by Wood, Rick
Derek looked weakly back at him.
Eddie turned and faced the demon.
“You do not scare me,” he lied.
“Fool. You think those powers came to you naturally? You think you were born with them?”
“I don’t give a shit where you say they came from. I have used them to command all of the demons you have sent here out of the bodies of innocent people, and I will use them to do the same to you!”
“No.” The elements grew angrier, with more vigour, more hostility. “I gave you those powers. You can command demons with them because they are my powers. They stand no chance at controlling me. I. Control. Them.”
Eddie defiantly shook his head. Whatever his gut was telling him, whatever his thoughts were screaming, however true it was, he was not prepared to just give in and let this creature consume him.
“You may be able to control my powers…” he articulated slowly and clearly, “But you will not be able to control me.”
“Eddie!” Derek screamed out. “Remember – if your powers come from hell, that is where they are at their strongest.”
Derek brushed himself down and gathered himself.
The mouth of the girl stretched open to almost the entire length of her body, jaw breaking and cheeks ripping apart. A scream soared through Eddie and sent him flying onto his back and across the floor.
Derek stepped toward the demon.
“Derek, what are you doing?”
Derek waved his hand at Eddie, ignoring his protests. The demon grew an amused smile, the way one would when a dog did an endearing trick.
Eddie attempted to stand and physically bring Derek back, but the demon rose its hand and sent Eddie flying back onto his arse.
“Hah!” the demon boomed out. “You think you stand a chance against me?”
“You don’t control my powers, you dirty sack of shit!”
The demon laughed even harder, in more pitches of voice than would be comfortable for Kelly’s vocal cords to produce.
“What powers are they?”
“I don’t know. My experience at fighting your demons, maybe. My faith in Eddie that he is here as a force for good. My knowledge that we will not stop fighting you until you are buried deep in hell where you belong!”
“Derek,” Eddie moaned, unable to hide his concern from his face. “Stand down. You don’t stand a chance.”
“You should listen to your friend, little man.”
“And you should listen to the power of God.” Derek raised the cross in his hands and pointed it at the demon. “On my Lord, on my brothers, on my soul, I demand you, demon, be gone!”
“On your soul?” The demon tilted Kelly’s weary head inquisitively to the side.
Eddie reached out for Derek, fearing the worst.
“Edward King.” The demon focused its shuddering eyes onto Eddie’s. “If you want his soul… come get it.”
Kelly’s body dropped to the floor as a huge cloud of black smoke emulated out of her mouth with a growl and flew into Derek’s open jaw. Derek’s body straightened up and his eyes filled with alarm, then Derek’s body fell to the floor also.
A black cloud appeared out of Derek’s body, entwined around a helpless white cloud, and lingered in the air for a moment. Eddie could swear he saw a mouth laughing in the final moments that it stayed in the room.
Then it flew downwards, beneath the limp bodies of Kelly and Derek, and the chaos ended.
The rain stopped, the thunder went, the lightning ended. The room was quiet, calm, lucid. Jenny and Lacy rose their heads, clinging to each other, looking around themselves hopefully.
“Is it done…?” Jenny weakly mustered.
“No,” answered Eddie, transfixed by Derek’s body. “Far from it.”
He dived at Derek’s body and took him in his arms, shaking it. Derek remained limp. His eyes were wide open but there was nothing inside of them. His heart was beating, his lungs were moving, but he was not there. He was vacant, empty, like a vase without a flower.
“Is he dead?”
Eddie shook his head, keeping his eyes latched onto Derek, aware of Kelly’s limp body also laying next to him. He knew what had happened. He didn’t want to, but he knew.
“So he’s okay?”
“No, Jenny. He’s not okay.”
“But he’s alive?”
Eddie stood and turned his back to them, refusing to let them see his face as tears gathered in his eyes. He wiped them defiantly and turned his mournful eyes to his oldest friend.
“Derek’s here. But his soul is not. It took it.”
“Where did it take it?”
Eddie looked beneath him, unable to answer, unable to find the words.
Jenny stood and edged toward him, placing a warm hand against his back. Even though he had brought this all to them, risked the life of both her and the love of her life, let the entity wreck her home, here she was, still ready to comfort him in his time of need.
“I’m sorry for your house.”
“Eddie, stop changing the subject. Where has this thing taken Derek?”
Eddie shook his head. He still couldn’t answer. But as Lacy stood, brushing the broken glass off herself, stroking her bruised neck and nursing her black eye, she answered for him.
“He’s in hell,” she spoke. “Isn’t he? I mean, his soul is?”
Tears filled Eddie’s eyes once more and he kicked a broken piece of chair from beneath his feet across the room. He stormed away from them, into the kitchen, desperate to be alone.
The soul of his mentor, his friend, was being tortured for an eternity in hell, and he had just sat and watched it happen.
He didn’t deserve his friends’ pity.
33
9 December 2001
Eddie hadn’t moved from the spot for hours. He sat at the kitchen table, his head rested in his hands, an untouched tumbler of whiskey on the table in front of him. His hands were propped halfway through his hair, his eyes staring straight ahead and the rest of his body still.
Jenny had finished patching up Lacy and was now watching him from the living room. Lacy lay on the sofa asleep, finally; she had been in so much pain Jenny had begged for her to finally get some rest. Now, as she glanced at the clock and saw it go past 1.00 a.m., she turned her concern toward her best friend.
She had never seen him stay this still for so long. Even the alcohol laid out in front of him lay unmoved.
And she was to say what to him? “Cheer up, it’s okay. Never mind.” It would be ridiculous to think there was even a word that would change how he must have been feeling. She couldn’t read him like a book, but she didn’t need to. Not now. Everything about him was inconsolable.
The Eddie of a few years ago would likely have destroyed the kitchen in a drunken rage. Not now. No, he kept it all inside, and honestly, she wasn’t sure that was any better.
Eddie knew she was watching him. He could feel her eyes burning through the back of his neck, he just didn’t know what to say. If he moved, he would shake. If he spoke, he would cry. If he thought, he would have to face what he had let happen.
He felt Jenny’s hand on his back, her reassuring touch overcoming him with comfort. Then he remembered what had happened. And the touch didn’t work anymore.
She sat down opposite him, slowly and surely, keeping her eyes focussed on his, studying him. She reached her hands out and rubbed his arms, attempting to give him what little comfort she could.
“It’s not your fault,” she told him.
Mistake.
He finally moved, but to flinch out of her grasp and “tfft!” out into the air around him as he shook his head, leaning back in his chair.
“You did everything you could, Eddie,” she persisted.
“Yeah…” Eddie murmured. He went to reply, but what was the point? His mentor was gone, and the last thing he saw was his face reacting to his disappointment.
“It’s not your fault he died.”
“Died?” Eddi
e recoiled. “Derek hasn’t died.”
“But, his body…”
“The demon in that girl, it was the devil. He didn’t kill Derek, he took his soul.”
“Where did it take him?”
Eddie didn’t need to answer; almost as soon as she said it, the dawn of realisation spread over her face as she put two and two together and made four.
“I need to get there.”
“Where? To hell?”
Eddie nodded weakly.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’ve been there before, Jenny.”
“So? It’s not like going on holiday to Florida, for God’s sake. We are talking about going to the underworld. Surely if the devil had that power here, then down there…”
Eddie froze. That was it. Of course!
“What?” asked Jenny, seeing the change of expression in Eddie’s face turn to wide-eyed wonder.
“That’s it…”
“What?”
“I’m the son of the devil. I’m the heir of hell.”
“Er… what?”
“I’m supposed to take his place as the king of hell. I’m supposed to rise up in the new millennium and take it, that’s why I’m here.”
“Okay…”
Eddie rose out of his seat, his hands gesticulating in the air, buzzing, almost giddy.
“I can’t beat him here because his power outdoes mine. It keeps happening; that’s why I couldn’t exorcise Kelly.”
“So you think you’d have more power than the king of hell in… hell?” Jenny pulled a bizarre expression, shaking her head to herself – what was he on about?
“Yes! Because if what it said is true, I am the heir of hell. I am supposed to overcome him and take his place. So therefore, I must be able to defeat him in hell to do that.”
“But, Eddie…” She was unsure; she didn’t want to take him off his high and bring him back down to earth, but she needed to.
“What?”
“What if you do defeat the devil, then won’t you have to become the ruler of hell?”
Eddie’s gut wrenched. She was right. He was torn. What if he ended up becoming the evil thing he was meant to become in doing this? What if the devil knew that all along?
What if that’s why it was luring him down to hell in the first place?
No. Derek needed him. He had no choice.
“I’m going to hell,” he told Jenny, and raced into the living room, thinking desperately about how he was going to do it.
Jenny followed him. “How?”
He turned to her. A thought struck him. That was it.
“I need you to suffocate me,” he explained, Jenny looking horrified. “I need you to strangle me until I’m on the verge of death.”
“No no no no no no.” Jenny shook her head, walking away from him, shaking her hands in the air, adamantly defiant.
Eddie rushed up to her and grasped her arms in his hands, rattling her until she looked at him. She finally did, but with her head vigorously shaking and a constant whisper of the word no. She looked like a wounded child, so innocent. Eddie had forgotten; she hadn’t been a part of this. She had heard the stories, but she had never been part of them. She had never witnessed the demons that tormented their victims that he had to fight.
It caused a pain in his heart to see her like this. To see her looking like a helpless child, wounded, delicately defiant.
“I know it’s hard, Jenny. I know it’s a lot for me to ask.”
“Eddie, you are asking me to kill you!”
Eddie shook his head to himself, looking around the room, distracted by thoughts of how else he could do it. He couldn’t. There was no other way.
“You need to be strong.”
“You are asking me too much.”
“I’m not asking you.” Eddie looked deep into her eyes, pleading to her with them. “The world is asking you. For so long the devil has stayed hidden. What if he won? What if he ruled?”
She shoved her hands off him and stormed to the other side of the room, keeping her back to him, wiping tears that fled down her face. She saw Lacy out of the corner of her eye. Laid on the sofa so peacefully. Physically wounded, but psychologically unaware, somewhere in a dream, or in empty blankness.
“Think of Lacy,” Eddie beseeched her. “You saw what it did to her when it was restricted by its human form. This thing has killed and tortured people. What do you think it’s going to do to Lacy?”
Jenny spun around, this time not hiding her tears. “That’s not fair! What about what it does to you? What about if I lose you? What if you become the very thing you have fought against?”
He had no argument against her. Whilst he knew it was the right decision, he knew the risks, as well as she did. So he stayed silent. He gazed at her, his body relaxing despondently, showing the helpless state he was in.
“I don’t have any choice,” he whimpered.
Jenny folded her arms and stood defiantly. Eddie could still sense a weakness in her convictions. She knew, as well as she could, he had to do it.
She just didn’t know if she could.
Eddie tore the telephone wire out of the wall from the landline, then ripped it out of the phone, stretching it out in front of him. He admired its length, more than enough to go around his neck twice. He took a feeble step forward and reached it out to Jenny, bowing his head and looking up at her with those eyes she was so used to.
So much about him had changed in the years, but those eyes had stayed the same.
“Jenny… please…”
Jenny sighed with exasperation. She reluctantly stepped forward, holding out a limp hand and loosely grasping the wire in her palm.
Eddie sat down and turned his back to her. He straightened his back and his neck, and waited. He knew it wouldn’t be instant. He knew she would have to gather herself up. So he was patient. He closed his eyes, kept his neck straight, and sat.
Jenny stretched the wire out in front of her and went to place it around Eddie, then withdrew it. She recoiled, powerless, fiddling with the wire in her hand.
“I don’t know how to do it.”
“It’s easy. You just tie it around my neck as many times as you can, take the ends and tighten.”
“Tie it around and tighten…”
“Then you close your eyes, Jenny. You close them, drown out any sound and just concentrate on tightening them as much as you can. Put every muscle into it.”
She nodded slowly but definitely. She knew he couldn’t see her, she just needed to acknowledge what he had said for herself.
She delicately placed the wire around his neck, wrapping it around the whole perimeter, then softly drawing it around once more. It hung loosely around his collar and she grasped the two ends in either hands.
“You’re doing brilliantly, Jenny, you’re doing so well. Now you just need to tighten it. Pull the two ends as hard as you can and don’t stop until I stop moving.”
He didn’t want to do this. He truly didn’t. Not just because of where he was going, but because it really, really hurt to die. Suffocating was a long, drawn-out process, and one that would give him a huge amount of pain.
But he needed to stay strong. Stay strong for Jenny. Or she couldn’t do it.
Tears flowed down her face, and she was crying so loud it was all that consumed Eddie’s ears. She gave one quick tug and the wire # tightened. It clasped itself around Eddie.
“Harder…”
She tightened harder still, the tears falling, her head constantly shaking, flinching away, unable to look. If she didn’t see it, maybe it didn’t happen.
She pulled and pulled as hard as she could. She concentrated on the pulling, clutching the ends in her hands, making sure they didn’t get loose in her sweaty palms.
Her best friend. He’d held her hand when she came out to her parents. He’d hugged her when she cried about their dissatisfaction. He’d jumped for joy when she met Lacy.
And all she could now hear were the despe
rate gargles of him dying. The breath leaving, airless chokes spewing out of him like empty vomit, every last piece of oxygen escaping from his body to not be returned.
It lasted longer than she could ever have imagined. His arms hit out a few times. Not toward her, just in general clambering. She just pulled tighter, ignored what she was doing, pretending she was somewhere else. Somewhere she couldn’t hear him attempt to intake air that wasn’t there again and again and again.
Then the sound stopped. His body went limp, weighing the wire around his neck down. Silence filled the room.
She opened her palms, releasing the wire from her hand. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to and she didn’t need to. She just turned back into the kitchen and poured herself another whiskey.
She knew he was gone.
34
Time and Date non-existent
“Argh! Please, stop, let me go!” The scream was all Eddie could hear. His eyes hadn’t adjusted yet; all he could see was orange blur. He could smell the burning ambers of fire lashing out, the sound of angry flames beneath the sound of begging.
“For fuck sake you have to stop!” they continued. Lots of them. Multiple voices, coming from all directions; above, below, around.
Eddie knew where he was. He didn’t need his vision to return to confirm it. As much as he willed it to, he could taste the ash in his mouth, he could feel the heat against his skin. He had been here before. Only then, he knew nothing.
Now he knew everything.
Or so he thought.
“Please, please, just stop hurting me…” the cry followed by the tsst of burning iron against skin. Rotting flesh filled his nose and, as his eyes finally readjusted, he turned his head in the direction of the sound.
His bones ached. His muscles were so weak. He lay flat on his back, his arms spread out, his face turned to the side, in intense agony from tiredness. Is this what hell had done to him? Is this how the devil wanted him, weak and lethargic?
“Let me go, please!”
It was a woman’s voice. She lay on the ground, metres away. She was unclothed, barely moving, crying her eyes out. Above her a horned beast lifted his fist up, held out his palm and let fire emulate from it. With a sadistic grin, he planted his fiery hand upon her back, which was already covered in scalds.