Author and illustrator Brom’s Evil in Me is a novel of possession, damnation, and rock ‘n’ roll, where one woman must get the world singing in order to save her soul. We’re thrilled to share some of the interior art as well as an excerpt from Evil in Me—available now from Nightfire!
Aspiring musician Ruby Tucker has had enough of her small rural town and dysfunctional family. But a falling out with her best friend and bandmate has killed her dreams of escaping and making it big in the Atlanta punk scene.
While helping her eccentric neighbor organize his religious artifacts, an ancient ring clamps down on her finger―possessing her with the spirit of a blood-thirsty demon. There’s no exorcizing it unless hundreds of people chant a spell to set Ruby free. And what’s worse, the ring is a beacon for evil, drawing an unimaginably wicked mob straight to Ruby, hungry for her flesh.
If Ruby can get her band back together, she has a shot at salvation. It’s time for her to face the music and put her whole soul into a song―one powerful enough to raise some Hell.
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Beel
Hard luck follows Beel wherever he goes. He escaped Lucifer only to be enslaved by another demon, Lord Shelbeth. But perhaps his luck has changed, as now he’s on the lam from Shelbeth and in a rock-n-roll band, drumming for his freedom.
Lord Shelbeth
Born of an unholy union between a lilith and an angel, and marked an abomination, Shelbeth has been hunted her entire life by God’s soldiers. Beating the odds, she managed to claw out her own kingdom, only to be betrayed and imprisoned in Hell. Fortune has given her a chance at escape, and she will stop at nothing to gain her freedom.
PROLOGUE
1951, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Adam glanced up and down the street, saw it was all his now, the shops closed and everyone gone home—just him and the humming street.lights. He ground his teeth, waiting as a rusty Buick station wagon with a busted muffler rumbled by, then set the briefcase down on the sidewalk. He let out a grunt; the briefcase was heavy, as well it should be considering there were four wine bottles full of gasoline in it. Adam had never made a Molotov cocktail before, but it seemed easy enough—just a bottle of fuel with a rag stuffed in it—yet he wasn’t sure he’d done it right, as the whole briefcase reeked of gas.
Time to make him pay, Adam, the voice, the other, cooed. Make them all pay.
Adam’s heart sped up, began to drum, his head to throb, like worms were squirming around in his brain. He thought he could hear them moaning, feel them wiggling down into his heart, his gut. His stomach began to churn, to burn and boil, the heat spreading through his entire body. He began to sweat.
He belched, the hot air turning to mist in the cold night, then he retched, the bile burning his throat.
Something cold hit him in the face; he blinked.
A snowflake. Another, then another.
“Wha… ?” He stared up into the night sky, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “Snowing?” He tugged at his sweat-stained collar, yanking loose his tie and popping the top button. “It’s too fucking hot to snow!” But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t, knew the heat, the hateful worms, were all inside of him, stewing him in his own juices.
He pulled off his suit coat, dropped it to the ground, ripped his shirt open, tearing it off. He should’ve felt relief—it was snowing for Christ’s sake—but still the sweat continued to trickle down his back and underarms, plastering his T-shirt to his chest. He wrestled the soggy undershirt over his head, threw it into a bush, and still the fever burned. He pried off his hard leather shoes, kicked them down the sidewalk. “God, fuck!” he snarled. “Hate those damn shoes!”
The worms squirmed, feeding on his anger, his hate.
Adam began to pant, his lips quivering as a string of drool ran down his chin. God, he just wanted to strip, take it all off, anything to cool down. He unbucked his belt and trousers, started to tug them down and stopped.
“What am I doing? Can’t just take my pants off in the middle of the goddamn city.”
Yes… you can, the other said. It is time to do what you want for a change. Let go, Adam, free yourself. Go on… do it!
“No,” Adam whispered, shaking his head, “I can’t. I won’t.” Then he heard them, the worms. Were they singing? God, yes, they were. They were singing to him… it was beautiful. And suddenly everything the other was telling him started to make sense. Adam slid his pants down, along with his boxers, slid them off one foot, then the other, slinging them into the bushes next to his shirt.
“Ahh,” he moaned, as the cold night air washed over his nakedness. The fever was still there, but now somehow pleasing. Adam swayed back and forth, trembling, his flesh breaking out in goose bumps. He looked down at his shriveled pecker and laughed. And if someone had been watching him, they might’ve noticed a peculiar thing—more peculiar than a pudgy man with a bad combover, wearing only a watch, a ring, and a pair of socks. They would’ve seen a spark in his eye, a tiny flame, not some kind of a reflection, but what looked to be an actual fire burning inside of him.
Now, Adam, let us go. We have work to do.
Adam nodded and picked up the briefcase. That was when he saw his socks were mismatched—one argyle, the other dark green. He grimaced, embarrassed, hoping no one else would notice. The worms sang and slowly, his grimace turned into a grin, a most fierce grin. “Yeah, right? Who cares? Who the fuck cares?” He laughed—a sound like a bark—wiggled his toes, laughed again. “Fuck ’em! Fuck ’em all!”
He trotted up the short steps to the double doors of a synagogue. A slender wooden box hung next to the doors—a mezuzah—containing the Lord’s prayer. Adam pried it off and wedged it between the door handles, effectively barring the door from opening, then headed up the small alleyway to the rear of the old building—the building whose fire codes hadn’t been updated in over sixty years. There, he set the briefcase down next to a small dumpster.
You like to watch things burn, Adam. Do you not?
Adam nodded. “Sure, who doesn’t?”
Then you know what to do.
Adam rolled the dumpster over, blocking the back door. He knelt and opened the briefcase, the smell of gasoline stinging his nose. He pulled out a long kitchen knife, setting it aside, then slid out the four bottles of fuel, each one plugged with a rag. He withdrew a box of matches, removed one and struck it, mesmerized by the flame as it mirrored the fire in his own eyes.
Do it! the other urged.
Adam started to touch the match to the first rag, when a light popped on in the window above him on the second floor. He hesitated, watching as a silhouette crossed the curtain. He knew who it was, would recognize the hunched shape of Rabbi Reuben anywhere. No surprise either, it’s where the rabbi always was, working late into the night on sermons and other community chores, seven days a week, sometimes eight so the joke went. What did surprise Adam was the sudden wash of emotion flooding through him, not more hate and rage, but a soothing, calming feeling. That of… what? Love, he thought. I love this man. He’s like a father to me.
No! the other said, but the other sounded far away now, as did the worms— fading, as though something was smothering them.
“Ouch!” Adam cried, as the flame licked his fingers. He dropped the match, blinked, looking around, confused, wondering what he was doing here. The snow was just beginning to stick and he watched the flakes lighting up as they drifted through the window light.
Burn it down, the voice echoed from some distant realm, just the faintest of whispers now.
Adam’s eyes found the Star of David carved into the stone above the rear door and lingered there. The synagogue was over a hundred years old; the very pillar of this Borough Park Jewish community. Adam glanced down at his sad, cold penis. This was the very place he’d been circumcised, where his two sons had been circumcised, his brothers, his father, perhaps even his grandfather. Adam realized there’d been a lot of Feldstein foreskin shed in this building and knew that had to mean something—had to. “No, no. I don’t want to do it.”
But you do.
“Why would I ever want to do such a thing?”
Because of the ring.
The ring? Adam felt a sudden sting on his middle finger. He held up his left hand, and found a simple gold band attached to a flat coin shape, a primitive eye imprinted on it. “The ring. Of course… the ring.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to clear his mind, everything was so confusing these days. “How could I forget?”
He tried to pull it off, twisting at it, tugging so hard he thought his flesh would tear from the bone, but it clung on, clamping down even harder. He let out a cry. He could see how black and swollen the skin was around it, recalled how he’d tried everything short of cutting off his own finger to remove it.
Remember what he did to you, the other said, growing closer, louder. How he tricked you.
“Trick? No… no trick. It was a loan. I was after another loan. Just enough to float me to the end of the month. Just enough to…” A sudden wave of shame swept over Adam. “Enough to pay off the bookies so they wouldn’t break my legs.” The tears came again as he recalled Rabbi Reuben telling him no more loans until he got help with his gambling, encouraging him to come to counseling, promising the synagogue was always there for him, but he must get help.
Another wave of shame as Adam remembered breaking into the storage room that same night, the one behind Rabbi Reuben’s desk, the forbidden room where they kept the religious relics. He’d heard rumors that there were small treasures in there. “Wasn’t going to steal anything,” he mumbled. “Just after something to pawn… y’know, for the bookies. I planned to give it back to the rabbi come payday. That’s all.” He saw himself pulling a bronze case out of a box. It felt heavy, valuable. “I opened it and… and the ring… the ring… the damn thing jumped on my hand!” Adam stifled a scream as he remembered the pain and terror as it sprouted legs like some kind of spider and clamped down on his finger.
NO! the voice boomed. It was back in his head again. No, that is not what happened. The rabbi has twisted your memories. Look. See the truth!
A new vision came to Adam, blooming before him like some suppressed memory—vivid, undeniable. There, he saw himself in the relic room just as be.fore, only now, the rabbi was with him, a far too generous smile on his face. He was holding the bronze case, beckoning Adam to take it. Told him to open it, that there was money for him inside. Adam did as he was told, it was as though he was powerless to do otherwise and when he opened it, when he opened it—
Adam looked at the ring on his finger, let out a whimper and began to cry. “He tricked me. Rabbi Reuben tricked me. The dirty fucker tricked me.”
The worms began to squirm again, their sweet song filling his head.
Adam snatched up the knife, set it against his finger.
Go on, but it will do no good. You know it. If you want to be free of the ring, free of his curse, you know what you must do.
Adam looked at the bottles of gasoline, his tears mixing with the snow. “But Rabbi Reuben has always been so kind… like a father to everyone.”
It is his guise. He wants your soul. To feed it to his demons. To grow his power. He will not stop with you. Who is next? One of your sons?
“NO!”
He has spells and curses locked away in his treasure room. You must destroy them all. You are the last chance. Burn it down. Burn it all down. Destroy him! Destroy his tools of torment!
Adam knelt, set the knife down, pulled out another match and struck it, lighting the gas-soaked rags. He stood, flaming bottle in hand, glared up at the lighted window above him and then and there, another voice came to him, one he barely recognized, it was him, his own voice—so small. “No!” it tried to scream, but only a whisper escaped. “Lies, the ring is lying to you!”
Adam looked at the synagogue as memories of all the births, bar mitzvahs, marriages, funerals, parties, and other celebrations that had taken place there fought to be seen, heard, felt. So much love, family, friends, neighbors. This building held everything he cared about. His arm began to tremble, then his whole being. “No,” he whimpered. “I won’t.”
A stabbing pain bit Adam’s finger. The ring changed before his eyes, the simple band turning into prickly spider legs again, the coin into an eye—a real eye. It began to pulse, like it had a heartbeat, like it was alive. The legs sprouted claws that dug into his flesh, drawing blood. The eye shifted, glancing about until it found Adam. It glared at him, burning into him as the worms filled his head with their song.
“Oh, God!” Adam cried, no longer caring that his brain was boiling while his toes were freezing, unaware of the drool dripping from his lips, the snot trickling from his numb nose, of the snowflakes building up in his pubic hair, unaware of anything but that eye, that dreadful eye.
Adam threw the bottle.
There came a loud crash as the bottle smashed through the first-floor window into the main hall, followed by the flicker of flames. Adam let out a rapturous howl as the hate—the wonderful, terrible hate—pumped through his body, as the worms sang, as his eyes lit up with fire.
Good! the other cried.
“Good!” Adam echoed, picking up the remaining three firebombs and throw.ing them after the first. A fierce grin stretched across his face as the flames blos.somed and quickly spread through the old building.
Adam heard the rabbi shouting, his cries racing toward the back door. The door hit the dumpster with a thud. “Fire!” the old rabbi screamed, trying to force his way out. “Help me! Fire!”
Thud, thud, thud went the door as the rabbi frantically tried to shove through, each thud driving the door open a breath more, the dumpster back inch by inch.
“Oh no you don’t,” Adam growled and gave the dumpster a hard heave, put.ting all his weight into it, slamming the back door closed.
“Help me!” came the rabbi’s muffled screaming as he pounded on the door, the screams slowly turning into a harsh cough. The pounding stopped and Adam heard a crash, caught sight of the man stumbling through the main hall, heading for the front door.
Adam picked up the long knife and, in his mismatched socks, strolled toward the front of the building. And as the worms sang and his heart drummed with their venom, he found himself hoping the rabbi would escape the inferno, just so he could have the satisfaction of cutting open his throat.
He was almost to the street when Mrs. Rosenfeld, the rabbi’s wife, went rush.ing up the sidewalk as fast as her old legs would carry her. Adam guessed Mrs. Rosenfeld must’ve heard or seen something, that it would’ve been hard not to since she and her husband lived in the apartments just across the street.
“Ah, hell,” Adam grunted and trotted after her. He came out onto the side.walk and found several shocked faces gawking down at him from the balconies and windows. He grinned back, slapping his knife against his bare thigh, unaware that he was cutting himself, that blood was running down his leg.
Sirens wailed in the distance and the worms began to churn. Adam returned his attention to the synagogue.
Mrs. Rosenfeld was struggling to pry the mezuzah loose from the door handles. She shoved it, putting her full weight into it. It gave way just as Adam walked up and both she and the mezuzah tumbled to the ground.
She got to one knee and that’s when she noticed Adam’s socked feet. Her eyes moved up until they were level with his crotch.
“Hello, Mrs. Rosenfeld,” Adam said. She saw the knife and screamed, flailing as she tumbled backward down the steps.
Adam started to tell her to relax, that he was only here to give the rabbi, the dirty trickster, some of what he deserved, when the door burst open and Rabbi Reuben came diving out.
“Holy shit!” Adam cried.
The old man was on fire, his jacket, even his hair. He rolled down the steps, landing right in front of his wife. Mrs. Rosenfeld screamed and began beating the flames, smacking them so savagely Adam thought he might not have to kill the old man after all, that this woman would do it for him.
Adam heard maniacal laughing, realized it was coming from himself.
People were yelling and the sirens were coming closer.
Kill him, the other said. Do it now. Be quick.
Adam tromped down the steps, raising the knife to plunge it into the rabbi’s chest, when Mrs. Rosenfeld shrieked and grabbed his arm. And even though she was old, she put up enough of a fight that Adam had to slice the kitchen knife— the one with the serrated edge—across the old woman’s throat.
A stream of blood spurted from her neck, painting the fresh snow bright red. Mrs. Rosenfeld clutched the gash, trying to stifle the flow, but Adam had proven more than adept, and both her blood and life gushed from the deep wound. Her mouth gaped, opening and closing as an awful gurgling sound sputtered from her lips. Her bulging eyes fixed on Adam, seemed to ask, to beg: Why? Why would you do such a dreadful thing to me? Adam shoved her out of the way and grabbed hold of Rabbi Reuben.
The old man’s coat was still burning and it singed Adam’s hand as he fought to hold the squirming man down. The rabbi wailed, kicking and flopping about; his fried skin peeling away. Adam drove his knee into the old man’s chest, trying to hold him still long enough to plunge the knife into his eye. The first try missed, catching the rabbi’s cheek, slicing it wide open and taking off most of his left ear. The second try wasn’t much better, glancing off the man’s forehead and carving a deep gouge into his scalp. But the third was the charm, going through the eye and deep into Rabbi Reuben’s sad, sorry, wicked brain with a satisfying squish. The worms squealed with delight. Adam enjoyed it so much that he yanked the blade free, then drove it into the rabbi’s other eye.
Adam let out a triumphant laugh. “Take that! Take that, you evil old fuck!” Then abruptly stopped laughing. Something was different, something had changed. What was it? He cocked his head to the left, then right, listening; slowly he understood. It was quiet, not outside, no, outside it was anything but—sirens, roaring flames, people yelling, screaming—but inside was quiet.
The worms, he could no longer hear the worms.
Adam clasped his head. The other, the voice, it was gone too! Oh, thank God, it’s gone! He felt like he’d been released and such a rush of joy washed over him that he wanted to get up and dance. It was then he realized he was on the ground straddling someone—and that he was nude.
“Where are my clothes? It’s snowing for heaven’s sake.” He blinked and the gory face of Rabbi Reuben came into focus; a kitchen knife embedded in his eye. Adam recognized the knife and blinked again. “What? What’s going on?” It came to him in a rush, all of it, no detail spared. He looked from Rabbi Reuben’s body to that of the rabbi’s wife.
“No!” he cried. “No! No!”
He held up his bloody left hand, stared at the hateful ring, the spider thing with the demon eye. It was but a ring again. He snatched hold of the knife with his right hand and without hesitation began to hack at his finger, sawing and chopping, finding out quickly that cutting off one’s own finger wasn’t such an easy task. He kept going, screaming until he sawed right through the bone. His middle finger plopped into the snow.
He stared.
Where was the ring?
He looked at his hand. The ring was on his index finger now.
“What the fuck!” He attacked that finger with the blade, spittle flying from his lips as he sawed away.
He heard the voice. Stop, just stop. You cannot win.
“Fuck you!” Adam shrieked and kept sawing until the digit tore away, falling into the snow next to the first.
“The ring? Where’s the goddamn ring?” He checked the three remaining fingers on his left hand; it wasn’t there.
He felt a sting on his right hand.
No, he thought, closing his eyes, not wanting to look. No. Slowly he opened his eyes and there it was, the ring wrapped tightly around the middle finger of his right hand.
Adam Feldstein, sitting in the snow, astride the simmering body of his rabbi, covered in blood and wearing only a pair of mismatched socks, began to sob uncontrollably.
“Drop the knife!” A cop stood, legs planted wide, his service revolver pointed at him. “Drop it, buddy! Not gonna tell you again!”
His partner, a burly man approaching retirement age, came running up behind him. “Oh, shit! What the fuck we got here?”
“Help me,” Adam cried. “Help me!”
“Drop the knife,” the first cop repeated, despite saying he wouldn’t.
Adam shoved the knife up under his own neck.
“Hold on,” the other cop shouted. “Just hold on a minute.”
Adam slid the knife, the knife he’d used to cut his daughter’s birthday cake, across his own neck. He had a moment to enjoy the warmth of his own blood running down his neck and chest, then fell over on his back, staring up into the billowing smoke as the night faded.
The voice, the other, let out a dispirited sigh, but Adam didn’t hear it. Adam, or at least his soul, his essence, was shrinking, screaming in shock, horror, and confusion as it was being sucked into the ring, through the ring, funneled down into the land of fire and pain.
Excerpted from Evil in Me, copyright © 2024 by Brom
