Demon in Salem

by Laura Cabrerizo

  Samuel jerked back to wakefulness as the doors to the back of the ambulance slammed shut and they were off.

  Within minutes they were pulling up to the front of the hospital and unloading him from the back of the truck, wheeling him into the emergency room. He was embarrassed, but no one seemed to notice his discomfort as they pulled him into one of the individual cubicles and helped him to transfer to the bed.

  The paramedics left after handing him over to the nurses who retook all the vitals the paramedics had already collected during their short ride. Sara stood outside talking to someone with a computer on a wheeled cart. She was waving her hand towards him and speaking as the woman behind the computer typed on the keyboard. Finally, the woman at the cart nodded to her and handed her a slip of paper before walking away.

  Sara entered the room and walked to the head of the bed he was sitting on. The nurse taking his vitals had given up on making him lie down and instead tended to his arm while he sat upright. “Man, I wish I lived in Canada, or somewhere with socialized healthcare.” Sara curled her nose at the paper in her hand before folding it and placing it in her pocket.

  “I hear you on that one.” The nurse smiled at her. A doctor walked in with another nurse, working as a team to stitch the wound on his arm shut. The first nurse went to inject another dose of clear liquid into the tube attached to his arm, but he growled at her to stop. He didn’t want to suffer through another dream like the one he’d just had. She’d only just begun to press the plunger, still injecting some painkiller, before stopping and pulling the syringe off the IV. What she pushed was just enough to give him some relief from the throbbing in his arm.

  Without the pain clouding his senses, he saw the thick line of magic linking him and the descendant, pulsing with shared energy. She was close, very close, and heading in his direction. Samuel’s head shot up as a team of people rushed by with a stretcher and one person in particular caught his attention.

  The woman, wearing the scrubs and coat of a doctor, was tall and willowy with a mocha complexion that matched her short curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. She wasn’t what he expected from the children of the Puritans and didn’t look like a conniving little witch to him. Samuel caught her eye, and she stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes growing wide like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. Her companions drew away from her, continuing down the hall without noticing her lagging pace, but still, she remained as unmoving as a statue.

  All the rage he felt from centuries of entrapment, the pain of the memory he just experienced, welled to the surface as he stared at her. The woman shook as if fever chills wracked her body. There she was, one of his targets so close he could reach out and end her life in one violent moment.

  A sharp but quick pain invaded his senses as someone hissed at him, keeping their voice low. “Eyes!” His gaze snapped to the woman standing next to him. She was familiar, but his brain was having trouble processing the information it was receiving. Samuel blinked several times to clear his vision as he stared at her. Memories from the last few weeks ran through his mind at a rapid pace, and his lips parted in dismay as he saw the horrified expression marring Sara’s features.

  30. SARA

  “What the fuck?” Sara watched Samuel as she hissed the words, drawing them out for emphasis. He looked chagrined, cringing away from her as her gaze bore into him.

  “Remember when I said the descendants of the first witches who trapped me were still tapping into my powers? That was one of them. There are three.” Samuel spoke in a low tone, his words so soft she had trouble understanding him.

  Sara stood and watched him, looking for any signs of dishonesty, but saw none. “How do you know?”

  “I can see the cords of power that connect us. With the restoration of my energy from this trip, the lines have become stronger.”

  Biting the nail of her thumb, Sara looked out into the hallway, but she ignored the people walking past them as she thought. “I’ve seen that woman somewhere before. I recognize her, but I can’t recall where.”

  “You mean Dr. Prescott?” The nurse who took care of them earlier happened to walk into the room as she spoke to Samuel.

  “Who?” Both Sara and Samuel said at the same time.

  “The doctor that came by here with the stretcher a while ago. I figured that’s who you were talking about, everyone points her out. She’s quite the celebrity!”

  “I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before.” Sara smiled at the chatty nurse, prompting her to continue.

  “She’s a famous Neurosurgeon, one of our attending physicians here. Sometimes she is called in to help the ER with consults. You probably know her from that television show, Body Chronicles. You know, that one where they talk about the really difficult to solve medical cases?”

  Sara nodded, she’d heard rave reviews of the show which was hosted on one of the cable health channels. “That must be it.”

  “She’s an incredible doctor. She has this ability to work for hours on end without rest, it’s quite amazing to see. One time she operated for almost seventeen hours straight. Administration ended up pulling her away and having someone else take over, liability issues you see.”

  The nurse seemed quite happy to gossip on about the doctor. Sara watched Samuel’s face as the nurse continued, “The staff loves her, she’s so pleasant to everyone. Every year she takes all of her vacation and personal time at once and goes overseas to work in underdeveloped countries with different foundations to provide medical care.”

  His expression turned darker, and a hint of shame glinted from his eyes. Sara assumed he felt remorse for the way he looked at the other woman and her demeanor softened. She placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed, giving him a soft smile. He was surprised for a moment, regarding her with a steady gaze before snaking his uninjured arm around her waist and pulling her close. Samuel laid his head on her chest, and she ran her fingers through his hair. He seemed so sad.

  “Can we leave yet?” Sara looked at the nurse who was still busying herself around the room.

  “Let me take the IV out. The doctor wrote you a prescription for some painkillers for the next day or two. The pharmacy will require your identification when you pick them up. You’ll have to follow up with your primary in about two weeks to have the sutures removed.” The nurse went to work on freeing Samuel while Sara collected her things, opting to have them throw out her ruined sweater.

  He didn’t say much as Sara gathered the paperwork and they left the hospital, flagging down a taxi to take them back to the hotel. She helped him into the car as he was still somewhat unsteady and tucked him into the bed when they reached their lodgings. After taking the dog out one more time, she crawled into the bed next to him, studying his face under a beam of white moonlight.

  He looked peaceful, having fallen asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, and she couldn’t help but admire his sharp features. He slumbered on his back, with his uninjured arm curled behind his head, and his face nestled into the crook his arm made. As she lay down next to him, he unconsciously rolled over and snuggled her close. He loved touching her and Sara didn’t mind it one bit. It was nice to have someone around, though harder to come to terms with what she was starting to feel.

  She continued to watch him, thinking about what she saw over the past few days. Here was a person, some would call a monster, that she never felt anything but safe with. Samuel could be terrifying. She had seen it firsthand earlier this evening, and the memory made her pause. There was so much hate and anger expressed in that one look. She understood, or she thought she did. These descendants were a reminder of his capture and entrapment so many centuries ago. Still, it wasn’t their fault what their ancestors had done.

  In the end, the logical part of Sara told her she didn’t know that much about this man. They may have lived with one another for months, but they had been together in person for a mere week. It didn’t seem like enough time to develop feelings for
someone, but Sara had always been a ‘jump in feet first’ kind of person.

  It was precisely that behavior which had led her into her relationship with Jeremy. She thought she loved the man and he turned out to be a monster. Sara may know Samuel was a monster up front, but he only ever acted that way to people who wanted to do her harm. Perhaps it would be best to wait and see what happened before drawing any conclusions. She closed her eyes. The day had been long and rough, and she looked forward to getting home in the morning.

  Sara smiled down at the adorable picture Samuel and Chico made and pulled out her phone. He hadn’t twitched when she woke up in the morning and started packing their things. She decided to let him sleep since the pain medicine would have worn off and she wanted him to get as much rest as possible. Chico was sleeping in the area between his shoulder and head, curled up in a tight ball with Samuel’s cheek pressed against his back. Snapping a picture, she texted it to Ash. She would have to call her friend to see how the convention was going.

  Gingerly, she reached down and scooped Chico up out of his nest, causing Samuel to stir as she did so. “Morning.”

  He rubbed his face with his hands while sitting up and looking around with blurry eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Almost ten.” Cradling the dog, she leaned over and gave Samuel a peck on the forehead, stepping away as he reached for her. “You have to get dressed. I’m going to take Chico out then I will come back up and change your bandages before we go home.”

  Samuel watched her as she left, a goofy smile on his face. By the time she returned, the dog’s leash wrapped around one wrist, and two coffees from the café across the street in her hands, he was showered and dressed. Sara clucked her tongue at him, placing the beverages on the entry table. “You weren’t supposed to get your arm wet. Sit on the bed and let me change your bandage.”

  He did as she told him to, watching her face as he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the wound. Sara picked up his forearm and stared at it in shock. “I told you it would heal on its own.”

  “Obviously.” Her eyes flicked up to his then back down. “I just never expected this.” The wound had turned into a thin red line, the sutures still sewed into his flesh but unnecessary. It looked like it had been healing for days instead of hours.

  “It should have healed instantly.” Samuel hesitated, clenching his jaw before he continued. “I had a dream while I was in the ambulance. One about the witch who trapped me and I realized it was a memory of the last time I saw her before she abandoned her workroom.”

  “Tell me about it in the car? We have to get on the road.” He helped Sara carry the luggage down to the parking garage. She tried to tell him she could get it all, even if it would take a few trips, but he waved away her offer claiming his arm didn’t hurt anymore.

  Once home, after they unloaded the car, Sara suggested they go look for the grimoire. Samuel had relayed the story to her during the ride though she had a feeling, once again, that he wasn’t telling her everything. She needed to get on him about that and wondered how she could convince him to fully open up to her.

  The previous events were how she found herself and Samuel in the creepy cellar of the house again. “So, tell me, exactly what do you remember about the book?”

  Samuel placed the camp lantern on one of the tables. The bright white LED light threw unforgiving shadows into the corners of the room. A shiver of trepidation crawled its way down her spine as she watched him. Down here, brimming with energy, he wasn’t the same person he had been over the last week.

  “The book is somewhere in the main room, in a part that can’t be seen from the center of the circle in the back section.”

  Sara started walking towards the ring to see where the cutoff point in the line of sight was. Samuel grabbed her arm, his silent movement causing her to screech and turn, placing her hand over her heart. “Don’t do that!”

  “Sorry. Don’t go back there. I don’t know what latent magic is wafting around and I have no interest in spending another three hundred years in this cellar, even if you are trapped here with me.” Samuel pinched her chin and went back to looking at the walls, leaving her confused in the middle of the room. His actions were all over the place.

  They searched the walls, and any other stone outcroppings they could find, with no success. “You said you heard stone scraping on stone, so there must be a hidden compartment in the wall or a loose stone that can be removed, somewhere.” Sara looked at the walls, chewing on the nail of her thumb, as was her habit when she was thinking.

  “She probably cast an illusion over the spot or hid it with magic in some way. No one ever came down here after that night, so it must still be here. The witch wouldn’t have been able to leave the protection of the cellar with it.”

  Sara snapped her fingers and turned to him. “The mirrors.”

  “What?” Samuel looked confused and frowned at her.

  “The mirrors we used to see you with. Do you think they work with all magic or only with spirits?”

  His eyes lit up. “It’s worth a shot. Stay here, I’ll grab the one from the bedroom.”

  “Hah! No, there is no way I’m staying down here by myself.” Sara snorted as she followed him upstairs. She grabbed a soda while he went to get the mirror from the bedroom, returning with it like it weighed no more than a piece of Styrofoam.

  She followed him back into the cellar, soda in hand, and stood several feet in front of the mirror. She walked a large circle around Samuel and the mirror as he turned it. She saw something flash in the reflection and squinted. “Go back. No, stop. A little more. There!” He came around the mirror, and she pointed out the light glimmers around a stone in the wall behind them.

  On the wall to the left of the door, about three feet from the ground, one of the stones didn’t match the others in the reflection. Samuel walked to it, and Sara watched as he closed his eyes, running his fingers around the edges of the stone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for the catch to open it.” He didn’t turn to her as he replied, instead grunted and dug his fingers into a corner of the stone before the whole thing started moving towards him. Just when she thought it would fall to the floor, the face of the rock fell forward on a hinge, revealing a deep hole in the wall.

  Samuel reached into the small space and withdrew a book wrapped in a large scrap of leather. His hands shook as he carried it to the work table where the lamp sat and set it on the surface with care. Sara watched over his shoulder as he sat on the stool and opened the wrought iron clasp that held the book shut. The words were all handwritten in a neat script with several diagrams and pictures. She assumed the words were English but the tight print was hard for her to read at a glance.

  Flipping through the pages with great care, Samuel was lost to the world around him. Sara gave him a peck on the cheek, received a grunt in response, and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

  31. SAMUEL

  It was in here somewhere, between the diagrams scrawled in a shaky hand and the ill-written text, it had to be. Samuel had been down in this dank and dusty hell hole every day for almost two weeks searching through the grimoire for what he wanted to know.

  The book, more of a journal than a tome of spells, was so disorganized he felt he would never find what he was looking for. His singular saving grace was the book being in chronological order, or so it seemed. Samuel couldn’t be sure as it looked like some spells had been revisited repeatedly, lines crossed out and others written in the margins.

  Rebecca, the witch, was obsessed with keeping her youth. From what he read, she was intimidated by Morena and others like her. Not necessarily demons, for it didn’t seem like she knew what Morena was right away, but young women who caught the eye of her husband. The witch didn’t care for the man herself, but she didn’t want to give up the power and prestige his position gave.

  Samuel sniffed, turning another onion skin thin page of the grimoire. H
e could have helped her keep her power, even grow it until she was the most powerful woman in the colonies if she had just come to him. Although, as aloof as he had been, he doubted he would have helped her. More likely, he would have had to help her husband, and she would have benefited through him. That wasn’t what she wanted though, Rebecca wanted the power all to herself.

  The first part of her plan was to capture a demon. It seemed she didn’t care which one, but it needed to be one with power and immortality. Several demons would not have suited her needs. The book didn’t explain how she came to choose him, and Samuel wondered if she’d just been lucky. Perhaps the word of his travels up the coast, living with the indigenous people, had caught her ear. That was around the time he’d grown careless.

  For centuries he was careful never to reveal what he was. But, as time wears down all things, so too it wore down his caution. His constant moving had caused him to overlook small details, like the time difference between revisiting villages. Once or twice an old paramour would come up to him, asking if he was related to someone they had once known. It was exhausting to keep his story straight.

  Samuel flipped to a page he bookmarked towards the end of the grimoire and examined it. Once the witch marked a demon, she gathered her coven and set about creating the circle that would hold him. Among the several spells for containment and draining they cast into the prison, Rebecca slipped a stasis spell. It would keep him unchanged by time from the day the witches placed him into the circle until the day someone broke it.

  That part seemed odd to him. He was immortal, so what was the point of a stasis spell, it wouldn’t affect him. The slave used to create him was a man in his early thirties, and so he had remained for his entire existence, unchanged by time.

  Samuel flipped through the different spells he found in the book. There were several to give the appearance of longevity though they required virgin blood and black magic. Neither of those things were in short supply during the witch’s lifetime. The sheer number of such spells clued him into her obsession.