Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  “Don't you know me?” he said again. “It's me. Lucien.”

  Under her breath, she muttered something, then hastily drew, in the air between them, the sign of the cross.

  As if she were warding off a demon.

  “Lisette,” Lucien said, shocked, shaking his head, “why are you doing that? I'm your brother. You don't have anything to fear from me. I've come here to help you.”

  “You're not my brother,” she said.

  It had been over seventeen years since he had heard her voice.

  “And you've come here to do evil.”

  “What?”

  “You have come here to reclaim this temple for Kaliya. Or the Devil. It really makes no difference which. You are evil,” and here, her voice faltered for just an instant, “and you have taken the shape of my brother . . . You have taken the shape of my greatest temptation.” She dropped her eyes, as if afraid to look at him for another moment.

  Lucien was reeling, first from the shock of discovery, now from dismay at her reaction. For so many years he had anticipated, imagined, and longed for this event; he had seen the two of them in a thousand different places, under a thousand different circumstances, embracing, laughing, crying together. He had envisioned their reunion in so many different ways that he had thought it would be almost impossible for the actual event to catch him by surprise. But this had done that—finding that his sister, a nun now, believed he was the Devil incarnate was nothing he could ever have imagined. It was something he could hardly believe was happening even now. He shook his head again, and laughed sadly.

  “Lisette . . . you're wrong. I'm not here for Kaliya, or the Devil, or anyone else. I'm here for myself, because I've been searching for you ever since I left the Buddhist monastery. Because I was only able to find you again, in a dream, a few days ago.”

  He thought the mention of the dream might touch her.

  “Do you remember that?” he said. “You were sleeping here, on this mat, when you heard me calling to you. Could a demon do that?”

  She paused, but then said, “Yes, a demon could do that.”

  “Could a demon have known about the monastery? Could a demon know that we shared the same bedroom all our lives? That I made you crazy in the morning by playing the radio too loud? That we lived in a white house with blue shutters? That our mother's name was Samchit, and she kept a huge collection of perfume bottles on top of her bureau? And a parrot with a bad temper, in a metal cage?”

  He could see that she was surprised by all this. Even, possibly, beginning to waver. But she still kept her eyes averted.

  “Could a demon know that a motorbike was my most prized possession? And that it was given away, to get me to go to the monastery? Don't you remember how you cried that day? And ran out onto the porch? And I had to wait inside, for the monk to come and fetch me?”

  “Yes,” she said, very softly. “I remember.”

  “And do you remember what you left for me, on the day I was due to return to Phnom Penh?”

  He waited, hoping to get her to tell him. But she didn't answer.

  “Do you remember the picture you put up on the wall? The picture of a fat Buddha, saying, ‘Welcome home, Lucien'?”

  Her hands, he could see now, were clenched in her lap, as if she were straining to suppress her emotions. He wondered what else he could say to convince her. What else he could conjure up from their past. “And the gift,” he said, “that you left on my pillow, wrapped in tissue paper? I found it there, after they'd already taken you away.”

  Her head had come up just enough for him to see a tear rolling down her cheek.

  “It was a bottle of Coca-Cola,” he said, laughing at the absurdity of it—the gift, and the importance of it now. “You knew I would have missed it at the monastery. You knew it would be one of the first things I'd want.”

  Now she raised her head completely, and looked into his eyes again. Her face was wet with tears. She was visibly torn with confusion. “How do you know all this?” she blurted out. “What have you done with my brother?”

  “Nothing,” Lucien said, “I haven't done anything with your brother. I am your brother.”

  “But you're not! You can't be!”

  “Why not? Why can't I be?”

  “Because look at what's happening to me!” She suddenly held up her hands, with the palms exposed. In the center of each, there was a pulsing purple wound, and a thin trickle of blood descending toward her wrists.

  Lucien felt as if his heart would break. What had happened to her? What did these wounds mean?

  “Lisette,” he said, “please . . .” He started to reach toward her, into the pool of candlelight. Lisette sat perfectly still, her hands raised. But the moment he touched the circle of light, he felt the tips of his fingers burn.

  Even though they were nowhere near the flame from the candles.

  Confused, he rubbed his fingertips quickly against his trousers.

  Lisette, still staring at him, slowly lowered her own hands.

  Lucien tried again, and this time the pain was even greater; he snatched his hands back, clenching his fists. His fingers felt as if they'd just been scorched. “What is this?” he said to Lisette. “Why can't I touch you?”

  “Because God is protecting me,” she said, the confusion he had seen in her face evaporating now. It was as if her doubts had just been confirmed for her.

  “From me? He's protecting you from your own brother?”

  There was a gust of wind that rustled the vines overhanging the entry.

  “He's protecting me from evil. Only evil cannot touch me here.”

  The wind blew again, causing the candles to flicker and spurt.

  “But I'm not evil! I've come here to help you! To protect you from evil! And evil is on its way, Lisette. Evil is coming here tonight.”

  “No, it's not,” he heard a strange voice whisper, from somewhere behind him. “It's already here.”

  Lucien spun around; Brendan was backing into the chamber, holding the two torches out like swords.

  “Where did that come from?” Lucien demanded.

  “I don't know,” Brendan said, looking all around. “But I heard it too.”

  A hot wind, smelling of wet earth and dense vegetation, blew in through the entryway again. The creepers billowed out like streamers.

  Lucien stood up, and snapped open the flap on his holster. The wind continued in a steady stream, and once in the chamber seemed to fan out, like an ocean current, moving along the walls. Behind the rows of columns that ran the length of the room, there were ancient weapons—rusted spears and dull halberds—affixed to the stone walls; in the rising wind, they rattled and shook. The torches in Brendan's hands crackled and smoked.

  “I'll take one of those now,” Lucien said when Brendan came within reach.

  He held it above his head to cast a greater light around the chamber. But he still couldn't see who had spoken. The damp wind eddied around the room, and swirled among the columns. The surface of the ornamental pond was creased with silver ripples; the wooden bowl on Lisette's mat was picked up and rolled across the floor.

  “Who's there?” Lucien called out, and his words echoed for a second around the temple walls. “Come out and show yourself.”

  The only reply was a distant roll of thunder, presaging a storm.

  “We should take Celeste and go,” Brendan said, “now.”

  “She won't come.”

  “You said she would. Doesn't she know you?”

  “She thinks I'm in league with the Devil.”

  “She what?” Brendan looked at him in astonishment. “I saw her hold up her hands at you—is that why?”

  “Yes,” Lucien said, but he failed to return Brendan's gaze. In his heart, he knew why his sister thought what she did—and he knew why his fingers had burned at the touch of the light.

  “She knows me," Brendan said, glancing back at her. Her head was bowed again in prayer. “I'll tell her we need to get out of h
ere.”

  “It won't work.”

  The chamber shimmered with a blue-white light—lightning that spilled in from the entryway and through random cracks in the ceiling and walls—and in that instant Lucien thought he saw figures, emerging from behind the columns. In the flickering light, their movements appeared slow and disjointed.

  “Look out!” he shouted to Brendan, but Brendan had already seen them too.

  They were on both sides of the room—gaunt, skeletal figures, nearly naked, draped in rags. Where had they come from? How had they been concealed?

  And were they the crewmen from the black ship?

  Instinctively, Lucien and Brendan moved closer to each other, holding the torches out at arm's length, keeping Lisette protected behind them.

  “These are the bastards that took Molloy,” Brendan confirmed, “and butchered Pridi.”

  And to Lucien they looked a lot like the pirates on Ratsada's ship . . . the ones who had shot Hun and gutted Pran. There was the same cold and implacable malevolence about them.

  And now he knew whose voice he had heard.

  “Didn't I tell you,” the voice said now, “that dead or alive, I would come for you?”

  Ratsada himself appeared in the entryway, the knotted vines blowing around his shoulders. He was wearing the gold earring, the baggy pantaloons, the black topknot tied with a red silk ribbon, that Lucien remembered so well. On his chest, he carried the familiar mark of Kaliya—the coiled serpent.

  Thunder rumbled in the sky.

  Lucien took the 9-millimeter automatic out of its holster. Ratsada stepped into the chamber, his huge belly gleaming in the reddish glow of the torches.

  “If you came for me,” Lucien said, hoping to distract him from Lisette, “then go ahead—try to take me.”

  But Ratsada just laughed. His men stood slack-jawed among the pillars; some of them, Lucien now saw, had claimed the rusted weapons from the walls.

  “Oh, I will,” Ratsada said. “I will. But first I have to clean out the temple for my lord—and yours—Kaliya. He's not happy with the way his servants are being treated here.”

  What did he mean by that? The snakes? Were those the servants of Kaliya? Lucien's eyes darted back to Lisette; she was as motionless as ever, the pool of light around her bright and hard. How could a few small candles shed such a radiance?

  Brendan said, “What have you done with Kevin Molloy?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Three days ago, you killed a boy. You captured Molloy. Where is he?”

  “Names mean nothing to me. But this must be the one you mean . . .” His dark eyes, deeply slanted in the folds of his face, glanced at the pillars to Brendan's right. From the shadows, one of the spectral figures stepped forward; a short sword, with a curved blade, dangled from one of its hands.

  The eye patch was gone, leaving an empty socket, but this was clearly Molloy. His face was still scorched, his head still covered—on one side only—with a shock of dead-white hair. He moved like an automaton.

  “Kevin, it's me, Father Brendan.”

  Lucien recognized him too.

  Molloy slowly turned his head so that his one remaining eye could focus on Brendan. He was walking again, which was something.

  “I can't believe it,” Brendan said. “You're still alive. Thank God, you're still alive.”

  Ratsada laughed again, his fat aims folded across his chest.

  Molloy licked his lips, with a blackened tongue. “You let them take me,” he said, in a rasping, barely audible voice.

  “No, I didn't,” Brendan said, lowering the torch. “I didn't mean to. They came in the night. I didn't know they were there.”

  “I told you they'd come.”

  “And I should have believed you. God in Heaven, I should have believed you.”

  “I told you,” he said, shuffling painfully across the floor.

  Brendan said, “Yes—come over here. But put down the sword.”

  Molloy kept coming, though he held onto the weapon.

  “Put down the sword,” Brendan repeated, warily.

  Molloy didn't answer.

  Brendan didn't know what to do. He held onto the flaming torch, and when Molloy came close enough he poked the end of it at him.

  “Kevin . . . listen to me.”

  Molloy stopped, but he didn't withdraw.

  “I'm sorry for what happened. But you aren't lost. Ask for God's mercy, and you will receive it. Ask for His forgiveness, and He'll forgive you anything. As long as you're alive, you are not lost to God.”

  On what was left of his face, Molloy wore a puzzled expression. “But I'm not alive,” he said. “They drowned me in the river.”

  Brendan faltered, letting the torch slip closer to the ground. In that instant, Molloy swung the sword up, batting the lighted torch out of his hand. It skittered across the stone floor. Brendan fumbled for his gun. Molloy swung the sword back again, with surprising force, and brought it down on Brendan's neck.

  Lucien swung his own torch, catching Molloy at the side of his head.

  Brendan fell to the floor, clutching at the blade, still buried in his throat.

  Molloy turned on Lucien, who raised the Smith and Wesson and shot him point-blank in the chest. Molloy staggered back, his hands splayed across the wound.

  But he didn't fall.

  “The dead,” Ratsada commiserated, “they are so hard to kill.”

  Molloy started to come forward again.

  Lucien aimed at his face, at his one remaining eye, and pressed his finger down on the trigger. A burst of shots spattered his face, demolishing the eye socket, the forehead, the cheek bones. Still, he took another stumbling step toward them.

  Lucien bent down, dropped the torch, and pulled the sword free of Brendan. He whipped the blade, streaming with blood, at Molloy's thin neck. The blade bit. Lucien yanked it out, and chopped again—and this time the head flopped to one side, almost severed, resting sideways on one shoulder. The whole body shuddered to a halt, and then, like a pile of sticks, simply clattered to the ground.

  Lucien said, “Hard to kill, but not impossible.” He bent to Brendan, whose blood had formed a widening pool on the floor. His eyes were wide open, his mouth too—but he was dead.

  “I lose one,” Ratsada said, “I get another.”

  “You'll never get this one,” Lucien replied, still kneeling over Brendan's body.

  “Wait and see.” Ratsada was coming closer now, his gold earring glinting in the circle of light that emanated from Lisette. His feet were bare, and made almost no sound.

  Lucien stood up again, the gun in one hand, the sword in the other.

  “I don't want you . . . not yet,” Ratsada said. “I want the holy woman.”

  “You won't get her either.”

  Ratsada walked with a kind of rolling gait, as if he were pacing an unsteady deck.

  Lucien heard Lisette, behind him, whisper something. He couldn't hear what she'd said, but he ordered her to stay where she was.

  “Why are you still in the way?” Ratsada said, pausing a few yards off. “I know what you've got on your chest,” he said, jabbing at the serpent branded on his own. “You're already damned.”

  “So I've got nothing to lose.”

  Ratsada cocked his head to one side, and gave him a long, steady glare. Abruptly, he stuck out one hand, and waited while one of the skeletal crewmen crept forward, fearfully, to give him a weapon—a long, rusted spear.

  Lucien noted that even his own men held Ratsada in dread.

  “Now, get out of the way—I have some fishing to do,” Ratsada said.

  Lucien stepped forward, leveled the gun, and fired a volley of shots. The bullets ripped into Ratsada's body, punching dark holes in his belly and chest. Ratsada dropped to one knee, coughing up blood. Slowly, he looked up again, and said, “You dare . . .”

  Anyone else, a normal man—a living man—would have been dead already. Ratsada was merely enraged. He drew his finger rapidly
, three times, around the circular scar on his chest, muttering something under his breath. The hot wet wind that had filled the room blew faster all of a sudden; the spectral figures huddled closer to the columns. There was a smell, of dense jungle, of rotting vines . . . of open graves. The walls and ceiling were running with water.

  Lucien knew full well what was coming. “Lisette,” he shouted, over the rising wind, “guard yourself!”

  The candles around her, miraculously, withstood the gusting wind, burning more brightly than ever.

  Lucien spun in all directions, awaiting the arrival of his adversary. The stones of the floor were seeping up water; Ratsada was smiling, and clutching the spear. Lucien could feel, under his feet, a distant rumbling, coming closer, coming fast, coming up from the earth like a monstrous animal burrowing hard toward the surface.

  “If I don't kill you,” Ratsada called out, “he will.”

  It was all the same to Lucien. Living under the curse of Kaliya was a kind of death in itself. Tonight he would either be dead, and free . . . or alive, but still a vassal of evil.

  He didn't even know which he wanted anymore.

  Lisette, he could hear, was praying out loud, invoking the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He prayed himself, that her words would be enough to withstand the enormous powers of darkness that had already been summoned here.

  Brackish water fell, like rain, through the cracks and seams in the roof.

  Thunder rolled, in the sky above, and from the earth below.

  The crewmen, fearsome as they were, looked frightened themselves, shivering silently in the shadows of the columns.

  “God will forgive you!” Lucien shouted at them, echoing Brendan. “God will forgive you! Ask for His mercy!”

  “For them, there's only one god!” Ratsada retorted, brandishing the spear. “One god! Kaliya!”

  There was a flash of lightning, and then the sound of a rushing, tumbling tide. A flood of black water cascaded over Lucien's boots. He wheeled around.

  The ornamental pond was frothing over, like a pot left to boil. The water was streaming over the circular Up of the pool, and spreading out in all directions. The bottom of Lisette's black habit was swirling around her; her eyes were wild, and met Lucien's.