The Devil You Know

by Richard Levesque

  “I think it does. Some.” Marie was disappointed to hear that the book was so rare. She had been hoping for a chance to see exactly what Colin Krebs had been talking about, in part to help verify his story and in part to see if there was anything in the book she could use to help Elise.

  She had gotten up enough nerve earlier that day to ask Father Joe what he knew about incubi and succubi, and he had looked at her with surprise. “Old wives’ tales, Marie,” he had said. “Just myths made up to mask human frailty—impure thoughts, dreams of a prurient nature, adultery, pregnancy out of wedlock. Superstitious folk a thousand years ago were a lot more likely to accept that a demon was responsible for all the shenanigans going on than they were to accept that good people really did bad things. So…the incubus and succubus are born in the human imagination. Simple as that.” He had peered at her searchingly. “Why do you ask?” Disappointed at his dismissal, she had explained as vaguely as she could that her sick friend had convinced herself an incubus was at the heart of her illness. This prompted Father Joe to suggest the woman come in for Confession as soon as possible. Marie had thanked him, acting as though she agreed, but told herself she would not bring the subject up again with the priest.

  Jasper was proving to be of little help as well; but at least he had not dismissed her interest or consigned the whole subject to the realm of superstition. “Come back here with me,” he said, getting off his stool and leading Marie down one of the rows of shelves toward the back of the store. “I’ve got a few things that might shed some light.”

  They stood together among the books for a quarter of an hour as Jasper pulled volumes from the shelves and flipped through them briefly before either returning them or handing them to Marie. He pointed out passages she should consider and then turned his attention to the shelves again as she read. All the while, not a single customer came into the store.

  “General information here, mostly,” Jasper said finally. “Probably not what you were looking for.”

  “It looks that way,” Marie conceded. “Maybe I should have started with a library. Do you think I’d have luck if I went down to USC?” The prospect of driving all the way to the university did not please her, but she knew she would not sleep well until she had some answers.

  “Probably.” Jasper nodded and looked searchingly at her for a moment. “Do you mind my asking why the sudden interest? It seems like a pretty big jump from old Weird Tales to this.”

  Marie smiled back. She had known Jasper in a casual way for about three years, having started her search for back issues of her favorite magazine not long after Ryan had been drafted. It had given her something to focus on as well as a strange, very personal sort of comfort and pleasure. Their relationship had always been friendly, but professional; the only time Marie had mentioned anything personal was after Ryan had been killed and she had stayed away from the bookstore—and everything else—for a while. Then, Jasper had been terribly sympathetic, offering her coffee and a place to talk if she needed it, but she had declined. Now, trying to understand what had happened to Elise, Marie felt she was in as much of a crisis as she had been after Ryan’s death. Only now, the feeling was different, more intense in a way. When she had learned about Ryan, it had been after the fact, the Japanese torpedo long exploded and Ryan’s body missing with those of his shipmates in the Pacific. But with Elise, Marie was more involved, had been there when the injury—for that was what it seemed like—had taken place, and should have done more to keep her friend from harm.

  So, with a sigh, she told Jasper the story in brief, including the details of her encounter with Colin outside the Chinese Theater and what he had told her about the woman on Ivar Street. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do,” she concluded, “but I feel like I have to do something. I feel like Elise is a lost cause. I could let the doctors at Camarillo know what it might be, but they’d probably try to lock me up, too, if I came to them with a story like this.”

  As she spoke, Jasper listened intently, his expression no different than one worn by someone rapt by the power of a good storyteller. Now, he said, “You’re right. The medical men, the scientists…they’re not going to have open minds about a situation like this. A shame, really. It’s the artists and thinkers and poets, maybe the philosophers, who’ll see the truth in this.”

  “But they haven’t the power to do anything about it.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Jasper said, a little smile raising the corners of his mouth.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, don’t bother going to USC, my dear. It’s a private collection you’re after.”

  Marie raised an eyebrow. “You know of one that could help?”

  “I might.”

  “Whose?”

  Jasper’s smile grew larger. “Mine,” he said.

  * * * * * * * *

  Jasper lived in a small house on a hill not far from Griffith Park. He could see the Griffith Observatory from his backyard, he explained to Marie as she drove him home. His ramshackle house had been built in the early 1900s, before Cecil B. DeMille and company had come to set up shop and the area southwest of Griffith Park had come to be known as Los Feliz. Now his little place was an eyesore to his neighbors. He had been offered ridiculous amounts of money for the property, but had cheerfully declined. He knew that if he sold it, the house would be bulldozed before he had even turned the key in the lock for the last time, and he just couldn’t bear the thought. No, he told Marie as they drove, the place was perfect for him—up a hill just steep enough for him to get up and down on the bicycle he parked in back of the store everyday, which now was in the back seat of Marie’s Chevrolet.

  “I should tell you,” he said after directing her off of Los Feliz and up a hill that seemed plenty steep to Marie, “that you’ll most likely meet my grandson Tom at my place.”

  At first, Marie pictured a little boy, but when Jasper continued, she realized she should have done better math.

  “He’s been staying with me since the end of the war. Had a rough time in Europe. Saw things, I think, best left unseen. His mother—my daughter—and her husband were killed in a car wreck when he was over there, so I made sure he came back here to me instead of languishing at the V.A. where they had him.”

  “Was he wounded?”

  “Not in the conventional way,” Jasper said, pointing to the left. Marie followed his directions and turned the car onto a narrower road that reminded her of the roads to Julian Piedmont’s estate. “In the Great War, they called it shell shock. Now they call it battle fatigue. Same thing, really. A man sees too much, does too many things to other human beings that he never dreamed he’d have to do, finds himself expecting to be killed every day, all day. Then he comes back to the world he used to know, and he can’t quite make himself connect to what’s around him anymore.”

  “Is there any cure?”

  “Rest. That’s what they say, anyway. A lot of boys coming back don’t have the chance to do it. Tom’s fortunate in the sense that I can just give him a chance to come back to himself. He’s better now than when he got here; seems mostly back to normal. But every now and then, he just goes away. You can see it in his eyes that he’s back there. And the nightmares are still pretty awful.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marie said as she pulled the car to the side of the road in front of Jasper’s house. At first, all she really saw was an old car covered with a tarp. It sat on a short driveway, at the end of which was a padlocked garage—the only part of the house visible from the narrow street. Overgrown bushes and trees hid the rest. Creeping vines grew up the wooden sides of the house, its roof obscured by the hanging branches of willow trees.

  Jasper could only shrug in response to Marie’s sympathy. “We’re getting along well enough,” he said as he got out and opened the back door to retrieve his bicycle. Marie came back and helped him. As he walked the bike up the driveway, Marie asked him about the old car under the tarp. “My old Dodge,” Jasper said. “Tom w
orked as a mechanic before the war. He’s been working on putting this old thing back together for me. Got it running for a few minutes last week.” He chuckled and then waved a hand dismissively toward the old car, as if to say that he couldn’t care less if it ever moved again or not. “If he never gets better, at least he’s still here. A lot gave more, you included.”

  Marie gave him a grim smile and followed him up a cement walk toward the house. A tired old screen door with a wooden frame squeaked open, and Jasper stuck a key in the heavy wooden door beyond it. Marie saw that the paint on the door was heavily cracked and peeling in some places; looking around at the front of the little house, she noticed that the rest of it looked similarly neglected. Jasper was likely oblivious to the house’s dilapidated state; he seemed happy to be here and not the least bit self-conscious about bringing a guest into his home.

  The dark house smelled musty inside. Bushes and vines grew up over all the windows, creating a rather gloomy effect. Marie could tell there were large chairs and a sofa in the room, but they appeared to be covered with piles of papers and books.

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Jasper said. When he pulled a cord on a floor lamp that barely lit the room, he confirmed Marie’s guess about how cluttered and unlived in it looked. “We don’t get much company, you see.” He moved through the room, beckoning her to follow. She threaded her way around dusty old furniture and saw a battered guitar propped against the back wall; it seemed out of place, and she doubted that Jasper could play it. Ahead of her, Jasper entered a darkened hallway, and he clicked a light switch on the wall to help Marie find her way. “We mostly stay in the back,” Jasper added as they rounded a corner, and Marie suddenly felt as though she was in a different house.

  The room at the back of the house was a combined kitchen and dining room, a large oak table and chairs dominating the dining area. The wall directly in front of her formed the back of the house and was made up of windows from just above the floor all the way to the ceiling. Beyond she saw a well kept flower garden and lawn; flowering vines covered walls that bound the backyard, and there was a small white gazebo in one corner. The light from the yard flooded the dining room and kitchen; Marie could not believe the contrast to the front room. “Oh my,” she said.

  “Nice, yes?” Jasper replied.

  “Very. With the back like this, I can see why you don’t spend time in front.”

  He waved a hand toward the room they had just passed through. “That,” he said with a sneer. “Never felt comfortable in that room. Things just got shoved in there when I didn’t know what else to do with them. I’ll show you the rest in a minute. Let me see if Tom’s presentable first. Do you mind waiting here?”

  Jasper pulled out a chair, and Marie sat. She watched as the old man went out the back door onto the little patio and through the flower garden. He went straight to the gazebo, and Marie noticed a man sitting in it, his back to the house. She heard Jasper call out to him, and the man looked up quickly. He seemed plenty alert to Marie as he turned and stood up to greet his grandfather, a book in his hand. It made her smile to think of Jasper giving his grandson such a peaceful place and all the time he needed to put the war behind him. Moments later, the two were heading back to the house. Marie stood and smoothed the front of her light blue dress when they neared the screen door.

  “Marie Doyle,” Jasper said when they had come into the kitchen, “I’d like you to meet my grandson, Tom Glass. Tom, this is Marie.”

  With a smile, Marie stepped forward and shook the man’s hand. He was taller than Jasper and had dark hair and a square jaw. He smiled and returned her firm grip, something that pleased Marie; it always irritated her when men shook her hand gingerly, as though it would break if it received a real, honest handshake. When he smiled, it was not just with his lips, but also with his clear, blue eyes. He looked pleasant enough to Marie and seemed a bit surprised to find that his grandfather had brought her home. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “I’m going to show Marie some books in the library,” Jasper said. “Maybe you could throw together something for us to eat when we’re done?”

  “Oh, no,” Marie interjected. “I couldn’t.”

  “I insist, my dear,” Jasper said. “It’s the least I can do to repay you for the ride home. And the stimulating conversation.”

  She smiled. “Has it been stimulating?”

  “I’m sure it soon will be.” Jasper smiled at her then turned to Tom. “Excuse us?”

  “Sure,” Tom said.

  Jasper led her through another door on the right side of the room, and Marie realized that the “library” he had mentioned was actually the converted garage she had seen from the street. The big doors that had likely once rolled aside to admit a Model T were now sealed shut, and while the building looked rickety from the outside, its interior was as clean and solid as the inside of her own house. Wooden bookcases with glass doors lined the walls, and two other rows of bookcases took up the middle of the room. Jasper had filled each shelf with books over the years he had lived here, and Marie stood awestruck in the doorway, staring at row upon row of fine leather bindings, crumbling antiques, and colorful dust jackets.

  “What is all this?” she asked.

  Jasper walked into the room, clearly pleased at her reaction. “My vice. My addiction. The one real love of my life.” He turned back to look at Marie, still standing in the doorway. “My wife and I never really got along after the first year or two. These, though…” He raised his hands to take in all of the shelves around him. “These never change on you. Never betray you. Never leave. You can always count on books. These are the ones I won’t let myself sell. Little gems that come into the shop tucked in between volumes of dross that just fly off the shelves once I price them. You’ll find first editions of Poe and Hawthorne, Henry James and Washington Irving. And older things, too, much older. And you’ll be pleased to know that books on the occult are a particular favorite of mine. I’ve been chasing Gelamen Malum Lacuna for a long time now. Gets me all tingly just thinking there’s a copy within ten miles of here.”

  A huge smile spread across his face, and he sighed heavily. He looked to Marie like someone who has just finished a huge and satisfying meal, and she could not help but smile at the change in him. He had always been pleasant enough in the bookstore, but never as animated as he was here among his treasures.

  “But I’m getting away from myself,” Jasper said. “On to your problem now. Come along.” He turned and led her to an area in the back corner of the converted garage. Marie saw that the spines of many volumes on the shelves he pointed toward had ornate gilt writing in Latin and German. Some of the books looked to be in awful shape, as though they would crumble upon being read, but many others looked pristine. Jasper pulled open one of the glass doors, scanned the shelves for a moment, and then pulled out a thin volume covered in simple cloth. “Read French?” he asked her.

  Marie smiled, a bit embarrassed. “I’m afraid not. Just Catholic school Latin for me, and that just barely.”

  Jasper waved at her as though he were swatting a fly, a gesture she took as one meant to discount her self-effacement completely. “Never apologize for what you don’t know, my dear. The ones who make you feel like you should be sorry almost never know half of what they think they do.” He began moving along the back wall. “Come. Sit.” He pointed to a wooden chair in the corner of the room. It looked like it had once belonged to a dining set and was perhaps the last survivor. It was the only chair Marie had seen in the room.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” He looked up from the book, only half-listening to her. But then he grasped her question before she had a chance to repeat it. “Don’t worry about me. I prefer to stand when I’m pondering. And the damned French don’t make it easy.” He turned his eyes to the book again as Marie sat down. She felt self-conscious just sitting here as the old man read, and she tried reading the titles on the shelves beside her to help pas
s the time.

  “All right,” Jasper said before long. He closed the book and began pacing back and forth in front of her like a teacher lecturing a student. His tone remained conversational, though, and not at all pedantic. “It’s about as I remembered it,” he began. “I didn’t want to try to explain it back at the store without being positive, though. The traditional Christian mythology is that an incubus is a demon of hell, a minion of Satan. Some say the first incubus was cast out of heaven before Lucifer. But that’s just all piffle. Most cultures have similar creatures in their legends, the upshot being that it’s a demon driven to have sexual intercourse with its victims. The female version is the succubus. She targets men, the incubus women.

  “Because they’re spirits, non-corporeal you see, they can’t just have sex with whomever they please. They come to their victim in dreams—which is a way we can account for all sorts of scandalous behavior in our sleep—or they can find a way to get human form. One version has the two working in concert, the succubus taking semen from her male victim—” He stopped short and looked at Marie. “I’m sorry if this is indelicate. Please stop me if I offend you.”

  “No,” Marie said quickly. When she thought again of what she had seen and felt upstairs at Julian Piedmont’s, the idea of anything being indelicate now struck her as absurd. She had received the sanitized version from Father Joe earlier today, and now the unvarnished truth was what she had been hoping for. “Please,” she said, hoping to appear worldly, but not without morals. “It’s fine. It’s what I asked you to tell me about, after all.”

  “True enough,” Jasper said. He resumed his pacing. “She collects the semen from her victim and then has intercourse with an incubus, transferring the semen during the act. When the incubus then couples with a woman in her sleep, he inseminates her with that same semen, which has somehow been transformed in the unholy process, and the resulting child is called a cambion. Merlin was supposedly one of these. The cambion apparently has no heartbeat for the first several years and is possessed of all sorts of powers when it grows up.” He stopped again to look at Marie. “I find this version of things to be completely ridiculous. A nice fantasy useful for explaining nocturnal emissions and erotic dreams about forbidden love and, of course, unwanted pregnancies.”