by P. K. Tyler
Zeph approached but didn’t touch her. “I don’t think you should be alone right now. For whatever reason, demons have targeted us.”
She chewed her lower lip in a nervous gesture he hadn’t seen since they were kids. It reminded him that she was still his little sister. This was an awful lot to deal with for anyone and, in so many ways, she was still a kid.
“Do you have a better idea?” She looked up at him, a rare moment of vulnerability broke through her hard exterior.
“You could stay here again.”
Adel shivered and Zeph thought about reaching out to comfort her, hating how deeply this had affected her. He never meant to cause her pain. The last thing he would ever do is hurt her the way their father had.
“Okay. Yeah, I can do that.”
Zeph escorted his sister into the hall, leaving Nik behind in his office. “Adel, are you really all right? I’m so sorry.”
She waved a hand in front of his face. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t think, I mean, none of us were in our right mind, so it’s not worth dwelling on.”
“If you’re sure.” Zeph stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall, looking his sister over.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, head down. She didn’t look at him again before turning and walking away.
Zeph watched until she turned down the hall toward the nuns’ rooms. He worried but knew how difficult initiation into the world of Demons and Sin Eaters could be. Adel was strong, but the reality of monsters lurking in the shadows could shake anyone. At least she had agreed to stay here tonight. Even if evil could get inside the church, he’d worry less knowing she was nearby.
Back in his main office, he found Nik standing next to the bookshelf near the couch, leafing through one of the many books lining the walls of Zeph’s office. His friend had his back to the door and either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Zeph had returned.
Zeph took a moment to take in his appearance. He hadn’t allowed himself the luxury in so long. Nik stood taller than him by a few inches, but he wasn’t the skinny beanpole he’d been when they were teenagers. His shoulders had filled out and his body hardened. So many years of fighting. So many years of saving people from things they never knew about. So many years of no one ever thanking him for his sacrifice.
Zeph remembered the feeling of Nik’s body above him at the club, the fury he’d seen in his eyes. Nik hadn’t been angry, he’d been jealous and hurt. Zeph hated that he’d hurt him, but a small, very weak part of him was glad. He felt that way every time Nik mentioned dating someone usually long after he had ended things. Jealousy weighed him down and sent him to confession more than any other sin.
Zeph knew he could have him whenever he wanted. It’s not like Nik was one to pretend he didn’t still feel that way. But to see the desire on Nik’s face had sent a fire through him that had nothing to do with the demon within him, and everything to do with the love he felt for his best friend.
“What’d you find?” Zeph asked.
Nik looked over his shoulder, his long hair hanging in his face. The sight of him took Zeph’s breath away, he was so handsome and open. All Zeph had to do was take the love Nik offered him. But he couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to. He couldn’t reach out and take Nik’s face in his hands and trace the lines of his beauty. None of it was possible. This was his sacrifice.
“Nothing important.” Nik set the book on the desk and leaned against it.
“How was Vai?”
“Fine. She’s taking me to meet her people tomorrow. The phuri dai, some woman she calls ‘Ma’, wants to talk to me.”
Zeph felt a surge of jealousy at being excluded. For a moment, he imagined Nik with Vai and her family, laughing and comfortable. The idea weighed down on him like he was Atlas. He was, in a way. He held up the world so Nik could save it.
“What are you thinking about?” Nik stepped closer, his fingers resting lightly on the desk.
Zeph shook his head, trying to dislodge his sadness. “Just trying to figure out what happened to me. If that was a demon and it can get to me here, no one is safe. Maybe not even you.”
“You said you could see everything that happened, and feel it?”
Zeph nodded but kept his eyes on the space between them.
“You could feel me?” Nik stepped closer.
“Don’t,” Zeph whispered.
“Zeph, it’s killing me.” He stood so close Zeph could feel his breath on his face.
“Priest, remember?” Zeph tried to joke, looking up, but the open emotion in Nik’s eyes sucker-punched him in the gut. “Nik. Don’t.”
“Was it just the demon?” Nik reached out and placed a strong hand on Zeph’s bicep. An innocent touch that didn’t have to mean anything, the kind of thing they’d learned to bear, but tonight it took on so much meaning it burned.
“I can’t.”
“Just tell me. Was it just the demon? I know you wouldn’t have gone to that club on your own, I know that wasn’t you dancing, but with me. Was it just the demon?”
Zeph stepped away, pulling out of Nik’s touch. It felt like ripping his own heart out of his chest, but he had no choice. “You should go home. Get some sleep before your trip.”
“How do you do it?” Nik’s eyes narrowed as he scanned Zeph’s face. “How do you lie to me, to yourself, to your God? How do you keep doing it?”
“I have no choice. You should go.”
“Fine,” Nik’s eyes filled with unshed tears, “fine, I’ll go.”
Nik stepped closer on his way out and leaned in so close, his lips brushed the stubble on Zeph’s cheek. “Just don’t think you’re fooling me. I know you’re a liar,” he took a deep breath and whispered, “but I love you anyway.”
Nik walked out of the office just as the tears began to fall from Zeph’s eyes.
“I have no choice,” he whispered into the darkness.
EPISODE FOUR
Chapter One
Adel walked through the hall, leaving her brother behind to deal with Nik, demons, and all the rest of the chaos that had suddenly crashed down around her. She looked at her nails and picked something dried and crusty from underneath her chipped manicure. When had she ever done anything manual with her hands? A vague memory of a woman holding her hands out in defense rose in her mind and her stomach churned.
She needed to lay down.
Exhaustion made her mind wander, and when was the last time she ate?
She approached the hall with her room from the night before.
Lover...
A voice whispered in her mind, drawing her attention further down the dark hall to a familiar door. A rush of warmth pooled between her legs as she pushed it open.
Inside, a nun sat on the edge of her bed. Her long skirt and dark top kept her in the shadow, but without her veil she looked so young and vulnerable. For a moment, an image of the same woman sitting naked, a smile on her lips and an inviting light in her eye, superimposed over the stately nun.
"Come in, Adel," the nun said without inflection.
Adel moved automatically. Her body seemed to be moving through thick sludge and her senses dulled the closer she came to the nun.
"Sit."
Sit, another voice murmured in her head.
She approached the bed and perched on the edge next to the nun. A small bundle rested in her arms.
Your baby.
"My baby?" Adel asked, tears prickling in her eyes as she remembered holding the little girl to her breast. Confusion swirled in her mind. She'd never been pregnant, never had a daughter, but the image seared her soul.
"Yes." The nun passed the bundle to her.
She wrapped her arms around it and uncovered the tiny body lying limp against her chest. Uncovering the baby revealed purplish blue skin and a rigid body. Bile rose in Adel's throat. Vomit surged up her esophagus as she bit back a scream. Her arms shook, but before she dropped the macabre bundle, a dark, soothing voice filled h
er mind.
Adel... This is your future, your peace.
"No..." she shook her head to dislodge the darkness.
Yes, we are meant to be. You and I, together as one. I will give you everything you ever dreamed of.
Adel looked down at the baby in her arms and, instead of dropping it, pulled it close against her. Tears broke free from her eyes and the nun wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder.
In a flat voice, Sister Delphina said, "Call him."
Asmodeous. It floated through her mind like a lover's whisper.
Asmodeous.
Asmodeous.
"Asmodeous," she cooed in rhythm with the voice.
She rocked the baby in her arms as she chanted. Sister Delphina held her in a gentle embrace as she cried. As she looked at the baby, a black film began to coat it's skin, covering the inanimate body. The black swept up Adel's skin, coiling around her arms.
The sight frightened her, but the voice and Delphina's touch soothed her. The fluid spreading across her skin thickened, seeping into her pores. It's warmth radiated through her body, filling her with a sense of peace and completion she'd never known before.
"I remember you."
We are meant to be together.
"Don't leave me. Never leave me again like that."
I won't. I love you Adel. I love you and our child. I need you to help me bring that love into the world, to herald in a new era where everyone can know the peace you feel now. Will you help me?
"What do you need me to do?"
Only to love me.
Adel opened her heart to the voice of Asmodeus and clutched her daughter to her chest as peace washed over her soul.
Come. We must prepare for the coming of the Dark Father. We cannot do that here.
Chapter Two
Asmodeus admired Adel’s shape in the mirror of the hotel’s dingy bathroom. He ran his hands over her curves. His curves. They were more familiar to him now than the essence of his own evil soul. Deep within the recesses of the mind that now belonged to him, Adel’s soul lived out a fantasy on repeat. Just him, her, and their baby girl. Her body was his and he would use it to its full potential.
He needed to find a worthy partner.
Not just for him and his new lustful body, but for the task ahead. The man would have to be strong.
Asmodeus rinsed his hands in the stained sink and dried them on a relatively clean beige hand towel, noticing a chip in the perfect manicure of Adel’s right hand. When he stepped out of the bathroom, the possessed nun jumped up from her perch on the edge of the hotel’s one, queen size bed. “Is it time to begin?”
“You’re to stay here and begin your ritual, Naamah,” Asmodeus nodded to the gray infant laying on the bed. “We need one more thing and then we can begin the final rites.”
He left the hotel and went across the street, to a cafe with more flickering and burnt out lights than working ones. The door jingled above as he entered, but not a single patron spared a glance. A burly fellow sat at the long counter near the register, sipping coffee and staring in a daze at the small TV mounted on the wall. Three stools over, a young woman, possibly a teenager, swiped her finger across the screen of her phone, bobbing her head to the tune playing through her earphones.
Several couples sat at booths: two forty-somethings comfortably bored with each other, young couples on a double date, one pair making out on their side of the table and the other trying their best to ignore them and each other, a woman with big red hair and a large mouth chomping a wad of gum and talking at a steady pace to a guy who looked like he was in physical pain, beads of sweat dotting his forehead.
The coffee guy at the counter, with his razor short blonde hair and a sexy five o’clock shadow, was the best bet, so Asmodeus took the seat next to him, tugging Adel's short skirt down in a display of false modesty, then crossing his legs to hike the skirt right back up.
The guy to his left glanced over at him, his gaze traveling down and back up, then returned to his coffee.
He wouldn't be an easy target. That was okay, Asmodeus liked the chase.
“You live around here or just passing through?”
He seemed pleasantly surprised. He turned slightly in his seat, his knee inches away from Adel's.
“Passing through. You?”
“Same. I have a room across the street. Maybe we could pass the time there?”
The waitress sauntered over, popping her bubble gum like a teenager trapped in a rapidly deteriorating, forty year old body. Her brittle, yellow hair was a teased and heavily hair-sprayed mess. For the amount of makeup she wore, she may as well have dipped her face into a cake.
“Coffee, hun?”
“No, thank you.” Asmodeus turned back to the guy, whose gaze had dropped to Adel’s thighs. “I believe I've found what I came for.”
He hopped off the stool and the guy laid a ten on the counter. “Keep the change.” His voice came out deeper than before, rougher.
When he stood up from the stool, even in heels Adel was eye-level with his nipples. His broad shoulders and thick arms promised strength. Lust practically glowed in his eyes. Everything about him screamed vitality. He was perfect for their purpose. His body would last a long time.
Asmodeus gave him a smile. “I'm Adel, by the way.”
He chuckled. “Do you really need to know my name?”
“Not really,” he winked and led him out of the diner and across the street to where Naamah eagerly awaited the arrival of her stud.
Chapter Three
Delphina knelt on the floor of the grimy hotel room. The blackness within her swelled and coated her insides, filling her with the strangest longing. She watched as Father Zelophehad's sister spread tiny bones across the foot of the bed. Her mouth watered and she had a flash of déjà vu, a shadowy memory of sucking the meat from bones so small they must have been from a bird or a baby animal.
Her head floated, a softness had come over her in the past few weeks, like she was there but somehow detached from herself. A vague film coated her vision and she floated through her chores and prayers, in a daze. Her dreams had been delicious and scandalous, of bodies pressed together, of longing in the dark.
"Angel of Light, brilliant Morning Star," Father Zeph’s sister, Adel, chanted, drawing a knife from her bag. "We summon you with love and honor."
Adel approached the bed, and the man lying there, naked and exposed. He hadn’t even questioned when Adel handed him a glass of caramel colored liquid and a small blue pill. Now, he slept peacefully, completely at their mercy. His even breath echoed in the room.
Delphina watched in a fog as Adel sat next to the man on the bed. She ran the knife along his cheek, not drawing blood. "I present this vessel to you, Father, to hold as your own for as long as he may live, to burn in sacrifice to your beauty, for none may hold your angelic form without burning from the fire you hold within."
She pressed the tip of the blade against the hollow of his neck, applying just enough pressure to draw a droplet of blood. With a finger, she dragged the red liquid down his bare chest, leaving a thin trail to the middle of his sternum.
"I summon you Haborym, to know this Earthly plane."
Adel glanced at Delphina and nodded, “Come sister.”
Delphina stood, barely aware of her own movement, her body under a spell. She was a marionette doll, not in control of her actions and unable to even care to resist. She approached the bed and sat next to the man, across from Adel. The woman handed her the knife and she pressed it against her palm, dragging the blade in a line to draw forth her blood.
When she spoke, her voice came out flat and her throat scratched dry.
"I summon you Melek Taus, to know these Earthly desires." She dipped a finger into the pool of blood in her palm and drew a line from the man's groin up to his throat, intermingling with the line Adel had drawn. The blood overlapped, joining together, becoming one.
"We summon you, Samnu, to herald in the era of your magn
ificence, to give unto the world your only son." Adel placed a hand on the man's forehead and the other on Delphina's, "We call into the dark abyss to bring you forth!"
Adel retrieved the bones, placing them one at a time along the line of blood so they touched end to end. "I summon you Lucifer, delivering this sacrifice in your names. I summon you, Pwcca, Tchort, Cimeries. I summon you Baalberith, Nihasa, Ahpuch. I summon you by all your known and unknown titles into this world through this unworthy vessel! Yama, my Dark Father, come forth!"
Adel stood, holding her hands above her head, eyes closed. She shook as if in the throes of ecstasy and energy snapped through the room like static shock.
Delphina watched as the bones on the man's chest dissolved. They turned black as if they'd been burned to char and crumbling. She should be horrified, this was the Devil's work, but numbness surrounded her.
Witness His coming.
The line of blood bubbled, thickening as if it were only the top of a deep river of red. It swelled, washing over the ash of the bones, thickening and darkening until an undulating cavern of black sliced through the center of the man's torso.
As she watched, the black overflowed from its confines, stretching out like an overflowing pool. Thick and viscous, it crawled across the man's naked body, covering his flesh. Delphina wondered why the black didn't drip on the sheets, how liquid could be so contained to one purpose. The fog trapping her within her mind thickened. A wicked laugh compelled her to watch the nightmare taking place.
Soon, the ichor coated the man's entire body except for his face. His hair lay under a thick layer of sludge, his skin no longer his own. When the black crept further and covered his eyes and nose, the man gasped and his body jerked. He sat up, opening his mouth as if to scream, but before a noise could escape, the black surged into his mouth, wrapping around his tongue and sliding down his throat.
Delphina watched it all with disturbing disinterest.
The man struggled, twisting on the bed and grabbing at his throat as if suffocating. The black coating his flesh rushed up his body until it disappeared between his lips. He stilled.