Raising Hell

by Shannon West

  The thing that was forming was tall, and standing on its hind legs, which weren’t at all human, but more like a goat’s legs, complete with nappy black fur on its bottom half and huge, gnarly hooves. Its torso was uncovered and rippled with bulging muscles and its face was a horror. A snarling mouth with rotten, yellow-brown teeth, a wide, flat nose and eyes that were solid black with no whites at all. Its eyebrows slanted upward, and its forehead was wrinkled and lined. Growing out of it were two curved, black horns, each of them at least twelve inches long.

  I heard Nick gasp and jump to his feet, fumbling for his gun and breaking our circle.That scared me worse than anything, and I pulled at his hand to make him sit back down. He sat, but he kept his hand down on his service revolver. The demon ignored him and took a clattering couple of awkward steps toward us. “What do you want with me? Why do you call me?” he said, addressing my grandmother.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out!”

  His face suffused with red. “You old bitch!” he said menacingly as he took another step closer to my grandmother. In another second or two I was going to have to intervene.

  “Don’t call me your family names!” My gran replied, with a laugh. “The only bitch I see around here is you.”

  The demon snarled at her and shook his fist. “Are you ready to give me what is rightfully mine?”

  “And what might that be?”

  “The book! The witch promised to release me and give me the spell book if I helped her. I gave her what she asked and she still reneged on our deal!”

  “The hell you say, Demon. You’re not getting anything from us. We’ve come to banish you!” She stood up and took her little piece of paper from her pocket. She motioned for us to do the same. She looked at me and at Rose. “Say it with me now, both of you. And don’t look at him.”

  Feeling like a fool, I began to chant along with them. “Creatures of evil far and wide, from this spell you cannot hide. Heed these words and heed them well. In this place you shall not dwell. The power is mine, and you I bind. Demon, begone by moon and sun, the spell is cast, and my will be done! Abalalaf! Abalalaf! Abalalaf!”

  The demon put back his head and laughed at us.

  I was so shocked and heartsick for a moment, the fear didn’t even register.

  “You think to cast me out with a spell written by those dried up old hags three hundred years ago! That spell is as dead as they are, so you’ll have to do better than that. The younger one made me a promise, I tell you—she said she’d release me if I returned her husband, but she lied. I brought him back to her and she killed him and killed herself before I could stop her. Stupid cow.”

  My grandmother glared at him, ignoring what he said. ”I cast you out! Unclean spirit!”

  He laughed again. A chilling sound in that small space. “Oh my, what a wonderful day for an exorcism. But it won’t work, you old bitch. I’ve been offered a soul and I want it. She cheated me of it! Maybe it’s time you gave me yours!”

  He’d been shouting at my gran, threatening her, and I’d had about enough. “Shut up, demon! Call my grandmother names one more time or threaten her like that, and I’ll send you back to hell where you belong myself.” I had no idea how I intended to do that, but it sounded good anyway. He turned slowly to look at me, his dead, black eyes struggling a little to focus on me.

  “The witch offered me her immortal soul to bring her husband back. I brought him, but she reneged on our deal.”

  “You brought back a monster and not her husband! You’re the one who reneged and lied, Demon!”

  “And now she sucks cocks in hell.”

  “Fuck you,” I growled at him. “How the fuck would you know anyway? You’ve been inside that book for the last three hundred years. Making pies.”

  The demon screamed his rage as if he’d been stuck in the ass by a pitchfork. I only wished he had been.

  “Don’t argue with him, Noah,” my grandmother said. “He’s a deceiver and will try to trick you.” She turned back to the demon. “Leave here, Hellspawn. Go back to the devil where you belong.”

  “Only if you come with me.”

  He lunged for her, but I moved at the same time, convulsively, instinctively, leaping for him and wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him to the floor. He was huge and so powerful and strong, I had no idea why I thought I could wrestle him to the floor. I couldn’t.

  He twisted on top of me and got me around the throat, his hot, putrid breath gusting in my face. But suddenly Nick jumped on his back, jamming his gun against the thing’s head and pulling the trigger over and over again until he emptied his gun.

  Blood, as black as the demon’s heart, spurted from its head, but the demon didn’t drop down. The shots had reverberated shockingly throughout the basement, and we all were stunned by the noise for a second. But a second was all it took. The demon dropped me on the floor, then whirled and grabbed Nick by the throat instead of me. He held him aloft in one hand, while Nick first beat him on his thick skull with the empty gun and then grabbed for the hand that was slowly choking the life from him, trying to pry it off his throat.

  “No!” I howled in rage and terror, and I could hear the frenzied cries of the others too. Behind me, I could hear Claudia’s pitiful cries as Gran and Rose tried to comfort her. The demon glanced over at me mockingly.

  “Give me the book or I’ll finish him!”

  Some instinct made me lunge for the book that was still lying on the table. I swooped it up and raced over to the iron stove, where Nick had started up that hot, crackling fire earlier. It had died down some by this time, so I used the same technique I’d used back in high school, when I’d inadvertently started that fire in Chemistry class. I closed my eyes and imagined The Towering Inferno, and the fire inside the stove leaped back into life, its orange and yellow flames licking up out of the stove door and reaching for me. I held the book over those dancing flames and glared back at the demon.

  “Nooooo!” he screamed, reaching for the book with his free hand.

  “Get back or I’ll drop it in!”

  “No, it’s mine!”

  “Let. Him. Go!”

  The demon started toward me again, dragging Nick’s increasingly limp body along with him.

  “I said, release him! One more step and I’ll drop it in the fire. Then you’ll spend eternity trapped in its ashes.”

  “No, please! Tell me what you want!”

  “Are you fucking deaf? I said, let him the fuck go!” I shouted.

  The demon lowered Nick’s body to the floor and immediately, my gran and the others were racing over to drag him back closer to them and surround him protectively.

  It was true that he was unconscious, and his life force was low, almost gone, but he wasn’t dead. I knew that in my soul. “Pour the salt around him in a circle, Rose! It will help protect him until I take out this trash.”

  Shocked and white-faced, Rose picked up the bag of salt and poured it in big sweeping swathes around Nick’s body.

  “Now,” I said, facing the demon again. “What do I do with you?”

  “Give me the book and I’ll go. Give it me!” he cried, holding out a hand.

  “Not a fucking chance.” I raised my hand toward him and I felt the tingle from the book growing stronger. It raced up my arm and into that hand and I pointed my finger in the demon’s face, and said the banishing spell from the book again, only with some changes. I knew somehow I had to change the words slightly and make it my own spell. I had no idea where the words came from. They just seemed to appear in my mind fully formed.

  “Thing of evil, purveyor of lies, from my spell you cannot hide. Heed these words and heed them well. In this place you shall not dwell! I. Cast. You. Out!”

  The demon disappeared in a flash of blinding light. One second he was there, and the next he was gone, with only a slight smell of brimstone left in his wake.

  I turned and ran to Nick, gathering him in my arms. His head lolled back on my ar
m, so I shook him gently. “Now you listen to me, Nick Moody. I need you, and you have to come back to me. You wake the hell up! Right now!”

  His eyelashes fluttered, and he slowly opened his beautiful eyes, blinking up at me in confusion.

  “Wh-what happened?”

  I threw my arms around him and kissed him all over his face. He spluttered in surprise and tried his best to hold me off by grabbing my wrists, but I wouldn’t be dissuaded.

  “Kiss me back, damn it!” I yelled down in his face, and he sighed and tightened his grip on my wrists, but this time to pull me closer. This time, he took control, sitting up and forcing me back over his arm with the strength and thoroughness of his kiss.

  “Now let’s get out of this drafty old basement and go upstairs,” my gran said beside us. “We can have a nice cup of coffee to warm us up. I’ve got a bottle of Irish whiskey upstairs just waiting for us, and it’s got our names written all over it. We’ve banished a demon tonight.” She glanced over at Nick in my arms. “Maybe more than one. We need to celebrate.”

  Epilogue

  I went as softly as I could into my room so I wouldn’t wake Nick. It had been around five in the morning when we all finally reeled to bed. My gran had made me up a bed on the sofa and told Nick to take my bed, because he was still recovering from the demon’s attack. He argued, but he looked so wobbly that he finally allowed himself to be persuaded.

  The Irish whiskey had hit me like a ton of bricks after all the adrenalin I’d expended in the basement, so I snuggled down on the sofa, pulled the blanket up over my head and knew nothing more until around noon. Then noises from the kitchen and the smell of bacon frying woke me up.

  After stumbling into the kitchen and being well-fed and plied with coffee, I headed for a shower in the hall bathroom, only belatedly realizing I had no clean clothes to put on. So there I was, sneaking into my own room, wearing only a towel, so I could try to find something to wear.

  Nick would have to get up soon—his office had already called his grandmother’s phone, looking for him, but she told them he had the flu and he’d be in later. She said, “Don’t expect him till you see him comin’,” and hung up on the deputy who’d called.

  I was easing open my closet door when a voice from the bed called out softly, “Good morning. Or is it afternoon?”

  I turned to see Nick sitting up. He was rumpled, needed a shave, and he had a dark blue and purple bruise covering his throat, but he still managed to look sexy as hell. His blue eyes raked over me and I sighed, because he was so gorgeous and it was so easy to lose myself in all that sapphire. They were full of heat as he looked me up and down and shook his head.

  “So, you’re a witch now, huh?”

  I laughed self-consciously and shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d call it that. But I’m something, I guess. I-I don’t know what I am, really. Do you mind terribly much?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like anything that puts you in danger like that.”

  I looked down and dug one of my polished toenails in the rug. “I’m not used to you saying things like that.”

  He sighed. “I know. I’ve been kind of an ass, huh? I’m sorry, Noah. I thought I’d put my feelings for you in the past. I thought all of that was just some kind of crazy attraction that I could get over if I just tried. Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  “Is the witch thing going to be a deal breaker?”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing when it comes to you, Noah. Not for me, anyway.”

  I glanced up at him, and I know my eyes must have been shining. “I think I can figure it out as I go along. Gran said I needed to read the book, and she and Rose will help me all they can with family lore. I guess that’s as good a place as any to start.”

  “What is it exactly that you intend to ‘start?’”

  “Um, I’m not sure. Maybe the healing part of it, if I have that talent. That would be nice, right?”

  He looked dubious, but nodded. “If that’s all there is. But low key stuff. Nothing too flashy, okay?”

  I laughed softly. “I don’t think I have ‘flashy’ in me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but he looked me up and down again. “That’s where you’re wrong. You take my breath away sometimes.”

  I think I may have made a little purring sound, like a cat. Anyway, he smiled at me and then as his eyes swept over me again, he suddenly frowned.

  “Why are you always so damn naked around me? Are you trying to kill me?”

  “No, I-I just came in to get some clothes.”

  “Why start now? Why not put on those skimpy cut-offs that show off everything you got? Make that hole in the crotch a little bigger so your dick is falling out and then shake those curls in my face a few more times, just to finish me off?”

  I laughed softly and swayed toward him, grabbing the edge of my closet door to keep from throwing myself in his arms. Distance and space. That was what he said we needed between us. He’d said he needed it, and that meant I had to give it to him, because we had never been exactly like this together before, and I wanted to keep this feeling going as long as I could.

  “I-I can take these and go to the bathroom. That would be better, right?”

  He threw back the covers and oh my God, he was so gloriously naked I couldn’t breathe. He stalked slowly toward me, his big, thick, heavy cock leading the way and his perfect balls swaying gently with every step. I couldn’t fucking breathe, and he didn’t help matters by pushing me against the wall, bending toward me and kissing the hell out of me. I could feel all that warm skin against me, not to mention his very aroused cock, but his lips were on mine, and the whole world was spinning wildly, and I thought I must be dreaming. He sucked on my tongue and moaned into my mouth.

  I pushed against him, and he stepped back just a bit, looking dazed. He stared down at me. “What? Why did you push me away?”

  “I-I thought we were going to take some time. Remember? We were going to explore the situation? I don’t want to push you into anything.”

  “The only situation I want to explore is right here,” he said, his hand dispensing with my towel and cupping me. “And the only thing I want to push right now is…” He glanced down at himself and I followed his gaze down to the erection I was already pretty aware of.

  “Oh.”

  For a long second, we stared at each other and the only sound in the quiet bedroom was our breathing, harsh and rapid. Then one of us moved—and I have no idea which one of us—and we fell on each other like animals. He picked me up by pulling me into his arms, and grabbing one of my knees to pull my legs up around his waist. He gave the towel a yank so it went flying halfway across the room. I wrapped my arms around him and tried my best to eat his face off. He went deep and filthy too as he thrust his tongue inside my mouth, squeezed my ass and walked me backward toward the bed.

  I floundered for a second when he threw me back on the mattress, but I quickly recovered and held out my arms to him, like Camille on her death bed. He looked at me, splayed out for him, my legs wide open and slutty, and he bent over and took my cock in his mouth like he’d been doing it for years.

  I flopped my head back on the mattress and yelled out, “Oh, my God!” He pulled off and licked up the side of my cock, and swirled his tongue around the head, making my toes curl.

  “Look how fucking sexy you are,” he murmured, as he did just that, staring down at me and massaging my balls in his hand. He bent to kiss the tip of my dripping cock.

  “Please,” I begged him. “Please, get up here.”

  He fell on me so hard and fast it took my breath for a moment but totally in a good way. He shoved his hands under my ass and lifted me toward him, so I was shamelessly rubbing my wet cock against his hard stomach and humping myself against him.

  “Oh fuck, please, please do something. Lube and condom in the drawer right there,” I said, and he left me long enough to grab both of them. He came back and I saw his han
ds were trembling as he pulled on a condom. I lubed up my hands and grabbed him as soon as he got it on, slicking him down. I stared right up into his eyes. He was finding it pretty hard to breathe himself, so I helped to guide him to my entrance and smiled when he groaned. “Wait…don’t I have to get you ready first?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t need it. Not this time. I want you inside me now.” I took the choice away from him by lifting my hips and impaling myself on him. It burned like hell, but I didn’t care just then. He gave a startled grunt of surprise and then began to slowly slide all the way in until we both groaned.

  “Oh my God, you’re so tight. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t. Just-just don’t stop.”

  He was thrusting into me with long, sweet strokes and soft caresses of my hips and back and every inch of my skin he could reach. He began to hit my prostate every time, and I knew I wouldn’t last much longer, and I didn’t want to. I kept hearing a keening whine like a crazed puppy in the room and then realized it was me. I bit down on his shoulder to try and stifle myself, fully aware of the people who were closely related to us close by.

  He must have sensed how close I was to coming, because he began to thrust harder, and I wound my legs around him trying to get just the perfect angle. He pulled my head gently back from where I had my face against his shoulder and looked right at me as he took my cock in his hand and gave it a few rough strokes. “Come for me, baby. I want to see you come apart.”

  I threw my head back and screamed then as I came harder than I ever had in my life. He cried out too as he followed me and then we both collapsed backward onto the bed. For a few long minutes, there was only the sound of our harsh breathing, and then he laughed—as well as he could, that is, without much breath left to do it with.

  “Well, so much for not letting the grandmothers know what we were doing in here.”