“Ow,” I said. “I’m going to need to see my chiropractor after this one.”
I was surprised that I was able to take all these demon’s blows, one by one, and stay on my feet. “Is this all you got?” I asked the thing, putting up my fists again and throwing a high kick right into Olive’s solar plexus. I followed that up with an upper-cut and and other kick from my left foot. Suddenly, I was a wall of fists and kicks, and the demon took each one of my blows without showing any signs at all that he was hurt.
Grab throat, throw down on floor, grab chain of Celtic knots and pull. Celtic knots? I saw that there was a chain of Celtic knots that was in Sybil’s box of goodies, but how the hell was I supposed to grab ahold of them while fighting off this demon? It wasn’t like there were two of me, one to fight off the demon, and one to go find Sybil’s box and get the Celtic knots out of there.
I circled around the demon and kicked it in the back. I must have hit him just right, because it was his turn to go flying through the air. He landed on the coffee table, smashing it right in two. It was then that I wondered if anybody was going to end up calling the police, but I couldn’t worry about that. I had to keep on going, keep on fighting, if I was going to get out of this alive.
I touched my necklace as I had a bit of inspiration. I closed my eyes, and, all at once, I was a black cat. A very nimble black cat. That was the way that I was going to get that Celtic knot chain, if I could only stay one step ahead of that damned demon.
I had to have an inward laugh when I referred to this thing as damned demon in my head. Yes, he was literally a damned demon. Literally.
When I became the cat, I ran into Sybil’s room and climbed steadily up the bookcase. Her bookcase was about ten feet tall and was filled with books all the way up to the top. Sybil loved books – there were books about astrology, tarot, crystals, as well as other types of books such as romance novels, gardening guides and historical fiction. I got to the top of the bookcase and, with my paw, I batted the little box. I kept batting it until it sprung open, and I found the chain of Celtic knots in there, glistening at me. I looked down below, and the demon was standing there, right underneath me, looking up at me in my cat form.
Oh, I see. He can’t jump up here. I wondered why he couldn’t. After all, the demons that I saw in the movies and television and such had super-human strength and could seem to do anything.
I soon figured out why that demon wasn’t jumping. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, it was that he couldn’t get up on the top of the bookshelf with me. He was simply too big. Or Olive was, because, after all, Olive was the body that he was inhabiting at that moment. He jumped high in the air, and lunged at me, but I cowered against the wall, and he couldn’t reach me.
Okay, as long as I stay on this bookcase, I’m safe. I watched as he jumped, again and again, but couldn’t quite grab me. He came close one time, but I stuck out my claws and scratched him hard. He cried out, and it was deep and guttural cry. That was the first time that the demon had made a sound, other than him speaking to me earlier, and I wondered if I was onto something.
He was standing right below me, and with a great cry, I pounced right on his head. I stuck my claw right in his eye, and he howled, literally howled, when I did that. His hands were fruitlessly trying to get me off of him, but I continued to yowl and cry and hiss while I kept clawing at his eyes, his hair, and his neck.
I jumped down on the floor, and then leaped back up to him, and knocked him backwards onto the floor. It was then that I shifted back into Lyra, and I was above him. His hands were covering his eyes as he cowered, and I put my hands around his throat and then slipped the chain of Celtic knots around his neck and pulled.
As I pulled, I finally smelled the sulfur smell that Peter had been alluding to. The demon screamed and thrashed, and it all seemed to go in fast motion, but I kept on pulling the knot around his neck. He desperately put his hands on the knot, trying to get it off, but I held fast, and then I saw black smoke coming up from Olive’s body on the floor. I closed my eyes, still holding onto the knot, and praying that I was going to be able to get Olive back after this. She was in there somewhere, wasn’t she?
Tears came to my eyes as the smoke rose out of the body and into the floor, and I kept pulling on the Celtic knot, even though the body was now on the floor and not moving. I closed my eyes, and then opened them again, and I just stared.
Olive’s body was now on the floor, lifeless. Not moving. There was no longer a demon inhabiting it, but apparently her soul wasn’t inhabiting it either.
dOlive was dead.
16
I looked at my friend, lifeless on the floor, and tried not to panic. There must be a way to bring her back. But how? I furrowed my brow, and called for Peter. He appeared, as if by magic, in the living room.
“You called?” he said to me.
“Yes, I did.” I pointed at Olive’s lifeless body on the floor. “That. What am I supposed to do about that? Please tell me that this is reversible.” The well of panic was just starting to hit me, and I felt my chest absolutely constricting. I tried to fight back tears – I never cried, hadn’t cried since I was a little girl being taken away from her mother – but, nonetheless, they came, hard and fast. My face felt wet, and I caught some of the tears on my tongue. They tasted salty and bitter. Salty and bitter was also how I felt right at that moment.
Peter made a move towards me, as if he was going to wrap his arms around me to comfort me, but then took a step back. “Of course this is reversible,” he said to me.
At that, the waterworks came on even more forcefully, this time because I felt such a keen sense of relief. Plus, the adrenaline that had been coursing through my veins during my fight with that demon was draining away from me, and I felt like a deflated balloon. “Thanks. Please tell me how.”
Peter shook his head. “You have to remember how. I am sorry, but I cannot hold your hand through everything. I am really only here to protect you and try to correct your mistakes. But you must do most of these things yourself.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Oh, so you’re going to do like the goddamned good witch did to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, aren’t you?” I glared at him and tapped my foot. He was only here to fix my screw-ups. Well, these screw-ups were going to be legion and probably legendary, so he better get ready.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?”
“Glenda. I always hated that ending as a kid. I mean, Dorothy had to go through all that nonsense – getting kidnapped by the evil witch, being held hostage, going through that scary forest - only to find out that she had the power to get home all along, and that stupid Glenda knew it. Why couldn’t she just tell Dorothy at the beginning how to get home, and save her all that trouble?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Because then there wouldn’t be a story. I fail to see how Glenda’s betrayal of Dorothy, as it were, has anything to do with this situation at hand.”
“Because you have the information that I need to know right at your fingertips. You know you do. Yet, you’re going to make me work for it. Well, one of my best friends is dead, and I’m pretty sure that there’s a time limit for how long I get to bring her back, and you’re playing coy with me. This isn’t a time to be coy, buster. I need information and I need it now.”
“Well, since you asked for this information in such a polite and charming way,” Peter said.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Yeah? Go ahead.”
“I’m still not going to tell you.”
“Oh, you bastard. You just psyched me out just now. Usually when you say things like ‘since you asked for this information in such a polite and charming way’ implies that you’re going to tell me. Yeah, I know that you were employing sarcasm, and good on you, but come on. You need to tell me, and I think that you need to tell me now.”
“You have to think, Lyra. Think hard about the instructions that you received
. You received instructions for how to kill that demon. By the way, I will tell you that killing demons is not a one size fits all kind of endeavor. Each demon is going to require a little bit different kind of strategy in order for you to be successful. And you are correct, you do have a time limit in accomplishing this task.”
“How long of a time limit?”
“A matter of hours. You must reach her before rigor mortis sets in. That is the time limit that you face.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time for twenty questions at this point. “And how long is that?”
Peter shrugged, and I got the message. I was going to have to figure that one out as well.“You’re kind of useless, did you know that?”
“It’s by design.”
“Of course it is.” I then found my smart phone and Googled it. It told me that the body starts to stiffen right away, but that rigor mortis sets in about 8 hours after the body has gone cold. “Okay, looks like I really need to reach her as soon as I can, but, at any rate, I can’t go past 8 hours. Now, I have a time limit, and you’re still not helping me out in finding her.”
“I’m sorry, but your mother has informed me that there are limits on what I can do to help you. She’s very adamant that you must learn things from her, and only from her. As for the issue about the rigor mortis, I just wanted you to look that up on your own.” I glared at him and he smiled an amused smile. “What can I say, mate? I don’t like lazy students.”
“Ha ha. What did you mean, I must learn only from her?”
“She is the one who has been telepathically sending you instructions. The hour glass, the instructions you received before you killed that demon – it is all from her. You do have to understand, Lyra, that, once you commit to this assignment, which you will, because your loved ones will continue to be threatened if you do not, you must go and see your mother another time. She can give you more instructions and tell you what to expect. You also must learn the history for your family and of your coven.”
A coven. I was a member of a coven. I shuddered at that word. It sounded so…well, not exactly evil, but strange. When I was young, I associated witch covens with ugly old crones around a cauldron. When I got a bit older, I saw movies like The Craft, and the idea of witchcraft seemed to be a horror show. Literally. Those girls in that movie didn’t seem to know what they were doing, and all their spells horribly backfired. People died, others went crazy, and there was all kinds of mayhem going on. At any rate, it didn’t exactly give me a good feeling for witches. Yes, I knew that this movie was just that – a movie, and, as such, it no doubt dramatized everything. But still. I knew that magic was something that had to be used very, very carefully, because innocent spells could always be something that would turn out extremely wrong.
I couldn’t think about all that, though. I was suddenly afraid for all that was going to happen in my life. I also had the feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to run from it. I was a witch, and I apparently was one since birth. I was also selected, for whatever reason, to rid the world of demons. I personally couldn’t think of a lesser person to be assigned to do something like this, but I had to accept it. If I didn’t, people around me were going to die. I knew that my mother somehow set this whole demon scenario up – maybe she had a demon on payroll, like a hit person? – and she certainly did get my attention.
Mom is a woman who rhymes with witch. Nevertheless, I was just going to have to suck it up and accept my role in life.
Lyra, you have to think of all this later. Right now, you have to save Olive. Peter was still there, looking at me with those eyes of his, and he was annoying and intriguing all at once. I closed my eyes, trying to see the instructions that were sent to me when I encountered that demon. Get my hands around the neck, put the demon on the ground, strangle with a Celtic knot….I shook my head. There was something else.
I looked at Peter. “You really can’t give me even a hint?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. Your mother has informed me that it is important that you retain all the instructions that she gives to you. The reason for this is that I will not always be able to be around to decipher her instructions, and you must learn to pay attention. You must learn to pay attention to every instruction you get and retain them.”
I sat down at the table and tapped my fingers. There was something else that was transposed to me from my mother. What was it? There was a word, a certain word, that my mother gave to me. And it was a word that I had heard before.
There was a movie one time, I know that I saw it. A dying son goes home to make peace with his family. It starred the guy who was Dr. House’s good buddy. I quickly tapped on my smart phone, trying to figure out who played Dr. Wilson, who was the best friend of House on the television show House. Robert Sean Leonard. I quickly found on his IMBD page that he was in a movie called In the Gloaming. Gloaming, that was the word. I remembered it now. Another quick search indicated that the word “gloaming” literally meant “twilight.” Twilight, a period of time between light and dark. That would make sense that there would be a place where displaced souls could go when their body was being taken over by a demon. I wondered how many souls were in this Gloaming, and how I would be able to access it.
This gave me something to go on at any rate. I quickly went to Sybil’s book and looked it up. It explained that the gloaming was a world that was right between this world and the underworld or the Annwn, which is a place of peace and plenty. I guessed that this was the Celtic version of heaven, and the underworld was the place where the demons came from. It was interesting, though, that apparently the Celtic religion had no place like Hell in its mythology. There were fairies and places of pleasure, but nothing where a demon might arise.
Interesting. There seemed to be another realm that I was missing in all of this. I was guessing that there were other beliefs that permeated my particular coven – it didn’t necessarily seem to be all Pagan nor based upon the Celtic Mythology, even though that was implied by Peter that my mother was some kind of Celtic goddess.
Stop getting distracted, Lyra. Olive was needing me, and I was going to have to go down there and find her. Go down where, though? The Gloaming? I was nervous, because, after all, I had already gone down to Hell. Granted, it wasn’t necessarily bad, just annoying, but I knew that there was much worse to come. Plus, I felt that I literally dodged a bullet getting out of there, because Peter helped me out of there, but, the way that he was now acting, I had no idea if I could still rely upon his help.
“Peter!” I shouted, after I got the book open and saw the ritual that I would have to go through in order to get to this gloaming place. “Please come in here. I’ll be nice, I promise.”
Peter appeared in the room and crossed his arms. “I know that you’re promising to be nice, however I feel that that might be impossible for you, mate. But go on.”
“Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been such a crank lately, but you would be too if you were in my shoes. Anyhow, I need to ask you some questions about this Gloaming business.” Truth be told, I didn’t really have any questions on the process – the words on the page were pretty straightforward – but I did have a lot of fears about this. What would happen when I got there? Would there be all sorts of spooky spirits trying to get at me? Would there be any bad spirits down there, just waiting to be cast into Hell? Was there a chance that a bad spirit could attach himself (or herself) to me, and I wouldn’t be able to shake it off when I got back?
Would I easily be able to get back? Again, I was flying completely blind, I was resentful and terrified all at the same time. My mother just threw me into this, and told Peter not to give me too much help. Yeah, it was my fault for not hanging out in Rome to listen to her, but come on…A little help would be nice.
I also had to admit that I wanted Peter to hold my hand through this. This was worse than any haunted house, either fake ones or real ones. I had been to both – the cheesy haunted houses that were constructed for Halloween, where there were
actors and lots of black lights and dry ice, and the real ones where there were allegedly spirits hanging about – and the real ones were, by far, much more scary. But this was scarier still.
“Go ahead,” he said, his violet eyes flashing. He put his elegant hand up his mouth, as if he were contemplating something, and his eyes were inquisitive. He obviously was listening and was hopefully willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. No matter how bitchy I had been acting.
I looked down at my own hands and saw that I was shaking wildly. I cleared my throat. “I need to draw a circle with this chalk,” I said, holding up a piece of chalk that I got from Sybil’s box.
“Yes,” he said. “You must do that for all the rituals that you perform from this point on. It should be five feet in diameter, drawn clockwise. Go on.” He smiled encouragingly, but I was still apprehensive.
I carefully drew the circle after measuring out the five feet in diameter. I was surprised that I could do that with a steady hand, but somehow I did. I took a deep breath after I was done, and stood inside the circle. Peter stood just outside it, which was a bad sign that he, indeed, was not going to go with me on this journey.
“Four candles,” I said, getting some candles out. I tried to light them, but my hand was now shaking wildly. “Can you light them?”
“Of course.” He took out a lighter and lit each one and smiled at me again. “Don’t be afraid. This is something that you will have to do on some degree of regularity. You’re only afraid because this is a new thing to you. Think back to something that frightened you very much in the past, and how you felt once you did that thing with some regularity. That’s what this will be for you. Once you do it for the first time, and you’re successful, you’ll have the courage to do it many more times. And, by the way, you won’t have to go through this whole ritual each time – only this first time. The next times you go down there, you can just draw a circle in chalk, say the words, and you’re gone.”
Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One Page 11