ghosts,

“Ghosts that break through all the houses, demons that have no shame, seven are they!

“Knowing no care, they grind the land like corn.

“Knowing no mercy, they rage against mankind.

“They are demons full of violence, ceaselessly devouring blood.

“Seven are they! Seven are they! Seven!

“They are Seven! They are Seven! They are twice Seven! They are Seven times seven!”

Camberwell was sitting up now, almost standing, while the rest of the crew made faces at each other. Goss had been sawing a finger across his throat since knowing no care, but Hynde just kept on going, hair crested, complexion purpling; he looked unhealthily sweat-shiny, spraying spit. Was that froth on his lower lip?