by Wood, Rick
Martin stared at his feet, mulling something over in his mind.
“No, we don’t need a God. We need what we have. So, tell me, Martin – what should we toast to?”
Martin shrugged, then lifted his glass. “To Eddie, I guess.”
Derek smiled.
“To Eddie.”
They took another sip, and Derek couldn’t help but be amused by another disgusted expression on Martin’s face.
It was time.
Derek had to announce his plan.
“I’m going to perform an exorcism.”
“You what?” Martin answered, full of confusion.
Derek sat beside to him, placing his glass on the desk, facing his prodigy straight-on with sufficient intensity.
“I am going to perform an exorcism on the heir.”
“What?” Martin yelped, shaking his head with angered disbelief at yet another ridiculous, doomed-to-fail plan from Derek. “How the fuck are we going to do that? In case you ain’t noticed, the heir ain’t easy to pin down!”
“That’s where you come in. And your restraint spell.”
“Derek, I ain’t able to do that restraint spell, it’s shit!”
“Then make it not shit.”
“I don’t know what you are on, mate, but this is the most ridiculous plan I’ve heard yet.”
“No. It’s not. It’s what I’ve overlooked. It’s a possibility I never entertained and, however improbable or preposterous an idea it seems, it’s the best one we have. We can’t kill it. How could we kill it? But if, like Cassy saw, Eddie’s soul is there somewhere, we need to access it. Bring it back. And the only way to do that is with an exorcism.”
Martin stood, running his hands through his hair.
“This is just another plan to get us all killed.”
“This isn’t some ruse to get us killed, Martin, but yes, that is a bloody strong possibility!” Derek retorted, rising to his feet, doing his best to avoid becoming frustrated.
Martin looked back, seeing in Derek’s eyes that he meant it. That he was absolutely determined to go through with it.
“I think you’re a nutcase.”
“Maybe,” Derek replied honestly. “But it’s time we had faith in Eddie. If I’d have done so earlier, Jenny may still be alive.”
Martin didn’t reply. He was torn. Torn between whether to go along with this or not. Despite being so nonsensical, part of it made sense.
“Yes, Martin. It is time to have faith in Eddie. Have faith that we can get to that part of him that is still good.”
“And if we can’t? If we don’t manage to finish this exorcism and he kills us?”
Derek shrugged. “Then we won’t be any different than if we did nothing.”
14
As a tear glistened in the corner of her eye she knew it wouldn’t matter. She wished she was home, in her mother’s arms, even in her neglectful father’s arms.
But she had already felt herself becoming resolved to death.
Maybe on that first night, things had been different. She had remained optimistic of being found, or even freed. She had begged her captors and they had even given her hope.
It felt foolish now.
Kicking and screaming had done nothing.
If anything, it had only spurred them on more.
And, watching as they stood grinning at her, she knew the end was near.
And she was grateful for it.
After all the deprivation of water, the sexual humiliation, the cries of “we gots ourselves a virgin to offer!” night after night after night, the nightly torture, the further loss of hope as every passing day went by – she felt ready for the sweet release.
She hoped her mother found her body.
That way it could give her a way to move on. A way to ensure she did not keep hoping against hope that she would return.
“It’s time,” declared the one she had assumed was the leader. He was a large black man the other two often referred to as Boss, but had also been referred to as ‘Bandile.’ “Let’s make the sacrifice now so the heir can grow stronger.”
“But the more she suffers, the more strength she’ll give…” spoke the one next to him with a large beard. She’d heard them call him Dexter.
Then the one that had introduced himself as Bagsy on that torturous first night stood to the side of Bandile. Watching her intently. His sadistic eyes not blinking. He didn’t appear to listen to a word the others said – he just kept chewing her up and spitting her out with his eyes. Those eyes made her stomach churn. Those eyes were the eyes she saw right before anything awful was about to happen to her.
“The one heaven has conceived,” continued Bandile, “is being kept in the home of Derek Lansdale. We know where he is.”
Dexter turned his head with a sudden gasp toward Bandile, child-like excitement adorning his face with a wide, creepy smile.
“You lie!”
“I do not lie. We will kill him tonight.”
Dexter’s eyes refocussed on her.
“And this one?”
Bandile shrugged. “Finish her already. I got bigger stuff to do.”
Bandile turned and strode out the room, Dexter following – giving Bagsy an approving nod as he did.
Bagsy, not removing his playful eyes from her for a second, tiptoed toward the door and locked it.
“Juz yoo an’ me!” he sang out, the tattoos of his face creasing under his repulsive acne. He looked sickeningly unhealthy. Every time she had seen him he had worn nothing but grey shorts, revealing his heavily inked flesh. Satanic symbols and intimidating skulls mixed with snakes, grinning sinister faces and tears dropping from his eyes, marking his entire body with tattoos designed to put the fear of God in you.
Except, this man was clearly not a man of God.
He was from something else.
He crept toward her, his joints seeming to point in every direction as he moved, like an insect about to eat its prey. He moved to within inches of her face and she could feel his toxic breath wiping over her, fluttering her hair back as he let out a long, sickening exhale over her eyes, which she shut tightly.
“Do not close yous eyes to meez,” he whispered in a voice that went up and down in pitch with such a lack of harmonisation that it became chaotic. “My love, we haz too much to do.”
“Please…” she whispered. “Just kill me.”
He reached his arms around her in an embrace that felt like she was being wrapped in barbed wire. He cut her rope open with a knife, allowed her binding to drop to the ground, setting her free.
She gasped.
“Are you… are you letting me go?” she asked, feeling a sudden rush of optimism flood through her body.
With a slow nod accompanied by the sound of clicking bones within his contorting neck, she turned and looked around herself for an escape.
He raised an arm and pointed a thin finger toward a far door.
She sprinted forward, stumbling with eagerness.
She was going to see her mother.
Once more she would be reunited.
She could see her tearful face now; she could practically smell her perfume, feel her arms around her.
She dove at the door, clamping her hands around the handle and pulling it.
It was locked.
She turned.
Bagsy stood directly behind her. She hadn’t even heard him move. A low, sinister chuckle trickled past his infected lips.
“Please…” she begged, feeling that sudden rush of hope falling out of her.
In a foul swipe, he swept the knife forward and stuck it inside of her, sinking it into her ovaries.
She felt the knife tear up her, ripping through her belly and up to her chest. Everything dropped.
She could hear the wet thump of her insides dropping to the floor.
The last thing she saw before her dead head hit the ground was the wide grin of Bagsy’s face as he revelled at her torment.
15
; 16 November 1999
One month until millennium night
Shards of glass smashed through the window and floated along the gust of wind. Manic screams and wails of all pitches consumed the room – every single one of them coming from the same young boy’s body.
“I command you demon, be gone!” screamed Eddie, his youthful energy surpassing Derek’s. Eddie’s mentor stood at the side of the room, shielding his face from the large pieces of furniture firing at him.
Eddie made a mental note to remove loose items from the room before his next exorcism.
“From all sin Lord, from your wrath, from sudden and unprovided death, from the snares of the devil I beg you to clutch this servant of God away from this wretched villain!”
The boy screamed as his body rose into the air, his bare, torn chest rising slowly toward the ceiling. Only a loose set of rags covered the child’s dignity, revealing deep wounds and ravenous cuts that would leave devastating scars up and down the child’s legs and torso.
“From all lewdness, from lightning and tempest, from the scourge of earthquakes, from plague, famine, and war, save us from everlasting death and defeat this demon, oh Lord!”
The boy’s head lifted, its demented eyes completely black, its sweaty hair entwined with dried blood and unrecognisable ectoplasm.
Eddie looked over his shoulder at Derek.
Derek had taken part in nearly a hundred exorcisms. This was Eddie’s twelfth.
Yet there was a feeling of inherent experience in Eddie that he had somehow surpassed his guide. Derek stood out of the way, protecting himself from the chaos of the room, whilst Eddie embraced it. Took it on, willing the demon to do its worst.
“By the mystery of your holy incarnation, by your coming, by your birth, with the holy baptism of fire, free this child from this demon’s clutches.”
The flying objects of the room, the soaring glass, child’s toys, ripped clothes, all of it froze. Poised in the air with a sudden pause. The boy’s body hovered momentarily, then thudded back down to the bed.
This was it.
This was nearly it.
The boy’s head lifted, directing its fiery stare at the boy’s saviour. Eddie looked back just as intently, not withdrawing his glare, refusing to be the one who gave in.
“By your cross and passion,” Eddie spoke, this time in a calmer voice, enunciating every syllable like he was spitting bullets at the demon. “By your death and burial, by your holy resurrection, your wondrous ascension, the Spirit, the Advocate, on the day of judgement – please, Lord. Please. Deliver this child from evil.”
“You may think you have won,” the demon choked in a deep, croaked whisper. “But you fight for the God you defy.”
Eddie stepped forward, presenting his defiant snarl.
“Don’t try and trick me, demon, I will not be fooled.”
“One day…” the demon muttered, shaking the boy’s head with slow, pressured movements. “You think I’m the one who needs to be exorcised?”
“On the day of judgement–” Eddie persisted.
“On the day of judgement, it will be you that leads us!”
“On the day of judgement,” Eddie repeated, even more forcefully. “We sinners will beg you to hear us as you hear us now.”
He held out his cross and took his final stride toward his enemy.
“Give us peace and unity. Remove this demon and free this child.”
The boy’s face wrapped up into a visage of rage, defiant to the end.
“Leave this boy be, I ask you, my Lord. Remove this demon.”
The boy’s body stiffened to a rigid plank, its fingers curling. With a high screech, the child convulsed, stiffened more and more until, in a sudden snap, his body relaxed.
The room fell to tranquillity. A lucid calmness cast itself over them like a sunrise.
The boy breathed slowly, staring at the ceiling. Free at last.
Once the boy had been reunited with the mother and Eddie and Derek had received her gratitude, they made their way to Derek’s car.
“What I don’t understand,” Eddie spoke, “were the things this demon was saying.”
“Demons will say anything to defy you, Eddie. You need to learn not to listen to them.”
“But if each demon keeps saying it?”
“Then they all know who you are and are saying the same thing to make you question it. Don’t be fooled.”
Eddie sighed, leaning against the car in quizzical thought, Derek’s answer clearly not good enough.
“Eddie, a demon is a devious thing, full of nothing but evil. Its sole purpose is to hurt us. You don’t think they have some kind of organised defiance against someone as powerful as you?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Eddie, you need to understand, there is no demon that can defeat you. There is nothing. And they will clutch at anything to change that.”
Eddie nodded, soaking up the reassurance, starting to feel better.
“How is it you believe in me so much?” Eddie asked.
“Because I have seen what you can do. I have witnessed it.”
“Yeah. It’s just… I don’t know.”
Eddie turned to get into the car, full of doubt, until Derek put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Well I do,” he defiantly asserted. “You may have doubts in you, but I won’t. My belief in you will never falter, Eddie. I promise.”
16
25 March 2003
Three years, three months since millennium night
Once again Martin stood unwillingly in the garden, numbing his mind into frantic concentration.
Glaring at the object before him. The garden bench was now wrecked pieces of wood, so he was forced to find an alternative, coming to him in the form of a dining chair. One that Derek had eagerly carried out from the kitchen.
First things first.
Concentrate on all the elements.
Sight.
The chair before him. Rustic, with a light-brown furnish. Clear green grass beneath it soaking up the rays of a bright sun.
Sound.
Birds singing. Nearby children playing. When really straining, there was even a faint hum of distant traffic.
Smell.
Flowers. Sweat.
Touch.
He flexed his hands, flowing them through a soft breeze, feeling the brush of gentle wind glide through his fingers.
Taste.
A faint taste of that morning’s toothpaste.
Ready.
He concentrated on all of this, soaking it up, feeling the sun bash against his skin, listening to the birds, happy tweets of horny animals.
He moved his right arm in a circular motion.
The breeze.
His perspiration.
He moved it quicker.
The blades of grass sticking between his toes, the soft sink of soil beneath the sole of his foot.
He widened the radius of his arm’s circular motion. A gold flickering circle had emerged, vague sparks bursting away like an electrical charge, the circle itself taking on a solid form, more and more solid with every circular motion, getting stronger with the increased speed of his arm.
The sun.
The blue sky.
The chair.
The wooden chair. Brown. Old. Uncomfortable. Sitting unknowingly across the garden, waiting for an attack.
The circle had taken its form. It had turned into a solid object he had conjured from pure awareness, from a complete absorption of his surroundings.
In a sudden thrust, he threw his open palm out, flinging the circle he had created toward the chair.
To Martin’s astonishment, the chair did not explode. It remained sturdy. What’s more, the circular magical binding flung itself around the chair.
Martin closed his fist and the circle tightened. It squeezed securely around the chair so that if the chair was alive there would be no way to escape, completely restricting the movement whilst leaving it int
act.
Martin fell to his knees in inexplicable exhilaration.
It had worked.
The damn thing had worked.
It’s actually doing it…
Martin closed his eyes and turned his face away, then opened his eyes again, expecting it to be a hallucination or a hopeful mirage.
It was still there.
Flicking like an uncaged wire of electricity, its voltage giving off sparks, it gripped firmly around the chair.
It’s real…
So much working, so much trying, and he finally had it.
The flickers told him that the restraints weren’t perfect yet, but that was fine, he could perfect it later. For now, he had actually done it.
He got up to go find Derek and tell him the great news.
Then a thought suddenly halted him. His smile faded, his body tensing again.
He remembered.
I’m going to have to use this spell on the heir.
Throwing a small circle around the chair was one thing. The heir was something else.
The flickers would have to go, as they would be a weakness the heir could easily penetrate. The size needed to be bigger, far grander – huge – to be able to fit around this creature. It would need to fly faster, otherwise, the heir would just beat it away.
Yes, it needed a lot of work.
Far more work.
But Martin had managed this. He had finally done it. A week ago he was getting incredibly frustrated, now he had the spell working.
But to get it to where he needed it to go…
It was an impossible task. It would take ten times as much as he’d put into it so far, at a minimum.
With a reluctant sigh, he stood. The positivity of his triumphant celebrations were over. Back to work.
He focussed on the object once more, taking in the elements.