by Hart, Jerry
“You don’t have a cab to protect you from them now, do you, Carutha?” He addressed the leader of those creatures, the one who’d controlled Monica. “What will happen if I stand in the middle of the street and invite the gods to take me?”
Don’t!
He felt the invaders try to flee his body, but they could not. He held them inside. He walked off the porch, letting the rain fall on his face. His body was already cold, and the rain made him feel warm. He stood by his car and saw Erin slumped over the driver’s- and passenger’s seats, unconscious. She twitched every few seconds, the visions no doubt terrifying her.
He looked up into the dark sky, the rain falling on his eyes. But he didn’t care about them.
We’ll kill your family!
“You can’t hurt them anymore,” he whispered. To the sky, he said, “I’m here. I have them. Strike me down and kill them all.”
Don was prepared to die and feared no pain. Lightning came from the sky, striking him, and he was blessed with not even feeling it.
* * *
When he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by white. The brightness didn’t hurt his eyes, however, so he looked around himself. He saw nothing, and could not get his bearings. “Where am I?”
He got a response.
“Am I dead?”
He listened to the reply.
“A choice?” he asked the voice, though it was not really a voice at all. It was a sense, an understanding. “What kind of choice?”
He waited and listened.
“Yes, I was connected to them. I don’t know if I am anymore. What does that have to do with anything?”
He listened.
“I can take you there, with me?”
He smiled when he understood the response. He closed his eyes....
* * *
....and when he opened them again, he was somewhere else. He recognized the place, not just by sight but by smell. He was in the home of the demons who had ruined his life. The cavern was in chaos; creatures flew about like crazy birds.
They were afraid, afraid of Don himself.
He knew he was doing something no one had ever done before: He brought the power of the gods directly to their home. All these years they had been safe below ground, relying on the bodies of animals and humans to go about aboveground, but now they had nowhere to run. Don could feel the power of the gods coursing through him, and though he still didn’t understand who or what they really were, he knew they could destroy these creatures once and for all.
But how?
“Mr. Scott!” a female voice screamed.
Don looked up and saw one of the bats holding Erin over the large drop. Another held Travis. “Hang on!” he shouted up to the teens. “I’ll get you out of here.”
Just then, one of the giant bats landed in front of him, at the edge of the cliff. He knew it was Carutha. It stared at him, calmer than the others flying around.
“So you’ve come to kill us,” it said.
“I won’t let you hurt my family or anyone else’s ever again.”
“You do realize you won’t survive this either? If you go through with this, you will never see your family again.”
Don had already accepted that fact, but the words still twisted his guts. “I’m ready to die for them. It will be worth it.”
“And I for mine.”
Carutha took flight, jamming its claws into Don’s chest. The two went shooting back into the tunnel. Don could feel the crushing pain in his chest as they darted through the air. He tried grabbing the sides of the tunnel but couldn’t reach. He realized, in his last moments of life, the creature was trying to get Don as far away from its home as possible. Don had to finish them off before it was too late.
The power of the gods was a bomb inside of him. It made his skin glow brighter. All he had to do was open the flood gates, but he didn’t know how. He wanted to release the energy right then. As he looked down at the creature driving him back, he felt all the anger and pain this race of monsters had caused him over the decades. The things his own father and grandfather had gone through. Grandpa died taking his son’s curse away, and Stephen abandoned Don because he was too afraid to make the same sacrifice.
These monsters destroyed more lives than Don cared to count—Don’s family’s, and those of all the people Don and Ethan had killed.
The light of Don’s skin grew even brighter. He could feel it, like sitting naked under the sun. It was pleasantly warm and real. Don wanted to hold on to it, but knew he couldn’t. He had to let it free.
And so he did.
The light struck Carutha, burning the monster to cinders. Now that it was gone, Don floated in place in the tunnel. The light and heat continued forward, toward the cavern. He could hear the other creatures squeal in fear. The flapping of their wings became thunderous. Don didn’t care, however. He had done what he came here to do. It was up to the gods to do the rest.
And that they did.
Don heard the stalactites collapse, saw electric bolts sizzle against anything and everything in the area. Don floated back into the cavern and saw hundreds of creatures drop from the air like dead birds. It was as grotesque as it was beautiful. Travis and Erin suddenly vanished as the bats holding them exploded.
After untold minutes, the bolts died altogether. The cavern was still collapsing, but Don didn’t fear for his safety. He had been at the point of no return ever since the lightning struck him outside the house. In his last act before moving on he had done what his father and grandfather had not: He saved his family.
At that realization, he began to fade. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt like being outside on a warm summer day. His fear, regret and grief faded along with him.
Chapter 16
Jordan stood in his father’s office, running his fingers along the desk where Dad had written most of his books. Jordan couldn’t accept the fact his father would never write anything again.
It had been three days since his father’s death. They had found him in the street, struck down by lightning. Erin was found in his car, her eyes red from crying, but otherwise unhurt. Jordan had expected her to be afraid of him, but instead she hugged him tight and told him how sorry she was for what happened. She told him she saw Dad in the demons’ world, that he glowed like an angel and killed all the creatures.
She and Jordan had gone back inside the house to help Mom and Conner to his and her feet. They had been unharmed as well. Mom called the police to report Dad’s death. Instead of cleaning the house up they’d left everything as it was. Erin offered to stay with Jordan while they spoke with the authorities, and for that he was eternally grateful.
Erin didn’t tell the cops of the attacks she suffered from Conner. Conner didn’t seem to remember anything he’d done to her, but he remembered attacking Travis just as Mom remembered attacking Erin in the car. Erin had called the hospital to check on Travis and was relieved to hear he had recovered from whatever had afflicted him. He claimed not to remember what happened to him, but Jordan could tell he was lying. And for that he was eternally grateful once again.
Mom planned to take Conner to visit his mom in Augusta in a few days. She had called the facility to check on Aunt Ivy and was told she too was much better. “Different,” the doctor said. Perhaps soon she would be well enough to be discharged.
Jordan’s life was changing, though it was too early to tell whether it was for the better. He had never lived a truly normal life and didn’t know what to expect. He would forever mourn the loss of his father and grandfather, and the memory of the things he had done would haunt him until the end of his days. Despite all the things that had happened to him, he still didn’t truly understand what had caused them.
That was when he heard something come unlatched. One of the drawers in the desk had popped open. Jordan pulled it all the way and looked inside. He saw a manuscript sitting solely in the large drawer. The title page read The Devil’s Demeanor.
Why had the drawer popped open by itself? Jor
dan wondered if it had anything to do with being manhandled that night when he dropped it against the door. Or maybe something else was behind its malfunctioning latch.
Jordan pulled the manuscript out, sat in his father’s chair, and began reading. By the end he would fully understand his father’s curse. And his life.
* * *
Diedre sat at her desk, reviewing what she had written. Her story on Donovan Scott was, in her opinion, very well written and extremely revealing. It was the most interesting story she’d ever been involved with.
And yet, she felt wrong for writing it.
Though she understood, for the most part, what she had witnessed with the Scott family, she knew she couldn’t write everything and expect anyone to believe her. She’d had to change a few details to make them more digestible. Those alterations didn’t spoil the integrity of the story entirely, but they couldn’t be helped; she couldn’t write that the Scotts had been possessed by demons, now could she?
She had worked hard on this story. All the spying and questioning. Why did she feel so wrong, though?
Perhaps it was because of what Don had asked of her: Leave my family out of it. Write what you want about me, but leave my family out of it.
Unfortunately, there was no way to write this without mentioning the Scott family. Though Don was the focus, his loved ones played crucial roles. The only way to write this story and respect the late Donovan Scott’s wishes was to not write it at all.
She deleted the file.
“Rest in peace, Mr. Scott.”
Author’s Note
When I first published The Devil’s Demeanor in 2012, I had completely rearranged events from the original manuscript. I opened on a scene where Don found out his five-year-old nephew may or may not have murdered a grown man. I then used events from Don’s childhood as flashbacks.
Why I decided to publish it that way is beyond me. I guess I figured no one would care about Don’s childhood, which I based on my own. The main reason I wrote the book was because I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to put some of my favorite memories to paper.
A year after publication, I decided to dust off the original manuscript and polish it up a bit. I added a bunch of new stuff, as well as a few plot twists that weren’t in the first published version. If you read that version last year, this one will read a lot differently.
As to why I’m publishing this in two parts: Well, when I got halfway through the manuscript I felt like I’d read an entire book already. Any more would have felt like overkill. In my opinion, The Devil’s Demeanor Part 1 & 2 each work as standalone novels, though both are only half of the larger story of Donovan Scott’s attempt to rid his family of a deadly curse and save the rest of humanity at the same time. I hope you enjoy.