The Devil You Know

by Richard Levesque

“Oh God, yes,” he answered, and she heard the sob in his voice.

  “Then you’re going to have to pull yourself together and get me the names of other women those things have been with. They need to be warned.”

  Through his sniffling, Colin was able to whisper, “I can’t.”

  “Then I’m calling the police. They won’t be able to charge you, but they’ll question you, and Julian’ll know about it. I’ll make sure he knows about it.”

  “No!” Colin shouted. Then again, more quietly, he said, “No.” There was a moment’s silence in which Marie let him regain his composure. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer. “I don’t know where the incubi go or who they’re with. And I can’t start asking them. There’s so much I don’t know, and I don’t think even Julian knows. The women…I think they’re marked somehow. Once they start with a woman, I don’t think they let them be. Ever.”

  He sighed deeply, and Marie waited for more. Finally, his voice trembling, he continued, “This afternoon, after I left you at the theater, I called Julian to see if he needed me. I promise I didn’t mention you or anything else. Julian said one of the incubi needed a ride back to the estate. He gave me the address. It’s…” Marie could hear shuffling sounds for a moment. Then he came back on the line. “It’s 1817 Ivar. I went there and got him. It’s a little apartment building.”

  “Which demon was it?”

  “He looks like Cary Grant.”

  Marie remembered him from the party. “And you don’t know the woman’s name?”

  “No. It’s the best I can do. I promise.”

  Marie nodded, as though Colin were there to see it. “It’s a start,” she said calmly as she reached into her purse for a pen. “But if you really want to save yourself, Colin,” she continued while writing the address he’d given her on the back of the business card, “you’ll find a way to start asking questions. Get me more information. Do you understand me?”

  “And you’ll talk to the priest about me? See if he’s willing to help me?”

  “Father Joe? No. I told you before, I won’t intercede for you. I’m going to try and save some of these women, Colin. And maybe Elise in the process. Saving your soul…that’s up to you.”

  She hung up without waiting for his reply. Then she tucked her things back into her purse and turned to leave, wondering if she would really find the gumption to go tell a complete stranger that the man she was sleeping with was a demon bent on her destruction. Maybe she’d need a few strong drinks first, or at the very least some more information.

  Chapter Eight

  Malliol had a secret he desperately needed to keep from the others. He was defective. At least, that was his suspicion. When the others talked about their conquests, they never mentioned the uncanny feeling that the women still lingered in their minds. But such lingering plagued Malliol. The worst part was their voices. When it had just been one or two, he had been able to stand it, like being in a room with a couple of conversations happening around him. But now that he had been with more than a dozen women, their chatter in his mind was cacophonous. Each distinct personality carried on, raving in its confusion. Though he felt physically stronger with each dalliance, he feared that the psychic effects would soon do him in. The only thing that could make it worse was if the bits of each woman could converse with the others. If they ganged up on him, he knew, they would obliterate him. As it was, he was barely able to maintain his sense of self.

  He had been the first incubus Colin Krebs had called forth, and thus had been the victim of the man’s halting incantation, poor vocabulary and Laodicean faith. When Krebs had conjured the rest, he had done so with considerably more care and attention to detail. As a result, the others were the perfect monsters they were meant to be, and knew exactly how to go about their business. They seemed able to milk their victims slowly, sucking away at their spirits bit by bit, while Malliol seemed unable to do anything but devour their souls in ravenous frenzy. It was the speed with which he wrenched the women from their very selves that must have accounted for the way their personalities came along, turning them into spiritual passengers who tormented him constantly.

  If he could have stopped gathering women to him, he would have, but his hunger for them drove him in spite of the unpleasant after effects. He had not had a new woman in days, and he had used up the last one completely on Sunday, leaving her naked in her bed, staring at the ceiling, her chest barely moving with each shallow breath. She might have been dead by now, he told himself. He hoped she was. The bitch, he thought, rage building up in him as he listened to her voice inside his head. Why did they all have to stay in his mind this way? he wondered, his teeth set so firmly against each other that they might well have cracked. In time, he knew he would be free of the voices—when this conjured body was spent and he could take the women’s spirits with him, where they would be tormented forever. That would show them, he told himself. They could toy with him now, but his time would come.

  Until then, the need for female flesh directed his every move. It was what had driven him here to the place Julian had called Musso’s, although the sign on the outside of the building read “Musso and Frank’s.” The restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard had a large bar at the back, and it was here that Malliol usually started hunting for new prey.

  There were plenty to choose from today. Diners crowded into every table in the main part of the restaurant, and overflowed into the bar. Malliol sipped a drink called a Gibson and watched with a practiced eye as women entered the bar. Because of the facial features Julian had selected for Malliol, the women watched him as well. The problem with the restaurant was that many of the female clientele arrived with male escorts, and though Malliol caught many of them staring lasciviously, few could be persuaded to leave the bar with someone different. Occasionally, though, a woman would come in alone; these were often easy prey, usually lonely or recently rejected. Even better, though, were the groups of women who came into the bar without men and sat at the tiny tables with their drinks before them, laughing at one thing and then another. Julian called these “hen parties,” and Malliol had gotten good at inserting himself into them and picking out the one woman in the group willing to go off on her own.

  Today, there were no hen parties. He felt tense, his hunger for flesh and spirit sharp and nagging, the chorus of other women’s voices in his head making him tremble. And then she came in; a little blonde in a tweed skirt and a cardigan, walking straight up to the bar. Her nose was red, and so were her eyes. From the neck down, she looked like someone’s secretary, and from the neck up like a recently jilted lover.

  Malliol felt desire for her and saw her as attainable. Glancing around, he also saw clear signs that several other men at the bar were thinking the same thing. Eyebrows rose as the little blonde tipped back one whiskey and ordered another. But Malliol knew that none of them had what he did; none of them had the wide eyes and wavy hair, the hint of a sneer when he smiled and the irrepressible swagger when he walked. Julian had told him his features resembled a man named James Cagney, and Malliol knew how to play this similarity to his advantage.

  He also knew that possessing the young woman would add one more to the voices in his head, but there was nothing to be done about it. Desire outweighing dread, he decided that the little blonde was his. He got off his barstool, walked around three other patrons, and leaned on the bar next to her. “What do you say I buy you the next one?” he asked as he tapped his finger on the side of her glass.

  She looked at him without smiling and said, “If you want to spend your money on me, I won’t say no. But I gotta tell you right now I ain’t interested in making a new friend.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Hard to get, eh?” It was not something he was used to encountering in the women he targeted. When she gave no response, he took the stool next to her. “Barman?” He pointed at her empty glass and then tapped the bar in front of him, indicating that he wanted the same for himself. With an elbow on the bar, he leaned a l
ittle farther, blocking the woman’s view from half of the other men who watched her. “I couldn’t help but notice you look a little sad there,” he said.

  She tipped her glass back and set it on the bar before turning to regard him again. “You didn’t hear me when I said that part about new friends, did you?”

  He nodded. “I heard you. I’ll tell you what, though. You drink with me, and I’ll do you a little favor.”

  “I don’t need favors,” she said, a slight slur in her voice.

  He nodded. “Well, I think you do.” Without being too obvious, he indicated the other men at the bar. “If you don’t let me drink with you, you’ll have every one of these cocky bastards coming to this very barstool to try his luck with you. Would you rather fight off a whole parade of beaus, or just put up with me for a while?”

  She thought about it for a moment and then tapped her glass. “Fair enough,” she finally said. “If you’re buying, that is.”

  “That I am, sister,” he said, signaling the bartender again. “That I am.”

  After they drank, he said, “No ring, I see. No husband to drive you to drink. So…boyfriend?”

  She hesitated a moment, and then said, “Boss.”

  “Ahh,” he said with a knowing smile. “Been taking more than letters from him, I bet.”

  “That’s how he wanted it,” she said, the liquor now loosening her tongue. “But I fought him off.” She gave an ironic smile. “Thought I was damned smart, I did. Kept that son of a bitch’s paws off me and kept my job for a whole eight months.”

  “Until?”

  “Son of a bitch fired me,” she said, a tremble in her voice. If she started crying now, Malliol knew, he might not get as lucky as he had thought.

  “Well now, that’s even more reason you shouldn’t have to buy your own drinks,” Malliol said. He looked her in the eyes and shook his head. In his mind, he saw her naked and writhing under him, maybe even weeping from shame. The thought excited him even further. “I can’t imagine why any man wouldn’t want to keep you around. You look like a real peach. I bet he couldn’t find a better secretary in the whole city.”

  “A better secretary, no.” The bartender had filled her glass, and she drained it again. “But he found someone else who’d warm his bed. So he gave her more than a roll in the hay.”

  “Your job.”

  “My goddamn job.”

  He shook his head. “Damn shame. So now what’ll you do?”

  She picked up her glass. “Drink.”

  “Hear, hear.” The bartender filled their glasses yet again, and they clinked them together for the first time. Malliol was beginning to feel a little drunk himself now. “You know,” he said, “there’s something else you could do besides just drink your sorrows away.”

  “Oh yeah, smart guy? What?”

  “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Living well is the best revenge’?”

  She looked confused. “Living…what?”

  “Living well is the best revenge,” he repeated. “You get yourself a better job and walk back into that guy’s office wearing fur.”

  She laughed. “Fat chance at that.”

  “I don’t know. I could maybe help you out.”

  “You?” she asked incredulously. She stared searchingly at him. For a moment, he felt vulnerable, as though she was about to discover him, and then anger at his own weakness welled up in him. He stared back at her and thought of the depths of hell he’d drag her to if she’d only give in to him. If she only knew, he thought, she’d sober up right away and run screaming from the bar. He wanted her to scream, but not right away—later, when they were alone. The thought made his lips twitch.

  Holding back his anger, he said, “I could buy and sell you, sister. You and your former boss.”

  “How?”

  “Movie money makes this town run, right? Well, I got armloads of it.”

  Again, she regarded him. Faint recognition dawned on her. “You’re not…?”

  He stopped her. “Nah, I ain’t him. I could buy and sell him, too. The real money’s in the executive offices. That’s where I am. How’d you like to pass through the gates at Piedmont every day and go to work up in the big building? Big desks, soft leather chairs, nobody trying any funny business with you.”

  “And you’ve got jobs to give away. Just like that?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  She swirled the tiny bit of liquor left in her glass around and around. She stared at the glass, seeming hypnotized by it. Finally, she slurred, “I think I could maybe go for that if you’re really who you think you say you are.”

  “One hundred percent. What do you say we skip out of here? Find someplace better to talk it over.”

  Her eyes glazing over, she said, “I know an apartment right over around here where…I live.” She giggled unselfconsciously. “’S not far.”

  “Well, let’s go then.”

  Without looking around to see if anyone else at the bar was staring at him with envy, Malliol stood up and paid for their drinks. He took the young woman’s arm and helped her off her stool. She weaved on her high heels a bit at first, but then steadied herself as they headed for the door. He kept telling himself to focus only on her and not the voices in his head; all the confused women he had already possessed were trying to make sense of what they were doing inside Musso and Frank’s getting this woman drunk and leaving with her. One more would soon join their ranks, something Malliol dreaded and anticipated with equal intensity.

  Chapter Nine

  The sign in the window read “Hollywood Book Emporium” in large gold letters. Beneath it were a phone number and smaller writing that said, “New and Used Books—Libraries Bought at Excellent Prices.” The glass reflected the passing traffic on Sunset Boulevard, and Marie passed in front of it without paying attention to the sign. She had been here before—more times than she would have cared to count—and the quaint sign no longer charmed her as it had when she had first discovered the store during the war. Now she was more interested in what was inside, and as she pushed the door open the smell of old books greeted her immediately.

  “Afternoon,” said the man at the glass-topped counter as he looked up from his copy of the Times. “How’ve you been, Marie?”

  She smiled. “I’m good, Jasper. You?”

  He shrugged. “All right, I suppose.”

  Marie had answered his question automatically, not realizing she was lying. She was hardly good. She had spent much of her time the last few days either terribly angry or terribly worried, often both at the same time. She had gotten home from the hospital well after midnight the night before, and when her alarm had gone off this morning, it had seemed that she had hardly slept. Make-up hid the circles under her eyes from Father Joe, and though she had wanted to go home and take a nap right after work, the address she’d gotten from Colin weighed on her too much. Instead, she had gotten coffee in a paper cup and nursed it as she took Hollywood Boulevard to Ivar and followed the narrow street up a hill. Parking across from the quaint little apartment building at 1817, she had finished her coffee and tried to get up enough nerve to go tell a complete stranger that she might be sleeping with a demon.

  With a deep breath, she had gone in and examined the mailboxes in the entryway to see which occupant might be the woman in question. The boxes were labeled only with first initials and last names, however, and she had gone back to her car without knocking on any doors. Annoyed with herself, she had decided to drive down to Jasper’s store, hoping that more information about incubi might offer further insight into what had happened to Elise.

  Marie had never asked his age, but she assumed that Jasper Hollenbeck was somewhere in his late sixties. His hair was thinning on top and fully gray, but he let it grow long over his ears and down his neck. He shaved infrequently and usually cut himself when he did. Marie had noticed that his hands had begun to shake just a bit when he made change or handed her a book or magazine. He generally l
ooked as disheveled as his store; books were often stacked two deep on the shelves so that anyone browsing had to pull the first row of books out to see the titles behind. Other books were piled at the ends of the rows and on the stairs that led to the bathroom Jasper let his regulars use.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you today, my dear,” Jasper said, turning his hands up to indicate emptiness. Along with the old issues of Weird Tales he set aside for Marie, he also kept boxes of other pulp magazines and was one of the few used bookstore owners Marie knew of who treated them like literature rather than as childish drivel best thrown away.

  “That’s all right. I didn’t come for that.”

  “Just wanting a look around, then?”

  “Well, sort of.” She smiled at him and set her purse down on the counter. “I’m looking for some non-fiction on the occult.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Anything in particular?”

  She hesitated a moment, a bit embarrassed. “Yes, actually. Do you have anything on incubi or succubi?”

  “Oh my,” Jasper said. When Marie only looked expectantly at him, he went on, “I’m sure I’ve got something. Let’s see.”

  “Actually, there’s one book in particular I’m interested in.” She opened her purse and took out a small piece of paper that she had written on once she had gotten back to her car after her meeting with Colin Krebs. “It’s called Gelamen Malum Lacuna. It’s Latin for, I think, ‘A Gathering--’

  Jasper cut her off. “‘Of Evil Words.’ Yes, yes.” Now he looked at Marie with some surprise. “A very rare book, quite old.” He shook his head. “Don’t have it. Never even seen a copy. Just heard of it. It’s one of those things that takes on legendary proportion after a while.”

  “So what is it?” she asked.

  “Supposedly a bunch of spells gathered together by a medieval monk; I think it got him branded a heretic, or worse. Only a couple of copies are known to exist, in museums, as far as I know. That’s a priceless book…a bit out of my league I’m afraid.” He brought a knee up in front of him on the stool and clasped it with both hands. “A bit out of yours, too, I should say. I didn’t think it had anything to do with incubi and such.”