by David Beers
This one …
The entity just didn’t know.
The other Altars had been intricate, because there’d been time to understand the layout and the tools that would be needed. All the entity could hope for here is that the brutality of the deaths would matter. That the way these people died would please the Master enough to allow it to enter the Vessel across the room. The entity knew the woman was watching, seeing it work, and it liked that. Let her see what the entity was capable of, let her see and fear the Master.
The entity knelt over the two bodies. The woman’s skin was stretched taut over the man’s head, burying him inside it. The entity had found a NAIL GUN in the warehouse, realizing that was a stroke of luck. It used the instrument to pin the flesh down, holding it in place, and the man inside.
The entity stood up. It was soaked in blood, dried flecks falling from its hands. It stared down at the man, seeing his back moving up and down, shallow but there all the same. That’s what the entity had wanted, this exact situation. It did lack the beauty of the other Altars, and that would not please the Master … but, the suffering … the man dying inside the body of another human being, slowly suffocating. That would be pleasing. Him inhaling her flesh, her blood, until his lungs filled with it and could no longer find the oxygen necessary to sustain life.
Then, when that suffocation came, the entity would be allowed entrance into the Vessel.
It stood, watching the man die beneath him. Legs, arms, and back shattered … Now his lungs would give out. Death would come and the entity could spread. Shortly. An hour at most.
Chapter Nineteen
“What is it?” Abel asked. “What has her?”
He was speaking to the dead man in the front of the car, the one wearing the suit. Lichen was still driving, but Abel wasn’t concerned with what he might hear. As long as the man kept driving, that was all Abel needed from him at the moment. Right now, Abel had to understand what they were heading toward.
“Are you listening?” Abel said when the suited man didn’t answer.
“I hear you, boy,” he said, the disrespectful term sounding even more so in his European accent. “I just don’t want to converse with you.”
“You don’t seem to have any problem doing that when I dream. None of you do. So what’s the problem with now?”
“That is your penance, what we are owed. That and this are two very, very different things, even if you cannot understand it.”
“Either way,” Abel said, “If you want me to go to my mother after this, then Emi has to live. She’s not going to live if I don’t know what I’m facing.”
“Are you …,” Lichen said, interrupting Abel’s conversation. He trailed off, his eyes not leaving the road ahead of him. “Are you really thinking you’re talking to someone?”
“Tell the police officer to get off on this connecting highway,” the suited man said.
“Far right or veer left?” Abel asked.
“Far right.”
Abel looked in the rear view. “You’re going to take the far right lane here, get off on this freeway.”
Lichen put on his blinker and moved across the road; the traffic was almost non-existent this early in the morning. “Answer my question. Do you really think you’re talking to someone?”
Abel’s eyes remained on the rearview mirror. “Yes. I am.”
Lichen only shook his head, but remained quiet.
Abel turned back to the dead man. “You have to answer me. You have to tell me what we’re heading into.”
“Boy, do I look like the universe’s keeper? Do I look like God? I do not know all that He created, nor the different realms that exist outside of this one and the one your ancestor cursed me to.”
“You know more than I do,” Abel said. This courage, the ability to speak in such a fashion to this man—he didn’t know where it was coming from. For years he’d lived in fear of these people, but now he was talking to them as if they didn’t matter at all. As if they hadn’t killed his family. “I don’t know anything about this thing, but you do, and so you have to tell me.”
The dead man sighed, perhaps realizing that not telling him would sentence Abel to death. Abel knew, without a doubt, that the suited man didn’t want him dying at someone else’s hands. The dead wanted him for themselves. It was, as the dead man said, what they were owed.
“Ask the officer next to me if he believes in the Devil,” the suited man said.
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
Abel looked at Lichen. “He wants to know if you believe in the Devil?”
Lichen raised his eyebrows, looking as if he could not possibly disbelieve this situation any more than he currently did. “You’re kidding.”
“Just answer the question,” Abel said, almost snapping at the agent. There wasn’t time for any of this bullshit, not for the dead man’s questions or Lichen’s. They were going to be there soon, and when they arrived, there wouldn’t be room to strategize or plan. To understand what they were facing.
“No,” Lichen said. He glanced at Abel, his own eyes hard and unreadable.
Abel didn’t care. Back to the dead man. “There, now tell me.”
“That is the problem, from what I can tell with you and your family, with this America. You all have moved so far away from God that you no longer even believe the Devil exists. It is not enough that you have lost sight of God, but you have also lost sight of the Dark One.”
“So, we’re going to see the Devil?”
“The Devil?” the dead man asked, chuckling as he did. “No, silly boy. The Devil would not come up from hell to fool around with the likes of your friend or the man who is tormenting her now. Even your great-grandfather, with all his evil deeds, does not take up even a line on the Devil’s to-do list.”
“Then what is it?” Abel asked, his voice almost pleading. Begging to get anything useful out of this ghost.
“It is a lesser demon, I would imagine. I cannot say for certain,” he spoke the words nonchalantly, as if there was nothing that mattered less to him. “Our realm does not intersect with those types of things; but if you are asking me what I think, then I imagine the creature used the first man to cross over.”
“How?” Abel asked.
“I do not know, boy. I am not the Lord God, nor will I pretend to be. Perhaps someone like yourself … What do you call it? ‘Rubbed off’, yes that is it. Perhaps someone like you ‘rubbed off’ on him, and that created the opening. Maybe the man’s constitution is weak, naturally prone to evil deeds. Maybe I am wrong and the Devil himself picked him. Or maybe it just happened. One thing you American born seem to think is that everything must have a reason. What those in the camps quickly came to understand is that there is very little reason in this world. There was no reason for my wife and two daughters to die in such horrible fashions. No reason that I should not have died with them. No reason that I lived another four years under your great-grandfather’s mad reign, enduring hardships you cannot possibly imagine, boy. So do not ask me how and why. There does not need be a how and why for awful things to happen.”
Abel was quiet, but only for a few moments. The dead man’s words might have been true, or they might only have been meant to injure, but Abel didn’t care either way.
“How do we kill it?”
Lichen’s eyes looked in the rearview at that question, and Abel had to remind himself that he was only hearing one side of this.
“I imagine once the person it inhabits dies, it will either die or go back to its original realm.”
“How do we kill the person?”
“There are many ways for that, are there not, boy?” the dead man asked.
“But he’ll die like me, or like the man next to you? He can be killed like us?”
Again, Lichen’s eyes flashed into the rearview. Abel paid him no mind.
“I can promise you, the man will not die like you. You will die in a very, very different way, though I don’t th
ink that’s what you are asking. But yes, he will die the same as the law enforcement officer. The demon has not changed all of the man’s physicality. The human body will still only withstand so much damage.”
And then the next question was obvious.
“What happens if it gets inside of Emi first? Inhabits her?”
“Then, boy, we have both failed, though I do not care as much as my colleagues. A gentile dying, one who associates with the likes of you, is not on my greatest list of concerns.”
Abel nodded and looked in the rearview.
“Ready to tell me what your friend said?” Lichen asked.
Abel quickly ran through everything he knew, trying to decide if he was ready to talk yet. “Wait,” he said, as one more thing occurred to him.
He turned to the dead man. “How will it enter her, and how will we know if it’s inside of her?”
“All these questions, boy, as if I have unlimited answers. Perhaps the Lord is still cursing me, saddling me with you even after all these years of torture. If I was forced to guess, I would say the demon will enter through her mouth. Perhaps using the breath, or perhaps some other way. I do not know. And when it is inside of her?”
The man grew quiet for a second.
“You will know, boy. You will know as well as anyone.”
Abel stared at the back of the seat for a moment, letting the words sink in. Abel would know, he realized. He knew the dead better than anyone else on Earth.
He looked at the rearview mirror, discarding those thoughts. Focus mattered now, all the rest could be dealt with later.
“How much do you want to know?” Abel asked. “I mean, how much are you going to be able to hear before losing it?”
“Tell me what you think you heard,” the agent said. “I’ll decide what’s useful.”
The same as Abel was doing with the dead man. Fine.
“It’s a demon, and it’s trying to get inside of Emi. It’s inside the other guy already, and it wants to get in Emi too. That’s why it has her.”
“Why hasn’t it gotten into her already?” Lichen asked.
Is this how the dead man feels? These useless questions? Abel asked himself, yet let nothing sarcastic spring from his mouth.
“I don’t know, but it’s going to soon. If it gets inside of her, we’re too late. There’s nothing we can do at that point.”
Lichen didn’t move at all and was quiet for a few moments. He finally said, “So basically, you don’t know anything. Basically, you’ve been talking to yourself for the past 15 minutes.” He sounded like he was actually talking to himself, not caring if Abel heard him at all.
“Just listen to me. The man, the guy who took her, you have to kill him immediately. If he dies, this all ends, as long as he hasn’t spread to her yet. Does that make sense?”
“Kill the bad guy. Check,” Lichen said with the same disinterested voice.
Abel looked back at the suited guy, trying to delineate who he was speaking to with his eyes. “He’s not caring.”
“That is your business, boy. I have done my part here. More than I wanted.”
Abel ignored him. “If it gets inside her, can it spread to him?”
With that question, the dead man looked over. He seemed to be considering the agent.
“Maybe … Yes, maybe it can. You have barely known him, but everything that is happening right now, including me sitting next to him, might create an opening for the demon. You really do an amazing job at damaging those around you, boy.”
The dead man looked to the road ahead.
“Listen,” Abel said, putting his attention back on Lichen. “You have to let me come inside with you. She’s in a building and I have to go in.”
The agent said nothing, acting as if he didn’t hear Abel at all.
“You’re not going to be able to tell if it’s her or not, Lichen. You’re not going to be able to tell if she’s possessed.”
Nothing—the man simply stared forward.
“Are you listening?”
“Just tell me where to go,” the agent whispered. “That’s all I need out of you. If we get there, and she’s there, great. If not, you’re being arrested for obstruction for real this time. Either way, you’re not getting out of this car.”
Chapter Twenty
The entity watched the man take his last breath. It hadn’t moved since starting its dark vigil, only blinking from time to time. It did not grow bored as the minutes passed, but watched with the patience of an animal waiting for its owner to return. The entity would wait forever if need be. The Master’s will be done, amen.
Finally, though, the man expired.
The entity bent down and took each of the two peoples’ left hands. It interlocked them and then stepped over to the other side, doing the same with their right.
Death, one inside another. One body killing the second. The opposite of life, of birth.
The Altar was complete and the entity looked up in the air, wondering if it would still sense the woman. It didn’t.
The entity turned to the physical Vessel, the actual body.
The woman was staring back at him, propping herself up on her arms. She was slowly dragging herself away, as if she would be able to slink out of here without being noticed.
“Oh, yes. Oh yes, the Master is pleased,” the entity said, its strange voice rolling across the space between them. “The Master is very pleased.”
It stepped over the dead bodies once more and started toward the woman.
Emi no longer saw the dead. She no longer sat at the top of the building, hovering invisibly above all. She’d seen the man’s chest stop moving up and down, remaining completely still … and then her eyes had opened. Before, her mind had been frozen with terror, but the moment she found herself in her body, the thaw melted ferociously.
She stared straight up at the ceiling, pain alight in her leg. Pain so bright that Emi thought she might vomit.
No, she thought. No, you get some goddamn control of yourself right now. You get some fucking control, or you’re dead.
She swallowed hard, forcing down the bile threatening to spew, then slowly sat up.
The creature was bent over, doing something with the dead people’s hands. Emi made no noise, hoping that it would … Well, that it wouldn’t look over.
She started pushing herself backwards, seeing her shattered leg drag in front of her. The pain sung in her head like some horrid choir, but she shoved it down just like she had her need to vomit.
Go, she thought. Go before it looks up.
And as if hearing her thoughts, it first turned to the ceiling, but its eyes only scanned the area before falling down to her.
“Oh, yes. Oh yes, the Master is pleased … The Master is very pleased.”
The creature started forward, hesitating no more. Emi moved, using her arms to flip her onto her stomach and pushed in earnest. Her leg shrieked inside her mind, commanding that she stop this madness, but her arms kept propelling her forward.
She grunted heavily, not looking back, knowing such energy would only be wasted.
Yet, Emi also knew there was no escape. The creature behind her was coming, walking through the dead people she could no longer see and going to reach her regardless of how fast her arms moved her.
She made it about five feet, and then felt the creature grab her hair. It pulled up and Emi screamed, her voice echoing high off the ceiling.
The creature flipped her over, releasing her as she landed hard on her back. The wind rushed from her lungs; Emi immediately sucked in, but found no air. That momentary feeling of suffocating, but the pain and terror no longer dulled Emi’s mind—they sharpened it, and her hands started moving again.
None of it mattered. The creature stood over her, walking slowly while she used every bit of her energy to escape. She didn’t look up at it, but simply turned again onto her stomach and crawled. She saw its feet, though, moving in sync with her.
After a few more moments of
its slow stalking, it reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder. Emi felt the strength, a raw brutishness that had never existed before. It flipped her again, easily, as if she hardly existed at all.
This time it didn’t give her a chance to turn over. It knelt down, one leg on either side. It still wore Demsworth’s body, his face a dark mess of dried blood. Emi reached up, doing her best to rip at the thing’s eyes.
It batted her arms away, and Emi’s left elbow dislocated with the swat. More pain, bright and nauseating, but still she didn’t quit. Her right arm went back up immediately, yet the creature simply swatted at it again, and then there was nothing separating it from her.
The creature came forward, leaning down on her as if it meant to kiss her, and Emi tried once more to push it off, but its weight felt like a compression machine. Absolutely unstoppable.
And then those blood stained lips were on hers, forcing her mouth open, and its wet tongue shoved into her mouth.
Emi screamed, the noise not escaping the freakish kiss.
The creature breathed out and Emi felt a cold, cold rush descend into her lungs. Ice filled her; ice that would kill the sun’s own flame if the two ever met.
It filled Emi and then she felt nothing but that cold.
Chapter Twenty-One
“That’s it,” Abel said, pointing to a dark building. He glanced at the clock in the dashboard. It’d taken them an hour to get here.
Lichen killed the headlights. The industrial park was abandoned, large hulking buildings surrounding them. Empty things that had once known life but now only knew loneliness.
“The one at the end?” Lichen asked, turning the ignition off.
“Yes,” Abel said.
The dead man sat silently in the front, saying nothing to either of them.
Lichen turned around and looked at Abel. “If I go in there, and she’s not there, I’m going to come out here and shoot you in the fucking head. I want you to understand that clearly. I know you’re nuts. I know you probably can’t help any of the shit you’re saying, but if you’ve lied to me, you’re going to die. I’ll make up something, plant some evidence, I don’t really care, but you’re going to die. Do you understand?”