The Cost_An Introduction to Demonology, Part 1

by R. W. Holmes

  After an hour of 'meditation', Gael was fed up with trying to relax, and he was absolutely disillusioned with the idea of calling out to a supernatural entity by the same method. Bitterly, he kicked over the myriads of bowls around his setup and went over to his desk to do other homework, before crawling into bed and heading to sleep without so much as spending a moment to clean things up.

  The next morning, not even Gael's morning shower could bring him a moment of clarity. A lifetime of failures he'd never really accepted had taught him to avoid tasks he was hopeless in pursuing, and it was by ignoring these instincts that he found himself embroiled in the thwarting disappointment of something he was incapable of.

  Gael attended his first two classes that day with no ears for the words spoken, but managed to take notes that would fill in what his hate-addled mind wouldn't take then later. At lunch, he sat down to a meager plate of something akin to oatmeal that he was certain he would hate in an exercise that was sure to prolong his infinite, petty anger for a while longer.

  Then, a man with two last names decided it was time to deliver his daily insult.

  “'Sup, Abigail” Kennedy said as he and his friends passed Gael's table.

  Without so much as looking up, Gael thrust his leg out and caught Kennedy by the shin.

  The clattering of plates and silverware in the cafeteria went silent as Kennedy fell into his own tray of lunch, which disastrously turned out to be chili, and suddenly all eyes were on Gael and his antagonists.

  “Oh, Walsh...” Kennedy said as he stood back up. “That was a big mistake.”

  “You like to hear yourself talk” Gael replied unamusedly.

  Kennedy responded by lunging at Gael and attempting to grab him, but got only a face full of not-quite-porridge for his efforts. Despite this strong start, Gael was immediately grabbed by one of Kennedy's friends and held fast.

  The smattering of slop that had ended up all over Kennedy's face and shirt only emboldened the beating his imagination had conjured up for Gael, but the more clever machinations of his mind were overridden by the need to hit Gael with a simple and satisfying slug to the face.

  Gael reeled as it hit him, and the familiar taste of blood and a flash of red eclipsed his other senses when it happened. Kennedy's idle friend laughed and cheered him on as he unloaded punches into Gael's stomach, rib cage, and face.

  A gasp erupted from the audience when Kennedy's punches slowed and Gael found a moment to hock a bloody wad of spit directly into his face.

  “I'll be damned!” Gael cried out feebly as he looked over the mess still covering Kennedy's face. “It's an improvement!”

  Whack!

  Kennedy hit Gael again, and everything went dark.

  Gael came around some time later, unsure of what had transpired at first. Then, the memories came rushing back and the pains of subtle aches that should have been much worse hit him all at once.

  It was then that Gael realized he was in the nurse's office, and that he'd already been 'treated' for his injuries. Getting up from the small cot he'd been placed on, Gael made his way out into the center of the curtain-laden room, each of which hid another hospital bed. With much difficulty, he spied a mirror, nearly invisible from where it sat against the metal wall.

  He quickly deduced that most of his bruises were already fading, and his nose had been reset and the cartilage repaired. All in all, modern medicine had succeeded in keeping him from sustaining any real damage.

  “That was quite the number he did on you.”

  Gael spun in place as the familiar voice called out to him.

  “Ms. Thomas” he said in surprise.

  “Mr. Walsh” Clarissa said curtly. “You can imagine my surprise when I found out why my favorite new student wasn't at my lecture today.”

  “Yeah...” Gael murmured guiltily. “I, uh... It's been a complicated past few days.”

  “Why do I think it wouldn't be very complicated if you explained it to me?” countered Clarissa.

  “Probably because I'm an easily frustrated person, far away from home, who's having a really difficult time diffusing all of his pent up anger in a strange place” Gael replied quickly. “And all the metal walls and fluorescent lights aren't helping either.”

  Clarissa pursed her lips and folded her arms as she appraised Gael's situation for a moment.

  “Kennedy Adams's family makes very large donations to The Academies, Gael” she said grimly. “I don't think they can kick you out after what he did, but I would expect to get transferred.”

  “But my curriculum isn't in the other academies” Gael said incredulously.

  “I'm sorry” replied Clarissa. “I'll give you a good character reference when I and your other teachers are called in for it, but... Well, you've met Kennedy.”

  Gael glowered as Clarissa turned to go.

  “I have lots of time, Ms. Thomas” Gael called after her.

  Clarissa paused just as she reached the door and looked back at Gael curiously.

  A sudden wave of nostalgia rolled over Clarissa Thomas then, and the realization that she and Gael had done this same thing before, but from opposite spots, struck her just as Gael made his point.

  “Before my transfer” continued Gael. “This controversy has only just begun, and I think you're going to be excited when you see the results.”

  Clarissa furrowed her brow, a little concerned, but nodded nonetheless and went on her way.

  Gael, though, quickly set to work on his future plans, and realized immediately that they were going to start with him having a public dinner at the mess hall. Without so much as stopping to check out with the nurse, he left the infirmary and made his way down to the cafeteria.

  As Gael had expected, Kennedy was absent. He'd have to be, so as to give people as much time as possible to forget the savage beating he'd doled out earlier. Gloating in public would only reinforce the notion that Gael was a victim, after all.

  Luckily for Gael, it wasn't Kennedy he had come to the cafeteria to find. Instead, he got his food, upon which he'd strategically decided would be a salad particularly devoid any chicken or bacon trimmings, and then made his way over to the seat of a bashful young woman whose coyness in person was matched only by her aggressiveness when placed in the driver's seat of a blog.

  Her name was Angelica Jackson, and she was the daughter of a British billionaire who'd made his fortune in recycling. If this weren't impressive enough, her mother was a member of the Swaziland royal family as cousin to the man who was next in line to be Ngwenyama.

  She was also a devout vegan, and the head of Academy Nine's newspaper.

  “U-Uh, hi?” Angelica said as Gael suddenly and without warning took the seat opposite her.

  “Hi” Gael said back with his best, most disarming smile. He repeated the greeting to the young Indian man on Angelica's right and the Kuwaiti woman on her left.

  “He's the guy who tripped Kennedy” the Indian man said to Angelica.

  “Oh, right...” Angelica murmured awkwardly. “Is this about you? I know Kennedy is kind of a jerk, but the Adams family is responsible for the funding of, like, all of the extra curricular activities here at Academy Nine, so...”

  “You know, I find that really respectable” Gael said suddenly. “I do, really. You obviously could ensure the paper runs for another hundred years, what with your family's wealth and all, but you don't because you're worried about the funding to the other school groups as well.”

  Angelica paused to think, fairly certain that she hadn't meant what Gael had implied, but also that it was a reason she completely agreed with.

  “I mean, sure” she said uncertainly.

  “I can't help but feel fortunate knowing how unique a perspective you yourself bring to the table” added Gael. “After all, a story of Kennedy Adams, instigating a fight, and then using his family's wealth to just move the victim to one of the other eight academies is an awfully damnable offense to someone as responsible and fair as you.”


  Angelica blinked. She had been caught up in a whirlwind of information all at once, and she didn't know what was happening.

  But Gael did.

  He recognized the sudden dilation in Angelica's pupils as the growing interest that it was, a fact that was reinforced by how her slight change in posture had resulted in her being hunched closer to him.

  She was a dog without a bone, or more literally, a rebel without a cause. Gael knew that her hobbies indicated a certain propensity for speaking out against injustices, but that her unique station in life made it nearly impossible for her to identify with those being victimized. Gael also knew making such a thing happen would be nearly impossible, so he offered an alternative that she hadn't considered: policing her own.

  “Is that all true?” Angelica asked curiously.

  “Unfortunately, it is” Gael said sadly. “Kennedy had made a game of antagonizing me. You'd think in our modern society, at our adult age, that people would be above using the extremely inflammatory form of insults he did.”

  At this point, Angelica's friends had also begun to lean in to hear better, although with a great deal more caution for Gael's words.

  “What did he say?” asked Angelica.

  “Well let me start by saying that my cousin is transgendered” replied Gael.

  It was true, a fact Gael couldn't help but revel in. Living through his cousin Gabe becoming cousin Gabby had been an ordeal he wasn't proud to admit shook up his perspective on the world in a less than favorable way, but cousin Gabby was about to make it up to him, and Gael knew she'd love hearing the story at their next awkward Thanksgiving meet.

  In response to hearing Gael's start, Angelica began to nod sympathetically.

  “Kennedy may not have realized it, but when someone calls me 'Abigail' as a joke every day, I tend to take it a little harder than most people would” continued Gael. “I even made an attempt at being friendly with him yesterday, to diffuse the situation, but he just took as an invitation to go further. I'm worried that with me gone, he's just going to turn his attention to someone else.”

  “I don't know if that's enough-,” Angelica's Kuwaiti friend started.

  “Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Angelica, her hands suddenly slamming down on the table for effect. “I can't believe this! Who do you think you are, Kennedy Adams? I'm so sorry... Gael was it? I had no idea he was throwing around such... such vitriolic comments before you felt the need to act. I know none of us can truly understand what it was to remain silent while you thought of how such injustices might affect your cousin, but I want you to know that Kennedy and his family will not get away with silencing you.”

  Gael smirked as Angelica's friends exchanged a pair of concerned looks.

  “Angelica, are you sure about this?” asked her Indian friend.

  “Yes, Jai, I'm sure” replied Angelica. “Do I have more rights than you because of my family's money?” Angelica rounded her other friend then and added, “Or you, Nora? What if one of us had a bad falling out? Would it be okay for me to use my family's money to pressure The Academies into shipping you off?”

  “What? No!” exclaimed Nora. “They don't even offer my curriculum at another academy.”

  “They don't offer mine at the others, either” added Gael.

  Nora gasped, and even Jai seemed to take a step back and reevaluate Angelica's enthusiasm.

  “Dude, that's fucked up” he said bluntly.

  “No” Angelica said triumphantly. “Kennedy Adams is fucked up! He's not going to get away with this either, because we're going to stop him! Jai, get out your notepad. You're interviewing Mr... Sorry, what was your full name, Gael?”

  “Walsh” Gael replied politely. “My name is Gael Walsh.”

  Chapter 2

  The Calling

  It was there again, like every other morning: that continuous, droning alarm sound that played throughout the academy's intercom.

  Clarissa Thomas silently weighed the option of getting her own place elsewhere, but decided against it. She was far too frugal a person to pass up free room and board, and would suffer the rude awakenings. For as jarring as they were, they also kept her honest and got her to class on time.

  With a groggy shamble only the recently risen can ever rightly manage, she stumbled out of bed, over to her nightstand, and started the first part of her morning ritual: checking her email.

  The alert for a meeting regarding Gael Walsh and Kennedy Adams were expected, but the email from Gael himself was not. She wondered for a moment if maybe he had something to report regarding his thesis, but instead found that it was merely an email he himself had received and forwarded to her.

  On it was the plans for the front page of the newspaper that would be released later that day.

  The headline read:

  Scandal! The Adams Family: Just as creepy as you think!

  Below the plans was a short message from Gael as well, which read:

  If theological superstition doesn't work out, I think I'll write my first

  year thesis on the history of college's unique sociological environment.

  Clarissa reread Gael's statement a few times, and then looked over the newspaper article-to-be. It was a smear piece of epic proportions, one that might even push Kennedy out of Academy Nine and into one of the less modern eight that came before it. She also knew full well that with a curfew of 10:00 P.M. for all academy residents that Gael only had a mere four hours to get everything she saw before her done.

  “Holy shit” she said in astonishment.

  Across the college dorms, Gael awoke with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. That spring, jubilant as it was, didn't stop when he accidentally trudged through the scattered remains of his last foray into the supernatural, and continued with him straight through his shower and into breakfast.

  The day's newspaper was being handed out, and he knew full well what was about to happen as he collected his food and took his usual seat.

  “What the fuck, Walsh!”

  Gael smiled as Kennedy unabashedly took the seat opposite him.

  “What?” Gael queried innocently. “I'm not getting thrown out of this school because you flew off the handle. It's the only one with all of my classes.”

  “So it's true then! You went to Angelica and made all this shit happen!?” Kennedy exclaimed exasperatedly.

  Gael shrugged. “Giving my story to the paper isn't a crime.”

  “I'm going to bury you, Abi-,” Kennedy started, before suddenly remembering the dozens of prying ears all around them.

  “Come on, stop it” Gael chided condescendingly. “Everyone is going to panic, and I'm going to graciously offer that you issue a public apology and we put this all behind us. It'll be like none of this ever happened.”

  Kennedy sat back in his seat and looked around himself again. His temper was still high, but the offer had visibly disarmed much of the fire spurning him on.

  “You're kind of a dick, Ken” Gael added honestly. “I don't think you want to be a dick. Most people don't see themselves as 'the bad guy', so in some small way you must have figured your actions were justified.”

  Kennedy shrugged. “I didn't think about it at all, actually.”

  “Wow...” Gael murmured in disappointment. “I was really hoping this would be more interesting than you just being an insecure douche bag.”

  “Hey, cool it with the-,” started Kennedy.

  “That's two, Ken” Gael interrupted. “By my count, I've still got one more.”

  “Yeah, you're really enjoying this, huh?” said Kennedy. “Guess I'm not the only one who likes to hear myself talk.”

  Gael smiled as he looked down at his meager plate of eggs and bacon, before gently and deliberately prodding it all with his fork.

  “I have a lot to do today” he said casually. “Why don't you go to the dean and tell him we've patched things up? I'll corroborate the story when he sends someone around to check.”

  “Yeah, sure...�
� Kennedy grumbled indignantly. “Whatever you say, freak.”

  “That's a familiar one” Gael mused as Kennedy stood up to go.

  Kennedy scowled and shook his head, incredulous to Gael's bizarre demeanor. “I bet...”

  Breakfast came and went, and after a short trip to the nurse's office to speak about yesterday's trauma, Gael got himself permission to take the morning and reflect on his and Kennedy's resolution.

  The nurse knew it was a farce, of course, but she also knew how severe Gael's wounds were when he was first brought in. A morning off wasn't just deserved after something like that, it was owed, and anything owed that wasn't given could be sued for.

  When Gael returned to his dorm, for he had nowhere else to go, he set about doing the only thing he could think of. The days' previous events, cathartic as they were, had emboldened him and instilled a confidence he'd sorely been lacking since the move to Academy Nine had so thoroughly knocked him off balance. Because of this, he decided he'd give having a truly spiritual experience another try.

  “And if it doesn't work” Gael said as he began setting up. “I can always give it a shot on the more holy side of things afterward. Not sure why I'd want to do that, though. There's a whole lot more evidence to say that God doesn't come when he's called...”

  The setup was far quicker this time than the two previous, partly because a lot of the ingredients were still out, but mostly because he'd simply become so adept at the setup itself through repetition.

  Finally ready a mere five minutes later, Gael started with the ever-first step of his own, personal ritual.

  “Dim lights, please.”

  Things darkened, and the more creativity centers of Gael's brain immediately switched on with a plethora of new ideas, chief among them being to throw out his research.

  “If any of these people had actually summoned a real demon, they wouldn't be writing about it on some stupid website” Gael muttered aloud pragmatically. “They'd be live on T.V., talking to some news host with said demon proudly on display, and probably with a priest on the opposite side playing advocate to enhance the spectacle.”