by Sam Stone
Martin and Pepper carried Maggie back to her room, where we found Henry waking with a nasty bump on his head. Maggie had hit him when his back was turned.
‘Is she all right?’ he asked, struggling to his feet and hurrying to her side.
‘I don’t know. She suffered an almighty shock. We had to use desperate means to sever her from Callon.
Henry tucked her back up in bed while Isaac went out to send someone to fetch a doctor to see Maggie. Pepper opted to stay with Henry in case she woke again and this wasn’t over. In the meantime, the rest of us planned to try and get some sleep.
23
I returned to my room, exhaustion both emotional and physical weighed heavily on my mind, body and soul. I was about to remove my clothing once more when I noticed the door leading to the balcony was slightly ajar.
As I reached it, the door opened and I found Orlando standing there.
‘Is this really you?’ I asked. ‘Only we’ve played this scenario a few times this evening and I’m getting tired of it.’
‘Miss Kat, whatever do you mean?’
I touched his arm, found him to be solid enough and I sighed with both relief and exhaustion.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s been a long night.’
‘I just saw my father, he told me what had happened,’ Orlando said.
I nodded. ‘I’m willing to talk to you about this Orlando, but I’m absolutely exhausted. Can we pick this up tomorrow? I really need to just go to bed.’
Orlando frowned. His yellow eyes seemed brighter in the gaslight than in natural daylight and I found his scrutiny unnerving. Also, just walking into my room like that wasn’t a very gentlemanly thing to do. If I had learnt anything about Orlando, it was that he addressed propriety at all times, and was deeply respectful towards me and everyone else. Never once, in the time since we had met, had I actually felt under threat. Until now.
‘You’re not Orlando …’ I realised. ‘You’re him.’
‘I’m both,’ he said. A smile broke across his face revealing teeth too sharp to be held in a human mouth.’
I pulled my Perkins-Armley from its holster and pointed it as Orlando advanced and I retreated.
‘You’ve been a thorn in my side since you arrived,’ he said.
‘I suppose I’m talking to Callon now? Don’t you get it? The ritual was reversed. There’s no sacrifice to pay anymore.’
‘This ain’t about no forfeit. I tol’ Isaac that magic had to be paid for. It ain’t strickly true that it will curse those who don’t hold to their bargain. But that white man betrayed me, then destroyed my body and left my soul in torment. Have you any idea how it feels to be able to see your family and friends. You talk – they don’t hear you. Your own son doesn’t recognise you … Your wife ups and marries your best friend and goes on to sprout more offspring, year on year. I could see it all. I knowed what was happenin’.’
‘I’m sorry. But I’m finding it hard to have sympathy for a demon that sent a poor young girl so mad she had to be hospitalized. Or seduced a pregnant woman so that you could implant your own spawn inside her. What you’ve done was wrong, Callon. Or should I call you Matthias?’
‘Matthias is dead. Callon is who I am now.’
I searched Orlando’s body for any sign of an external joining with Callon’s spirit, but I could see nothing like the cord that had been attached to Maggie. Maybe this was a straightforward case of possession but I hoped it wasn’t because that would probably mean I would have to kill him – and I really didn’t want to.
I suppose I should have wondered about my sudden sentiment but I didn’t. It was cut and dried and straightforward that I would have to kill the demon-possessed body of a person when I didn’t know them. But I had come to quite like Orlando in the few short days we had been at the Plantation and this wasn’t going to be easy.
‘How did you manage to take Orlando so easily?’ I said.
Callon laughed. ‘Isaac did a real good job on him. He emptied Orlando out so much that any demon coulda walked right inside …’
I backed towards the door that led to the hallway, ready to shout for help. Maybe Pepper and Martin would help me capture him. And maybe Isaac would find a way to remove Callon without hurting Orlando.
Suddenly Orlando-Callon leapt forward, knocking my gun from my hand as he reached for me. My Perkins-Armley fell to the floor and skittered under the bed. I ducked down, falling forward into a roll that would bring me back up on my feet, out of reach and near the balcony door. The roll went to plan and the demon stumbled clumsily, almost losing his balance while I was already on my feet and running towards the door. Fortunately as I came back to my feet I saw my Remington-Crewe lying on the floor. I grabbed it, realising it must have been there since the night Callon tried to suffocate me. I almost kissed the barrel of this loved and trusted laser weapon. Somehow it always found its way back into my hands: just the same as it had in the warehouse when I thought it had gone for good.
One thing was certain, a demon-possessed body was slow. They had to take time to feel comfortable with the height, build and the way the limbs moved before they could properly control it. This worked to my advantage because Orlando’s body was newly possessed.
I holstered the gun then ran out onto the balcony, climbed up onto the balustrade and leapt off towards the airship without even thinking.
I collided with the canvas balloon, fingers scrabbling at the ropes, even as I began to slide off and downwards. The curve of the balloon aided me, had it been round and not the shape of a huge bullet, I might have fallen. As it was, I curved my body round it until I managed to gain purchase.
Once I’d found one I scrabbled down and underneath the balloon until I could drop down on the deck. But my attempts to escape from Orlando-Callon had completely failed. I had not banked on him adapting to the body so quickly. While I was struggling to hold onto the balloon, the creature had already jumped down from the balcony onto the deck.
As I landed, bent-kneed on the shiny metal surface, Callon was waiting for me.
I tried to fool him again, but this time he was ready when I feigned right, then went left. He caught hold of me by the collar of my jacket and then slipped his hands around my neck.
I threw myself back, shoulder blades connecting with the wheel, then I rolled, pulling Callon-Orlando with me. But the creature was strong and instead of shaking him free I felt his hands slip around my throat as he yanked me back towards him.
I felt the air cut from my lungs immediately and experienced the terrible pain of impending suffocation. My lungs felt as though they would burst in my chest as he slowly crushed my throat. I propelled myself backwards. This time I felt the control panel of the airship up against my back. The hard levers pressed into my shoulders and spine, and then suddenly the two engines, either side of the balloon, burst into life with a loud roar.
Callon-Orlando was briefly distracted. Using the pressure against the controls as leverage, I pulled up both knees between us and used the strength of my legs to kick out and propel the monster away. He stumbled backwards as the airship tilted and jerked.
I slumped to my knees gasping in a lungful of air and, as Callon-Orlando regained his footing, I pulled the Remington-Crewe free of the holster and fired. The laser hissed, but failed to fire. I glanced down at the SunPan and realised that the gun had not been recharged since I last used it.
Callon-Orlando was on me again. Fingers ferociously clamped once more around my already bruised throat. My hands beat at him to no avail: he was just too strong, and then, as a roaring sound filled my ears and I felt I was on the brink of collapse I remembered the crossbow that was still hanging from my weapon belt.
My hands stopped their efforts to push Orlando away and groped instead for the crossbow. Fortunately I always kept it fully wound and loaded but with the safety catch on to avoid accidental firing. There was no time to release the hook that held it to my belt, instead I just turned the weapon between us, release
d the safety and fired a round of silver plated arrows straight into Orlando’s body.
Orlando fell back, blood blossomed on the front of his crisp white shirt as he stared at me, shocked and in pain and very much himself again.
‘Miss Kat,’ he gasped.
I pulled myself up into a sitting position. I heard yelling, felt the tug of someone climbing up the rope ladder on the starboard bow.
The airship rocked and twisted, the engines still firing, and I felt certain that it would pull free of the mooring ropes if I didn’t turn them off.
I staggered to my feet, one hand still holding the crossbow, the other going to my bruised throat. I gasped in air, but felt dizzy as I stumbled towards the control panel. Then, before I could reach the controls I fell into an uncharacteristic faint brought on by the sudden rush of blood and air to my brain.
I awoke to find Pepper looking into my face with a look of deep concern.
‘Thank God!’ he said. ‘She’s coming to …’
The metal deck was hot against my back. I struggled to sit up and Pepper helped me to my feet, but kept his arm firmly around my waist. Only then did I notice that the crossbow had been prised from my fingers, and was no longer attached to my belt.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘We were about to ask you that. It seems you’ve killed Orlando,’ Martin said kneeling down beside the body.
I looked over at the corpse of the ill-fated nephilim and allowed the tears to flow unchecked as I sobbed uncontrollably. Martin looked away from the sight of me falling apart. I could see he was embarrassed. They had never seen any weakness in me and I couldn’t explain at all why I was so upset. I wasn’t sure who I was crying for most, me or Orlando. I was intensely sad that another poor innocent had been lost to the Darkness. I could no longer deny the friendship that had been blossoming between us, even though I knew it had been nothing more than that. I would miss him. And just this once I wanted to save a possessed soul, not send it on to whatever dimension it deserved to go to: be that a heaven or a hell. I hoped for Orlando’s sake that it was the former.
I still felt weak and sick, my vision was blurred, and so I let Pepper help me over to look at the body. Holding onto Pepper steadied my nerves and dried my tears. He was always my rock and I realised at that moment that he was also more than a friend to me.
‘Callon possessed him,’ I explained. ‘I had no choice.’
Martin nodded. ‘I’ll fetch Isaac. A bad result, but I think this is finally over.’
Epilogue
The Pollitts had their own cemetery some distance from the house. A modest graveyard surrounding a small family chapel. It was a bright sunny day as they lowered the body of Orlando into the ground, and the priest said the words of internment.
I felt saddened for the family, but a quiet relief seemed to follow the initial grief when the realisation that their terrible persecution was at an end.
This was the second funeral to take place here that week. The first was that of the charred remains of Isaac’s father, Matthias, which the voodoo priest found after casting a location spell. Matthias had been inside Big Daddy’s old bedroom all along, buried in the cavity that had once been the door leading to the balcony.
Big Daddy had insisted that the man be given a decent burial, but he let Isaac preside over the proceedings and respected their religious beliefs which we all hoped would ensure that Matthias would stay at peace this time. Isaac said that he was. His soul had been taken on to whatever realm it deserved to reside in – never more to cast an evil shadow over the lives of the Pollitts.
There had been questions asked. No one cried more than Big Momma over the death of Orlando, but she didn’t seem to hold it against us nonetheless when the facts were made clear.
Maggie was better too. She and Henry held hands all the way through the service and afterwards, when they thought no one was looking as they walked away from the grave, Henry placed a loving kiss on her welcoming lips. They were going to be all right. I just knew it.
After the funeral, Pepper, Martin and I climbed aboard the tin-covered airship. I was keen to return to New York and our own life, and even though I felt that I needed a rest from it all, I knew I would always be ready to face the Darkness in any of its forms. And so, as quietly as possible, we took to the skies and turned the airship away from Pollitt Plantation.
On the journey back, as Martin demonstrated his new improvements – the two engines I’d accidentally set off were run by a powerful jet that forced air through them and propelled the airship faster through the sky; a hidden harpoon gun that ejected from the hull of the ship; and a row of lights that lit the interior with energy sourced from the sun panels – I turned to find Pepper watching me. His eyes were warm, they held a light that I had on occasion noticed, but had often chosen to ignore.
I was ready to move on now. Ready to start living.
I smiled at Pepper. And my expression said: Yes. I like you. Yes, you are my friend. Yes, you could be something more.
Or at least I hoped it did.