Save Me

by Jenny Elliott

  Ethan grabbed one of Amber’s wrists and Rachel grabbed the other. With her super strength, Amber nearly jerked free. But Rachel and Ethan managed, barely, to hold her.

  Another car door slammed. Amber’s head whipped around toward the sound. Cara’s mom and Ms. Clark descended the stairs.

  Her mom looked wary as she drew near and she gave a wide berth to Rachel and Ethan as they struggled with Amber.

  The witch had the nerve to address her mom. “These kids are making up stories about magic spells.”

  “What’s going on here, Cara?” Her mom turned to her, concerned, then glared at David as though she’d like to kill him.

  Cara didn’t know how to respond.

  “Amber’s lying,” David said, holding Cara’s hand tight. “She’s the one making up stories and messing around with spells.”

  Her mom’s confused and disturbed look reminded Cara that Rachel had said her mom had spoken to David. In addition to the news of their breakup, he must also have shared Amber’s lies with her mom, but related them as truths. Now he was backtracking, which wouldn’t make sense under normal circumstances.

  Rachel backed David up. “Stop lying, Amber! You used your spells to control Ethan and me and to force David to be with you. And you’re trying to kill Cara.”

  A shocked look came over Cara’s mom’s face.

  Amber shot Rachel a condescending smirk. “That’s ridiculous.” She continued to try to pull free, but Rachel and Ethan struggled and held on tight.

  Archbishop Egan left the drum and moved up the beach toward Amber with a bottle of holy water and a silver tool that resembled a long baby rattle. Amber’s eyes locked on the bottle. The archbishop made the sign of the cross over himself, then Amber, and then over all present. He immersed the tool in the holy water and sprinkled it all around.

  Amber growled.

  Cara’s mom watched Amber, open-mouthed. Ms. Clark whispered in her ear.

  Speaking in Latin, the archbishop repeated the words he’d first said during Rachel’s exorcism. “Ecce crucem Domini.” He raised his stole.

  Amber again jerked against Rachel’s and Ethan’s holds when the archbishop touched her neck with the garment. A strong, biting cold wind picked up and held the archbishop back.

  He pushed against the resistance and said, “Sit nominis ti signo famulus tuus munitus.”

  The wind died down. The archbishop dipped his tool in the bottle again and sprayed Amber’s face with holy water.

  Amber screeched and her lips curled back over her teeth.

  From his robe pocket, the archbishop retrieved a small book and he continued with his Latin prayers.

  Amber’s facial muscles and hands twitched and her body contorted backward at a severe and awkward angle, until her long blonde hair brushed against the backs of her calves. Rachel and Ethan maintained their holds, but were tossed about with Amber’s odd movements.

  Amber thrust upright again and her body went rigid. Her eyes rolled down in their sockets until only the whites were visible. Amber’s arms flung to the sides and Rachel and Ethan were thrown several yards across the sand.

  Ms. Clark clutched Cara’s mom’s arm and the two hurried over to check on Rachel.

  “Give me your name, demon,” Archbishop Egan ordered.

  Amber’s teeth clenched. Her body remained rigid.

  “Your name,” Garren commanded. His tone was one Cara had only heard him use once before, with Amber, at the Halloween party, when he’d said, This won’t be tolerated much longer.

  The demon choked on the sounds escaping Amber’s lips. “Air—eee—ock.”

  The stifling scent of sulfur hit Cara and she shivered at a burst of cold in the air, though the wind hadn’t picked up again. David hugged her to his side.

  Rachel and Ethan scuttled over and Cara handed Ethan a copy of the deliverance prayer. Rachel pulled the copy Cara had given her from her pocket and both Rachel and Ethan began to pray.

  “Lord, we pray that you bind the spirits, powers, and forces of darkness, the netherworld, and the evil forces of nature. Take authority over all the curses, hexes, demonic activity, and spells at work here and break them.”

  Cara’s mom rushed over and grabbed Cara’s arm, to try to drag her away. Cara wouldn’t budge. She gently pried her mom’s hand off.

  During that moment of distraction, Amber moved. Her hand shot out and wrapped around David’s forearm. David lost his hold on Cara and his eyes clouded over. Moving to Amber’s side, he looked around him, as if surprised by his surroundings.

  Cara left her copy of the deliverance prayer in her pocket and ignored Ms. Clark pulling her mom aside. Instead, she moved forward and grabbed David’s hand to pull him out of Amber’s grasp. But the demon’s hold was unbreakable.

  David looked down at Cara and the filmy cover receded from his eyes. He gritted his teeth and put his own effort into trying to pull his hand free. It was impossible.

  The Latin and deliverance prayers continued.

  Amber’s eyes closed and a low, inhuman chuckle erupted from within her. The demon spoke in a deep, amplified voice. “Leave, you imbeciles!”

  Garren called Rachel and Ethan over to where he stood by the metal drum. He motioned for Rachel to strike a match and set the items inside ablaze. A burst of flames shot up, making the sea behind them look like liquid metal. As the vile objects in the drum burned, dark gray plumes of acrid smoke swirled up toward the lighter gray sky.

  As Garren watched over the fire, Rachel and Ethan again recited the deliverance prayer. The archbishop stayed close to Amber and continued to chant in Latin, as he once again made the sign of the cross.

  Amber let go of David.

  Cara towed him backward. He laced his fingers through hers. She held on tight.

  Amber’s eyes remained closed when the demon turned Amber’s head in Cara’s direction. A wicked smile spread across Amber’s face. Rivers of ice rippled through Cara’s veins and tore at the edges of the tether.

  The demon reached into the bag that hung from Amber’s arm and withdrew a knife with a long blade covered in etchings similar to those Cara had seen on the knife in Rachel’s room. It aimed the point of the blade at Cara and stabbed three times, as if to taunt her. David pulled Cara behind him.

  Then the demon flipped the knife, presenting the handle to both Cara and David, and aiming the blade at Amber’s body. Reaching around David, Cara grabbed for the handle, but overreached, and her forefinger sank into the sharp blade. The cut barely stung, yet when she took the knife and held it with the blade pointing downward, blood from the wound dripped down it.

  Amber’s arms spread wide in a quasi-sacrificial invitation. “Do you not want revenge?” the demon asked with a sinister laugh.

  Cara strained to get her words out. “No one. Is going to kill. Anyone.”

  David gingerly pulled the knife from Cara’s grasp. He used his other hand to squeeze her cut finger, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.

  The demon grinned and lunged, jerking David forward and once again breaking his connection with Cara.

  “Amber?” David said, his face stricken with a look of confusion and despair. “What happened to Amber?” He stared at the demon, who turned Amber’s face to him with that wicked smile, then looked past him to smirk at Cara.

  Cara tried to move toward David, but her mom was there, pulling her back.

  “Let me go, Mom,” Cara said, her words firm. Her mom maintained her hold. “Please,” Cara added. Her mom slowly loosened her grip. Ms. Clark appealed to Cara’s mom. “Cara knows what she’s doing. If you want to help stop the demon, then let’s pray.”

  Rachel joined them and held up her copy of the deliverance prayer. Reluctantly, Cara’s mom turned her eyes to the paper and began to recite the prayer.

  Suddenly, David changed his hold on the knife. At first, Cara thought she’d have to stop him from stabbing Amber. Then she noticed how the knife’s blade angled toward his body.

  He
was going to stab himself.

  Cara dove for him, hoping to knock him off balance. But Amber’s hand locked around her wrist like a shackle, holding her in place. Cara yanked and twisted and pulled, but couldn’t break free.

  David’s eyes closed and he raised the blade above his head, the point still angled toward him.

  “David, stop and look at me!” Cara yelled.

  His eyes opened in response to Cara’s cry, but he didn’t meet her gaze, only hesitating for a moment before focusing on Amber again. The knife poised precariously above his head.

  Archbishop Egan reached into his robe pocket and pulled out the holy water bottle. He yanked off the stopper and splashed the contents in Amber’s face.

  The demon howled and flinched back, dropping both Cara’s and David’s arms. Cara rushed over to David and placed her hands on either side of his face.

  The moment she touched him, his eyes widened, cleared, and met hers. She silently prayed that the spell hadn’t taken too strong of a hold, that David would come back to his senses. Energy flowed through the tether and he stared down at her in horror.

  The knife dropped to the sand. The demon clutched at Amber’s face and bared her teeth at Archbishop Egan. It snatched up the knife and dove at Cara and David, knocking them to the ground.

  As they fell, Cara threw her arms around David, covering him. Fear bubbled up within her, but her scream wouldn’t come. Pressing closer to David, she turned to look up at the sharp point of the blade that hovered above her.

  A voice in her head urged her to let go, to run to her mom, to let the demon kill David. Trying to sacrifice herself would only result in the demon killing both of them. But she loved him. That was all the motivation she needed.

  Cara’s thoughts raced. There had to be a way to escape this. Maybe she could somehow roll them both free, in the last moment before the knife plunged down. If the bad stuff could really happen, the miraculous stuff could happen, too.

  Then she remembered Amber’s superhuman strength and all the air rushed out of her. Her only hope was that the demon would be satisfied with fulfilling the mission it was summoned for and would spare David.

  There would be pain, she realized. Her head spun with thoughts of how severe the suffering would be and how long she would have to endure until death released her. She buried her face in David’s neck, gritted her teeth, and braced herself.

  The demon snorted, and Cara knew the blade was falling.

  Then David kicked out, knocking the demon off balance, and rolled so that he was shielding Cara from the knife, which now aimed at his back. “Cara, run!” His eyes pleaded with hers and warmth rushed through the still-intact tether.

  She wouldn’t let go. Her eyes held his. As the knife came down, she prayed silently, yet with more conviction than ever before, that God would answer their prayers and would spare David.

  Then Garren was there, catching Amber’s arm. Stopping the knife. His words to the demon were clear and firm. “Arioch—demon of vengeance—be done with her.”

  The knife fell as Cara and David scrambled away. Amber’s body convulsed, jolting back and forth spasmodically.

  Cara swept up the knife. But Amber’s body had fallen in a twisted heap, her legs bent beneath her, her head turned unnaturally to the side. Vaguely, Cara noted that the prayers continued.

  David moved to his knees and coughed, lightly at first, then loudly, until his coughing escalated into a hacking. Cara clutched his hand. His face flushed red. Blue veins protruded in his neck.

  He coughed so violently, she worried he was choking on something. She was about to try to help him dislodge whatever it was, when he wrapped his free arm around his waist, heaved, and vomited. Small chunks of wood, strands of red string, and black beads trickled out of his mouth in a stream of yellow bile and white, foamy saliva.

  Her own stomach clenched and she took a deep breath. A tighter spasm seized her and she pressed her hand to her belly. Something tickled her throat. She gagged and a rush of burning fluid poured from her mouth along with a small mass of black string that unwound and spooled onto the ground.

  Disgusted, she stared at the unusual messes beneath her and David. The items that had come from their mouths resembled those Amber had sewn into their pillows. Cara couldn’t imagine how Amber would have fed those things to her and David.

  Leaning on one another for support, Cara and David stood up straight. From the relieved look on David’s face, he was feeling better, like she was. But the prayers hadn’t stopped. This wasn’t finished.

  FORTY-THREE

  Archbishop Egan knelt at Amber’s side. The long Latin chant came to an end as he laid his hand on top of her head. Amber groaned and her eyes opened wide.

  Arching into a sitting position, Amber’s jaws sprang open, wider than humanly possible. A black, ballooning cloud of what looked like powder spewed from her mouth. The black cloud materialized into a small, misshapen human form with wings like a bat’s.

  The sulfuric smell in the air intensified until Cara’s nose burned. She watched in disbelief as the black cloud flew through the air and over the water, where a transient orca chased two gray whales toward shore. The demonic cloud descended upon the transient, pushing it closer to the grays, who Cara now recognized as Crossback and Bobbi. Crossback’s markings showed clearly as her back rose out of the water and her breath spouted high into the air.

  Amber moaned loudly, then whimpered, “Stay with me, David,” momentarily drawing Cara’s attention away from the whales.

  David squeezed Cara tighter and she leaned into him as her attention switched back and forth between Amber and the whales. Archbishop Egan sat on the sand and propped Amber’s head on his thigh. She lifted her hand to stroke the archbishop’s face. For a long moment, Amber gazed at him. Then she snatched her hand away.

  Amber searched for people around her until her eyes rested on David. Tears slid down her cheeks. “Please love me, David. Please help me.”

  The grays were drawing closer to shore. Too close.

  Amber kept calling for David, until her words faded into a nonsensical babble. “Da-da, dadada, da…”

  “The spells this woman cast are recoiling against her,” Archbishop Egan said. “Can someone help me get her to a hospital?”

  “I’ll help you,” Ms. Clark said, kneeling next to the archbishop. “Is she falling asleep now, like Rachel did when the demon left?”

  “She’s suffering the intensified effects of her spells,” he said. “I’m afraid she’s losing her sanity.”

  As if she hasn’t already. Worried more about her whales, Cara jumped to her feet and pulled David with her to run down to the water. Cara’s mom, Rachel, and Ethan followed.

  The demonically possessed transient had driven Crossback and Bobbi into the shallows. The transient’s jaws opened as though it was smiling, then clamped down on Bobbi’s snout. Cara screamed at the transient to stop. It dragged the baby underwater.

  Seconds later, Bobbi’s and Crossback’s bodies rolled onto the beach. The water retreated and left them stranded.

  Falling to her knees between the grays, Cara put a hand on each whale, in hopes of soothing them. Their giant eyes blinked at her, causing tears to blink out of her own. Streams of blood flowed from Crossback’s flippers and Bobbi’s snout, creating miniature red rivulets that trickled down to the water.

  The sun had escaped the dark clouds and had sunken halfway beneath the horizon. It blazed orange, intensifying Cara’s blazing rage toward the killer demon who swam slowly back and forth through the shallow water. Watching.

  Cara turned to Ethan. “Call Liberty Charters and have Captain Rick send help. Crossback and Bobbi could only last a few hours on the beach, and that’s if they weren’t injured. We don’t have much time.”

  “My phone’s in the car,” Ethan said and ran for the stairs.

  Garren, determined to finish the deliverance ritual, dragged the drum to the water and scattered the ashes of Amber’s curses in
the waves. Then he submerged the can and swirled it around to clean it.

  Cara called over to him. “Garren, the whales … they need to stay hydrated. Maybe bring some water over in the drum?” She put a hand over David’s, which rested on her shoulder. “Will you help him carry it?”

  David’s mouth opened and his eyes widened. Cara followed his gaze as Garren lifted a full drum of water and carried it across the sand as though it were as light as air.

  “It doesn’t look like he needs help,” David said.

  No one spoke as Garren poured the contents of the full drum over Bobbi and Crossback.

  “Whoa.” Rachel’s loud proclamation broke the awestruck silence. “What are you?” she asked Garren as he set the drum down. “Some kind of superhero?”

  Garren’s face remained neutral as he shook his head. He turned toward the whales, knelt, and ran a hand over Bobbi’s snout. Cara watched in amazement as the transient’s bite marks instantly pulled together and disappeared. Garren did the same with Crossback, trailing his hands over her pierced flippers. Rumbling sounds poured from the grays’ mouths.

  Cara clung to David’s arm and they slowly stood to watch as Garren faced the water and raised an outstretched hand toward the killer.

  “Be gone,” Garren commanded.

  The transient’s snout rose and its mouth fell open. A high-pitched shriek sounded and its body lifted high above the water as it breached. It landed with a loud splash and vanished.

  For several moments, Garren stared at the spot where the killer had been, his expression somber. Then he addressed the group behind him. “You’ll need to move farther back on the beach.”

  Everyone scrambled backward, stunned into silence. Garren raised both his hands and drew them backward. A small tidal wave of water rushed forward and cascaded over Crossback and Bobbi. Then Garren pushed his hands forward and the wave pulled the grays back into the water. Seconds later, Crossback spyhopped not far offshore and Bobbi raised his tail flukes to wave good-bye before the grays dove below the water’s surface with the sun.