The Demon Senders

by T Patrick Phelps

  <<<<>>>>

  We stopped playing the game after my last statement. To this day, I can’t explain where those ideas came from, but I can tell you that they weren’t just laying around in my brain, waiting for the chance to come out.

  No. Those thoughts were not mine. They were disjointed and fragmented, which I assumed was the result of those thoughts getting filtered through my little brain.

  I could tell that the game and my thoughts had an affect on Rachel and I didn’t want to get her upset, so I quickly allowed some other bubbling up questions some space in my brain.

  “Honestly, I figured the demons would be stronger. That old man demon was about as strong as an ordinary old man.”

  “That’s how it works,” she said. “The demons have to possess a body in order to transition. They either use the bodies they were in when they first died and lost their soul or one of their stashes.”

  “You’re telling me that demons have bodies stashed all over the place?”

  “They keep them in the water. In ponds, lakes, the ocean. They keep the bodies of those whose soul they steal at their transition spot.”

  “Freaking lakes must be jammed packed with dead bodies,” I said.

  “Not really,” Rachel said. “The demons don’t keep all the bodies. There’s no way they could. They keep just what they need.” She paused a few seconds, poking the fire with a thick stick. “I can tell you have some other questions. Go ahead, shoot.”

  “Why human bodies? Why not just float around like ghosts? I’ve never personally tried, but I have to believe that drowning a ghost would be a bitch of a time.”

  “The demon wants to be alive again,” she said with a strange distance. “It wants to imagine itself as being real, to feel what it felt when it was truly alive. To experience the smell, sights, sounds and feel of other things. Of other people. I believe that a demon can take any form it wants but will always choose a human form because humans are its target and being human is its goal.”

  “If a demon can take on any form and chooses to take over a human’s body, it sounds like they limit themselves.”

  “And that choice is what makes you, you. Them choosing a fragile form is their greatest weakness and their greatest strength. It is weak because, as you just experienced, they can be destroyed. It is their strength because a human being, someone with a soul, will only relate to another human being.”

  I had one more question to ask. “What happened to his body?”

  “Back to his transition place. Ready for his next return.”

  “If I find his body, and move it or destroy it?”

  “I don’t know that, Mac. I can’t answer that one for you. Maybe you should stream for an answer?”

  “I think I lost the connection to wherever my stream was coming from.”

  The day was growing long and the sun was charging towards the west much more quickly than I wished. Though I had no clothes and the blanket and fire weren’t keeping up against the falling temperatures, I didn’t want to leave that place. Sitting next to Rachel was giving me a warmth I simply could not explain.

  “Well,” I said after a long, shared silence, “I guess my mistake was talking to him and getting his stench all over me, huh?”

  “What exactly did you talk about?” she asked, a look of mild concern flashing across her face.

  I told her about the nightmares and how he was the psychiatrist my parents had taken me to back when I was seven. I told her that I felt like I needed to know how he made the nightmares stop and how the demon told me that he had taken part of my soul in exchange for the nightmares.

  That’s when I found out what my first mistake really was.

  “He said what?”

  “He said the bit of soul he took from me has been spread all over the world now, and that every demon knows about me. Not sure what that means.”

  Rachel shot up like her ass had been bitten by a snake. “Oh no, Trevor. I warned you not to talk to him.”

  “I know.” Her reaction was pretty unsettling. “What did he mean when he said that all the demons know about me? It doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

  “When a demon crosses your path and does you a favor, he takes a little bit of your soul. They do it millions of times to millions of people. Usually nothing happens and that bit of soul is returned to you when you die. But when your demon knew you were going to send him back, he released that bit of your soul, along with any other bits of other people’s souls out into the nether.”

  “Not liking the sound of it, but still don’t understand the consequences,” I said.

  “That piece of your soul will never come back to you. It’s gone forever unless you can send back whatever demon or demons that found it and are holding it captive. Trevor,” Rachel said, “you’ll never have rest once you leave this world.”

  So, that sucked.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  About two weeks after my first “send off,” Rachel came over to my apartment. I was still living my old life as best I could. Still teaching on a substitute basis and still playing my guitar, writing songs that no one would hear and, occasionally, trying to land a paying gig at any bar, tavern, or pub that hired local musicians. I think I presented my demo CD and “Americana Nostalgia Story Book” pitch to three, maybe four bars after my first sending. I wasn’t offered any gigs, which didn’t surprise me at all. My passion was gone for playing live. The dream of me ever hitting the big time seemed vacant. Like I imagine some people feel when they realize that their goal in life never really held any lasting power over them.

  I tried to reignite my passion by making the drive out to Shorty’s for their open mic one day. I had every intention of signing up for a five-minute time slot, pounding out a Blake Shelton song, then waiting for the bar manager or owner to give me the nod to keep playing. But that nod never came because I never signed up for a time slot.

  I left my guitar in my van, telling myself that I’d head back out to get it once my time got closer. But when I got inside and saw the list of six or seven names on the list, the spark never spread and my passion was extinguished. I sat at the bar, drank a few Bud Lights and did my best to encourage the musicians who were fortunate enough to still have the driving passion to make music their livelihood.

  My job was sending demons back to Hell.

  When Rachel walked into my apartment, she was carrying a bottle of vodka and an overnight bag. I figured something big was about to happen since she never brought stuff over to my place before. In fact, as she walked in, I realized that she had only been to my apartment twice before. Once, the day of my first sending and another when she accepted my invitation for dinner.

  She had this strange look in her eyes, like she had something really bad to tell me and wasn’t sure how to say it.

  “That bottle for me or you?” I asked once I recognized the worry in her eyes.

  “Both, probably,” she said.

  “And the overnight bag?” I asked. Now remember, Rachel is about a seventeen on the classic one to ten scale and while we always kept our relationship very professional, I never lost that desire in me to see how she ranked on the shagging scale. I figured she’d be at least a twenty-four. My feelings for her grew in the silence of my soul.

  “I’ve been targeted,” she said. “And I missed the whole thing. Didn’t pick up one sign that a demon had crossed. That isn’t good, Trevor. Not good at all.”

  “Thought you couldn’t be targeted?” I asked.

  “Never said I couldn’t be, just that I never was. What makes matters worse is that the demon who targeted me also targeted you.”

  “Is a demon having two targets unusual?” I asked. “What does it mean?”

  She walked past me, sat on the love seat where Al was busy ignoring both her and me, and began petting his head. I was never good at picking up people’s emotions but it was pretty clear that being a target wasn’t sitting well with her.

  “It means he’s not alone. H
e has a team. At least one other, though I’m not trusting my instincts right now.”

  “Okay,” I said, “then we send one back at a time. No big deal. Right?”

  “It may not be that easy, Trevor. This one demon—the main one—is bad. Really bad.”

  “How do you know about the main one?” I asked. “I know I’m new to this whole thing, but I have to believe that they’re all pretty horrible. What’s so bad about this one?” I asked, curiously terrified of what the answer might be.

  “Three things,” Rachel replied, her tear-filled eyes meeting mine. “One, he’s working as the leader of a team. Never seen that before. Two, my previous sender and I already sent this one back. The leader, I mean. The second sender I worked with and I sent him back last year. Him coming back and targeting me means that this is personal for him. As for how I know that he came back, honestly, I don’t know how I know. I just know. And third, and don’t ask me to even try to explain this, but my ability to spot demons, to know when they cross and where to find them, it’s gone. It’s like being targeted stopped me from being a spotter.”

  “Which demon is it?” I asked. Now, that first night, Rachel told me about almost all of the demons the other senders she worked with had sent back. Not sure how or why, but I remembered everything she told me about every one of those demons.

  “I never told you about this one. His name when he was on Earth was Henry,” she said. “Henry Winchester. And I knew him when he was alive.”

  <<<<>>>>

  “What do you mean you knew him?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say that Henry and I were friends with benefits and leave it at that.”

  “You were lovers with a demon?” I asked. That whole development dropped Rachel in my rankings down from “Holy Shit, she’s hot,” to “Damn she’s hot but stay the hell away.” Still, a pretty high ranking and certainly a ranking that I ignored over my years, but…

  “He wasn’t a demon when we were together,” she snapped back. “What the hell kind of a person do you think I was?”

  “Rachel,” I said, “I’ve only known you less than a month and haven’t really even spoken with you much since that first night we spent together and that day near the pond. I don’t mean to offend but I really have no idea what kind of person you are.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Sorry I snapped at you.”

  I was getting curious about a whole lot of things, not the least of which was the whole Henry Winchester thing. But what I couldn’t get out of my mind was whatever happened to Hazy Face. “Not to change the subject, but why didn’t we ever go after Hazy Face? I mean, you said he was a demon and, based on where I saw him, he was working in our area. Why didn’t we ever send him back?”

  “He disappeared from my radar,” Rachel said. “Hazy Face must have made the full transition but I lost track of him that day in the bar. He may be waiting for a spotter still or may have moved on to another area. I just don’t know. And, if I’m right and I’m no longer a spotter, we may never track him down. He could be stealing someone’s soul right now.”

  “Or he could be working with your ex. Right?” I said.

  “He could be. At least, that’s what I think is happening. Henry could have a whole bunch of demons working for him. Some we may not even be aware of.”

  “But since Hazy Face and the one I already sent back were the only demons you told me about, then either there haven’t been any others that have crossed or you haven’t been picking up whatever the hell it is you pick up for a little while now.”

  “And that’s what really worries me,” she said. “I haven’t picked up anything since that old man demon at the pond. Nothing. And I can’t believe that we’ve gone this long with no demons to send back.”

  I turned the conversation back to finding out more about Henry Winchester and the relationship he had with Rachel. “So this Henry character, what happened to him that turned him to the dark side?”

  Rachel sighed, gently wiped a tear that had slipped from its home base and then she started talking in a soft voice. Again, she and I really only spoke at length that first night, the day at the pond and a handful of times since she showed up at my apartment, but the voice she was employing was a voice I never heard her use before. Sullen. Soft. Sad. And—in full disclosure—extraordinarily seductive.

  “Henry and I met when I was twenty-three. I was working as a paralegal in a law firm outside of Buffalo and he was a lawyer with the firm. He was around twenty-four and was making quite a name for himself. The firm we worked for had ten partners and Henry was certain that he’d be asked to be the eleventh before too long.

  “He worked a ton of hours. No less than seventy per week, I’d say. When he and I started seeing each other, he’d say that his entire focus was to work his ass off, make partner, then enjoy the benefits. He tried to convince me that once he made partner, he wouldn’t work as much, but I knew that working was his passion. And he was damn good at what he did. One of the best lawyers in the firm and probably, based on the rumors I heard in the area, one of the best in the Northeast.

  “Anyway, we saw each other for about a year or two, mostly on weekends or when he needed a date to bring to some event. I’ll admit that I wanted more out of the relationship but I knew where his focus was. I’m not complaining, mind you. I knew what I was to him and what he was willing to be for me: Someone to relax with, laugh with and to have sex with. Nothing more and nothing less.

  “He started to change around year two. He grew more impatient about making partner and angry over not being offered a partnership yet. He still worked as much and was still an amazing lawyer, but his personality started to change. Like he was becoming someone else. He never hurt me or was abusive in anyway. He was just different.

  “I think a lot of what caused his change was this new group of people he started hanging out with. They weren’t lawyers so I really wondered why Henry was spending so much of what little free time he had with people who couldn’t help him advance his career. I was wrong.

  “Turns out the group—which turned out to be three people—were all politicians. One was pretty high up in the Ohio State government, another was a State Senator from New York, and the third . . . Actually, I don’t know what his position was but I believe he was very powerful in the US Government.”

  “Were all three from the other side?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said. “But I am convinced now that one of them was. The one from the US Government.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Probably not what you’d expect. Henry didn’t go on a mass killing, didn’t poison the drinking water for an entire city or convince people to do anything along the lines of Manson. He just put a bullet into his head one night. He just killed himself and I never had a suspicion that he was suicidal.

  “I spoke with him no more than an hour before he killed himself. He was fine, like his old self again. He told me he missed me and that he was sorry for being so absent. He said he wanted to take our relationship to the next level and that he was through working so much and was ready to start his own practice, settle down and have a decent life. Next thing I knew I got called into the chief partner’s office and was told that Henry killed himself. No letter, no explanation. Nothing. He was just dead.

  “Is was about two months later when I found out that I was a spotter. I won’t get into the details, but just know that my discovery was a lot more challenging and painful than yours was. I teamed up with my first sender and worked with him till he died. The next sender was the one who sent Henry back, with my assistance. We spotted Henry and I stood to the side and watched him being held under water till he was gone. It was the second time I lost him, I suppose. But based on what I’m feeling, it won’t be the last.”

  It was my turn to make drinks for the two of us. At first, I was concerned about drinking. If Rachel’s “feelings” suddenly returned and we had to run out to send a demon back, I needed to be sharp. But
as I was pouring a whisper of vodka into my glass, I remembered what Rachel had told me that first night.

  “Since you need to be sharp and ready to go at a moment’s notice, any alcohol in your system will vanish as soon as you get close to a demon.”

  I tipped the bottle and splashed a healthy amount into the glass.

  <<<<>>>>

  We sat together on my couch, talking about why she felt she had lost her “sensing” abilities and what was the best course of action we should take. We needed to do something to keep each other safe. If she was right and she was no longer able to identify and locate demons, being blindsided was a very real and terrifying possibility.

  I’m usually a pretty level-headed guy, always trying to find the silver lining in every cloud, but I was having a tough time spinning this situation around. I won’t say that I was comfortable with being a sender, but as Rachel and I sat on the couch together, moving confidently toward inebriation, I realized the only spin I could put on everything was that she and I would need to stay together as much as possible. For me, that was a wonderful thing.

  “Listen,” I said, “I know I’m still new to this whole thing, but I am a sender and you are my partner. Doesn’t matter if you’ve temporarily or permanently lost your abilities, you’re still my partner. And I won’t turn my back on you. We’ll figure this out and get through this, together. I’ll protect you.” Those last few words were very difficult to say. Not that I wasn’t sure that I would do whatever I could to protect her, but more that I wasn’t sure if I could. I was never really good at the whole “I’m the man and you’re the woman” thing, demanding that traditional roles be played out. Honestly if there were pants involved in our relationship, Rachel was wearing them.