Sex with the Devil

by Noah Harris

  Richard took her hand in his. “It’s OK. You’re OK now.”

  Alison yanked his hand, her jaw set. “It was all a lie. We need to move forward.”

  They set off once more, and within a few minutes they had passed beyond the stone forest. A faint glimmering appeared up ahead, a yellow light that morphed and wavered. It wasn’t the pure light of the sun, though. It had a dirty hue—the yellow of pus, and mustard gas. Twisting and changing as it did, their eyes could not focus on it and it became painful to look at. Richard looked a little to one side, but kept moving toward it.

  “There’s the breach between worlds, and that’s its guardian,” he said, and as soon as he said the words he was sure of it.

  Richard and Alison approached warily. The rupture between the worlds could be sensed but not quite seen. A patch of the stony plain seemed out of focus, and he almost got the impression of normal light beyond it, regular earthly light.

  What glowed and shimmered and hovered beside the rupture commanded his attention.

  The coruscation of dirty, yellow light stretched and contracted and turned in on itself. Looking at it made his eyes water.

  “You seeing this?” Richard asked when they were still several yards from the rupture and the strange light.

  “Yes,” Alison answered, “It doesn’t look like a demon. Are you sure that’s the thing Anton summoned?”

  A few more steps and they got their answer.

  The light suddenly closed in on itself and shot at Richard like a glowing fist. It hit him square in the chest and flung him back ten feet.

  The breath was knocked out of him, and by the time he’d recovered enough to see clearly again, the thing had wrapped itself around Alison. Her screams broke off into a garbled choke as it constricted around her middle and cut off her breath.

  Richard leapt up and grabbed it. It burned his hands, and yet it felt slick too, like an eel. Clenching his teeth, he ignored the pain and pulled at it with all his strength. He just about managed to yank it off Alison and fling it aside.

  The twisting blob of light thudded on the ground not far away. Immediately it sprang into the air, spread itself out like a giant glowing bat, and swooped down on them.

  “Begone!” Richard shouted, splaying out his hands.

  The thing slammed into him and knocked him flat on the ground.

  This time it didn’t bother going for Alison. It seemed to sense who the wizard was and covered Richard like a flaming carpet. Richard’s lungs filled with a scorching heat, and his body was pressed down against the rock.

  Laszlo’s advice came back to him—he had to use his willpower against this thing, he had to picture in his mind the effect he wanted.

  He pictured a shining sword in his hand and thrust his hand upwards into the center of the demon.

  A loud screech assaulted his eardrums and the thing flew up high in the air, folded in on itself, and winked out of sight.

  Richard looked in wonder at his hand, half expecting to see himself gripping a sword, and yet his hand was empty.

  “Did you get it?” Alison asked, standing nearby and shaking from head to toe.

  Richard struggled to his feet. “I…I think so.”

  Alison pulled the bowl and bottle out of her knapsack.

  “Let’s hurry up and get this done,” she said.

  She poured the pale red alchemical mixture that Laszlo had prepared into the bowl and lifted the bowl up high. Strange flowing sigils began to glow around its circumference with a pure white light.

  Richard reached up and held the other half of the bowl. They kept it between them but above their heads, each holding one side. Together they began to speak the magical incantation they had been taught.

  Neither knew the meaning of the words they spoke, but they immediately felt their power. Their skin prickled and their hair stood on end as if they stood at the forefront of a massive electrical storm. As they continued the chant, Richard could sense the thin membrane between the two worlds thicken and strengthen, like a deep scrape miraculously healing.

  Richard’s heart soared. It was working! Flawlessly they spoke every strange, foreign syllable, the two of them together, male and female.

  Soon they were finished. Alison blinked, then looked around.

  “Did it work?”

  Richard focused.

  “Yes, the rift is gone. Hold my hand. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Best idea I’ve heard all day.”

  Richard pictured the little stream in the woods beside Cliff’s house. That’s where he had told the rest of the group to meet them.

  As Laszlo warned him, it proved more difficult this time, like pushing through a windstorm. His muscles tightened and sweat broke out on his brow, but as he persevered the bleak plain began to fade and he saw a hint of the familiar light of the human world beyond. He redoubled his efforts, and just as he felt he was on the verge of passing through he felt a hard tug from the other side.

  Suddenly he wasn’t pushing, he was being pulled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a meteor of dirty, yellow light shoot down on them.

  There was a blinding flash, and a tremendous wrenching feeling. Richard felt himself and Alison fall, still clinging to one another with intertwined hands.

  They hit something hard.

  Richard blinked and shook his head.

  The barren plain of the demon realm was gone, but they were not kneeling by the stream in the forest.

  They were kneeling in Cliff’s basement.

  Inside the pentagram.

  The dirty, yellow light shimmered above them like some surreal thunderhead.

  Anton Black stood in the triangle facing them. He treated them to a wicked grin.

  “Richard, how kind of you to visit.”

  Richard scrambled to his feet, only for the yellow glow to slam him back down to the ground. Alison cowered next to him. Their eyes met for a brief moment and both simultaneously tried to leap out of the pentagram but only ended up back on the floor. They’d hit a barrier as hard as a brick wall.

  Anton Black laughed. “It may not look like it, but you are still in the demon realm. You cannot pass out of the pentagram no matter how strong your magic. When I sensed you coming into our world, I had the demon push you here while I channeled your path.”

  Richard grabbed Alison’s hand and focused, trying to flee out of Cliff’s boiler room and back to the blasted plain. From there, perhaps, he could evade Anton’s magic and escape into his own world at a safer location.

  A hard blow to his head make him lose his concentration. The dirty-yellow light split into several strands and whipped around him like tentacles. Several grasped his wrists and ankles and yet another slid around his neck and began to tighten. Alison gripped the one cutting off his windpipe and managed to pull it off enough that he could at least gasp another breath.

  “Fight as much as you like,” Anton Black said, his voice laced with mockery. “It is a tireless beast. You can hold it off for a while, but it will wear you down. I don’t mind waiting. I have all night.”

  Several shots rang out upstairs.

  Richard smiled at him. “You were saying?”

  Anton turned towards the door, which was closed. He took care not to step out of the triangle.

  “What’s going on up there?” he bellowed.

  The only answer he received was more shots.

  The tentacles around Richard tightened. Alison hauled on the one threatening his neck and managed to pull it away, but she didn’t dare let go or it would be back to strangling him in a second. Meanwhile, the others dug painfully into his wrists and ankles, cutting off his circulation.

  Richard closed his eyes and pictured himself as a grenade. He pictured himself as the center of an explosion.

  He felt a jolt as his muscles cramped all at once. The yellow light burst into a score of pieces and flew off in all directions, either splatting on the floor or flattening against the invisible barrier created by the penta
gram. Richard slumped, trying to catch his breath. Slowly the pieces wriggled back towards each other, seeking to reunify. Richard stomped on one while Alison grasped another and twisted it, but they could not stop them all. Twenty fragments of light became ten, then five. The gunfire upstairs rose in frequency and volume. The fight was drawing closer.

  Would his friends make it in time before this demon killed them?

  Richard grabbed Alison again and tried to flee back into the demon realm. Although it was harder now that the breach had been healed, his desperation gave him strength and he forced his way through the barrier. The bleak plain formed before his vision. Anton shouted out some strange words and suddenly yanked them back to Earth.

  The demon flung itself on Richard once more. It enveloped him like a blanket, trying to suffocate him with its stifling embrace. Dimly, Richard could hear Anton’s maniacal laughter. He got a breath of air as Alison tore a piece of the demon’s substance from his face, only to lose it again when the demon slipped out of her grasp and snapped, mending the gash.

  Richard imagined claws of power extending from his fingers. He raked them down the inside of the glowing demon. Five thin slits opened within the dirty yellow light.

  The demon recoiled, pulling back from the upper half of Richard’s body to form a lump on the end of a tentacle. The lump swung down on Richard like a club, but Richard managed to swipe at the base of the tentacle with his claws and nearly sever it. Instead of having the strength to bash Richard’s brains in, the demon only managed a glancing blow to his shoulder.

  That was still enough to make him reel in pain. He would have fallen over if it hadn’t been for the bottom half of the demon, holding fast to his legs.

  Again and again, Richard raked at the demon with the invisible claws he had manifested by the use of his own willpower. The dirty yellow light flinched and writhed. Alison helped by kicking at it. Suddenly her eyes went wide.

  “Look out!” she shouted.

  Unbeknownst to him, a thin tendril of the demon’s substance had reached up behind him and coiled around his neck, jerking him backwards. With his legs still in its hot embrace, Richard didn’t fall over. Instead his back was bent in a painful arch, and he was left flailing helplessly at the tendril. Alison reached for it, only to have the demon thrust out part of its side to hit her in the stomach. She ended up on the floor.

  Just then, Tyrone kicked the door open. He held a zip gun in his hand. Smoke issued from both ends of the crude steel pipe. Anton spun around and with his one good hand, he drew a wickedly curved dagger from the folds of his robe.

  He slashed at Tyrone, but Richard’s boyfriend brought up the steel pipe in time to parry it. Tyrone swiped at Anton’s head with the pipe, but the cult leader ducked. A counterattack made Tyrone backpedal. Anton took a step forward, then stopped at the edge of the triangle painted on the floor, giving the demon in the pentagram a wary look. Tyron glanced at the cult leader’s feet.

  “Oh, you don’t wanna get out of your little triangle, do you sucka? You’re just like a pigeon in a Coney Island shooting gallery.”

  Tyrone took another couple of steps backwards while he pulled a .22 round from his pocket. He fitted it into the back of the pipe.

  While the triangle protected against demons, Anton’s reaction showed it didn’t provide protection against bullets. In a panic, Anton leapt out of the triangle, his knife held high. Desperately Tyrone raised the zip gun, pulling back on the rubber bands to slam the nail against the firing cap.

  He didn’t make it in time. Anton’s knife came whistling down at Tyrone’s face, forcing him to jerk back at the last moment. The knife missed him by less than an inch and clanged against the barrel of the zip gun.

  The impact forced the gun down and to the side, and made Tyrone let go of the rubber bands.

  The nail shot forward, hitting the bullet and setting it off.

  It didn’t hit Anton. Instead it hit the edge of the pentagram, chipping off a chunk of concrete as big as Richard’s palm.

  “No!” Anton shouted.

  The demon let go of Richard and shot through the break in the pentagram, heading straight for Anton.

  The cult leader reached into the collar of his robe and pulled out a stone amulet hanging from a leather thong around his neck. Richard cursed. He had seen that artifact before.

  “Stay back!” Anton ordered.

  The demon swirled around him, making Anton flinch, but none of the tendrils of yellow light struck him.

  Anton scurried back to the triangle.

  The demon twisted in on itself and shot towards Tyrone.

  Richard’s boyfriend fell to the floor in a roll that took him into the triangle. Before Anton could react, Tyrone leapt up, gripped Anton’s wrist with one hand, stopping a thrust with the knife, and used his other hand to punch Anton full in the face.

  The cult leader was stunned for a moment, just long enough for Tyrone to tear the amulet off his neck and push Anton out of the triangle.

  The demon was on him a moment later, enfolding him in its dirty glow. Anton screamed, struggled, but the demon was too strong.

  Richard stepped out of the pentagram, now damaged and useless. Tyrone, still safe in the triangle, tossed him the amulet. Richard caught it and held it up.

  “Begone!” he commanded. “Go back to where you came from, and take Anton Black with you!”

  The demon slid along the ground like a tide of pus, dragging Anton with it and heading straight for Richard.

  “Go back to the demon realm!” Richard repeated, holding the amulet in front of him like a shield.

  The demon washed around him, pushing in close. Richard could feel the heat of the creature, its power closing in, and understood why Anton had used the triangle even though he also had the amulet. This charm could stop the demon for a while, but could not overcome it in the end.

  It was time to finish this. He recalled the swirling sensation he had experienced in his chest when he had disrupted a previous ritual, the feel of the demon portal that had somehow merged with him. He had brought the Taurus demon through himself and into this world. Could he move a hostile entity the other direction?

  He had no choice but to try. The demon, temporarily frustrated, had shifted direction and was heading out the door.

  Heading for the outside world.

  “Come into me,” Richard called. “Come through me!”

  With a tremendous force of will, he pictured the demon being pulled back into the room. Just as he envisioned, it happened, causing the demon to struggle and squirm. Anton, still flailing inside like a drowning man, got pulled back towards Richard as well.

  He redoubled his effort, dropping the amulet so there would be no barrier between himself and the creature of tainted light. The demon’s slow slide picked up speed until it lifted off the floor and flew right at him. Richard almost panicked, but managed to maintain his concentration and picture the demon and Anton Black getting thrown to the other side.

  Richard felt a terrible impact and saw a flash of light. For a moment, he blacked out.

  When he came to, he found himself on his back on the floor, Tyrone and Alison kneeling at his side.

  Richard sat bolt upright, looking around for his opponent. Tyrone put a hand on his chest.

  “It’s all right, Country.”

  “The killer light and that creepy dude disappeared,” Alison said.

  Tyrone looked uncertainly at the pentagram. “Are they on the other side?”

  Richard focused, sent out his perception to feel along the barrier between the worlds. Beyond it, he heard a pitiful scream. He nodded with satisfaction.

  “Yes, and neither of them are coming back.”

  A gunshot rang out upstairs.

  “Shit!” Tyrone shouted, pulling another bullet from his pocket. “This fight ain’t over yet.”

  “What’s going on?” Richard asked as Alison helped him off the floor.

  Tyrone grabbed the zip gun and started to load
it. “When you didn’t show up we decided to attack the house. Blew away a couple of those muthafuckas and the rest ran off. Looks like they’ve come back.”

  Alison grabbed Anton’s knife. Richard looked around for a weapon for a moment and found none.

  “Let’s go,” he said, leading them out the door.

  They passed through the basement. The dogs in the back pen barked like fiends. A couple more shots rang out. One sounded inside the house, the other from further away. The cellar was dark except for the light coming from the boiler room. Richard peered through the little window on the cellar door, trying to see into the back yard.

  Three shots rang out in rapid succession, the muzzle flaring bright from the tree line.

  The barking stopped.

  “Shit, it’s David, the most dangerous of them all,” Richard said. “The dogs freak him out. He just killed them so he can attack.”

  “Let’s get to the others,” Tyrone said.

  They hurried upstairs. All the lights were off. Moonlight coming through the kitchen window showed a body lying on the kitchen floor. Richard moved for it but Tyrone put a hand on his shoulder.

  “One of them,” he said.

  “Where are our friends?”

  A bullet crashed through the kitchen window, making them dive for the floor.

  “Hiding like us,” Tyrone said. “We killed another one of them upstairs.”

  Silence.

  “Now what?” Richard said.

  “The ones that got away all had better guns than us. They only ran because we got the jump on them. Plus one was freaking out because of the dogs.”

  “That’s David. Sam is probably with them. They’re fanatics. We got to get them.”

  “With these?” Tyrone said, holding up his zip gun. “Georgios is right; we can’t hit shit unless they’re right next to us.”

  “Then we have to go out and get them. Let’s find the others.”

  Tyrone shook his head. “Let’s get the others but let’s stay where we are, Country. The police are sure to respond to shots in a white neighborhood. Those cats are gonna have to come back in here and finish us off in a hurry. Then we can fight up close and personal.”