by Amy Braun
She shook her head. “It’s all black. I just remember falling asleep and waking up.” Dro looked past me to Manny. “What did I say?”
I turned so I was facing Manny. His stunned expression would tell Dro something was wrong if we didn’t give her an answer.
But I couldn’t tell her the truth. It would break her heart, and fuel her belief that she was a freak. A monster. Everything that she wasn’t, despite what her subconscious said. Dro had never intentionally hurt anyone. She never would. I had to keep her believing that.
But I couldn’t lie to her, either. Manny had to do it for me.
“Nothing, my dear. You said nothing we could use.”
She frowned. “I didn’t? Then why did I burn the couch?”
I turned to face her again. This part I could mostly lie about. “You were starting to have a nightmare. Manny couldn’t wake you up. So I did.” I frowned. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
Dro’s eyes flashed with hurt, the same way mine probably did when I thought about that night six years ago.
Dro took a deep breath. “I’m glad you did it, Con. Thank you.” She looked at Manny again. “I’ll fix the couch somehow. I promise.”
“It’s all right, Andromeda. We can just cover it with a blanket. Max, why don’t you help her find one?”
To his credit, Max didn’t hesitate. He looked at my sister with more caution, but he didn’t seem to be afraid of her. At least not that I could tell. As Max passed me, he gave me a quick look that told me he wasn’t going to tell Dro the truth. I gave him a small nod in return. I wondered if he saw the tension drain from my shoulders, and realized I was becoming more and more grateful to him and his father. That it was a sign of my trust starting to build.
Once they were out of the room, I walked over to Manny. “Tell me you got some kind of clue from that,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Constance. But I didn’t. She could be distantly possessed by a Higher demon, she could have nightmares influencing her subconscious,” he paused, “she could very well be some type of a demon.”
I stared daggers. “She is not a demon.”
“Constance–”
“She is not a demon.”
My tone made it clear that I would not repeat myself again.
“I’m trying to reason it all out for you, Constance,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Don’t turn your temper on me.”
Suddenly, I felt guilty. I liked Manny. He was tough, smart, trying to help Dro, and wasn’t afraid of me. It had been a long, long time since I had a father figure. No one would ever replace my real Dad, a man I still loved, honored, and missed with every waking breath. But Manny was as close as I could get.
“Sorry,” I said. “This situation’s kinda stressing me out.”
He was still frowning, but the sparkle was back in his eyes. “Understandable.”
I relaxed, even smiled a little. There weren’t many people who could put up with my attitude for so long, but I was glad that Manny was one of them.
“So,” I breathed. “What’s the next step?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not even sure I can help her.”
“Don’t tell me you’re quitting on your research now,” I said, trying to be playful.
Manny’s eyes were anything but. “Let me rephrase. I’m not sure that I should help her. You heard what she said. She’s obviously being influenced by something we can’t understand, and won’t understand until we learn what’s hunting you both.”
“But you’re not going to look into what she is,” I said, just barely controlling my disappointment.
“No,” Manny replied with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, but I won’t risk it to my son.”
That was what it all came back to. Defending the ones we loved. Manny wouldn’t take any risks for Max any sooner than I would take them for Dro. I understood. If I were in his shoes, I would have said the same thing.
“Then we had better start looking for demons,” I said. “Starting with the one the Kenway’s have.”
***
I had seen horrible things in my life. Men spread-eagled on a table, slowly being skinned alive with rusted knives. Women bound to chairs, beaten with brass knuckles until their attackers chose to rape them. A knife sawing roughly through a screaming man’s neck until his head was severed from his body. A traitor whose knees were shot out, leaving him unable to run to his family as they were set on fire.
Demons sinking their teeth and claws into the flesh of people I knew, tearing them limb from limb, blood dripping from their teeth as black eyes glistened with murderous glee. Teeth and claws that would sink into me years later, leaving me scarred outside and in.
A screaming, burning sister who cried when she thought I wasn’t looking.
Seeing a nineteen year old girl possessed by a demonic spirit definitely ranked among those horrible things.
The Kenways hadn’t asked very much when Dro and I showed up with Manny and Max. My sister wasn’t saying anything. She could feel the evil here. I tried to send her out, saying it wasn’t too late for her to change her mind. That no one would think less of her. But Dro refused. She wanted to try and help.
The parents had led us up to the second story of their house. As soon as we hit the top floor, we started hearing the shouting. Mrs. Kenway choked back tears while her husband opened the door.
It was worse than I imagined.
The room itself looked like a normal nineteen year old girl’s room. White painted walls, a desk covered in papers and pens, a vanity table teeming with make-up and beauty tips from fashion magazines. Movie posters and school awards were framed on the wall. A white dresser covered with trinkets, memos from boys and best friends sat next to a mirror closet.
None of which matched the bed or the girl strapped to it in the center of the room.
The once white sheets were shredded and stained with blood, piss, and shit. The girl on top of the bed was covered in the stains, probably from having rolled around in them. Her pink T-shirt was torn at the collar and hanging off her shoulder, grey sweatpants sliding off her hips as she tried to pull herself free from the binds. Braided ropes were tied around her wrists and ankles, securing her tightly to the bed. The ropes had chaffed the girl’s skin, covering her hands and feet with blood.
Just when I thought she couldn’t look worse, she stopped thrashing her head from side to side and looked in our direction. If I didn’t know better, I would swear I was looking at an animal rather than a human being.
Her straw-blonde hair was greasy and wild, her skin damp and paler than it should have been. Her face was plastered with mucous from her eyes and nose. Vomit smeared the lower half of her face, mixing with the blood from her chewed, bleeding lips.
But her eyes were the worst. They weren’t blue, brown, green, or a mix of colors. They were black from lid to lid. Just like a Red’s.
If I’d had a weaker stomach, I might have thrown up.
The girl’s parents moved into the room as their daughter continued to thrash and scream. Manny strode past me, and from the glimpse I caught on his face, he had seen this kind of thing before. It didn’t seem to have gotten easier for him. Max and Dro were behind me, nervous about coming in. I can’t say I blamed them.
I took a step deeper into the room.
The girl started howling in a language I’d never heard before. One that didn’t sound human, and probably wasn’t. Manny ignored it, getting set up for the exorcism. He looked at the parents.
“No matter what happens, you must not interrupt me,” he told them. “One interruption could break any progress we make. Do you understand?”
Mr. Kenway sat by his daughter’s bed with his wife. He nodded, holding back tears. “I understand.”
Manny looked at me. His warning had been meant for me as well. I nodded stiffly. Manny looked at the girl. “Max, can you come help me, please?”
Max brushed past me. Manny looked at him. “Can you tell what it is?”
Max looked at the girl and focused. It was too dangerous for him to touch her. After about a minute, he looked at his father. “Some kind of Possessor, I think. But it’s way stronger.”
He said it grimly, as though he didn’t think the girl would survive.
“What’s her name?” Manny asked, pulling out a vial of holy water.
“Olivia,” the father said.
“Olivia, if you can hear me, this will not hurt you.”
Manny threw the holy water on the girl’s face. Smoke rose up from where it landed and Olivia shrieked. I cringed a little, trying to think of something other than the girl.
So. I guess holy water really does work for something.
Max started reading from a Bible he’d pulled from his father’s bag. His eyes flicked from the book to the girl thrashing on the bed. Her screams only became louder when Manny pulled a silver rosary out from his shirt, poured holy water onto it, and pressed it against Olivia’s head. My heart pounded harder and harder against my ribcage every time she screamed. I focused on what Manny was doing, seeing what techniques I could use.
Silver. Check.
Dro shuddered behind me. I turned to look at her. “Are you okay, Dro?”
She wasn’t looking at me, but she obviously heard me because she started shaking her head.
“I can see it,” she whispered. “I can see the demon holding her.”
I faced my sister. “What do you mean? See it how?”
Dro paused, trying to find the words to describe it all to me. “There’s this black shadow around her, like a cocoon. It has to be the dem–”
“You!”
I snapped my head over to the possessed girl, hand reaching for my hatchet. Olivia was sitting straight up, pulling tightly against the bonds as she leaned forward. Her eyes weren’t focused on me, though.
She was looking at my sister.
“Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere, little girl!”
Olivia had two voices. One was a light, teenage girl voice. The other was a deep, raspy growl. The sound of it had my pulse racing. I tasted coppery fear on my tongue. Dro shrank back behind me as I moved in front of her. Manny hadn’t stopped chanting, but Max was faltering, glancing at Dro.
“Why are you hiding? Come out here!”
“Get out of the girl,” I told the demon, hoping to draw its attention from Dro.
The possessed girl snarled, turning her crazed face to mine. “I wasn’t talking to you, human.”
“Get out of the girl,” I repeated. I had no clue how to carry out an exorcism, but I was talking to the demon. That had to be some kind of progress.
Olivia pulled tighter on the bonds. Manny chanted louder and doused her with more holy water. The girl screamed again, her agonized shout sounding even more inhuman. Manny almost faltered, looking at me with wide eyes. He nodded, signaling me to keep it talking while he chanted. I pressed Dro into the hall and took a slow step forward.
“What do you want with her?” I asked.
The demon inside Olivia chuckled, sending a chill down my spine.
“It wouldn’t be fun if I told you, human. But you’ll find out soon enough.”
I put my hands on my hips so no one would see my hands shaking. Brushing my thumb along the hilt of my hatchet calmed me down, if only by a fraction.
“Save me time. Tell me now.”
Olivia smiled. It was an awful smile showing bloodstained teeth around a crusted mouth.
“No,” it said. “I think I’ll show you.”
Olivia suddenly arched her back, bending so far backward I thought her spine would snap in half. I moved into a crouch, getting ready to spring. She opened her mouth and inhaled. Right when Manny slapped the rosary’s cross to her forehead and poured holy water down her throat.
Olivia screamed, a deep, throaty roar that rattled the walls. Smoke seeped out of her throat like a dark fog. A black, smoky shape spiraled out of the girl’s mouth like a tornado. The smell of wood smoke and sulfur hit me. I gave up on subtlety, whipping my hatchet out and holding it against my thigh, ready to swing it up at a second’s notice.
But the smoke thing– the demon– didn’t come after me. It contorted until it formed a foggy head, a misty face, then lips that smiled cruelly. Manny and Max were yelling words from the Bible and hurling holy water like it was going out of style. The demon must have been vulnerable outside of a human body, because it yowled and twisted, slithering through the window behind the bed.
Aside from heavy breathing and crying parents, the room was silent. I refused to let go of my hatchet. My grip was so tight I was digging my nails into the wood of the hilt. The girl wasn’t moving. The Kenways threw themselves over their daughter, crying and shaking her shoulders.
“Olivia!” they cried, trying to wake her up.
Dread filled my stomach when I looked at Max and Manny. They knew the girl was likely dead.
Someone gently touched my arm. I was so on edge I nearly jumped out of my skin, even when I knew it was Dro touching me. She lightly pushed me aside, slowly entering the room. I was rooted to the spot until I noticed she was walking over to the bed. Max and Manny stepped back so Dro could kneel beside the girl. She took the girl’s pale hand in both of hers, lowering her head as if in a silent prayer.
But I knew what Dro was doing. I could see the faint glow in her hands.
A minute passed before Dro looked up and backed away. One second later, Olivia gasped sharply and opened her eyes. Buckets of tears poured down her face. She cried as heavily as her parents did. The three of them wrapped their arms around one another, sobbing with relief. Dro walked back over to me.
“She was still alive,” she said, looking in my eyes. “I had to do something.”
I smiled. “I know, little sister. And you did great.”
She gave me a sheepish look, then walked into the hallway to wait. Dro was the type of girl who never sought charity for her actions. Knowing she had done something helpful was more than enough for her.
I was about to follow Dro when I glanced at Manny and Max.
They looked at me with uncertainty, but I could see the pride in Manny’s eyes. The glittering softness in Max’s.
At that moment, I knew they weren’t going to quit on us. And I couldn’t have asked for more.
Chapter 6
Manny struck a new deal with me after Olivia’s exorcism. We would stay in the basement for a few days while he went through every book he owned and called every contact he had to find clues about what my sister was. In return, I would go with Manny to exorcisms to kill any demon that might try and attack him or the person they were possessing. It turned out Dro’s generosity and my willingness to talk back to a demon had changed his mind. He wanted to know what Dro was and why she was so hotly desired by demons almost as bad as we did.
Since Manny wouldn’t put me in touch with the demon slayer and I couldn’t pay him, it was all I could offer to earn our keep. Dro had chosen to cook and clean the house. She liked doing because it made her feel normal, and she’d always been a hell of a cook. It almost made me feel guilty that I hadn’t done anything but study and train since the Kenway exorcism. No one called Manny or came in for serious consultations. The only person who came in was Mrs. Dawson for her bi-weekly palm reading and doting on Max.
Not that I was about to complain. A day without demons was a day without demons.
Days turned into weeks as we learned everything about demons, memorizing every book on Manny’s shelf. He didn’t seem to be tiring of us. He was determined to figure out what my sister was, professional curiosity getting the better of him. He asked Dro questions and had her test minor powers, though they never tried hypnotism again. Once was enough, and we had no desire to press our luck.
Manny could tell me how to properly kill demons but he couldn’t train me in combat. He let me set up a small gym in his basement where I trained with my knives and hatchet using dartboards and two-by-fours. I taug
ht Max some self-defense moves while Dro got the more advanced training. She always beat Max when they sparred. But I don’t think he minded very much, since sparring with Dro gave him an excuse to be close to her.
From dusk until dawn, everything was demon-related. I was getting bored of it, but at least I was learning. Every religion had their own kinds of demons, and Manny had information on all of them.
Possessors were what Manny dealt with on a regular basis. They were the demonic spirits that searched for a human body they desired, then latched onto its soul and took complete control of the victim. Even though they couldn’t take a corporeal form and were weak outside of a human vessel, they were volatile and dangerous. It was tricky to stop them unless you damaged the person they were inside, which was almost never an option.
The red monsters Dro and I described were a crossbreed variation of Japanese oni and Greek eurynomos, but we stuck with simply calling them Reds. They were beings brought out directly from Hell by a summoning. While they could be controlled, they were savage and could easily turn their summoner into a snack. They didn’t have any powers and were among the lowest demons in Hell, but they were not to be brushed off as an idle threat.
Demons came in a wide assortment of murderous varieties. Vampiric lamias. Malaysian hantus. Enormous Leviathans. Savage hellhounds. Too many to list, and way too many to kill on my own.
Faith was the strongest weapon apparently, a very powerful tool in exorcisms, but it wasn’t something I could rely on. Mostly because I didn’t have any.
Luckily, there were a variety of methods for killing demons. Holy water, blessed silver, salt, sage. Holy water was the only thing we had in abundance, but I was determined to get silver weapons somehow. Trapping a demon was possible, but you had to assume the demon wasn’t too powerful to escape, and that it was going to speak English. Most demons only spoke demon-tongue.
Surprisingly, Hell had a ranking system. It started with lowly peons and imps, moving up to Knights, Presidents, Dukes, and Princes of Hell, and of course, the King himself.
Satan. The Morningstar. Lucifer. The one that nobody, human or demon, ever wanted to cross.