Exorcist Falls

by Jonathan Janz

  But Malephar, the traitorous fiend, had abandoned me. I coughed again, and torrid air seared my exposed nasal cavity. The pain in my ruined nose intensified; it felt like ropes of nettles were sawing the delicate bones apart, splintering bone, grinding the raw lumps of tissue into gleaming burgundy divots.

  I jerked my chin up, realized I’d been under for a time. There was no question about crawling to the phone now. I could scarcely open my eyes. Yet I fought against my growing torpor, clinging not only to life, but toiling to escape the nightmare reel in my head, the images that had assailed me when Malephar had seized Danny’s wrist. I couldn’t bear those screaming girls, that maniacal rictus on Danny’s face as he masturbated to their death throes. I saw him thumping someone’s head on the floor, heard the meat hook puncturing a girl’s lung…

  …saw him leering at Liz.

  “Malephar,” I tried to say, but of course my vocal cords had shut down, that function forsaking me as surely as all the others. I opened my mouth again—

  Speak, craven, Malephar answered.

  I jolted where I lay in my congealing pool of blood. I realized I need not speak aloud for Malephar to hear me. The demon resided in my head.

  Why did I see Liz when you touched Danny? Why did I see Casey and Carolyn?

  Malephar’s diabolical chortle echoed in my brain.

  Tell me! I demanded.

  A pause. Then, the demon’s voice: You know.

  The muscles of my forearms hardened despite my dying state. He can’t hurt them! He can’t—

  He will and you know it, craven.

  No!

  He will slay Casey and Carolyn quickly. But Liz…

  Stop

  …with Liz, he’ll take his time—

  Please

  —he’ll gag her, bind her, cut on her—

  You can’t

  —rape her, sodomize her, FLENSE her—

  You have to stop him

  STOP HIM? the demon asked, laughing. We serve the same master. I sacrificed my host tonight so Daniel could continue his butchery.

  A formless notion flitted at the periphery of my mind. You need me.

  A pause. I need no one, craven. Least of all a cowering, mewling afterbirth like you.

  You need a host.

  Another can be found, he answered. But was there a hint of apprehension in his voice? I thought there was.

  How? I challenged. You transfer by physical contact. When I’m dead, you won’t be able to latch onto anyone.

  It is possible.

  But not likely, is it? Then what? A deep grave and the stench of decay? The oppressive soil bearing down on you while the maggots feast on my flesh?

  A long silence, then, The waiting is necessary.

  What if you don’t have to wait?

  Something altered in Malephar’s bearing, as incorporeal as he was. An increased interest shot through with a wicked cunning. You have nothing to offer me, Malephar declared.

  I’ll do anything, I said. And you’ll remain inside a living body.

  No answer this time, but I could tell he was thinking. A body-racking cough took hold of me, giving me the sensation my insides were being shredded again. My time was nearly over.

  Just let them live, I begged.

  Who? The whore and her spawn?

  Even in my extremity, the words enraged me. Liz Hartman and her two children.

  No answer. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore, nor the slit in my stomach. It was as though a heavy burden had been placed on the hole where my nose had been, a weight that crushed my face downward, downward, choking off breath, filling me with a languid, equatorial heat. I labored for air, spewed more blood.

  Fallen one, the demon said.

  Dimly, I listened.

  How fascinating, the voice mused, that in your last moments, you never even prayed, never beseeched your God for aid.

  I scarcely noted the past tense in relation to my life, focused instead on my lack of faith, my telling disregard for the Savior’s grace. Only two nights ago I had experienced the prodigious and very real power of God in my body, and now, when faced with my own mortal trial, I had failed to enlist His aid.

  Never had I been so ashamed.

  Malephar said, I will allow you to carry on your pathetic existence with the following stipulations.

  I’m afraid I was weeping, not with relief, but with hollow despair. I was damned. Irredeemable. Even if I lived, my eternal soul would roast in hellfire. A contract with a demon?

  You must do nothing to brook the mission of your nemesis, Malephar said.

  Let Danny kill? I thought. More tinder for the flames.

  You must allow me to sate my appetites when I see fit.

  Damned, I thought, shaking with sobs. Utterly damned.

  You must continue the pretense of your profession. You must lead Mass, offer false succor in the confessional, you must—

  And what will you give me in return? I demanded.

  Life, Malephar said.

  That isn’t enough, I answered. My life is worth nothing now.

  A pregnant pause.

  Then, I will protect them.

  I froze, too hopeful to ask him to clarify.

  Malephar said, Liz Hartman and her children will remain safe from the Sweet Sixteen Killer.

  There was a lump clogging my throat.

  And if I don’t agree?

  The voice was flat, emotionless as an insect’s drone: They will die before night falls again.

  Chapter Three

  I knew nothing for a time. Perhaps it was mere minutes before I regained consciousness. Perhaps it was an hour. Whatever the interval between the sealing of the satanic pact and my return to awareness, I found myself lying in my bathtub, the shower spray assaulting the upper regions of my body. The water was scalding, yet I hadn’t the strength to resist its onslaught.

  But I was able to move my limbs again. I grasped the edge of the tub, started to push myself to a sitting position.

  Be still! Malephar commanded.

  Can’t… breathe, I protested. The water’s too hot, choking me…

  You saw me heal Casey, did you not?

  Reluctantly, the memory of the exorcism arose, of Casey Hartman’s knees imploding, the patellas popping from the titanic inner gravity Malephar had exerted on them. I remembered Casey’s wrists reduced to raw hamburger by Malephar’s relentless jerks and thrusts. One of Casey’s hands had become a bloody snarl of bone and gristle, yet it and every other wound in Casey’s body had mended, the lone exception being the brand of the cross on Casey’s chest.

  The cross I had wielded to drive the demon out.

  At thought of Casey’s miraculous healing I glanced down at my flayed stomach and was stunned to find the incision all but knitted. Here and there the edges of the wound had yet to meet, but even these portions had turned pink with new flesh.

  Gasping, I thrust a hand to my face and nearly wept with joy to find my nose restored. I realized, too, I could breathe almost normally. There was still pain in my wounds, but it had dwindled to a manageable discomfort.

  I swiveled my head away from the spray to better breathe, but the demon within me flared again. My ministrations do not prevent infection. You must allow the cleansing.

  Taken aback by the demand, I turned my face to the burning spray, allowed it disinfect my facial wound.

  Minutes later, when the shower had grown tepid, Malephar said, It is done.

  I made to stand but was steamrolled by a wave of nausea. My guts, healing though they might be, howled in protest. My nose throbbed incessantly.

  Feel the agony, craven. Wallow in it, drown in it, you imbiber of semen, you defiler of infants.

  As revolting as these insults were, I almost welcomed them. The role of nurse didn’t suit Malephar. The universe made far more sense when he was spewing filth.

  It didn’t occur to me until I stepped out of the bathtub that I had somehow disrobed. Dreading the vision that would greet me, I ra
ised my face toward the vanity mirror, but rather than a mutilated hole, I discovered the same nose to which I was accustomed. Whether the demon had somehow reattached my old nose or generated a new one, I had no idea. Nor did I care. I was simply thankful to look like myself again.

  I crept closer to the mirror and stood on tiptoes to inspect my stomach wound. The movement exacerbated the throb along my incision, but the gash itself had closed. The livid ridge of scar tissue felt rubbery to my fingertips, the flesh around it sensitive. That was to be expected, I thought. It wasn’t every day that one was gutted by a serial killer and healed by a demon.

  I held up my hand and stared in amazement. The fingers I’d lost the night of the exorcism had regenerated as well.

  I feared I was losing my mind.

  All at once I realized what I needed, the only restorative that would prevent a complete mental breakdown.

  I wanted to see Liz.

  I needed to see Liz.

  Staring into the mirror, I set to work on the blond, bedraggled scarecrow I resembled and began the job of making myself presentable.

  It wasn’t until later that endless night that I gave another thought to the pact I had made with the demon.

  Or the serial killer still loose in Chicago.

  Chapter Four

  My sense of propriety reminded me to park down the road from Liz’s home. Though no one seemed to be stirring at this dead hour of night, I still feared one of my parishioners might spot my rusty Honda Civic in the driveway of the Hartmans’ estate.

  I approached the front door of Liz’s enormous house on Rosemary Road with some trepidation. The fact that she and her kids had moved back into the site of the possession not forty-eight hours after Father Sutherland and I had ridded Casey of the demon was proof, I felt, not only of Liz’s courage, but of her obstinance. She would be angry with me, I believed, not for disturbing her at such a late hour, but because I hadn’t returned her calls all day. At the time I had viewed my silence as noble, as a protective measure between the demon inside me and Liz’s family. Yet now, as I reached out to depress the glowing doorbell, I realized there had been cowardice in my uncommunicativeness as well. After triumphing over the demon in Casey’s bedroom, I had wrongly believed myself cured of my lifelong phobia of women. Walking Liz out of her house that night, I had fancied myself a virile, capable man.

  But now, staring down the prospect of encountering the woman who mattered more to me than anyone in the world, the woman for whom I’d already decided I would give up the priesthood, my confidence evaporated, leaving me as fearful as ever.

  I rang the doorbell and awaited Liz’s wrath. Too soon, the front porch lamp spilled its sallow light over me, and the door cracked open a couple inches, a chain preventing it from swinging wide.

  “Ron?” a voice asked. “That better not be you.”

  I mustered a grin. “Uh-uh,” I said. “It’s the guy you don’t have a restraining order against.”

  “Jason?”

  “Sorry for showing up unannounced.”

  “Keep scaring me like this, and I might sic the cops on you too.” The door closed, the chain scraping, then opened. “What’s wrong?” she asked, ushering me inside. “It’s three in the morning.”

  I entered, did my best not to notice the way her voluminous white robe hung open at the throat. “Did I wake the kids?”

  “Who knows?” she said, shutting the door. “I doubt they’ve slept much since…” She let the thought die, her pretty face pinching at the brows.

  “Liz…” I faltered, glanced at the door. “May I?”

  She didn’t protest as I refastened the sliding chain lock, twisted the deadbolt.

  She cinched the throat of her robe together. Not out of modesty, I thought, but from a quickening of terror. “Jason, what’s happening?”

  I stood there mutely for several moments. In my frenzy to assure myself that Danny hadn’t attacked Liz and her children, I’d neglected to concoct a suitable explanation for my visit. Now that I was faced with her panicked gaze, I found myself unable to construct a suitable fiction.

  “I don’t know why I drove over here,” I admitted. “I guess I’ve been worried about you since the exorcism.”

  It was the wrong word to utter. I realized that immediately. She shot a glance toward the second story landing, a landing without a staircase. The stairs had been destroyed the night of the exorcism, and though the rubble had been cleared away by workmen, the stairway had not yet been rebuilt.

  “You don’t think the demon will return, do you?” she asked. “Please tell me Casey isn’t in danger.”

  Deep in my brain, the demon chortled.

  I shook my head, arranged my features in what I hoped was a reassuring look. “He’s completely safe. There’s nothing—”

  “Then why are you here?” she demanded.

  Because I’m in love with you? “I—” I gestured lamely toward the door—“…I was having a nightmare. It was your husband.”

  “Ex-husband.”

  Though the dissolution of their marriage wasn’t official, I didn’t correct her. “Ron was trying to get in. He didn’t have a key anymore, not one that worked—”

  “That’s weird. I had the locks changed this afternoon.”

  “—but that didn’t stop him. He…” I looked around, struggling to complete the lie. “…he got in through the kitchen window.”

  “That window’s fifteen feet off the ground.”

  “It was a dream, Liz. Anyway, he got in and he—”

  “Do I want to hear this?”

  “No,” I said, relieved. “But it was vivid enough to wake me up. I thought of calling you, but that didn’t seem like enough. I had to see you, make sure you and the kids were okay.”

  She sighed. A miserable, listless sound. “Honestly, I’ve been fretting about the same thing. Ron isn’t a violent man, but he’s persistent. I could see him trying to break into the house.” She laughed mirthlessly. “He bought it, after all. Probably thinks he’s entitled to live here despite the shit he’s put us through.” She glanced up at me. “Sorry, Father.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her. “We’re beyond the stage where you need to watch your language around me.”

  She searched my eyes. “Are we?”

  The old nervousness geysered up from the pit of my stomach, my paralyzing fear of women. Particularly beautiful women like Liz. “Of course we are,” I said, dry-mouthed.

  She stared at me.

  I attempted a deprecating laugh. “After all, you’ve seen me at my worst. I wouldn’t think you’d still believe me worthy of being called Father.”

  Something new came into her face. A strength and a breath-stealing certitude. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of.” She held me with her gaze. “Father.”

  “Liz…”

  “You were magnificent.”

  This should have buoyed my spirits. Yet faced with that unwavering belief, that naked admiration, I felt less worthy of praise than I ever had. If she only knew what madness slithered inside me. If she only knew the diabolical bargain I’d made.

  Liz took my hand, her eyes holding mine. “Come to the kitchen,” she said. “If we’re going to be up this late, we’re sure as hell going to have coffee.”

  She gave my hand a squeeze and headed down the hallway. I noticed the pleasing mounds of her buttocks shifting beneath the plush white robe.

  Want to lick that ass, don’t you, Father? Malephar whispered.

  Jolting, I followed her into the kitchen.

  ¨¨¨

  The coffee was rich and black, yet a chill still clung to me, an acidic restiveness that ate at my composure, made it impossible for me to relax in Liz’s presence. I wanted to be confident. I wanted to be suave. I’d always wondered how other men did it, appeared to give no thought to how they were being perceived. Perhaps they didn’t care, perhaps they were so secure in their masculinity that worrying about how women viewed them never crossed their minds.
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  But I worried. I always had. Without a father, not particularly loved by my mother, I’d always felt unformed, incomplete in some way. As if God had neglected to include all the ingredients when creating me, and then, as some dreadful cosmic joke, endowed me with an acute awareness of those deficits, those missing ingredients.

  Liz was staring at me, and in her gaze I glimpsed admiration, attraction even. It was as though her soulful green eyes were distorting mirrors that flattered rather than insulted. But what you see, I wanted to say, is an illusion. If you knew what was beneath this skin, you would look upon me with disdain. Or—I thought of Malephar—you’d regard me with horror.

  From the other side of a kitchen island, eyeing me over her steaming mug of coffee, Liz asked, “Have you resumed your duties yet?”

  I glanced at my own mug, which was broad and ivory and said WORLD’S BEST MOM. “I thought of stopping by St. Matthew’s today, but decided I’d wait.”

  She nodded, but I could tell she wanted to push it further. I hoped she wouldn’t. Because I couldn’t reveal the true reason for my hesitation.

  Just how would the demon that dwelt in my breast react to the church? To the crosses and the holy visages of the Virgin Mary and her only Son? Would the demon fall prostrate and screaming? Inflict damage upon his host for subjecting him to such images? Or simply burst into flames?

  To fill the uneasy silence, I asked, “How is Casey?”

  “Shell shocked,” Liz said. “Like a soldier with PTSD. He walks around in a daze most of the time.”

  “Maybe he’s just fatigued,” I ventured. “An experience like the one he endured…that had to take a toll on his body.”

  Liz didn’t appear to be listening. She gazed askance. “I worry more about his mind. His soul.”

  I wanted to say something helpful but deemed it best to keep silent. In truth, the annals of the Catholic Church chronicled very little of what occurred after a successful exorcism. True, there were footnotes claiming that hosts went on to lead normal lives, but there was precious little verifiable information. And what was normal? Not being infested with a monster? Not having one’s body abused by a malevolent spirit? What were the dreams of those who had once played host to a demon? What were their memories? I had an acute interest in these questions on an academic level, but lately, my interest had become a good deal more personal.