Dan retrieved the sheets of paper and Arthur’s ability to move his arm ended and it flopped onto the bed, one finger outstretched as though pointing to all things lost.
Dan held the papers in front of him. Small whispers came from his lips and Arthur watched, amazed, as the white sheets became withered and creased as though age had suddenly caught up with them.
“There,” Dan admired his handiwork. “As good as - oh, whatever, you get the gist."
“Now what?” Arthur asked, dejected.
“Well, I guess we’ve done what has been asked of us and we return to the natural order of things.”
“Am I destined for Hell?” Arthur enquired. A shudder ran through him.
“Give you three guesses,” Dan said with a wink. “Don’t be too concerned. You get used to the heat after a while.”
“How long do I have left on this Earth?”
“Well, if I was to say part of my scope is harvesting old souls who are not long for this world, does that give you a hint?” Dan said this as though it would be of help.
“When will it hap...” Arthur began but he never made it to the end.
Dan's arm snaked out and punched a hole into the old man’s side. The fist passed through the ribs and the lungs and into the heart.
The fingers extended and Dan had a good root around.
“Where are you?” he giggled. “Ah, gotcha, you little bugger.”
He dragged his hand from the ragged hole left in Arthur Conlon’s inert body. In his grip was a bloodied, writhing mass of flesh and veins. A small cavity opened up and gave forth a small scream that reverberated about him. The forked tongue darted out from Dan’s mouth and licked the bloodied shape in his hands. The demon’s body shivered as he relished the taste. A new soul was a delicacy he just could not resist.
“Yummy,” his eyes closed. “Guilt has a flavour all of its own.”
The tiny mouth let go another thin screech.
“Hush, now, Arthur,” Dan cradled the ravaged soul to him. “Let’s just keep you nice and warm for a while.”
Dan pressed the embryo into his body where it was, at first, absorbed by the folds of his garments and then by the layers of fatty tissue beneath until no longer visible. He could feel it, of course, writhing under his skin in consummate torment.
“Well,” he stated, “not strictly warm in the usual context. But you know what I mean.”
His work done, Demon Dan closed the bubble and time resumed. In the bed, Arthur appeared at peace but the soul rummaging around the demon's guts suggested a new reality.
“Has he gone?” Amanda was standing in the doorway. She had a mug of coffee in her hands.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “It was peaceful.”
“I shall ring his son,” she said sadly. “He asked to be notified straight away. It seems unjust, doesn’t it?”
“How so, Amanda?” Dan was intrigued.
“He visits every weekend and on the day he can’t make it, his father slips away,” she explained sadly.
“What were the odds?” Dan asked.
“Will you stay with Arthur for a moment?” Amanda said as she passed him his coffee. “While I make the call?”
“Of course,” Dan replied taking the coffee from her. “I felt that, at the end, Arthur and I became quite close.”
“Careful,” Amanda cautioned as she nodded towards the mug. “It’s hotter than a thousand devils.”
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re an...”
“Angel?” she offered with a grin.
“I do hope not,” he added with a wink.
“Oh, you are naughty, Daniel,” her lashes bobbing. She left the room but her coy giggles followed her out.
Dan looked at the coffee as tendrils of steam made swirls in the air. And then he drank it in three gulps.
“She makes damned good coffee,” he whispered to the room. “Shame she’s destined for other places. Unlike you, dear fellow.”
He patted his belly where Arthur’s blistering soul responded with tiny kicks.
“Ah,” Dan picked up the Will. “Almost forgot about you.”
He pulled open a draw in the bedside cupboard and placed the aged sheets inside. Amanda and her colleagues would find them as they readied the room for another corpse-in-waiting.
Then, with one last glance towards the human shell lying on the bed, Demon Dan winked out of this world and made his way back to his own. Through ethereal planes separating one dimension from the next, his transcendental journey was guided throughout by the insistent shrieks and cries of the Damned.
And, out of all those lost, no one screamed louder than Arthur Dean Conlon.
S Is For Sitakh
Old Scratch
Nerine Dorman
For Yvette
A black magician needs his beauty sleep, otherwise he gets cranky as all hell. And no one needs cranky. Especially at half-past three in the fucking morning. This is the third night in a row that the neighbourhood cat population has seen fit to raise the undead with their infernal caterwauling.
The culprits are Maureen’s old black tom—I think she calls him Nero, of all names—and the resident feral male. I’ve only ever seen the scraggly orange slinker dashing for cover whenever the feline version of Mortal Kombat gets interrupted. But from the sound of things it may as well be a veritable pack of demons from the nether pits of the deepest unholy realms consorting in the backyards of the row in which I live.
To be perfectly honest, I’d sooner face half a dozen demonic entities than another disturbed night. The problem with being woken now is that it’s really too early to warrant crawling out of bed, and definitely too late to get any decent sleep should I manage to drop off again. So I drift in a horrible limbo state, aware of every small noise—like the squeak of the floorboards settling, and the sash window rattling in the wind. Some rocket scientist roars down Hope Street and I tense, almost expecting a screech of tyres which never comes.
Every time I try drift off again, some other noise intrudes. I might as well get up. Or maybe not. I snuggle deeper under the covers.
The violent opening sequence of Nine Inch Nails’ Big Man With A Gun crashes me into full wakefulness. No matter how many times my phone rings, that ringtone never fails to shock the living shit out of me. Effective and nasty.
“What?” I croak without bothering to look at the screen. Only one person is terminally foolish enough to call me at some ungodly hour.
“Jamie,” Detective Botha says. “We have an emergency.” From the sound of things, he’s driving.
I suppress the urge to laugh. “Really? I couldn’t have guessed.”
“I’ll be outside your spot in five minutes...”
“And you need me to be outside and waiting. Fuck you.”
Botha kills the call before I can. Bastard.
* * *
As promised, the damnable man has his beat-up Nissan stationwagon idling outside my front door before I can haul ass downstairs.
“Good morning, Jamie,” Botha says as I settle.
“Mmfmfff, this had better be good,” I tell him.
He gives no indication of noticing my death glare, and releases the hand brake so we can get going. “We have a situation.”
“I’m absolutely dying of curiosity, detective.” I fumble for my cigarettes—of course I had to forget something―then with a muttered oath help myself to one from Botha’s soft pack on the dash board.
“Last week I was contacted by a pastor of the Deus People’s...”
Red-hot fury slams through me. “Stop the car, right now!” I shout at him even as I undo the safety belt.
“James!” Botha shouts. In all the time I’ve known him he’s never raised his voice at me.
With a low growl I glare at him but he’s looking ahead. In the glow from the street lights livid bruises show up on his face and I can clearly see a wound to his temple that’s been neatly stitched up.
“Just hear me out before you make any ju
dgment calls.”
“Those motherfu...”
“The men who did you wrong are dead. Not all the congregation are corrupt, evil men.”
“So what’s the bright idea then? And what the fuck happened to you?”
Botha bares his teeth as we reach a red traffic light. “Will you keep that mouth of yours shut long enough to hear me out?”
“Fine.” I draw hard on the cigarette and glare dead ahead. Looks like he’s driving us out to the northern suburbs. Other side of the bloody boerewors curtain. Just great.
“Pastor September operates out in Kuilsrivier. A small congregation. They do a lot of work with drug addicts. He called me last week. Says he’s been troubled by demons.”
With great difficulty I keep my mouth shut. Nine out of ten times so-called demon problems are all issues that exist inside the religious nutters’ heads, and some poor innocent kid’s drawn the short end of the stick thanks to hysterical parents. So, maybe the kid’s been a bit withdrawn at school, or the gods forbid, was caught masturbating or something. Fuck only knows what sets off the religious folks nowadays.
Botha continues, “It should have been a standard exorcism, but Pastor September tells me the demon just came back, and with greater force. It attacked him, so that’s why he called me in.”
And not the Ghostbusters? No, bloody hell, Jamie shut your fucking mouth. I bite the inside of my cheek and dig into my thigh hard with the fingers not gripping my cigarette.
“I set up a consultation. The family is really at tether’s end. I...I...”
We ride in silence for half a minute, with only the engine rumble and Botha’s ragged breathing for accompaniment. Okay, colour me piqued, the dude’s lank freaked out. My own dark passenger remains coiled deep within me. If Botha knew what I carried around daily, would he sit here next to me? Would he invite me along to help solve his more baffling cases? Or would he try to put a bullet through my brain?
“And?” I prompt.
“Jamie, in all my years serving in the occult unit and now that I’m freelancing, I’ve never experienced such... Ferocity. Such anger. The poor boy. His parents have tried everything. And even I can’t do anything.”
“So, I’m about to play Obi-Wan Kenobi to your Princess Leia?”
“This is no laughing matter.”
“But clearly, as always, I’m your last resort. What’s in it for me?” I ask. “I have bills to pay. I’m obviously going to have to call in to let my boss know I won’t be available for my shift later this morning.”
“Candice will understand, and from time to time it’s good to engage in altruistic behaviour.”
He’s right about my damnable boss. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she hasn’t already had a vision pertaining to my absence from the bookstore this morning. As for engaging in random acts of kindness toward folks who’d normally write me off as a cat-killing devil-worshipper, I’m not so sure.
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll take a look. But I’m not going to promise anything.” This is not going to end well.
* * *
All the lights are blazing in seven Primula Road—an unassuming avocado-green home with a modern, triangular facade. Many years ago someone had the bright idea to plant a date palm in the centre of the lawn, and now it’s a giant filling most of the front garden.
Even as Botha kills the engine, I can hear the shrieks, so much louder and devastatingly blood-curdling than that of the cats that had me up earlier.
“Sweet Christ on a pogo stick, detective, what are they doing in there?” I glance worriedly at Botha.
The man scrubs at his face with both palms. “We have the young boy restrained in order to avoid further harm to others.”
“Is that even legal?” I ask.
“You’ll understand when you see Roddy.”
Just what the hell am I getting myself into? Wordlessly I follow Detective Botha up to the front door. He barely has a chance to knock before a man opens—Mr Carolus, Roddy’s dad. His dark skin is sallow with worry and, from what I can only imagine, many days’ worth of sleepless nights.
“Botha,” Carolus murmurs and gestures for us to enter.
“James Guillaume.” I extend my hand to the man once I’ve stepped over the threshold.
The ungodly shrieking makes it almost impossible to hold a normal conversation. I can only compare it to recordings I once heard of pigs being slaughtered.
Carolus glances down but doesn’t accept my gesture of friendship. Instead he stares at me as though I’ve morphed into the devil HF Verwoerd himself. “I know who you are. If you do anything to harm my boy I’ll hunt you down.” Enough hatred is lodged in his eyes to cause me to spontaneously combust.
Okay then. I withdraw my hand but then I feel it—an undeniable buzz at the edge of my perception. Within me, The Burning One twitches into a half-wakened state of being, and I tamp down his obvious interest. Not now, let me try handle this on my own.
“Jamie?” Botha asks.
“Huh? Oh yes. Please. I’d like to see the boy.”
I catch a brief glimpse of the lounge area where a small group sits in a rough circle, holding hands. Lips move in silent prayer and an open bible is displayed prominently on a coffee table. Oh bloody hell. I’m right in the midst of enemy territory here. What extremes are these people driven to that they rely on me to solve a problem their faith and their god supposedly cannot?
Although I hadn’t thought it possible, the shrieks from the bedroom at the end of the passage grow louder and more frenzied, and for a sick moment I can’t help but feel as though I’ve somehow stumbled onto the set of The Exorcist. This shit’s only supposed to happen in films. The few possessions I’ve encountered have been nothing like this. Dare I dwell on the irony?
“God be with you,” Botha says.
Both he and Carolus remain outside of the bedroom, leaving me to face whatever horror lies on the other side of the door.
The stench hits me first—a fusty miasma of vomit, ammonia and shit. A paroxysm of coughing has me all but doubled over. Botha so owes me for this. My stomach clenches and it’s with great difficulty that I prevent myself from puking. Slowly I straighten and my vision adjusts to the dim light emitted by the bedside lamp. There, swaddled in blankets in a mockery of a babe, lies a boy. Or what I could vaguely describe as a boy if it weren’t for the hideous way in which his face is disfigured while he shrieks.
His mouth is flecked with foam and unidentifiable crusted material. Blood? Vomit?
A word is inscribed on his forehead with what appears to be a pin: Sitakh. Never heard of Sitakh. It sounds vaguely Egyptian but I can’t be sure.
Such malignant hatred blazes from his eyes that I take an involuntary step back despite the knowledge that the kid’s completely helpless the way he’s restrained.
“Fuck me.” I can’t think of any other response.
It’s not just the kid’s state that has me freaked out beyond all belief, but it’s the heaviness of the atmosphere, as though the air has thickened to the consistency of syrup. And it’s cold. Really cold. My breath mists before my face and my teeth chatter.
The unholy shrieking and gibbering continues, and the sounds almost resolve into half-recognisable words. I can’t hear myself think if this carries on and The Burning One gives a sickening lurch into awareness.
Not now...
“You’re in danger,” he says.
“It’s just a kid.”
“You know better than that, my bright one.” The Burning One stretches, his violet-black flames filling my veins with their potency. All I need to do is step back...
“What am I to do?” Somehow, I don’t think an average banishing ritual that works on the unquiet dead will succeed here.
“Lay your hands on him. I will do the rest.”
Oh fuck me no. Touch that dirty...
“He hasn’t got much longer to live. The boy will die and the entity might succeed in leaping to another host. It doesn’t belong here.”
A fierce sense of protectiveness floods me. The depth of The Burning One’s hatred is unrelenting, a fierce desire for complete annihilation. There’s no care for the boy, beyond an interest to please me, just a longing to establish dominance. Uncomfortably I’m reminded of this morning’s two warring tomcats.
“Don’t hurt the boy. Please.”
My words are all invitation The Burning One needs. My own control is shrugged aside as easily as I’d discard a jacket. The world explodes into a wash of colours, bright lights and a low rumble that builds into an earth shattering growl. Then nothing.
* * *
“Jamie? Jamie!” a man shouts as though from a great distance. A child sobs nearby, heartbroken, but none of this matters. I’m comfortable, slumped on the floor, one hand clutching a blanket...
Someone grips my shoulder and shakes hard, and it’s as if a lightning bolt bursts through my muscles. I lurch to my knees.
“What? Where?”
The room is tiny and next to me, on the bed, a woman presses a child to her chest. A man—Mr Carolus—opens the curtains and allows in the sunlight and fresh air to circulate because yes...
The unimaginable fetor of this enclosed space hits me with the force of a sledgehammer, and I retch weakly. I’m dimly aware of Botha crouching next to me, his hand warm on my back as he rubs between my shoulder blades.
“You’ve done it, Jamie.”
Done what exactly? I blink about owlishly at this tableau, of the parents who focus on their son now that The Burning One has used me to do something.
“What have you done?” I ask quietly.
But The Burning One has retreated to his usual banked ember within me, and I’m not certain whether I should poke too hard at this point. Let sleeping demons lie dreaming.
“You were in there for two hours, and there was the most terrible shrieking at first, but then there were voices.” Botha helps me to my feet and my legs are weak.
“I need a smoke.” I gesture to the door.
Botha supports me as we walk down the passage. An older man wipes his gleaming forehead with a handkerchief. “Dankie Speurder Botha, mag die Here jou seën vir die oorwinning wat jy hier aangebring het.” He takes care not to make eye contact with me. Part of me bristles that Botha’s getting all the honour from these simple folk. Of course it would help if I actually knew what it was The Burning One has done. Those two hours are a big fucking blank patch in my memory.
The Demonologia Biblica Page 27