Parts & Wreck

by Mark Henry

  Wade gritted his teeth, struggling beneath the demon’s grip. “You’re no lady,” Wade spat.

  Carlito shook off the phlegm on his cheek and glared back. “And you, sir, are no gentleman.”

  Wade pivoted his hips, using the demon’s weight against him. Carlito rolled across the rapidly emptying stage floor, the women having scrambled to the edge, screaming at the violence that someone other than they were perpetrating. All forgotten, apparently.

  Bounding to his feet, Wade crouched to meet Carlito’s charge. The possessed eyes in his head blazed red and gray steam drifted from his searing tear ducts. The air in the club warped with the acrid smell of sulfur. Wade readied himself. He didn’t have time for anything but the most radical course of exorcision, so he steeled and pointed his fingers in Carlito’s direction as though taking on a secret kung-fu stance. The demon laughed raucously and bolted across the stage. When he was a few feet away, Wade lunged, hands hammering forward, fingers needled as pliers and plucked the man’s eyes from his head.

  Carlito fell to the floor on his side, hands over the bleeding holes and legs kicking.

  “Call an ambulance!” Wade screamed, palming the retched organs and shaking his head in horror at the scene on the floor. He found it best to rely on the brevity of interaction and the speed of the exorcision in public spaces. And had learned from experience that pretending not to know what had happened goes a long way in altering people’s memory of a crisis event. But then he saw a pair of roaches bearing down on his shoe and added, “And an exterminator!”

  Bolstered by at least one resolution, Wade ducked behind the curtain and his clothes.

  The Ballpit was clear, the other strippers having evacuated when the riot occurred. So Wade could change in private and, more importantly, extract the hard token Sister Mary-Agnes had left him that was now pinching areas that were, shall we say, sensitive. He reached inside, extracting a Portland Grand card key.

  Quince must have gotten a deal on two rooms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Arriving back at the hotel, Wade tapped a message to Quince on his phone and waited for the return.

  “Penthouse,” it read.

  At least it would be a well-appointed exorcism, Wade thought. But couldn’t believe he was making jokes. All he wanted was to get himself set up beside the woman he had fallen in love with and make sure that nothing too terrible happened to her. That things would happen was beyond question. Wade had never witnessed an actual demon removal that didn’t leave scars.

  The elevator required a key swipe to even illuminate the penthouse floor and when the doors opened it was directly into the suite. Once a rambling, luxurious accommodation, the penthouse had been turned into a swirling tornado of hellfire and damnation. A pair of red velvet couches danced across the foyer blocking Wade’s approach. Atop one, Polly’s prone form bounced like dust on drumskin. He leaped on the other, driving it to the floor and hurtled the heaving upholstered back. When he rounded the hall to the formal living room, he heard the first scream.

  Assuming it was Luce, Wade scrambled through the rest of the rooms, throwing open doors and knocking back levitating lamps and tchotchkes until he barreled into the master suite.

  “Silence!” Sister Mary-Agnes chided, whipping her face in his direction.

  But she didn’t have to say anything. Wade had already begun to crumple at the sight before him.

  Luce—so pale, so still—tied by her wrists and feet to the four-poster bed. Candlelight washed over her papery skin. She appeared hollow and thinner than just an hour before.

  Empty.

  Wade dropped to his knees, the image blurring through his tears. She was gone; he was sure of it. His sobs rushed out of him uncontrollably. He’d only just found her. Found happiness. Found love and now…

  Gone.

  He’d lost her. He’d lost his Luce. His crazy, hilarious, brilliant Luce.

  His brain throbbed, pain shuttering his eyes. Anger exploded there. He was furious. Luce had died and where had he been? Carving out some demon eyes? It was ridiculous in comparison.

  Who was the one being distracted? But he didn’t really wonder that. He knew.

  It had been him.

  The entire affair was trivial bullshit.

  “Luce!” he cried out and rushed for the bed.

  “No!” Sister Mary-Agnes cried out.

  Luce’s eyes snapped open and Wade fell back, stunned.

  She rose in the air as though lifted by a belt around her hips. Anchored only by the restraints, her back cracked with each upward thrust and though Quince tried, she couldn’t pull her back to the mattress.

  Wade tossed away his belt and removed his shoes because for what he had planned, he didn’t want there to be any chance that his clothing could harm Luce in any way. He patted his pockets last and threw his cell phone onto the carpeted floor before climbing onto the bed beside Luce’s levitated figure. He pushed at her stomach, reducing the severity of the bow in her back and then once she was closer to the mattress, threw one leg over and straddled her, using his weight to pin her to the bed.

  “Watch your face!” Quince warned and though he didn’t want to see, he glanced in the direction of Luce’s mouth, snapping madly, gums bleeding.

  Everything you’d expect of a demon trying desperately to stay inside a living person. Wade reached up quickly and rested his palm firmly on Luce’s cheek. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, her nose draining, and the heat coming off her brought an instant sweat to wherever their bodies touched—quite a bit of area considering Wade was wrapped around her like a tortilla on a burrito. He pushed her snapping jaw aside and pinned his head low and next to hers so that she couldn’t turn it.

  Luce wailed with fury and bucked beneath him, but he had her, and he wasn’t about to let Hitch break her spine.

  “You’re good,” Hitch said into the pillows beneath him, the words muffled, but Sister Mary-Agnes was the patron saint of pillow biters so she got it immediately.

  She read from the rites, the holy texts governing exorcism with a little bit of her own flavor thrown in just to bring things up to date. She began with the usuals.

  “The power of Christ compels you,” which she said, ad infinitum, flicking Luce’s face and the back of Wade’s neck with holy water at first and then dumping glasses of the stuff on them when that didn’t have the effect she was after.

  Luce’s screams were a chorus of voices and Wade found that her pain was his, tears streamed down his face. He longed for it to be over, for her to come back to him.

  “What are you saying?” Sister Mary-Agnes shouted. The room had exploded with sound, drawers banging open and shut, paintings jettisoning from walls and bulleting around looking for soft flesh to impale.

  “I’m sayin’, come back to me,” Wade said.

  “She can’t hear you yet. And short of cutting off her jaw, which is the entry point. Luce had some jaw surgery in her childhood it turns out and there’s a tiny fragment of cadaver bone lodged inside there.”

  Wade’s heart sank. So there’d be no easier way to handle this. The rites of exorcism needed to be carried out in full.

  Sister Mary-Agnes chanted through the night, the telephone rang several times with complaints from the floor beneath them, and Quince was quick to offer to buy out those rooms, if the hotel would relocate their guests.

  At about five in the morning, something seemed to break. Luce became limp in his arms and Mary-Agnes came in close beside him.

  “Get away, now, boy,” she said, pulling at his arm.

  Wade lifted his head back and looked down at Luce’s placid face, bluer than he’d have liked to see, but not dead. Her lips were chapped from screaming, from lapping at them over and over, but her eyes were closed and she seemed peaceful, thank God.

  If he could have he would have gone through the pain in her place, but Wade knew better than to make that offer. He was certain the demon would take him up on it and they seemed to have nefarious
plans for Wade.

  As if demons could have any other kind. Certainly not tea parties or a pub crawl.

  As he slowly crept away, Sister Mary-Agnes continued her missive. “It is Christ himself that compels you!” she insisted, dabbing Luce’s forehead with a holy water dampened washcloth.

  Then she pulled out the big guns, a silver crucifix that had been bowed on its back to fit the forehead of a possession victim. Wade had to look away, but he couldn’t shut out Luce’s screams. This time they were hers alone. The demons had recoiled from her vocal chords, going somewhere deep inside her, far beyond cadaver grafts.

  Hitch was regrouping himself into demonic form.

  Quince hugged herself in the center of the room. “He’s coming out,” she whispered.

  Wade looked for a weapon, something sharp and long and deadly and ended up breaking apart a chair from the dining room and returning with a pair of nasty stakes, perfect for vampires or the centipede that was about to force its way out of his girlfriend and partner.

  He stood at the ready as the verses continued, as Sister Mary-Agnes’s voice rose to a fever pitch and Luce’s body began to convulse. The black frothy liquid he knew was being pushed up her esophagus like a wave before the demon as it rose within her and then it was there, peeking from behind her teeth.

  “Come on, Hitch. You’ve had a good run in there. Let her go. Let her be happy now.”

  “She didn’t know she wasn’t until you, Wade. But you haven’t helped as much as you think? Your temper cut her off from you. You couldn’t communicate something as simple as the fact that you believed she was possessed herself? Sickening.”

  Sister Mary-Agnes raised the holy-water disperser once more.

  Hitch cried, “I’ll go back in, woman. You put that down and back away and I’ll crawl out nice as pie. I won’t even bring her intestines up with me. My favor to you.”

  Both of them stood down a bit, though Wade’s grip on the stake was steady and his aim as true as it could be for having gripped Luce tightly for half the night.

  Luce’s mouth slowly opened and the creature dragged itself free, multiple legs pinching at her flesh as it plopped, wet onto the sweat and holy-water-soaked sheets. The demon thing recoiled from the water there and scampered down the bedskirt and under the bed before Wade could act.

  He fell to his knees and ripped the fabric back from the frame and watched in horror as the tail end of Hitch’s insectoid form slithered into an open heating vent. He slammed his fist against the floor and screamed, “Dammit! I’ll get you, you bastard!”

  Wade listened as the thing scrabbled against metal, a screeching echoing from the vent, whiny and mechanical in its insistence. Searching for an exit. Rising, he rushed to the window and threw it open, scanning the places where the streetlights pooled amber on the sidewalk. At that hour, Wade would have been surprised to see anyone roaming that didn’t have a shopping cart full of garbage bags, but there was someone.

  Someone familiar.

  Standing next to a white van, Aaron Statlender waited, perfectly still.

  “Look at this,” Wade said, calling Quince and Sister Mary-Agnes to his sides, the three of them cramming into the window.

  From their floor, it was difficult to get a look at the man’s face, his spiky blond hair cast it in black lines, but when Hitch escaped his bricked prison through a street grate and slithered across the sidewalk toward Aaron, the man threw his head back, illuminating an expression that was idyllic, passioned.

  Wade groaned, knowing what was coming, having seen it too many times.

  “Jesus,” Quince muttered.

  “He’s not in right now. You’ll have to leave a message,” Sister Mary-Agnes said, but there was no snark left in her voice, just horror.

  Hitch’s dark carapace climbed Aaron’s leg like it had found a winding staircase, traveling up the length of the man’s body in seconds. Unlike Rachel, and Catherine, Aaron Statlender didn’t struggle, he opened his mouth and swallowed the demon down greedily, throat bucking and bulging. Moments later, his whole body spasmed and then stilled once more.

  Aaron glanced up at the penthouse and gave the three of them a broad smile and his middle finger before traipsing around the front of the van, disappearing inside, and driving away.

  Wade watched, numb, as the vehicle faded into the distance. He’d have his day with Hitch and it would be a violent end.

  But not just then.

  Their fight had been going on since his father died. From Catherine to Rachel and now Luce. And it would go on.

  Wade rushed back to the bed and palmed Luce’s forehead. Her groaning continued. His heart ached in response. Her throat would be raw. But she was alive and that’s what mattered.

  “What the hell happened back there?” he asked.

  Quince sat down on the bed next to Luce, petting her soaking wet hair. “The way I figure it. Astaroth and Bugenhagen had a deal that we weren’t aware of. We now believe that the bishop was the source of the information, luring us all to that final showdown tonight in the hopes of opening up a portal.”

  “There was an altar in the back.”

  “And Demons love a good shit show,” Sister Mary-Agnes said.

  Quince expounded. “Humiliation. It’s a huge draw. Pulls ’em right up out of hell and that place was packed with sick mamas ripe for possession.”

  “But that didn’t happen.” Wade scratched his head. “Instead I got molested!”

  Sister Mary-Agnes strode to the window and swept back the curtain looking into the darkness of the Portland night. “We figure Hitch, or Astaroth, actually might have distracted Bugenhagen. But it was clear you were part of it. As was your little aversion. He knew about your childhood trauma.”

  Wade shook his head. It didn’t make sense.

  “Wade?”

  Luce’s voice was weak, hoarse and her eyes lilted downward to the foot of the bed where he crouched watching her, hopefully. “Wade?”

  He didn’t need to be asked again. Wade bounded up to her and tore her bindings free, sweeping her into his arms and holding her as tight as he could. He kissed the crown of her head and whispered that he loved her over and over as they took their exit.

  …

  Wade carried Luce through the penthouse, into the elevator and back to the room they were meant to share, the room he’d meant to impress her with, to lavish her with pleasure. It had become a place to nurse her back to health, to ease suffering and give her peace of mind. He ordered a bounty from the room-service menu and told them to bring it in an hour.

  He ran a hot bath and eased Luce into the warm water, climbed in behind her. He needed to be as close to her as possible for the anxiety to release him.

  “You’re shaking.” Her head lolled against his chest and she craned her neck to capture his gaze, but what she saw there hurt her heart. His concern had etched lines into his face, creasing his forehead deeply. His eyes, ringed blue, spoke volumes but deciphering facial expressions had never been Luce’s forte. “Are you sad?”

  Wade nodded. “I should have explained everything before we made love. I feel like I’ve lied to you, deceived you. That I knew about Hitch and suspected that his origins were, well, hell, was wrong. I was so afraid. So destroyed when I saw you on that bed.”

  “You were under a lot of pressure,” she said. Though she’d had the same discussion with Hitch. Wade should have told her. “Did it?”

  “Did it what?” Wade wet the washcloth and rubbed the bar of hotel soap into it, lathering and then stroking the cloth across her aching wrists.

  “Did it embarrass you, to bring it up? We sat in that car for twenty minutes dropping off the Bishop.”

  “I guess I just hoped that it was a hallucination and not another person I love with a damn demon inside them.”

  “A person you love?” Luce tried to sit up, to turn and finally said, “Help me.”

  Wade drew his legs back from her sides and lifting her gently turned her to face him.
“Yeah. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this. It’s been since Catherine died. Since Hitch killed her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hitch is a very strong demon, Luce. His person has been split more than just about any Legion. He was in you, in Aaron, too. That’s how he was able to control Aaron at the same time. I’ve known parts of the demon that was inside you since my father was first possessed. His name is Astaroth and he’s—”

  “—a prick,” Luce finished. “Can we get back to the love part?”

  Wade nodded. “In a minute. I wanted you to know why I resisted your wily ways for so long. Rachel was certainly a piece of it, but I didn’t love her. She was a good person. Solid. My wife, Catherine, though died in such a similar fashion that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love again. Until you, Luce.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” Luce looked up into his eyes, “I’m not sure I’ve ever loved anyone. Before you, I mean. And I do, I love you so much it aches.”

  “Could you say that again? We’re going to need a taped confession of that.”

  “Shut up.”

  Wade leaned down to brush her lips with his and she shuddered beneath him.

  Luce closed her eyes and began to drift as Wade continued to bathe her. “That’s nice,” she murmured.

  He lingered on her breasts, tracing her nipples in warm terry cloth circles as soft as he could. Luce moaned softly and shifted her weight. Wade scooped her up, cradling her in his arms, positioning her above him. Resting her weary head on his shoulder, she reached for his cock beneath the surface and stroked him until his jaw ached from holding back. When he could take no more he gently lowered her hips, finding the place where he so perfectly fit and lingered there until they were both calling each other’s name.

  …

  Luce woke as Wade crept from the tub, fat droplets of bathwater tickling her exposed skin. She gave him a smile and watched him strip off his wet boxers and pull on a terry-cloth robe. There was muffled speech in the other room, Wade’s deep voice and another and then through the crack in the door, the most amazing scents wafted. She could swear she smelled burgers, fries, chocolate, apple pie, and coffee.