Once You Go Demon (Pure Souls)

by Killian McRae

  Jerry nodded. “Yes.”

  And in a more pleasing reality, would have doubled over dead if the daggers she shot him with her eyes could manifest.

  A knowing look overcame Molly’s features. “Ah, so it’s finally happened. You’re knocked up. Well, he’s a handsome devil, I guess you could have put out for worse.”

  “No, I’m not knocked up!” Riona quickly leapt in before turning to Jerry to give him a smack in the shoulder. “Don’t encourage her.”

  “Oh, I’ve not even begun to encourage.” Her stomach turned as Jerry rushed forward and took a knee, grabbing up her mother’s hand and pressing it to his lips. “Enchante, Ms. Dade. I’m Jerry Romani, Riona’s ex-boyfriend. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your daughter has told me so much about you.”

  “Why, did she hire you to kill me?”

  “Momma!”

  “What! What!” Molly leaned in and spoke softly to Jerry. “No sense of humor, not since she was little. Always thinks I’m serious.”

  Jerry smiled. “But really, you just have a sarcastic wit that she has long failed to appreciate. Probably only the start of her short comings as a child.”

  Molly stroked her hand over Jerry’s cheek. “You’re a quick one, aren’t you? And so sexy. No wonder it didn’t work out between you.”

  “She has good genes, clearly from your side of the family. Yup, real down to earth gal, Riona. But alas, your daughter left me, Ms. Dade. I would have kept her forever, if she had let me.”

  “Yeah?” Molly looked up at Riona as Jerry pivoted and sat himself on the bench next to the elderly woman. “Is it too late, or she already get herself mixed up in another one of her Liberian affairs?”

  “Momma, it’s lesbian. And no, I’m not seeing anybody right now, not that it’s any of your business.” Breathing in deep, Riona let the crisp air cleanse her thoughts and revive her good nature. She squared her eyes on her mother, trying hard to ignore Jerry’s smile. “How have you been?”

  Molly turned her head as swatted the air. “Can’t complain.”

  It took everything in Riona’s power not to quip back, Experience suggests otherwise.

  “My legs hurt, I can’t breathe outside anymore without this damned …” With the craftiness of an Irish sheepherder wielding a shillelagh stick, Molly pounded the side of the oxygen tank with her cane. “… thing. And, oh, my only child, my own flesh and blood, my reason for living, hasn’t been to see me since the last time Dick Clark was hot, but, meh … Could be worse.”

  “But Dick Clark is—”

  Riona pushed her chilled fingers to Jerry’s lips and kept him from spilling the expired beans. “A classic, always hotter than July,” she substituted. “I’m sorry, Momma. I have no good excuse for staying away so long.”

  “Sure you do, you don’t like me. Oh, don’t try to deny it. I might be older than Christ, Riona, but I ain’t stupid. You don’t have to pretend any love for me.”

  “You don’t sugar coat things, do you, Molly?” Jerry didn’t say it at all like an accusation. “I admire that. Too much prepackaged touchy-feely in the world, in my opinion.”

  A curt nod signaled that Jerry met her approval. “That, there ‘tis. Saints be preserved.”

  “Momma, I wanted to ask you something, something really important. And I want you to promise to answer me, even if you think that answer might hurt me, okay?”

  Molly’s fingers fished another cigarette from her pocket and pulled it to her lips. “Twenty bucks and a pack of Virginia Slims says it makes no difference if I say no.”

  Jerry crossed his legs and leaned back, beaming. “I see where Riona gets her wicked spirit.”

  “Thirty bucks and a bump on the head says no one would find the body,” Riona growled lowly. “Momma, the knife you gave me when I was in high school. The one you said was my father’s … Do you know anything about it, other than that it was his?”

  A ghost flew up between them. At least, as white as her mother’s painted face had gone, Casper might have been doing the lambada with Moaning Myrtle right there in the courtyard.

  “Why?”

  Wildly, Riona searched for a quick, believable excuse that wouldn’t freak out panic-prone Molly Dade. “I was showing it to a collector, trying to get it appraised, and he said he thinks it might be stolen. Threatened to call the police on me.”

  “It’s a good thing you never went in to politics, daughter. You’d never have gotten elected to office being so bad at lying like that. I tell you what? Tell me what you’re really after, and I might just tell you the truth.”

  “Yeah, Riona, why not just tell your mother the truth?”

  So now even Jerry was on her mother’s side? So much for that amazing ‘how much I love you’ crap he’d been spouting off. Not that she honestly bought that poo-poo platter of lies. That guy obviously still had the hots for her, and would shag her silly the moment she showed the slightest inclination. And she just wasn’t going there. Even if he was in Marc’s body, and the temptation to just gag his mouth and pretend niggled at her on occasion.

  Jerry leaned down to Molly and put his hand over hers, resting on the oxygen tank. “Riona gave the blade to the Devil, who apparently made a really big deal over it, and then one of the archangels used it to kill the Devil and vanquish him to Hell for twenty-nine years. Not any swiss army knife could have flipped a trick like that. So, if you know anything, Molly, fess up. Curious minds want to know.”

  Molly’s expression turned to broadcasting incredulity. “This is about all your witchy, devilry, mumbo jumbo, isn’t it?” The petite, wrinkled Irishwoman spat vocal venom toward her daughter before turning to Jerry, adding with an accusing, pointing finger in Riona’s direction, “She barely comes to see me ever, as though I didn’t almost die giving birth to her, and then last spring has the gall to show up claiming she’s been busy training to be on some ultra-secret spook-sacking task force. Really? Most kids just lie and say they’ve been busy with work or have been sick. Not my Riona. She has to blame it all on spooks and specters. Then she keeps up the game, asking me if anyone in our family ever danced naked in the moonlight or gotten bitten by a vampire or anything.”

  Jerry grinned. “I’ve been with Riona when she was naked in the moonlight. I assure you, Molly, she wasn’t dancing.”

  The bastard would remember that he was completely mortal for the next week when he looked in the mirror. The punch that Riona landed on his shoulder guaranteed black and blue patches. “Seriously, are you here to help me or embarrass me? Momma, I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  “Then don’t!” Molly coughed out, wearing a tight lip and furrowed brow. “You know it was your father’s. You know I gave it to you because he wanted you to have it. And further more, you know I hated the bastard. I really don’t see what else you’re going to learn by knowing any more. It won’t make him any less dead, or change the fact that he walked out on us.”

  “Mother, I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.” A somber expression came over Riona. Her scowl flattened, her eyes narrowed. With a straight back and shoulders squared, she locked her mother’s gaze into her own, and chanted, “Veritum amoni.”

  Technically, using charms that circumnavigated free will and/or caused undue harm on humans was forbidden. She might be new to the craft, but she had been told this on day one. Molly’s demeanor took on a certain zombie like quality as the effects of Riona’s charm sunk in. As real as sodium pentothal, the magic worked better at numbing a person into a state of disconnected consciousness than CSPAN.

  The last person she’d thought would turn on her over the extreme measures and using magic for convenience’s sake was Jerry. Yet turn on her he did—literally.

  “A truth spell on your own mother? Are you fucking insane?”

  Riona shrugged. “What? It’s not like it causes long term damage or anything. Sadly. Though, honestly, if it did, I might have been tempted to use it earlier.”

  “Do you know what the con
sequences could be for actually knowing the truth? Parents sugar coat what could turn out to be razor sharp knives. I promise you, you’ll regret this.”

  Riona settled herself on a bench adjacent her mother. “In case you haven’t noticed, my darling mother ain’t exactly concerned in making everything all warm and tingly for me. I don’t think she’ll be forgoing any niceties.”

  “Riona, please, I’m begging you.”

  His hands on her face made her stomach knot. So warm, so soft. And his blue eyes, so imploring. Not a hint of coercion or contempt. Only sincerity and honest appeal.

  “Dragging truth from a mortal with magic, it’s a gray area at best, no matter your intentions. Big Boss has a serious thing for the enforcement of free will. Forcing your mother to tell you something she wouldn’t do under normal conditions … Don’t do this, baby. Don’t start down this path.”

  Her fingers jimmied under his grip, throwing his hands wide. “If I rely on her good humor, I could be here until the apocalypse, which she might actually decide is my fault and clam up anyways.”

  He huffed and stepped back. “Fine,” he said as he plopped back down on the bench. “But I want to go on record as saying I’m opposed to this.” His eyes turned skyward. “You hear that up there? Doctor is choosing to inject treatment despite advice of more experienced colleagues!”

  “Drama queen.” Riona leaned over to her mother, who assumed an unnatural state of quiet and repose. Taking Molly’s hand in to hers, she kept her voice low. “Momma, please tell me.”

  “He … He left it behind.”

  “I know that part, Momma. He obviously didn’t take it with him.” Confusion marred her features. “But do you know why? And why do you think he wanted me to have it?”

  “Because you will need it someday.”

  Riona shifted in her seat. It wasn’t much, but it was something. However, if her father had known that a curse-carrying wiccan weapon would have been a perfect fit for her toolkit in that ambiguous future, there had to be a reason. “Was my father a demon?”

  Molly squinted. Gusts of breath rushed from her, only to be gasped back in. “He never would have forced me to have you, if there wasn’t a reason.”

  “Momma, what did he do to you?”

  Molly’s eyes opened, and in them Riona saw things she had never before witnessed in her mother; fear, regret, despair. “I never wanted kids. I was on the pill, took it religiously. You know what they say, nothing but abstinence is fool proof, and we used to screw like rabbits. He tried to talk me out of an abortion, said he would marry me, stay with me. I insisted. They put me out for the procedure, and when I woke up, your father had me handcuffed to a bed in some place I’d never been. He kept me there until you were born. Each night he’d lay next to me and cry, tell me he was so sorry, that he didn’t want to do what he was doing. Then when you were finally born, he unchained me. I never wanted ... nothing. And that’s all that was left after he finished with me and me with him. Nothing. Except you. And that knife. ”

  The elderly woman pressed the oxygen mask against her face, as though it alone could stop the truth from coming out. The plastic contours fogged.

  Jerry leapt to his feet. “Riona, release her from this. She’s terrified, and you’re shaking like a leaf.”

  But Riona’s hand was already fishing around in her bag. The cool metal hand fell into her grasp like it had been crafted for the curvature of her palm. When she withdrew the dagger and held it up, she suspected the question was already answered. “Momma, this knife means something. I need to know what. Tell me!”

  “Riona!” Jerry’s tone took her aback. When the witch looked his way, his eyes were filled with fury, so much so that she dropped her mother’s hand and scrambled to her feet. “Damn it, Ree! Think of what you’re doing, making her relive a memory like that, admitting to all this. What if I did that to you? What would you do if I made you relive the moment Marc died? Would you want to have to hear how he really loved fucking a fallen angel he thought was you?”

  She didn’t have to relive it; just reminding her of the truth cut her insides in to shreds. “I didn’t mean to ... I just had to know.”

  “Now you do.” His arm stretched, pointing at Molly, shaking all alone on her bench, suddenly looking like she had lived each of her many years in the span of the last few minutes. “I don’t care what you think of your mother, no one should have to relive an experience like that. And now you’ve brought it to the surface, it will fester. Undo this.”

  “Undo it?” She repeated back the words like they were in a foreign tongue.

  “Steal her memory back. Rewind this.”

  “I don’t know how. I didn’t even know you could do that,” she choked out.

  “Fine.” He dropped his arm and tugged at his jacket. “I’ll do it. Just release your charm.”

  “Wait! I have one more question. I promise, then I’ll release her. Momma?”

  Molly’s trembling figure turned up to her daughter.

  “Momma, what was Daddy’s name?”

  Confusion planed out Molly’s features. “I can’t remember.”

  Riona bit her bottom lip, breathed in the chilly November air, and let it out in a foggy rush. “I release you, abrahre.”

  Molly’s face fell into a scowl. “What the hell? You! You’re not kidding about that hooey. You’re in league with the devil. Harlot! Jezebel! Betrayer!”

  As tears pricked the corner of her eyes, she consumed each insult with an air of grace. “Jerry?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take her back about an hour. She won’t remember us even stopping by. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when this all comes back to bite you on the ass. You better get out of sight. If I’m going to do this proper, you’ll only confuse her when she opens her eyes and sees you standing there all flustered and sexy and stuff.”

  “Are you seriously trying to talk me up after what I just found out?”

  “No missed opportunities, no regrets.” He jerked his head back towards the entry to the home. “Go. Call a cab and I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “Will it hurt her?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

  Riona turned to her mother, who still looked as panicked as a pincushion, and leaned over to her. She gave the trembling woman one quick peck on her cheek. “Momma, I’m sorry. Jerry’s going to make it go away. I promise we’ll see each other real soon. I won’t wait as long to see you again.”

  By the time the cab showed up ten minutes later, Jerry was back at her side. A nod from him confirmed that the task had been done.

  “I want to say something to you,” he said as the cab rumbled in to downtown Salem.

  Great, more innuendo-laced, know-it-all prattle. “I don’t really feel like talking, Jerry.”

  “But you need to hear this.”

  Fire lit her cheeks as she turned to him, huffing. She was pretty sure Jerry had worked another charm to keep their conversation private, but at this point, she couldn’t care less. “What? You want to tell me how you warned me? You want to rub it in my face how my mother just told me she was forced to give birth to me while being held prisoner by my dad? A man who, though I never met him, I’ve always held out hope was a decent, kind, and loving man? Well, you were right, Jerry. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have charmed my mother in to telling me the truth. I always suspected that she never wanted me. And lucky me, now I know it’s true!”

  “She never wanted a baby, Riona. That doesn’t mean she didn’t want you.”

  “Don’t try to soothe me with rhetorical mumbo jumbo.”

  A bittersweet memory tugged at her when Jerry’s face contorted. Part anger, part frustration, and part embarrassment, his borrowed mug became a twin for the mask Marc himself had once worn in her presence, back a few months ago when they both found themselves in the hot tub at Dee’s gym, sans dressage, and fought over how to remedy the situation.

  “I did tell you, and damn right too that
I’m going to rub it in your face that I was right, and here’s why: For better or worse, sweetheart, I’ve been around a lot longer than you have. I’ve seen a lot more of the ugly part of humanity than you’ll ever know. Than I hope you’ll ever have a chance to know. I’ve learned to recognize the signs of danger coming, you should have listened to me.”

  “Well, next time I’m setting myself up for disappointment, I’ll be sure to consult you.”

  “No need to wait, you’re about to be disappointed right now.” Jerry nudged himself closer, resting himself on the hard, raised surface of the dreaded middle seat. “If you want any proof that your mom loves you, consider the fact that she’s been carrying around the facts of your birth for almost thirty years on her own. She burdened that, without your sympathy, without your understanding, without asking you to take that knowledge on yourself. And if you can’t take any joy in that—”

  “Joy in that? Are you insane?”

  “Goddess of grief, help me Riona, but there’s only two ways I know to shut up a woman, and you don’t want me to kiss you right now. So, will you please just shut your yap for twenty seconds and let me get this out?”

  Her yap? Riona considered the likeliness of getting away with stabbing Jerry with that damned dagger in the back of a Salem Yellow Cab. “Why, you imbecilic, moronic, asshole of a—”

  When he kissed her, he proved himself right. It most certainly got her to shut up. Warm, wet, and surprisingly gentle, the double-edged action stunned her. She remembered the feel of Marc’s lips on her own, and was in awe of how, even though it was technically those same lips on hers now, the kiss was distinctly Jerry. Desire sparked in her, but she squashed it. Not because she thought desire in itself was a bad thing, but because she couldn’t discern if it was born out of missing Marc’s touch, or recalling how tender a lover Jerry had been back before they’d set Eden on fire.

  As he pulled away, her eyes flew open, but Jerry’s stayed close. Somehow, she sensed that the tactic had backfired on him. Yes, now she was quiet, but he likewise couldn’t say a word. After a moment of biting his lips, he hurriedly let out. “I saw hellfire in your mother’s aura.”