Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1)

by J. P. Jackson

  “Great. Well, I’m not doing this in the dark.” I glanced around and found a candle and some matches. Once that one was lit, I went through the entire house, lighting as many candles as I could find.

  I lit some incense too. I would have burned a hundred incense sticks if that would have gotten rid of the stench.

  There was a small table in the living room up against the wall that had all kinds of magical stuff on it. If I remembered right, Mira had called it her altar. It had a caldron, a pentagram etched into it, crystals and candles, and more incense. There was a wand over to one side, and a little carved dragon sitting at one of the points of the pentagram.

  Just cool shit everywhere. If it wasn’t for the stink, I would have spent all day there.

  But I had things I was supposed to be trying to find. Anything that might help Dati and Hemming, and maybe something to get rid of them. As I glanced over my shoulder, there they were, standing in the kitchen, eyeing me.

  Shudder.

  I stepped away from the altar and went down the hall towards the bathroom and bedroom. Mira lay in the middle of the hallway, still dead. But her shriveled old body was bloated, and the smell of rot was really heavy and stuck in my nose. I pinched my nose closed as I stepped over the dead body and went into the bedroom, except I misjudged and my shoe stepped on Mira’s hand. The flesh squished away and fluid spurted out of the arm.

  “Ugh god, that’s disgusting. Honestly, girl,” I said. I giggled a little. It shouldn’t have been funny, but actually, it was kind of a little funny.

  I had never been in the bedroom before.

  I opened drawers, trying to find anything I thought might help. I really didn’t know what I hunted for, but surely there had to be something. Something more magical than oversized granny panties. I held up a pair of Mira’s undergarments.

  There was a big old dusty bed, which despite the grubbiness of it seemed all too comfortable, a dresser, with more knickknacks scattered over the top of it. I ignored it all. I opened the closet, though, and squealed with delight.

  For an old woman, there were some cool clothes hidden in the back! Most of it was old lady stuff, but there was a top with really intricate ruffling down the center of the shirt and at the sleeves. I took it off the hanger and held it up to my body. Looked like it should fit. After several minutes, I had found a few items that were retro funky and decidedly Goth.

  I stripped and tried on a few items. The zombie girls stood there, the one watched me with her dead orbs as I removed my clothes. That made me feel a little weird. They were standing on the other side of the bed. I turned my head so I couldn’t see them.

  “Fuck them.”

  The clothes fit perfectly! How awesome was this? The old woman actually had clothes that I could wear, and on top of it, they were kinda cool.

  At least I wouldn’t have to be wearing Dati’s old hand-me-down stuff that hung off of me like garbage bags.

  I decided to go with a long flowing black skirt, the ruffled blouse with the bat-like sleeves, and a short bolero-style vest that was maybe just a touch too snug. It certainly accentuated my boobs, and I didn’t really have much there, so this made me appear more chesty, and older. I also found a cloak with a cowl hood that would be better to shield away the wind than that frilly old scarf from the coffee shop.

  On the dresser, thrown in among the assorted items, there was the most spectacular necklace that was strung out on a black metal chain with a huge raw chunk of amber.

  I put it on, gently caressing it when it hung right on my neck.

  I judged my new outfit in the mirror.

  Now that looks like a witch. Sweet!

  The old gal had taste after all. Funny, I had never seen her wear any of this stuff; she always had on oversized grandma muumuus whenever I had visited, even if that had only been a few times.

  Other trinkets cluttered her dresser: rings, a couple of pairs of earrings, one of which I popped in to my earlobes right away, little dragons which dangled down, making them appear as if they were flying around my head, and then took the other clothes from the bed and stuffed them into the backpack.

  It was just a few things, and it was not like Mira would be using them.

  I went back out to the living room in search of bug removal…things.

  This time, I studied the altar again a little more carefully. Surely there had to be something that could help.

  That’s when I saw the old leather book sitting on a shelf by itself, just under the altar. All kinds of symbols were carved into the front, although I only recognized the pentagram. I ran my fingers over the cover before sitting on the carpet with it on my lap. It flipped open totally by itself.

  The pages were blank. No writing, just yellowed sheets of paper. This couldn’t be right. Maybe I had the book upside down? I flicked through to the entire book. Nothing—just empty pages.

  This was just stupid.

  Shit. I slapped the book in frustration.

  An odd sensation began, like a baby animal sucking on my fingertips.

  I tried to pull my hands away from the book, except I couldn’t move my hands—they were stuck.

  I brought my hands together, clenching the book closed, and then saw why.

  The leather binding had melted. No, that wasn’t the right word, but the leather of the book was crawling up my fingers, swallowing my hands. I tried shaking the book, but it was fixed.

  “Let me go!” Nothing happened with that either.

  The leather looked like it had eaten all of my fingers. My thumbs were still free, but the fingers were glued in tight. There was no way this was coming off.

  I felt that tightening in my chest and small beads of sweat forming on my forehead as I started to panic. What the Hell?

  That’s when I screamed.

  Pins pushed against my skin. The needle felt fat, like the end of a pencil. On each finger, points were pressing down harder and harder.

  The pain was excruciating. Spots appeared before my eyes, and I began to swoon a little. The pain reminded me of Master’s summons, but my body held on. There was no passing out. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and blood trickled across the back of each hand.

  But then the book whipped open on my lap, my fingers still attached and the pain in each digit growing intense.

  I clenched my jaw as the book began to write out words and symbols on the very first page.

  The symbols were strange and overlapped. They would appear and then disappear being replaced by new signs. I recognized none of them, but one word ran across the front page. I could read that word:

  GRIMOIRE

  The book itself was alive, pages flipping back and forth, writing ancient spells and incantations in red ink.

  Blood-red ink.

  My blood.

  The pages welled up with pictures, words, and symbols emanating out from the center of the spine, until every single page held charts, tables, diagrams, and everything a witch would need to cast hundreds and hundreds of spells.

  Tears rolled off my cheeks and blurred my eyesight by the time the book finished writing itself. Some dropped onto the book’s pages, staining them, and making the fresh blood scatter as if splashing on a water-colour painting.

  It took forever to finish. But as soon as the pages were full, the book spat my fingers back out.

  The three vacant bitches hovered in the dining room. I could tell they were judging me for crying.

  “Fuck off!” I screamed at them and threw the first thing my hand could find, which was a throw pillow. The pillow went right through Sis.

  I wiped my face off with the sleeves of the ruffled blouse. Inspecting each of my fingers, I discovered holes in each, large enough to stick a toothpick into.

  My hands throbbed. I felt a little light-headed after donating so much blood.

  “Fucking thing.” I kicked the book. Like what the fuck?

  I knew what a grimoire was. It was a witch’s book of spells. Why would Mira have kept this from m
e?

  But despite the brutal introduction and the fact that Mira had never shown me the tome, a little voice inside my head told me it was exactly the place to look for help to heal Dati and get rid of the bugs inside of me.

  I picked it up with one hand—I was never going touch the thing again with both hands—and I put it on my lap. There was a faint red tinge to it now. The book appeared burnt red.

  “Not impressed,” I scolded it.

  Annoyed with the stupid thing, I opened up the book.

  Beside me an opened mouth screamed. “Jesus fucking Christ!” That scared the Hell outta me. It was the first time any of them had made anything other than a mumble or gurgle. I glanced sideways, and Sis’s face hung inches away from my ear.

  I shook my head, ignoring them, thumbing through pages and pages. There was tons of crap in the book. I could have spent hours going through it and still not find anything useful.

  Some of it wasn’t even in English. Hell, most of it was scribbled in symbols. Besides, it’s not like it had a table of contents. Or did it?

  I fumbled my way past the grimoire page. It was a spell. Ha! And a good spell at that! “How to Make Him Love You” was the title.

  “I just want to find something to heal those wounds!” I yelled at the book.

  Pages rushed forward, falling still a moment later. The title simply said, “Staunching.”

  “Okay, um….Thank you?”

  It was just a single page with a list of ingredients and some instructions.

  Well, this had to count for something. Maybe this would work. I studied the list of ingredients and instructions:

  Shredded raw potato

  Cinnamon

  Sea Salt

  Vinegar

  Blood from dead flesh

  Fresh rain water

  Stir together ingredients after the sun has set, churning counterclockwise for exactly nine minutes. All the items must be thoroughly mixed in that time.

  In cheesecloth, take fistfuls of the matter and squeeze all fluid until mostly dry.

  After washing the wound, pack it with the poultice and let sit for six hours. Remove, wash, and repeat two more times. Then leave the wound to heal on its own.

  Well, that was fairly simple. I could get almost all of those things at the grocery store around the corner from Dati’s apartment. I guessed the book was coming along with me. After all, it was written with my blood.

  Should I really be taking these things? I guess Mira was supposed to have been alive, and she was supposed to have taught me all the witchy bits that Dati had told me about. And it wasn’t really Dati’s responsibility to get this all right. That should have been Mira’s job. And clearly she wouldn’t be doing it. I could see Mira’s feet from the couch. They were sticking out from the hallway.

  Another wave of shivers trickled down my spine.

  This place was getting really creepy. I needed to grab stuff and go.

  There was a little carved dragon statue sitting on the altar next to a wand with a blood-red crystal on the end. Powerful magic maybe? Which one should I take? I decided to take both even though the wand was long, almost too long to fit in the backpack. I had to stuff it in sideways, and even then, the zipper wouldn’t completely close.

  It was a cool wand, though, completely wrapped in copper wire, with swirls and whirls up one side of it. The handle was wrapped in black leather, and it had a strong smell coming from it, earthy and woodsy. I liked it.

  And so, with a plan in mind and several items in tow and now dressed in a new retro outfit with a full backpack, I blew out the candles. No sense in letting the place burn to the ground.

  I stood over Mira’s body. It seemed wrong to leave her behind like this. I took the afghan off the back of the couch and covered her body with it. That made a surreal image. With the blanket draped over her old, decaying body, it looked like she was taking a nap in the middle of the hallway.

  The final nap. And with that, I left the house.

  The vacant zombies waited with me at the bus stop. I pulled the cowl up over my head so I couldn’t see them.

  God, I hope they don’t start screaming on a regular basis.

  The autumn night was cold. I was happy to crawl onto the stinky public transit vehicle. The new skirt and cloak billowed out from behind me as I moved down the center aisle to the last seat on the bus. No one even glanced at me, no one cared.

  More importantly, no one knew who I was or what I was capable of doing.

  That made me smile an evil little grin.

  Trapped

  ALYX

  I peeled my eyelids open through a layer of gunk only to see a grey, dusky world like when you first wake up in the morning and the sun hasn’t come up yet. With every blink, grit shifted further into my dry eyes. My hot breath clouded beneath my nose and smelled of rotting meat. Was I under the covers?

  My thoughts felt thick and foggy, as if I had drunk far too much last night. I couldn’t really think right. A dull thud like a hammer smacking my head accompanied every beat of my heart. This was one Hell of a hangover. I swear I could hear my blood moving, and it was far too loud.

  My stomach lurched and heaved. Bile rose in throat, its bitter taste stuck in my mouth. My tongue had disappeared; in its place was a dry dishcloth. I attempted to lick my lips, but the rag inside my mouth only rasped over chapped lips that were cracked and sore.

  My whole body begged to be scratched, like that summer I had accidentally rolled in poison ivy. I was sure I could feel the angry welts and pus-filled blisters covering me.

  I tried to reach up to rub my face.

  I barely moved an inch before my hand hit something hard and rough. I couldn’t move, but then, I was so groggy and exhausted…

  MY NEXT CONSCIOUS thought was the sight of purple eyes, the irises morphing into purple butterflies that shimmered and danced in front of me. My body still itched all over, although my stomach had settled. Eyelids fluttered open. I lay still, staring directly in front of me. But there was nothing but dim shadows. I didn’t feel quite as woozy, but I wanted to dig my nails into my skin; my flesh wanted to be rubbed and scratched.

  The muscles in my legs were aching. They needed to move.

  But I couldn’t move. The covers around me were hard, not like bed sheets at all. I was trapped.

  A stabbing pain erupted from my stomach, arching up my spine and exploding into my head. My brain was on fire.

  Panic surged through me. My breath quickened as I broke out in a cold sweat. I opened my mouth and screamed, trying to bang my head against the barrier that kept me hostage.

  The more I moved, the more intense the fire burned. My skin was melting; my hoarse shouts and pleas for help went unheard.

  Eventually I tired. My throat burned from yelling, and my voice was nothing more than croaks. I gave up. My thoughts wandered, and I remembered standing in the threshold of the apartment I had been sent to by Silenus. The man with two-coloured eyes was there, warning me…

  My knees had buckled under me, but as I collapsed, strong arms had grabbed me and held me close. My head spun, and the room swirled before me.

  Gazing into two strangely coloured eyes, I could feel he was hot. Even through my clothes, his body heat soaked into my skin.

  A deep, reassuring voice whispered, “I will look after you.”

  I AWOKE AGAIN. Still there was nothing but darkness.

  Before, I had felt the need to itch, to dig my fingers into my flesh and scrape. Now a thousand knives stabbed at me. My hips ached all the way down to the bone, the pain throbbing and radiating to the base of my spine.

  I tried to roll over to take the pressure off of my backside. Maybe lying on my side would alleviate the pain.

  Except I still couldn’t move. Something hard and rough was all around me, like I had been buried in dirt or rocks.

  Something flipped in my brain. All I could feel was panic.

  My stomach tightened into a knot.

  Goosebumps e
rupted on the surface of my skin from fear. A cold dread burst into a wildfire of confusion. I wanted to run, to bust out of where I was, to be free.

  I gathered all my strength and jerked my arm. It moved a fraction of an inch, followed by what I was sure was a long blade piercing through the flesh, travelling between the bones, pinning me. I let out a shriek, but the tomb in which I was covered muffled the sound. It angered me. I felt my eyeballs grow hot. I growled.

  Breathe, Alyx, just breathe. Don’t panic.

  A lump formed in the back of my throat as the flames of fear consumed all thoughts in my head. Bolts of energy ran through my body as I strained all my limbs against the thing that held me hostage.

  Swords ripped through each limb in retaliation to my motion, but I was still encased.

  I sobbed. Tears ran down my cheeks.

  Another dagger pierced my throat, punishing me for the sounds I made. Every time I moved, pain rippled through my entire body. Breathing became a laboured task, trying to catch enough air to fill my lungs, but it felt like a foot crushed my chest and kept me pinned down.

  My breath quickened again.

  Dati said he would look after me.

  I inhaled as deeply as I could, over and over, slowly filling my chest with air.

  I can survive this.

  I just had to relax.

  My stomach dropped, and the blades that inflicted the white-hot pain faded as the ground melted from under me. I fell through the darkness until layers of smoke—clear, white, wispy mist—swirled around me. Mist clung to my skin and covered me like soggy clothes. My toes touched the moist, cold ground.

  A babbling brook gurgled through the glen, and small river rocks sparkled where the moonlight beamed its way through hundred-year-old trees with gnarled trunks and roots.

  I sighed in relief.

  I wasn’t dead, or if I was, I had at least come to my glen—my safe place. This was calming. This was familiar. I immediately made my way over to my favourite rock. The flat surface was comfortable and gave me a wide view of the lush forest before me.