Time of the Demon

by Ian Taylor

  The two hobbled to the door. They seemed to have to hold each other up, as if their life energy was running out.

  "Have a good life now. What's left of it." The second detective grinned malevolently.

  As soon as they had gone, she rushed to the door but was unable to open it. She hunted for the key, but the only key she could find was much too big for the lock. She hurried to the laptop, but every page she brought up bore the smiling figure of Ashtar in his multicolor toga.

  A thunderous knocking began, waking her from her dream. Her bedroom was bathed in flashing blue light.

  "Damn! The police!" She leaped out of bed and opened the curtains. A revolving orange disc, emitting a pulsing blue light, hovered outside the bedroom window.

  "Go away," she yelled at the light. "Just leave me alone!"

  Closing the curtains, she rushed into the sitting room. Although she looked everywhere, she could find no evidence of a break-in or any sign of disturbance. Her notebook still lay in the desk drawer. Was this some kind of anxiety trip? Or was it a warning–from herself to herself?

  Her mobile rang. She stared at it for a moment then, with great reluctance, picked up. Before she could say a word, she found herself listening to a deep metallic voice, whose echoes and distortion did indeed sound as if it came from another world. “Many are called, but few are chosen. Because few choose to be chosen. And those few do not choose to listen to those who have chosen them.”

  She rang off. "I'm sick of this gobbledegook." She buried the mobile under a large cushion, dressed quickly and grabbed her bag. The door yielded to her touch when she depressed the handle. Although her key was in its usual place in the lock, it appeared she’d not actually turned it.

  In what seemed like the first grey light of dawn, she wandered through the town. There was no sign of traffic. Everywhere was eerily silent. Although she knew where she was, she felt a strange desolation had taken possession of familiar streets.

  She entered a pedestrian precinct, where a half-naked male and a topless female were skirmishing. The female had two large tusks, like a sabre-tooth tiger, that protruded from her lower jaw. She was attacking the male with her tusks, gouging chunks of flesh from his blood-soaked body. The male retaliated with blade-like hands, wounding the female mercilessly. A distorted version of Mendelssohn's Wedding March drifted thinly through the oppressive air.

  The female uttered inarticulate screams. The male growled and roared.

  "You see," the male yelled, "you have to work at a relationship!"

  "Never give up," the female shrieked. "Never give up."

  They continued wounding each other, splashing obliviously through the expanding pool of blood. A typical modern relationship, Jan thought.

  She moved on and came across a man dressed as a priest, kneeling in a gutter. The man groaned, clasping his stomach in agony. He began to retch, pulling a seemingly endless stream of daffodils from his jaws and stuffing them into a street drain.

  He looked at her with eyes that held infinite sorrow. "This is not the life I was born for. I was promised so much, that I might even partake of God's infinite love. See what has become of these promises! I have learned only that we are fools! I know nothing of how Creation truly is. I cannot detect the connections that hold it together. I have been betrayed!"

  "By God?" she asked.

  "I don't know," he cried. "I don't know." He continued retching, pulling thistles from his gaping jaws.

  "Who told the first lie?" he wailed.

  "Eve," she replied without thought.

  "Wrong," he shrieked. "You're no better than the rest."

  "Who then?"

  "I don't know," he screamed, tearing his vestments. "I don't know."

  This is what comes of swallowing lies, she thought. One day you have to get rid of them. However painfully.

  She moved further through the precinct. Her attention was drawn to a juggler clad in a Harlequin costume, juggling Indian clubs made of glass. He dropped one and it shattered on the paving, whereupon a homunculus emerged from the debris and scampered across the precinct, giggling with glee.

  "Free! Free! Free!" the little figure shouted happily.

  A feral tomcat sprang from the shadows and snatched the homunculus in its strong jaws. It screamed, then fell limp and silent as the cat raced off with its prey.

  The juggler turned. "I’m a member of an ancient order that has been holding the worlds in equilibrium for uncountable aeons," he advised calmly. "And now, as you see, I have let it go. If you think this is a sad place, wait for what will follow. I, for one, have no wish to be here one moment longer."

  "Defeatist!" she yelled.

  "You’ve no idea," he continued in the same calm tone. "Homo sapiens have forgotten everything of real value. I can’t bear to witness it."

  "You must," she cried. "It's your existential duty!"

  But it was too late. The juggler had cut his own throat with a shard of the shattered Indian club. Even the wise aren't smart enough, she thought dejectedly; you have to think a long way outside the box these days.

  Gripped by a force of will far stronger than her own, Jan’s attention was drawn upwards. Ashtar, in his flowing toga, stood on a nearby rooftop. "Now I’ve let you see the world as it really is." The metallic echo and imperfect voice-sync were gone.

  Things were improving, she thought with a sigh.

  "You see this world," he continued loudly. "But we can change it!” He morphed into a luminous angel. A responsorial chant, Giovanni Gabrieli's O magnum mysterium, sung by the purest of choirs, filled the air. The light intensified, bright as midsummer, and birdsong burst across the precinct.

  "A new world will be ours," Ashtar stated, raising an arm dramatically. "Leave that false witness and come to me! For I am the way, the only truth and the light."

  She couldn’t resist. She felt as powerless as wind-blown rosebay, as if she was enveloped by his will, unable to decide her direction and fate. She couldn’t breathe. Blood drummed in her ears. She thought she was going to die.

  But she couldn't die could she, because he needed her. At least he was letting her think he did ... for now. Then she felt him relent. Touché.

  He was still on the rooftop, smiling, holding out both hands in a gesture of benign welcome.

  "A new world that will be ours!"

  She heard the words echo in her head, as if he’d taken control of her mind. There was no way to stop him; she had no will of her own. Suddenly, again, she felt him release her.

  "Otherwise!"

  The force of that powerful voice flung her back against a shuttered shopfront. The brilliant light, the chanting and the birdsong vanished, replaced by eerie glimmering twilight.

  "Otherwise all will be darkness!" Ashtar morphed into Owlman and disappeared. The transition was so rapid, she didn’t notice. All light was sucked from the precinct and it turned into howling windswept desolation, illuminated only by sea-blue corpse-candles flickering along the walkways that led from it.

  Without purpose, she wandered through the town. Decaying bodies lined the streets; gruesome ghouls feasted on them and fought among themselves. She turned away from the grim spectacle and darted into a dim narrow alley, where rough sleepers huddled in bedrolls. She approached one and pulled back the tattered hood.

  Russell looked up and offered her a weak smile. "This is what comes of stirring up trouble," he said sadly. "If I was you, I'd claim that pitch over there before someone else does."

  "Coward," she yelled in his ear and strolled away.

  She found a convenience store which, surprisingly, was still open, although its windows and door were heavily barred. Everyone in the place was buying booze, but she bought a jar of coffee.

  "You're not going to the party?" the young checkout guy asked, dismayed.

  "What party?" she asked, curious.

  "We're all going," he said. "The world's finished. What’s left for us to do?"

  "I'm not going to the party," she
stated defiantly, placing the jar in front of him. "I'm not going to subscribe to your illusions. I'm going to build a better world."

  "I remember you now," he said with a sympathetic smile. "You bought coffee here last night."

  "Someone has to stay awake," she replied through gritted teeth.

  Avoiding ghouls, she made her way through the streets in the direction of her flat. By the time she reached her street, the traffic was moving and normality, whatever that was, seemed to have returned. She added the jar of coffee to the long line of unopened ones that extended across the kitchen worktop.

  Russell was busy at his desk at the Evening Courier office. Jan knocked lightly and walked in. The air in the room smelled stale, like an ancient tomb.

  She smiled. "I'd half expected to find a corpse."

  He looked shocked. "I know I'm getting older, but I hope not that fast!"

  She placed a computer disc on the desk. "Alec's pics of the arson thing with my comments."

  He looked up defensively. "I'd like you to cover the opening of the new shopping mall. The mayor will be there, plus most of the local council. It's going to create a lot of new jobs, so it's important you write something to celebrate the moment the town starts fighting back against high-street decay."

  She gave a withering look. "The mayor? Wow. In his chain of office and all?"

  Russell drew a long breath. "Take Alec. Get some good pics."

  "Maybe I'll fetch my Kalashnikov instead and liven things up." She mimicked shooting a rifle.

  He didn't seem to know how to react to that. "Just get some photos," he repeated, appearing exhausted. "And a quote from the mayor."

  "I'll concentrate on the blood and entrails." She swept from the room.

  She did the new shopping mall, but it seemed unreal. At one time, not so long ago, she’d

  have been supportive of the new venture and the local council's efforts. However, things had changed and her allegiance had shifted. In spite of this, however, she decided she should try to maintain her cover as a local reporter.

  She recorded the mayor's speech, which contained half a dozen useful sound bites, and Alec got his pics. To her surprise, she’d begun to relish the task, as if she was snuggling into her conventional persona, like a child under its soft duvet on a cold winter night.

  As she drove back home, intuitive prompting cautioned her to park a little way off from the flat. She got out of the BMW with her bag and laptop and began walking. A car parked fifty yards from her door, its two suited occupants very like the detectives who’d raided her flat in the dream, impelled her to stop dead in her tracks. She hastily withdrew, turned the car around, and drove back the way she’d come. So much for normality and the value of a cover. Unobserved by her, the occupants of the parked car morphed briefly into hideous demons.

  As she returned to the centre of town, she thought she’d investigate the second-hand bookshop behind the town hall. She knew the shop had quite an eclectic collection of volumes, but didn’t expect to find anything on UFOs. To her surprise, they had two of the works on Greg's list and she quickly returned to her office at the paper to read them. Russell, who was busy on his laptop, didn’t notice her return.

  One of the books was the collection of essays Greg had mentioned and she skimmed the pages, trying to take in as much as she could in the shortest possible time. There were essays on abductions, the hypothetical mechanics of flying saucers, various conspiracy theories involving the US and UK governments, a fascinating study placing ufology into the context of folklore, and much more.

  It was the folklore piece that impressed her the most and she believed its author was on to something. Rather than seeing UFOs and their occupants as spacemen from distant galaxies, she felt the author was right and that one of the traditional otherworlds was a much more likely point of origin. Like fairies, elves, dwarves, goblins, unicorns and so on, UFOs came from one of the many parallel worlds that overlapped our own.

  It seemed that one reason the overlapping of worlds appeared to have reduced, was the dichotomy of humanity's mindset. As rationalism gained ground over enchantment, it had become inadvisable to claim you’d seen anything that couldn’t be explained or explained away. From UFO 'occupants' to poltergeists, it was risky to claim you believed these phenomena were as much part of our reality as gravity. Add to this there was so much electromagnetic and microwave pollution in the environment, it was surely enough to foul up consistent otherworld experiences.

  The more she read the more she realised that every culture throughout history had been beset by phenomena still outside the scope of modern science. Her encounter with the puma-like creature in the quarry brought this fact home to her. So-called alien animals, from black dogs to big cats to lake monsters, had been reported throughout northern Europe and beyond, from the earliest writings onwards. Strange beings had always been with us, from the faery men of Ireland to the phantom Black Shucks of East Anglia.

  The second book was an overview of the closest of close encounters with so-called UFO occupants. It was highly entertaining, but seemed to be pretty much in agreement with Greg, that UFO entities, even if they claimed to be benign helpers of humanity, were dangerous deceivers. Clearly, most of the strange lights and their associated entities came from the parallel world of demons, of this she had little doubt.

  What did these demons gain from their association with humans? What were they after? Why was Planet Earth so important to them? Weren't they already immortal beings? Why, in ages long ago, was mankind at the centre of a tug of war between helpful spirits and demons? And why were these demons coming back now?

  Her troubling thoughts were interrupted as Russell poked his head around the door.

  "Thought you were working at home?" he asked in surprise.

  "It's the neighbours," she replied simply. "They're shooting out light bulbs with air guns."

  He showed no surprise. "Why don't you move?"

  "Don't get me wrong, I’m not complaining," she smiled brightly. "I'd join in, but not when I'm working."

  Russell took a reality check. "It's after nine. Can I leave you to lock up?"

  "No problem, I won't be long," she lied.

  When Russell had gone, she went out for takeaway and hurried back to eat in her office. She made sure that both back and front entrances were locked before she sat down to enjoy the meal. But then, she thought wryly, what good were locks against powerful otherworld entities?

  Prawn in mouth, she looked around the familiar space, its filing cabinets, telephones, photocopier and scanner. It suddenly became clear that she’d never work here any more. It seemed as if she was visiting a former life, an unimaginably different one, a place where she’d arrived, but not yet acquired her bearings to properly 'settle in'. Perhaps she never would, but she was in it now and couldn't return to a life she’d used up.

  She finished the meal, but didn't feel like going back to the flat. It might be the most unsafe place of all. She’d have to sleep somewhere, but it had to be a neutral space, one not yet invaded by anyone.

  She booked into a nearby guest house, then opened the laptop and began reading her blog. There were several posts:

  BrainStorm had posted: Conspiracy definitely. Trust no one.

  If it was a crashed UFO there may have been bodies. Was anyone stretchered away? Did you see body bags? Someone called SpaceSleuth wanted to know.

  Reluctant Earthling posted the following: There's an undeclared war between western governments and so-called aliens. If we win this war the planet is doomed.

  There was some confusion among the viewpoints, but the fact that these guys were posting at all was encouraging. She read more posts, some a bit weird, others more sane and challenging. The conspiracy guys seemed to be in the majority and that, she felt, was heartening.

  The last comment, posted by someone simply called A, caused her heart to skip a beat: My prediction will come true.

  She stared, dumbfounded and horrified. Demons didn't
have computers! If Ashtar/Ashtaroth could invade her laptop, then nothing she wrote was private, no matter how cleverly encrypted. What other means of communication were there? Telephones were obviously a non-starter. Telepathy was out–Ashtaroth could read her mind as simply as a roadside billboard. Carrier pigeons maybe? But even they had to carry coded messages.

  A wave of despair swept through her and she turned off the laptop, locked the premises, and retreated to the guest house. As Jan lay in the unfamiliar bedroom she tried, with the energy she had left, to make things return to normal. She was completely out of her depth, living a life where nothing was as it seemed. She couldn't even return to the flat–she was homeless!

  To hell with UFOs and demons! This was outrageous. She was a simple reporter on a provincial paper and that was what she had to reconnect with.

  But the exercise was futile, she knew from the start. The Unknown was where she had to make a new life. She had to embrace it and—somehow—she had to challenge Ashtaroth to reveal his hand.

  It was as if she’d conjured him up. At the mere thought of his name, his presence became known, not in physical form, but in mental. It was the intellectual equivalent of the detectives raiding her flat–she could feel an active force rummaging around in her head, sifting thoughts, weighing motives.

  It grew intolerable. She’d read about states of possession, but this was more like

  mental rape. Then a half-formed idea emerged, one so insane she had to suppress it before Ashtaroth could locate it and render it powerless. She fed the idea into her conscious mind in a slow succession of evenly spaced moments.

  She’d become an open book … she’d become his creature and walk that perilous tightrope. It was the only way to go. As soon as she’d made the decision, the mental intrusion ceased.

  10

  At nine a.m. she returned to the office at the paper and wrote the piece on the shopping mall. It felt like her swansong, but she hadn't the slightest tinge of regret. The decision she’d reached the previous evening was all that mattered. From now on, she’d let Ashtaroth serve as guide.