Death's Avatar (The Descent Series)

by SM Reine

  “Of course not.”

  “Any unusual noises or sightings? Animals with glowing eyes, objects flying across the room, strange noises on the telephone…”

  Marisa shook her head. “Aside from Lucinde's illness, everything has been normal.”

  “What about nightmares? Have you experienced sexual dreams of a dark nature?”

  “That's a personal question,” Augustin interrupted.

  Elise’s lip curled, but she didn’t respond.

  “I haven't,” Marisa said. Her voice was hardly louder than a whisper. “Augustin?” After a moment, he shook his head. “Lucinde was having nightmares before. Not… sexual. But she kept waking up screaming.”

  “Did she tell you what she was dreaming about?” Elise stopped to peer at a family camping photo beside an artful arrangement of silk flowers. In the picture, the Ramirezes were tan and smiling. Lucinde’s low, croaking moans echoed through the house.

  “She told me a monster was eating her heart,” Marisa whispered. “I thought… I mean, what a strange thing for a little girl to dream about. She dreamed a monster ate her heart and sat in her chest.”

  Elise's eyebrows lifted. “Really.”

  “It's not weird for her to have bad dreams,” Augustin interjected. “Especially not about her heart. She has a condition. The doctors don't think it should be fatal, but you know how kids are. Of course she's scared of bad things happening to her heart.”

  “What kind of heart condition?” They reached the top of the stairs, pausing down the hall from Lucinde's room. All the doors were open but hers.

  “I don't think you need to know that to do your job,” Augustin said.

  “Just wondering. I assume you’ve already taken her to see a doctor and a psychologist?”

  “Those were our first choices. They gave us the option of waiting to see if she would improve or sticking her in an institution. I wouldn’t have let Marisa call you unless we didn’t have any choices left.”

  “I see. I’m going to go in and look at her now.”

  “Be careful. She's gotten… violent,” Marisa said.

  “How violent can a five year old be?” Elise gave an unpleasant smile that didn’t suit her angular face. “I’m sure I’ve handled worse.”

  “Just be careful. She's in here.”

  Elise approached the door Marisa indicated, and the Ramirezes hung back. The girl became quieter as she grew near. When she stood before the door, Lucinde became entirely silent.

  Elise pushed the door open and went inside.

  Lucinde’s room was even colder than the rest of the house. Heavy curtains cast the room in near-complete darkness, and a portable swamp cooler made the air chill and muggy. A white canopy bed blocked the back half of the darkened room.

  There were multiple obstacles strewn across the floor: an overstuffed comforter, rose-colored pillows in varying sizes, and a toy chest. Possible hiding places included the closet and the shadowed area behind a pink trunk with princess costumes draped over the sides. No girl in sight.

  Elise didn’t like the room’s poor visibility. It felt confined. Dangerous. “I’m going to open the window, Marisa.”

  “She won't like it.”

  She moved toward the window, hugging the wall, and stepped over a toy unicorn with blood caking the mane to its neck. Ears perked for any hint of motion, she jerked aside the first layer of curtains, then the second.

  Light filled the room. Someone squealed.

  Elise rounded the bed in time to see bare feet disappearing under the bed. “Lucinde?”

  She dropped to her hands and knees and leaned her cheek close to the carpet. A pair of luminous eyes stared back at her. The girl under the bed looked nothing like Marisa. Her skin was dark, like her father's, and her flat nose was offset by his same expressive lips.

  “Cold,” she hissed. “Cold!”

  Elise's gaze traveled over her bared legs. Her knees were heavily bruised, purple and black and brown on the edges. The flesh on her shins looked like broiled strawberries. “Have you used force to restrain her?” Elise asked.

  “She hurts herself,” Marisa said. “We can't stop her.”

  “Colder!” Lucinde demanded again, sinking further into the corner as though she wanted to hide inside the wall. Elise glanced at the swamp cooler. Colder.

  Lucinde tried to jerk away when she touched her foot, but Elise caught her ankle, pulling her foot into the light. A few remaining flakes of pink nail polish decorated her toenails under caked blood. One nail had been torn out. She released the child’s ankle, and withdrew again.

  “How are you doing?” Elise asked. “Quomondo vales?”

  Lucinde froze. Her eyes widened fractionally.

  “Quomondo vales?” she repeated. “Loquerisne Latine? No? ¿Hablas inglés?”

  “She speaks English,” Marisa said, offended.

  “Of course.”

  Elise pulled the chains of her necklace over head and picked a bronze pendant from amongst the other charms. It caught the sun and scattered gold light on Lucinde’s forehead. The whites of her eyes were almost yellow, shot through with crimson veins, and a long, low hiss issued from her lips.

  “Crux sacra sit mihi lux,” Elise whispered. Lucinde recoiled, covering her face.

  “What are you doing?” Augustin demanded.

  Lucinde remained flat against the carpet, fingers spread through the dusty shag as though she feared being dragged away. She whimpered like a wounded dog.

  She was tiny. Elise was sure she had never been that small.

  Elise leaned closer. “Can you speak?”

  Marisa stepped forward. “Watch out—”

  The girl's foot lashed out and the bedroom exploded into red stars. The pain struck a moment later like being struck in the jaw by a baseball bat.

  She reeled, hand flying to her mouth. Lucinde scurried from beneath the mattress.

  “Colder! Colder!” Her voice was shrill, piercing.

  Lucinde's nails flashed. Elise raised her arm in defense—but the little girl stopped short, swiping the hand inches from Elise’s face. Lucinde’s wrist was roped to the corner of the bed.

  Augustin hauled the exorcist to her feet, dragging her away from Lucinde. She shook his elbow free of his grip.

  “We told you to be careful,” he said, voice rough. “She's not normal anymore.”

  Elise met the girl’s eyes. “Cold,” she echoed.

  Marisa moved into the room, making soothing noises. Lucinde screamed a long note with the tenor of a beast. Augustin guided Elise out of the room and shut the door. Without windows, the hallway was darker than Lucinde's bedroom, but it felt much less oppressive.

  “We won't be held liable for our daughter's—”

  “I'm not going to sue you for my wound, if that's what you're getting at. I've had many injuries much worse than this.”

  “Good.” His mouth twisted. “Good. What were you doing in there?”

  “Testing her,” she said. “This is the pendant of Saint Benedict. He's the patron saint of a lot of things—nettle rash, servants who have broken stuff that belongs to their masters. Spelunkers.”

  “Spelunkers?”

  “He’s also invoked during exorcisms. I wanted to see if she would react to Latin because a lot of Greater Demons don’t speak any living languages.”

  “She's been speaking English,” Augustin said. “She keeps saying 'cold.'”

  “I saw that.”

  “So… what do you think?”

  “I can’t say if she's possessed,” Elise said, touching the back of her hand to her mouth. It came away bloody. “She's definitely got an attitude problem.”

  “She was never like this before,” Augustin said.

  “I’m sure.” She headed down the stairs, leaving Lucinde's screams behind her. “I’ll do some research. I've seen my share of possessions and exorcisms, but never one as spontaneous as this. You're sure nothing has been flying around?”

  “Completely
sure. We're not freaks.”

  “You don't have to be a freak to be targeted by demons; just unlucky or stupid. Since you haven't summoned anything, you could be the former.”

  “We're not stupid,” he said. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Don't put words into my mouth.”

  Augustin puffed out his chest. “Can you exorcise Lucinde or not?”

  “I could, if she's possessed,” Elise said. “It definitely seems like a demon problem.”

  “Like in the Bible.”

  “Yes. ‘Like in the Bible.’ I'm going to confer with James, after which he'll be in contact with you. What would be the best number to reach you at?”

  “Marisa’s so-called high priest has it,” Augustin said.

  “Okay. Keep Lucinde in her room for now. Try to keep her eating and drinking water, because if she is possessed, she'll resist it on her own,” Elise said. She touched her bleeding lip. “You already know to keep your distance.”

  “Yes.”

  He opened the front door to let in the hot summer air. The clouds had thickened since Elise’s arrival, and it smelled like rain again. “You have my card. Call me when she gets worse,” she said, stepping outside.

  Augustin was already closing the door. He looked as inclined to give her a call as he was to offer a finger to his daughter's mouth. “Right, thanks,” he said.

  Elise paused by the Ramirezes’ gate. She glanced up at Lucinde’s window, half-covered in a heavy drape. As she watched, a hand came up to jerk it closed.

  “You’re welcome,” she muttered. Elise turned on her car, cranked the radio, and pulled out of the cul-de-sac.

  In the bushes between the Ramirezes’ house and their neighbor’s, an earless gray creature crouched in the shadow of the tree watching Elise's car pull away. A small tongue darted out of its mouth to lick its leathery lips.

  It blinked, dedicating Elise's face to memory, and vanished.

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  An excerpt from

  DREAMS OF GRAY

  by Maurice Lawless

  Waking up naked was usually a good thing for me. It meant I'd had a particularly nice night dancing at the club, followed by a little horizontal dancing with a cute guy (or girl, if I’m really drunk). I usually wake up content, warm, and relatively unharmed. So maybe I'd have to pluck my bra off the ceiling fan and sneak out without waking up my friend-for-an-evening. It was all par for the course.

  But waking up cold, wet, and dirty was new. I’d never had to pick leaves and mud out of my hair before, and this was the first time I had to wander aimlessly through a damp forest for most of the day before I figured out where I was. I ran barefoot and bare-assed from bushes to trees to random parked cars and climbed into my apartment through the bedroom window to avoid being caught without a stitch to my name.

  It was one hell of a way to start the week.

  I skipped work that day—big surprise, right? Something about waking up naked in the woods two miles from my place really makes me drag. It took me a solid hour to scrub off the caked mud and leaves, and that wasn't mentioning the freak-out that followed realizing I'd joined the ranks of the heavily inked.

  I sure as hell should've remembered how I got that tattoo. It took up my entire goddamn back! It looked like some weird cross between runes and a tribal armband a meathead might get on a date, and it ran from the tops of my shoulders to the small of my back.

  It didn’t make sense. I'd never liked needles. They had to pretty much sedate me growing up whenever I needed a shot. Sedative before the sedative in some cases. What could I say? I was a biter. I’d never set foot inside a tattoo parlor, much less sat through the hours—no, days—it would take to get that amount of ink put on. It didn’t even feel tender, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t unconscious for a month while it healed.

  After my shower, I took another look at my back. There were six runes, staggered in two rows of three. The intricate patterns surrounding the runes looked more like something you’d see on a Scottish coat of arms.

  Looking too closely made me shiver, and I was sickened to see the tattoo shiver with me. This was a part of my skin now. It would take months of painful laser treatments—and permanent scars—to get it off, and I couldn’t even remember how it got there.

  I covered the evidence with a towel and retreated to my bedroom. I don’t remember much after that. I must've fallen asleep because my phone woke me up. The ring was "Highway to Hell”, which meant it was my only friend at work: Peggy Jane Mackenzie, or PJ, as she preferred.

  I reached for my phone, still mostly asleep. It took a few tries to hit the answer button.

  “Hello?”

  “This is your 7:30 wake up call. You coming over or what?”

  I looked at my clock radio. “Oh crap. Sorry. Yeah, just let me get dressed.”

  “Someone over there I should know about?”

  PJ was very open about her sex life. Too open. She expected the same amount of details from me and was constantly disappointed.

  “No. I was just more tired than I thought. Nodded off.”

  “Well, get dressed and get over here. Or skip the first part. Might make the drive more interesting.”

  “Whatever. See you in a bit.”

  I rolled over and looked at the ceiling, then down at myself. I was still naked. Save the occasional weekend delight, I generally slept in something. I get cold easily.

  Not only was I less shocked than I should've been with everything in the open, I was actually warm. I pulled on panties, jeans, and a top, and when I went to check the thermostat, it read what it always did: 75. It felt ten degrees above that. I made a mental note to call the office and get the dial fixed.

  I looked at myself in the mirror on the way out, and then I sighed and went back to change my top. My usual ones showed too much of my neck. I wasn’t ready to breech the subject of the ink with PJ. I settled on the same top with a light jacket that had a collar. It would have to do.

  PJ answered the door in jean shorts and a halter top. Her curly red locks were cinched up behind her head in a bundle that looked close to bursting.

  “Hey, ho.”

  She’d already started the movie, and her coffee table was cluttered with a wide array of snack foods. Most were frozen dairy products, sweating sweet rings onto the bills and junk mail beneath.

  “Hit me, girl,” I said, and I settled onto the couch.

  She handed me a spoon like a surgical nurse might pass a scalpel. I stabbed the nearest pint.

  “You cold or something? I’m burning up today. Cute jacket though.”

  She noticed. Crap.

  I tried to let it slide. It worked for about half an hour, which is when my back tickled from a dripping bead of sweat. I finally gave in to the urge to shuck the jacket.

  PJ was enraptured by Russell Crowe on the screen, feet tucked under her and hair (now free of the clip) spilling out in a wild, bloody spray behind her. I sighed. Hopefully, she’d be too drunk or tired to notice black vines visible on the back of my neck.

  PJ got up and shuffled forward to the kitchen, and I stood up and stretched. She whistled a cat-call.

  “You slut!”

  I’d stretched facing away from the kitchen and gave her a clear shot of the very thing I’d been hiding all day. Smooth move, Ex-Lax. “What?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, whore. I saw that tramp stamp. When did you get it?”

  My face probably matched her hair at this point. PJ was already back in the living room, and seriously invading my personal space.

  “Come on, strip. I want to see.”

  Before I knew it, she was hiking my shirt up. My whole back was quickly bare to her scrutiny. I heard her gasp. “Oh shit.”

  I wrestled my shirt back down and retreated to the far end of the couch. My eyes welled up, and my cheeks heated to the point of boiling. But PJ wasn’t looking at me at all. A strangely confused expression gave way to her sly smile.
<
br />   “I had no idea you were such a freak, Dree. That’s hot.”

  I laughed in spite of myself, even as I looked away so she wouldn’t see the warm stream of tears.

  “When did you get it done?” she asked. “And how the hell did you keep it a secret?”

  I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I wanted to quietly endure the pain and scars and get it erased. Return to normalcy. She sat close to me, and her face went serious.