by Con Template
“Oh my God!”
“What the hell?”
“Holy crap!”
Students who were seated at the study tables ran to the area of the crime. In synchronization, their widened eyes laid on the carnage. A myriad of books laid on one another, shrouding the carpet in disarray. Their eyes skimmed over the gigantic shelves piled on top of the other, the dust that clouded the air, and finally, in perfect harmony, all eyes in the library landed on me.
Standing on the ladder, trembling with a book that I was about to categorize onto the shelf, my own eyes were wide with shock and disbelief.
“Grace!” Ara shouted, running in from the circulation desk in her black dress. Her eyes expanded at the catastrophe before her. She looked up at me, floored by the mayhem. “Grace! What the hell happened?”
I could feel the silence and accusatory stares rest upon me and my answer.
In desperation, I muttered the only thing that came to my congested mind at that humiliating and fucked up moment.
“I-I sneezed.”
“You were never created to survive against him.”
0 8: To Vanquish a Demon
“Someone help! There’s a Demon after me!”
After roughly five hours of all the library employees working together to clean up the mess I created (or more like the mess Eclipse created), I had never wanted to scream out a string of words more in my entire life. Every time my coworkers gave me death glares, I wanted to scream out, “You don’t understand! It’s not me. It’s Eclipse. It’s the Demon of Lust. He caused this mess. He’s after me!”
Eclipse’s hasty departure made complete sense to me now. He didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of a woman’s scorn, and let me tell you, I was pissed off. I wanted to get rid of him. This was what was running through my mind when work was over. I bid a swift goodbye to Ara, dashed off campus in hysteria, and ran into a cathedral shrieking what I wanted to say in the library.
“Someone help! There’s a Demon after me!”
A small bout of relief soothed me as soon as I stepped in the cathedral. I felt better screaming my message out in the cathedral because it was the only safe place for me to be. My momentary relief abruptly ended when I realized that I had barged into the cathedral with a soon-to-be bride and groom in the middle of their wedding rehearsal.
With my hair drenched from rain, my clothes cloaked with remnants of mud, and my eyes as wide as saucers, I stared back at the bride and groom standing at the altar. Their eyes were large with shock while their friends and family gaped at me in the same horror. Though I hadn’t interrupted an actual wedding, I still felt crappy. Surely the memory of some psycho running into your wedding rehearsal, looking like she could shoot everyone at any given moment, wasn’t something you wanted to relive when you recounted your wedding memories.
Good going, Grace, I thought scathingly.
I contemplated suicide by bashing my head against the pews. I was mortified. I thought about the embarrassment I went through today, and I wanted nothing more than to run outside, sit down in a puddle, and throw a tantrum like a spoiled child. I simply wanted my horrible luck to end. Fortunately, before one of those ridiculous options became a feasible choice, I caught sight of a lurking Father.
He popped out of the corner and approached me with a fearful expression on his face. His apprehensive and shaky demeanor told me that he must have been a rookie—a newbie Priest. He was not fully equipped to be dealing with a crazy person while in the presence of so many witnesses.
“What’s wrong? What was that you screamed out?” he asked gently, herding me away from the main cathedral. He took me to the back and spoke to me in the hallway.
I thought about telling him, “Father, please help me! An insanely gorgeous Demon is after my soul and making me accident-prone while giving me bad grades in the process!” I vetoed that idea because of the idiocy in that sentence alone.
In lieu of that, I said, “Father! I am a religiously curious agnostic who is looking to find salvation in a house of worship. I was wondering if you could give me a Bible and holy water to start off my spiritual exploration.”
Eager to kick me out because I frightened the bride and groom (and I imagined him as well), the Priest quickly gave me what I needed. I gave him a bow of gratitude and was off in a flash, sloshing through the ravenous rain with a Bible and a bottle of holy water in hand.
After a refreshing shower, I immediately got dressed and went online to research all the possible ways to ward off a Demon. I took notes on all the commonly used methods to get rid of a Demon and rushed to a local store. I purchased the supplies I needed: two big packs of salt and a six-inch wooden cross. Some of the online tipsters stated that throwing holy water and reading scriptures from the Bible should do the trick. If that didn’t work, they also suggested that I hammer a big cross on my door to prevent Demons from coming in. To be safe, in case I was dealing with an incredibly powerful Demon—which I was—they also suggested that I stand inside a big salt circle to further protect myself. It all sounded ridiculous, but I was extremely desperate. I would have stood on one leg with a finger up my nose and hopped for hours on end if it meant that would get rid of the Demon.
After hammering the cross over my “999” apartment number, I ran back into my living room. With my black heels clacking about, I moved the sofas to one corner in order to form a big circle of salt around myself. I held the Bible and bottle of holy water in my hands and waited inside my protective salt circle. My eyes shifted all around my bright but eerily quiet apartment. Anxiety plagued me as my heart raced without signs of slowing down. I was deathly nervous. I really hoped Eclipse would appear soon so I could vanquish him and get on with my life. I still had homework and studying to do!
After roughly fifteen minutes of waiting, I started to become restless. My scraped up knees were beginning to ache and I was becoming more and more anxious about completing my schoolwork. I decided to step out of the circle with the intention of grabbing my books and doing some homework while I waited for Eclipse’s arrival. I barely made it out of the salt formation when the Demon materialized right before my eyes.
“Oh my flyin—!”
I gasped at his sudden appearance and hopped back over the salt circle. Once inside, I gave him my most ferocious scowl.
One of his hands was tucked in his pocket while the other was holding his cigarette. Curiosity marked his features as he evaluated me and my salt circle. His cool brown eyes trailed from my Bible, to the bottle of holy water in my grasp, and then back to me again.
“If I didn’t know better,” he voiced lazily, walking around the salt circle with ease. He never once touched the salt and he never once attempted to cross over it. “I’d think you’ve just declared war against me, Gracie.”
There was amusement in his velvety smooth voice. I would go as far as saying that he thought it was cute that I was trying to vanquish him.
Bastard.
I’ll show him cute.
“Stay back, Demon!” I shouted dramatically, trying to steady my quivering lips every time he stepped closer to the salt. He never once touched it, but he was still too dangerously close for comfort. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’ve forced my hand with all those things you did to me today.” I held the Bible and holy water tight in my grasp. “Now I will give you one more chance to leave me alone or else I’ll have no choice but to hurt you.”
“You do realize,” he stated randomly, his attention focused on the salt and not on me, “that you’re going to have a hard time getting all that salt out of the carpet, don’t you?”
“That . . . that’s what vacuums are for,” I answered distractedly, not expecting him to bring up the cleanliness issue of attempting to vanquish him. I was thrown for a moment before I got back on topic. “N-now just stay back! Just stay away from me.”
“You don’t have a vacuum, Gracie.”
My God, could this Demon make this vanquishing attempt anymore awkward?
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“That’s a problem that can easily be resolved,” I replied awkwardly. “I will promptly purchase one after this is all over.”
He tilted his head at me. A sliver of hurt penetrated his once cool eyes. “You really have the heart to vanquish me?”
He was looking at me like I was the one who wronged him, like he couldn’t believe how hurtful I was being to him.
“You’re torturing me!” I retorted, outraged that he was acting so innocent.
“I gave you an F, made you a bit clumsy, and allowed some mud to splash all over you,” he amended, speaking to me as if I was an overdramatic drama queen, “and for that, you want to vanquish me?”
“You . . . you will not guilt me into feeling bad,” I responded clumsily. Hastily, I added, “Your existence itself is a sin. I’ll be doing everyone a favor if I got rid of you.”
His entertained chuckle filtered in the air. “The irony of this conversation is too funny to not laugh at.”
“Seriously, please stay away from me, Eclipse,” I implored, trying to steady my voice. The truth was that I really didn’t want to vanquish him. I only wanted to be left alone; I only wanted my life to be normal again. “Please? Can you please go bother someone else? I promise I’ll let you live if you leave me alone.”
He shook his head. This time, his eyes pulsed with conviction.
“That’s not possible, Gracie.” His tone was firm and unyielding. “I don’t want anyone else but you. Since we’ve reached this bridge, either you vanquish me or you deal with me because I’m not giving up on you.”
Then without notice, he stepped over the salt formation.
Oh shit!
I went into panic mode because he wasn’t supposed to be able to come near me when I was attempting to vanquish him!
Shit! Shit! Shit!
“Get away from me!”
Freaking out, my mind went into overdrive. I did the first instinctive thing I could think of to stop him in his tracks: I splashed the holy water at him.
To my horror, when the water hit his face, it did not start burning his skin like acid. The droplets of water dripped normally down his face, doing absolutely no harm to him. This sight in itself didn’t cause the paranoia to give way inside of me. On the contrary, it was the sight of Eclipse’s heavily irritated face that scared the hell out of me.
With rivulets of holy water dripping from his face, Eclipse spat out the holy water that had gotten into his mouth. He groaned to himself about how his favorite shirt had gotten wet and how bad the water tasted. It was clear that he did not appreciate me drenching him, and it was very clear that I had not only managed to annoy a Demon, but I also managed to piss one off in the process.
“That,” he snarled, his eyes turning ferocious as he shook the holy water off his hands, “was a big mistake, Gracie.”
A low, angry growl emitted from the depths of his chest. He furiously wiped the water from his face, splashing it onto my apartment floor. Without another word, he advanced towards me in the manner a lion would when it was ready to kill its prey.
My terrified eyes expanded.
Holy crap, holy crap! He was going to kill me!
I had no idea what to do. The cross didn’t keep him out, the circle of salt failed to keep him away from me, and the holy water did little to dissuade him from coming after me. If anything, it only managed to piss him off more.
Appalled by the dilemma I found myself in, my mind started to curse at all the stupid internet instructions that did not even remotely assist in helping me vanquish the damn Demon.
Freaking delusional internet liars!
My mind was spinning. I was scared shitless when I turned to my Bible for help. The sucky thing about my last course of action was that I didn’t know what to do with the Bible!
I realized in my state of frenzy that I had no idea what verses to read in order to vanquish a Demon. My eyes couldn’t focus on the small print because I was freaking out that the murderous Demon was getting closer and closer to me! Panicking because the overwhelming fear had somehow made me illiterate, I decided to take advantage of the Bible’s thickness and hurled the holy book at the Demon.
I followed up that idiotic move by throwing what was left of the holy water at him and screaming out the only thing I could think of: “The power of Christ compels you!”
“Bloody hel—!”
The Bible knocked against Eclipse’s forehead with a loud thud, earning a round of curses from the Demon before the remainder of the holy water grazed his face again.
“Ah, damn it!” Eclipse groaned. “I’ve always hated how needlessly fat those Bibles are!”
Eclipse rubbed his forehead as the Bible fell to the salt-covered ground. After muttering another growl, he locked his irate eyes on me. “You’re going to pay for this, Gracie.”
I cowered away and whimpered my surrender. I was about to cover my eyes to prepare for death when something odd happened. Eclipse was a breath away from grabbing me when his once fierce face contorted in unexpected pain.
Huh?
All of a sudden, the once harmless rivulets of water that adorned his face started sizzling relentlessly. Unable to withstand the pain, Eclipse abruptly collapsed to the floor. Groans of agony saturated the room as he crouched over the salt formation, clutching his head.
“Augggh!”
I covered my mouth and stared in shock.
What . . . was happening?
The scent of sulfur and burning flesh filled my nose. Seconds later, countless strings of smoke began to rise from Eclipse’s shaking body. Every part of him that was drenched with holy water began to sizzle like acid on his flesh.
“Ahhhh!”
The tortured scream that emitted from Eclipse was the single most horrible thing I had ever heard. It was so agonizing that I felt my own body tremble in pain; it was so powerful by nature that his roar alone caused the entire apartment to quake violently.
Boom!
The impact of the quake nearly knocked me over before I grounded my feet to the floor. With my heart beating out of my chest, I continued to stare at Eclipse, who was still groaning in excruciating pain. The louder he screamed, the more powerful the tremors overtaking the apartment became. It felt as though the entire world beneath us could feel his pain and was outraged by this abomination.
Bam!
If the earthquake-like effects consuming my apartment weren’t terrifying enough, at that exact point in time, the windows to my apartment burst open on their own accord. The storm of the night torpedoed into my living room with unmatched force. The powerful gust ravaged my apartment, blowing papers, salt, and a slew of other objects around like we were in the midst of a tornado.
“Ahhh!”
My screams were muffled after I covered my face to protect myself against the windstorm. Through the gaps between my fingers, I peeked out at Eclipse.
He laid at the epicenter of all this pandemonium.
He continued to shake and groan in agony. It was so horrible, so heart-wrenching to hear. I normally enjoyed other people’s miseries, but I did not enjoy his. I hated listening to Eclipse scream in absolute agony. I do not want him to be in pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to cover my ears to block out his horrible screams. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, his pained groans ceased and abrupt silence spread throughout the room.
Bewilderment clutched me.
What was happening?
I slowly opened my eyes. I gazed at the area where Eclipse had been crouching. My eyes enlarged when I discovered that Eclipse was no longer there.
My confused eyes surveyed the living room. Although the windows remained open, the violent wind was no longer thrashing, the ground had stopped shaking, and the room was no longer filled with screams. The chaos had left with Eclipse.
I slowly unveiled my face from my hands. My stunned gaze swept over the carnage-infested living room.
Oh my flying pig. What the hell just happened?
I placed
a hand over my trembling heart. It took me a while to calm myself down. Once the shock passed, I belatedly grasped something groundbreaking: I had won.
I had successfully vanquished a Demon.
I didn’t even understand what I had done to successfully win this battle. My only thought was that it worked.
It worked! I got rid of the Demon!
I was so deliriously happy that I couldn’t help but play with the thought that I could perhaps make a profitable living out of this. Grace Hwang, the Demon Slayer! I was ready to cheer in glory and fantasize about the possibility of my own TV show. It wasn’t until I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist that I froze. The strong arms pulled me back against a hard awaiting chest. Seconds later, I felt a pair of familiar lips glide along my right ear, biting it teasingly while sending shivers of pleasure up my spine.
“Do I get a treat for that award-worthy performance?” the familiar sexy voice purred, skillfully nibbling on my ear, nearly causing me to faint from all the pleasure.
I wanted to cry when I processed that I was back in the arms of the spawn of Satan.
Eclipse was back.
“Y-you’re supposed to be vanquished!” I cried stupidly, fighting to get out of his grasp. My efforts were futile because he only held on tighter, nearly driving me crazy with his lips on my ear. “Stop it! Let go!”
With a warm chuckle, Eclipse showed me mercy by pulling his tempting lips away and loosening his grip. He allowed me to pull free, but he did not let me get far. With every retreating step I took from him, he would follow me with his own step of advancement. The cat and mouse game came to an end when I crashed into a wall.
My escape plan foiled, I glared at him in disbelief. My mind was whirling in mystification. “How could the holy water not work? I got it from the church!”
“Holy water, Bible verses, and crosses,” Eclipse began nonchalantly, his body moving closer and closer to me, “as uncomfortable and uneasy as they make me, are not enough to affect a Demon of my caliber.” He gifted me with a smile that was shrouded with wicked sensuality. He further backed me into the wall, casually crowding me with his hot and tempting body. “You would need more powerful things to affect me.”