The Devil You Know

by Richard Levesque

  “He’s out, all right. Help me get him on the bed.”

  Twenty minutes later, the creature that looked like Tyrone Power began to stir. Shortly, it opened its eyes and found itself secured to Marie’s bed with heavy ropes. Remembering how the incubus had changed the shape of its hands to slip from the ropes in Laura’s apartment, Marie knew she could waste no time, so she stepped forward. She had already slipped off the little wooden cross, and now she held it over the incubus’ face. Her earlier fears were gone; instead, she felt determined not to let this monster get away from her as she had at Laura’s when she had been completely unprepared.

  The creature stared at the cross for a moment, its eyes bulging in its head. It writhed against the ropes, but the power of the relic within the cross was enough to keep it from changing its shape to free itself.

  “Creature of Satan,” she began, reciting the exorcism prayer she had committed to memory after getting away from Laura’s apartment. “In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I command you to leave this body.”

  The incubus’ face transformed as she spoke. Gone were Tyrone Power’s good looks and deep, wide eyes. In their place, the thing’s pupils changed shape, and it looked at Marie with the eyes of a goat.

  Jasper had shown her several accounts of exorcisms, some more sensational than others, and she had thought she was ready for the manipulation and trickery the demon might attempt to get away from her. Reading it and seeing it were two different things, though, and Marie jumped back for a moment when the thing began to transform itself before her. Immediately, horns burst forth from its forehead, and when it opened its mouth to hiss “Fucking cunt!” she saw that its teeth were long and sharp; its forked tongue slipped past its lips to flick at Marie. She almost panicked at the thought that it would free its hands next, but then she remembered the way the cross had burned the incubus at Laura’s, and she forced herself to lower her hand and press the cross to the monster’s forehead, just between the horns.

  It gasped and tried to shrink away from the cross, sweat breaking out all over its face. Then it began to moan.

  Marie continued, her voice trembling, but she reminded herself that this was a prayer and that it wouldn’t work if she didn’t believe it would be answered. “We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects.”

  The creature began foaming at the mouth and making strange guttural sounds. Marie feared it would vomit on her before she was done. It was covered in sweat, and tears flowed from its eyes.

  “In the Name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, do may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb.”

  With the last words Marie uttered, the creature gasped, sucking in a final breath before it lost consciousness. The skin grew ashen. Tears streaming down her face, Marie watched, astounded as the face began to fall in on itself, the horns seeming to deflate. The eyes sunk into its head, and the lips curled from the now rotting teeth. A few seconds more, and it crumbled into dust. All that remained were its clothes, lying absurdly empty now on Marie’s bedspread with piles of dust at the neck, sleeves and ankles, the now loosened ropes resting impotently where the body had been.

  “My God,” Tom said. “It worked.”

  Marie was breathing hard, as though she had just run up several flights of stairs. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she gasped. It was not a prayer. “It would have killed us, Tom. It would have torn us to pieces if it had gotten away. Did you see?”

  He nodded. “I saw.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Do you think that’s it? Could it…just have gone back to Julian?”

  “No,” Tom said with certainty, shaking his head. “Not after what you did to it. It’s gone. I know it.”

  She just nodded.

  “I think you’ll want a new bedspread when this is done,” Tom said.

  It was obvious to Marie that he was trying to lighten the mood after what they had just seen and done, but she did not respond. She was trembling and only felt a slight relief when she slipped the leather thong over her head again and tucked the cross back under the sweater. Then she put her hand over it to press it more firmly against her skin. Closing her eyes, she said a short prayer that was as much an expression of gratitude to Jasper as anything else. She hoped that whatever form his spirit had taken, he could hear her prayer and know that he had been right.

  When she opened her eyes, she looked gravely at the empty suit on the bed and nodded. Giving Tom a hopeful glance, she said, “We’ll do it. We’ll get these bastards yet.”

  “You’re sure there are four more?”

  “Reasonably sure.”

  “And how do we keep Piedmont from making more?”

  “Colin Krebs,” she said. “I don’t know, but he’s our way in. He’s got to be able to get the book or tell us how.”

  Tom nodded, his concerned expression showing some doubt.

  “But first we’ve got to kill the rest of these…things,” Marie said. Killing this one had been scary, but now that it was over, she felt exhilarated, as though she was finally doing something for Elise. Four more of these beings still roamed Hollywood, and she felt eager to have them gone. She gave Tom a pleased grin, and he returned it. Then they turned away from the dusty remains on the bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The enthusiasm Marie felt after dispatching the first incubus had faded by the sixth hour of her hunt on the following day. Her feet hurt. She had walked the distance between Grauman’s Chinese and Musso and Frank’s Grille more times than she could count; she had eaten at the Grille and had drinks in the bar in between trips back to the theater. If she kept this up, she knew, the waiters would begin to look at her funny. When she had set out this morning, it had been with enthusiasm, as she told herself the next demon would be as easy to find as the first. But of all the handsome men who had given her appreciative glances up and down the boulevard, none looked like Piedmont’s demons. I’m hunting hunters, she thought as walked back to her car in discouragement, and they’ve already found their prey. It pained her to think of the women who had been lost today while she had been looking in the wrong places. Still, she thought as she pulled open her car door, there were other places to try. Sliding in behind the wheel, she slipped off her shoes to rub her feet for a moment, wondering if she should try Schwab’s or the Brown Derby. There’s no pressure, said the sarcastic voice in her head, it’s just some other woman’s life hanging in the balance. She pulled a cigarette from her purse, and as she lit it, the voice added, Or mine.

  It was four-thirty when she parked her car on North Hayworth and walked around the corner to Schwab’s. The little drugstore on Sunset had become part of Hollywood myth as the site where Lana Turner had supposedly been discovered, and it was like a magnet for fresh-faced farm girls straight off the bus, their high heels and print dresses screaming “bargain basement” to anyone who had been around Hollywood for more than a month. When Marie walked in, she was in the same black heels she had worn the day before when she had dispatched the Tyrone Power look-alike. She had also opted for a tweed skirt and red cotton blouse that she knew would make her look good at the soda counter, the slit in the skirt letting her knee poke through when she crossed her legs, and the blouse not fully buttoned to her chin.

  The drugstore was loud and crowded; tourists who walked in to gawk at the counter and look for celebrities outnumbered paying customers. Many snapped pictures of the soda fountain, and Marie wondered how many photo albums she was going to end up in by the time she was through dispatching incubi.

  Before finding a seat at the counter, she headed for the phone booth in the rear of the drugstore. She had checked in twice with Tom throughout her long day and figured it was best to catch him up again now. He answered on the first ring.

  “Marie?”
he said.

  She could hear worry in his voice, but at the same time couldn’t help smiling at how protective he was. “Yes, dear, and I’m fine,” she said.

  “Thank God.”

  “Is that the way you’ve been answering my phone all day?” she teased.

  “No one else but you has called here. I figured it had better be you again. Where are you?”

  “At Schwab’s. I’ll give it a bit longer and then call it a day.”

  “No luck anywhere?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I wonder if they got scared away when their playmate didn’t come home.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you been terribly bored?” she asked.

  “It hasn’t been too bad between the radio and your old magazines. Your cat can be pretty lousy company sometimes, you know?”

  She smiled at the thought of Tom and Murphy spending the day together in the house. “Everything’s on his terms. But he’s still a slave to his stomach.”

  “I found that out, too. Now we’re best pals.”

  “Good. I’ll call you back if I’m leaving here empty handed, okay?”

  “All right,” he said. “You know, I kind of hope you do. Maybe we could take a walk. Get a glass of wine somewhere. Start fresh tomorrow.”

  “Mmmm. I like the way you think.” She felt strongly tempted to leave the drugstore and go to him right away, but another quick glance at all the tourists at the soda fountain convinced her she should stay for a while at least.

  She felt warm inside after saying goodbye and leaving the phone booth, and the thought of Tom waiting for her at the end of this long day made her feel better about continuing with it. With a deep breath, she walked to the counter and found an empty stool.

  It was almost six o’clock when she ordered her fourth root beer and told herself she would leave when the glass was empty. She had begun to feel discouraged again. It had only been a joke when she told Tom the incubi were scared to come out today; still, there was a chance, she realized, that Julian had reigned in the monsters after the Power look-alike had failed to return to the mansion the night before. More likely, though, she had simply been in the wrong places all day.

  As she again began to consider ways to convince Colin to help her some more, a man looking an awful lot like Errol Flynn walked into Schwab’s. Marie stared in disbelief and then quickly scanned the room to see how many other young women had noticed him as well. He didn’t look exactly like the man Marie had seen upstairs at Julian’s, but she also recalled that Colin had said the incubi seemed to change their appearance a bit every day. Observing his confident air as he walked through the door, though, she began to feel certain that she had another one in her sights, and her heart began to pound in excitement, fear, and anticipation. She could not shake the memory of the way this same creature had stood in that other doorway the night of the party, his organ bobbing in the air just begging to be touched. Not for the first time since that night, she thought of how close she had come to giving in to temptation, and she shuddered inwardly.

  Pushing aside the memory of the party, she prepared to approach him. With one more glance up and down the counter to make sure none of the other star seekers in the drugstore was about to move in on the incubus, she slid off her stool and adjusted her collar and skirt. Taking a deep breath, she began to make her way toward the door. But then she stopped, frozen in place as if time itself had come to a stop. Another man had walked into the drugstore a few seconds after the look-alike, and he stood behind him now, clearly appraising the room and the people in it.

  It was Colin Krebs. He stood slightly in shadow just inside the doorway, and the Flynn look-alike’s shoulder hid part of his face from Marie’s view, but she was sure it was him. And in the instant she recognized him, she knew that her exorcism of the demon the day before had truly been successful; the creature had not simply fled bodiless back to the mansion. Julian Piedmont was not sending the incubi out alone to do their dirty wok. They had escorts now, and Julian had assigned Colin to shadow the Flynn look-alike. Marie suspected that Colin’s job was to watch the incubus as he chose his victims, watch for any sign that the demon was in trouble, and then meet up with him again after the deed was done. They might already have gone through the routine once today, and Marie imagined some poor girl lying naked in her bed with a blank stare in her eyes, the face of the Errol Flynn look-alike one of the last things she would remember seeing. And Colin Krebs had her misery on his conscience.

  For another second or two, Marie hesitated, considering her choices. Then she resumed walking toward the door and the look-alike. She considered herself lucky that Colin was the handler for this demon; had it been another of Julian’s followers, she would have had no idea that the man following the incubus into the drugstore was there to keep an eye on it. She did not know how Colin would respond to seeing her, but knew there was a good chance he would do nothing. Guilty over his complicity in the incubi’s actions, he would likely let her go, even if it meant the loss of the Flynn look-alike and having to face Julian’s wrath when the demon didn’t make it back. That was her hope.

  Pretending to check the time on her wristwatch, she bumped into the creature and looked up at him in surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, smiling at him.

  “No need to be sorry,” he said, stepping aside so she could pass. “Getting this close to a pretty girl isn’t really reason for regret.”

  Marie’s smile broadened, and she looked shyly at the floor for a second. Then she glanced back up, making sure she made eye contact with Colin first before looking again into the handsome man’s face. Colin looked shocked. The last time he had seen her, she had looked quite different, with hair, make-up and clothing more fitting a church secretary than a star struck young woman fresh off the bus. Even so, Marie could see from his expression that he recognized her. He half opened his mouth and made a motion forward, as though he were about to insert himself into the budding conversation. But then his mouth closed, and his body relaxed. He would say nothing now, Marie knew; he had figured out what she was here for and had just made himself an accomplice. She did not know how far he would let his complicity go, but she told herself that she couldn’t worry about that now.

  Instead, her task was to reel in the incubus, and she turned her attention back to him. “That’s awfully sweet of you to say,” she said. Then she looked more closely at his face, and turned her head slightly, as though puzzled. “You’re not…?”

  His grin broadened. “No,” he said. “But I do get asked a lot.” He shrugged disarmingly. “A hazard of living in this town, I suppose.”

  Marie could see how charming he was. If she really were the woman she was pretending to be, the sort that the incubus had been targeting and preying upon for weeks, she would have stood very little chance. As it was, she had to walk the same fine line that she had walked the day before with the Tyrone Power look-alike: making herself appear interested and desirable while not letting herself get pulled in by his charm. She had to be the predator now, but one whose strength depended on appearing to be the victim.

  “I wouldn’t think being mistaken for Errol Flynn was a hazard,” she said.

  “No? Why is that?”

  She shrugged and smiled coyly. “It seems to me you’d never get lonely.”

  He chuckled. “No. Loneliness is not one of my problems. I don’t suppose it’s one of yours, either.”

  She adjusted the collar of her blouse and watched as his eyes darted down to look at the exposed skin above her top button. His eyes met hers as he glanced back up, and she grinned a bit wickedly to show that she did not mind having caught him. “And why would you say that?” she asked.

  “You know exactly what I mean, my dear.”

  “I might. Just what problems do you think I might have, though?”

  “You?” He squinted at her, making a show of looking deeply into her personality. “I would say your biggest problem is that sometimes you don’t get all the excite
ment you crave. You get bored easily, don’t you?”

  She gave an exaggerated nod that she punctuated with a little pout. “And I hate being bored.”

  “Has it been boring for you in here?” He nodded toward the soda fountain.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly come in for a phosphate,” she said.

  “And whatever you were looking for, did you find it?”

  “It’s looking that way.”

  Again, he looked closely at her, but this time the look did not seem playful. Marie felt flushed, knowing he was scrutinizing her now. It was as though he was trying to peer into her, to see if there was more to her than she had presented herself as. “Do you do this sort of thing often?” he asked quietly.

  She forced herself to hold his gaze and then smiled a bit demurely. “I don’t know,” she said with what she hoped passed for a playful shrug. “It’s not every day you meet Errol Flynn, after all.”

  Hoping that she had passed whatever test he was giving, she watched as the incubus turned briefly to look at Colin, who had moved away from the door while the pair had been speaking. Marie knew then that the creature was being cautious and that it was looking to Colin either for his approval or to let him know that he considered her a safe prospect. When Colin gave a slight nod, she knew she was in. Feeling equally frightened and relieved, she let the incubus link arms with her and lead her out into the evening. She supposed that Colin would be expected to follow, but something told Marie he would find a way to let the demon out of his sight. He had given the monster over to her now, finally taking part in the fight he had been so reluctant to join.

  * * * * * * * *

  On the drive down to Melrose, he told her that his name was Eric Charles and that he worked in advertising at Paramount. He also told her that he had met Errol Flynn a few times at studio functions and that the actor, while pleasant enough, had been unfazed by any resemblance between the two of them. In fact, he could not see what people meant when they mentioned the similarity and got annoyed when it kept coming up.