Demi Mondaine: Volume One

by N. R. Mayfield

  “Uh-huh,” the waitress said, her face expressionless as she stared down at Shawna. She didn’t miss the pure contempt that dripped from the words. “What’ll it be, hun?”

  When the waitress was gone, Shawna pulled out her bottle of gin, surreptitiously pouring several ounces of the clear booze into her coffee. The priest slid his teacup to her wordlessly. Shawna looked at him strangely, holding up the gin bottle in confusion. He nodded, and she poured a little into his drink.

  “Rough week?” Shawna asked, venturing a conversation that she really hoped would end in a trick. Despite his age, he was cleaner and better looking than the vast majority of her usual clientele.

  “Not as rough as yours, I think,” he said. He took a sip of the fortified tea and winced. He picked the paper back up.

  “Maybe we can help each other out,” Shawna said, leaning a little further towards him, the thought of another hit of crystal bringing a big smile to her face. “Tell me all about it, daddy.”

  “The term is father,” the priest replied, putting the paper back down. He craned his neck up, squinting at a television hanging over the breakfast counter. The morning news was playing on mute. “Another killing off the interstate,” he muttered to himself.

  “What?” Shawna asked, spinning towards the television. She’d been watching the news for weeks and hadn’t seen a single story like that.

  “Nothing,” the priest said. “The media hasn’t paid much attention. But in the last few weeks I noticed a surge in crime along I-95, heading south from Connecticut down to my diocese in Baltimore. Kept on going down to Richmond before it veered off onto 64 West. Nobody’s paying attention because the crimes have nothing to do with each other. A robbery gone bad here, a home invasion there. Stranger abductions, hit and runs.”

  Shawna swallowed hard, the pit inside her opening up all at once, flooding her with darkness. She had been looking for the demon in all the wrong places. Perhaps it had changed its plans after possessing Brooke, or perhaps it had just been lying to her all along. “It’s a demon,” she blurted out. The priest didn’t blink.

  “Yes,” he agreed. The waitress arrived with a plate of gravy-smothered hash browns for Shawna and retreated with a dirty look. He stood up and leaned across the table, his hand hovering above her forehead. “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus,” he said, making the sign of the cross over her.

  “I didn’t know you guys still did the Latin thing,” Shawna said, the darkness inside her suddenly fading, like she’d taken a big dose of high-quality ice.

  “Some of us do,” he said, putting some cash on the table. “It’s not too late to find what you’re looking for. You just won’t find it here.”

  Shawna didn’t have time to reply before he vanished into the crowded diner, his newspaper tucked under his arm. She couldn’t understand how a blessing from this priest had left her feeling almost new, but if demons were real, then who knew what else was too?

  Desperate as she’d been these past few weeks, there had been one card left she hadn’t played—the jewelry she’d looted from her ex-husband’s house. She’d been afraid the police would descend on her the moment she tried to pawn it off, but at this point, what was the difference? She couldn’t sink any lower than she already had. She looked down at her chest and felt self-conscious for the first time since she’d started down this path. She tugged at her top, banishing her breasts back into the garment.

  There was a pawnshop two miles down from the lot, and Shawna gave an operator a half-hearted hand job in exchange for a ride. She cleared twelve grand after nearly emptying her gym bag and got back in the cab with the trucker. Her first instinct was to go back to the lot and score some crystal, and while she still felt that need calling to her, it didn’t come with the same desperation it usually did. Instead, she just stared out the window, watching the houses go by on the way to the interstate.

  “Hold up,” Shawna said, her eyes lighting up. A motorcycle dealership appeared up ahead, just before the traffic signal leading to the onramp.

  “What?” the trucker asked, speeding up to catch the green light.

  “Pull over,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “I need to get out.”

  “No way,” the trucker grumbled, giving no sign of slowing down. “You promised to do me after we get to Dayton.”

  “Next time,” Shawna promised, flinging the door open. She clutched her bag tightly and leapt out of the cab at forty miles per hour. She landed in a roll, tumbling to the bottom of a drainage ditch. She clawed her way up to the sidewalk, ignoring her aching body.

  The trucker stopped right at the green light and blew his horn. Shawna held up her hands, extending the middle finger of each. The light went yellow, and with a squeal of rubber the truck pulled forward, clearing the intersection just as the light went red.

  She wiped blood from her lips and limped up the block to the motorcycle shop, and an hour later she drove away, nine grand poorer. She’d given a fake name and a social security number she’d stolen from a john, but there had been no need for a credit check since she had paid for the used pink motorcycle up front, in cash. She picked up some more appropriate—if overpriced—clothing from the dealership’s swag shop, and pulled onto the interstate in a black jumpsuit with pink trim to match her bike. She’d never ridden a motorcycle in her life before, but they’d given her a crash course at the dealership, and—whether it was the power of the priest’s prayer or some other unseen force—she felt fearless.

  The engine let out a high-pitched purr, and she zipped up the onramp in search of the demon.

  Three

  Indiana, September 2014

  Shawna stood naked in the bathroom of her motel room, illuminated by a pair of exposed fluorescent strips, one of which emitted a low whine and flickered on and off, leaving half the room haunted by shadows. Her eyes fell to the needleless syringe resting on the counter, an empty bag of low-grade crystal lying next to it, its contents already liquified and added to the syringe.

  In the days after she’d met the priest, she’d tried to turn things around, and she really was doing better—relatively. But the darkness had crept back in, and she’d found herself needing crystal as badly as ever. She was doing her best to pace herself, stopping by the truck stops to turn a trick or two before hitting the road without kicking anything back to the lot boss. She’d flitted up I-64, making it into southern Illinois before realizing there were no longer any unusual crimes occurring along her path. The demon was good at changing its tactics—one town might experience a rash of what seemed to be drug-related killings, then a few miles down the road a family would be slaughtered or a child reported missing. It was always something different. That’s why it took her the better part of a week to realize it had stopped altogether.

  Only it hadn’t. It had reversed course, heading back east on 64 before turning north at Charleston up I-77. She didn’t know the reason behind the sudden change in plans, but the signs were clear—animal mutilations in Sissonville, sexual assaults in Ripley, robbery-homicides in Rockport. The demon wasn’t a serial killer—serial killers got headlines. It was a crime wave, and one that was be written off as a product of the heat or income inequality or the decay of social norms, depending on which news outlet was spinning it.

  The pattern was there though, if you knew how to look. The priest had, and now Shawna did too. But it wasn’t enough to know where the demon had been a few days ago—she needed to know where it would be tomorrow, and to do that, she needed to be at her best. These days, her best usually came after a good bump.

  She hiked one leg up onto the counter, taking the syringe in hand and inserting it inside herself, feeling the warm liquid rushing in to make her whole again. She smiled, letting the electricity dance through her body. She took advantage of the frantic energy building up inside her to get a workout in, although before she knew it, she’d been sweating to a Pilates video on a loop for three hours. It was just as well, since she’d been falling
badly out of shape before she’d met the priest. But now, aside from the drinking and the drugs and the dangerous sex, she felt healthier than she’d ever been.

  After her workout, she left the room clad in faux-leather pants that clung to her backside and a crop top that left her once-again toned abdomen bare, the garment tight against her bosom. She went out in search for a john—only this time, she wasn’t looking to supplement her war chest, which at this point was adequately funded even with her three-times-a-week booty bump fix taken into account. This time, she needed muscle of her own.

  Like usual, she stumbled through the motel parking lot, the morning sunlight stabbing through her hangover, every step sending waves of agony through her gut. She made her way to the diner—she hadn’t found a truck stop that didn’t have a diner yet—and within minutes she had nabbed herself a john. His name was Steve, and he bought her coffee and hash browns, and the moment they were done eating, they stumbled back to his rig, his hands dancing across her hard-nippled tits while hers rubbed at his crotch, working him up to a frenzy. By the time she put her lips on him, he was already half-crazed, and it wasn’t long before he had her pinned down, pounding away at her.

  “There you go,” she said, pressing her breasts together while he spilled himself over them, her thumb absently playing over the metal stud in her nipple—she’d gotten them pierced on a drunken whim about a week back and they were still tender. “That’s a good boy. Let it all out.”

  “Got your money here somewhere,” the trucker panted, collapsing on the floor of his sleeper cab.

  “No need,” Shawna said, her fingers sliding between her legs to finish what the john had halfheartedly started.

  “You… don’t want money?” the trucker asked, stroking his thin beard. “You lookin’ for a ride then?”

  “It’s a little bit more than that,” Shawna said, shuddering violently as she climaxed. She slid off the bed and onto her knees at the trucker’s side. She grabbed him by the shoulder, pressing her sticky breasts against his shirt. “But I’ll make it worth your while.”

  ***

  “This the place?” Steve asked, clinging to Shawna’s back. She brought her bike to a slow crawl in front of the house she’d seen on the news. The reporters had only given the block where the gruesome slaying had taken place, but Shawna would have recognized the single-story ranch with the bland gray façade anywhere. A family of five had been killed in their beds here just two nights ago. The police suspected a murder-suicide. Shawna suspected the demon. She’d never been this close behind the fiend since picking the trail up, and part of her wondered if the demon knew it was being tracked, leaving bodies like breadcrumbs for her to follow right back to it.

  The house was nothing special, just another ranch in the working-class neighborhood, the only thing setting it apart from its neighbors the yellow crime scene tape stretched diagonally across the front door. The lawn was neatly trimmed with sharp edges, like it had been mowed just before the demon rolled through. The house was unassuming, but it was on a decent-sized lot, a detached garage connected to the house by a covered walkway. “Yeah,” Shawna said, pulling around the block, parking into an overgrown alley between the backyard and the neighboring lot. Both yards had nearly identical privacy fences, eight-foot-tall slats providing all the cover they needed.

  “Can you get over the fence?” Shawna asked Steve, leaving her bike parked in the weeds.

  “Gate’s unlocked,” the trucker said, fiddling with a rusty latch. A short segment of fence swung open, providing access to a sizable back yard, its perimeter lined with huge red cedars with trunks wider than Shawna’s body, their branches spreading out into massive cones about five or six feet above the ground. An above-ground pool rose up in the middle of the yard, a purple life preserver floating idly in the clear blue water. A small concrete patio extended out from the back of the house, folding chairs arranged around a table set with plastic cutlery and condiment bottles. A barbecue grill stood at the ready, still smelling like food.

  “What happened here?” Steve asked, nudging a red cooler with his foot. “Looks like they walked out in the middle of a party.”

  “An uninvited guest,” Shawna said, flinging the cooler open. It was full of lukewarm water with a slightly funky smell, but she fished a beer bottle out and twisted the cap off. She drank nearly half the bottle in a single long swig, then reached for a second beer to offer Steve.

  “That why we’re here?” he asked, eyeing the proffered drink. “To raid warm beers off someone’s back porch?”

  Shawna shrugged, finishing off the first beer. “No,” she said before taking a gulp of the second. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “We ain’t gonna find ‘em here,” Steven said, pointing to the sliding glass door marked by more police tape. Shawna pulled it down and tugged at the door, but it was locked. She pressed her face to the glass to see a kitchen in disarray. The cabinets had been thrown open, dishes and pots scattered across the floor, and a dining table upended. A sigil marked the blood-streaked walls, three twisting arms that came together with three small circles, one between each set of lines. She had no idea what it said, but she knew what it meant—the demon’s name.

  Her nipples hardened around their metal studs, and the blackness inside her erupted like the demon had just ripped free of her all over again. She felt the overwhelming need to have it back inside her, and she turned to face Steve, the beer bottle falling out of her grasp and shattering against the patio.

  “Come on then,” Shawna said, grinning at him, one hand fingering her breast through her shirt while the other slipped into her jeans, sliding into a warm wetness. Steve wasted no time, crossing the distance between them and scooping her up into his arms. She wrapped her feet around his waist, his hands gripping her backside.

  “Not out here,” Shawna said, huffing as her body throbbed against her clothes. “Inside.”

  Steve set her down and picked up a rock from the landscaping along the side of the patio. He smashed the glass door, making a jagged hole large enough for him to reach through and unlock the door. His eyes widened at the scene inside, but Shawna pushed past him, running her fingers over the demon’s sigil.

  “What are you doing?” Steve asked, giving her a look of disgust. Shawna looked back to the bloodstained wall, but there was no sign of the sigil that had called to her. Had she imagined it? Did she miss the demon so much that she would dream up signs of it?

  Shawna glanced back at him, realizing how crazy she must have seemed to him right now. She’d asked him to help her break into a crime scene, and now she was running her fingers over dried blood. Still, there was a solution to that.

  She pulled out a bag of crystal she’d scored that morning, some high-grade ice. She didn’t need to use words, and in minutes she was on her back on a bloodstained mattress, the sheets already stripped away and taken as evidence. Her feet dangled off the side, her bottom resting on the edge of the bed as Steve stood over her, pushing himself into her. Her heart was pounding in her chest—she’d already done a booty bump that morning, and now she and Steve had just smoked more than she’d ever had in a single sitting, but still the emptiness inside her refused to subside, turning instead to a raging fire that threatened to burn right through her.

  Steve was shouting something at her, his face red. He pushed against her faster and faster, but the world had gone silent, shadowy black hands appearing from behind her and cupping her breasts with icy palms. The cold was a welcome relief, and Shawna cried out, throwing her head back to take in the shadow.

  “Hey, Mom,” Brooke said, staring down at her with eyes of black smoke. Shawna sat up, her chest tightening in shock, but Steve just hefted her up and continued thrusting away at her. Shawna blinked, realizing there was no sign of Brooke or the demon. Steve threw her back down onto the bed, rolling her onto her stomach before entering her again.

  “So this is your life now, huh?” Brooke asked, appearing on the other side of the bed, runn
ing a hand through Shawna’s hair. Steve kept grunting and cursing behind her, and if he saw Brooke, he gave no sign of it. “A meth-head getting plugged in the ass by a greasy trucker. You aren’t even doing it for the money anymore, are you?”

  Shawna swallowed wordlessly, raising her head when Steve gripped her shoulders and pulled her up to get a different angle. Brooke was right. She’d gotten into this life out of desperation. She’d made the moves she’d made because she had no other choice. But even now that she had options again, here she was, deeper into the lifestyle than ever.

  “You like it, don’t you?” Brooke said, grinning beneath her smoke-filled eyes. “But who would pay for a filthy whore like you? You just give it all away for free.”

  “No,” Shawna grunted, tensing up at the sight of Brooke’s eyes. Steve shoved her face back against the mattress, and she felt a hotness spread inside as he emptied himself into her, his thrusts slowing but not ceasing.

  “If you don’t like it, then you must really hate yourself,” Brooke said. She laughed, and her body dissolved into foul black smoke that engulfed Shawna in darkness.

  ***

  Shawna opened her eyes to find herself laying naked on the mattress, her pipe and the rest of her stash sitting on the nightstand. Steve was dressing rapidly, his belt jangling as he pulled his jeans on. She blinked, realizing that the window was open. Steve moved his lips, but her ears were ringing so badly she couldn’t make out his words. She blinked again, and Steve leapt out the window.

  A police radio crackled somewhere in the house. Something clicked inside her head, and the ringing stopped, the funk falling away from her mind. She rolled out of bed and stood at the window, heavy footsteps stomping around in the hallway. Her eyes drifted to the bag of crystal on the nightstand, and she dropped to the floor and shoved her gym bag under the bed. She scurried in after it, grabbing her clothes on the floor and pulling them with her just an instant before the bedroom door creaked opened.