Killing Rites (4)

by MLN Hanover

  Except if he hadn’t slept with Isabel, everything would be different. He wouldn’t have left Chapin’s cabal in the first place. He wouldn’t have met Eric or been there to lend a hand when I first got in trouble. He would never have been part of my little constructed family. And without him, I wouldn’t have gotten out of Chicago at all.

  The guy next door turned off his television. I heard the water running in the bathroom next door. A bath or a shower or shaving. That anonymous intimacy felt strange. I could put my hand against the wall and know that two, maybe three feet away, someone was going through the private motions of their night, just as if I weren’t there. The wind rattled the door, and Ozzie stretched, yawned, and went back to sleep. Alexander’s breath was deep and regular, and there was a little color coming back to his cheeks. I picked up my phone—almost midnight—and checked my e-mail. Three pieces of spam and a Pink Martini fan newsletter I’d signed up for last year and never unsubscribed from. The temptation to call someone—anyone—was almost overpowering. If not Ex, then Chogyi Jake. Or Aubrey. Or Kim. My little brother, Curtis. My old boyfriend from college whom I didn’t even want to talk to. Some other human voice.

  I’d had three families, really. My real one first: mother, father, Curtis, and Jay, and with them all my friends and enemies at church and school. Then college, and the intimate little circle around my boyfriend and his compatriots. And then the one I’d inherited from Eric. They didn’t overlap. No one from ASU had ever met my brothers. Aubrey and Ex and Chogyi Jake didn’t know anyone from those earlier parts of my life. There were conversations I’d never be able to have, because the people who could have carried the other half were scattered to the wind. My older brother was going to get married, and I’d never met the girl. My younger brother was going to graduate from high school soon, and then God only knew what he’d do. My friends from college had stopped talking to me even before I’d left. And now Aubrey was gone, back to Kim. And, not putting too fine a point on it, I was gone too.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “You there?”

  Alexander didn’t react. Ozzie lifted her muzzle, sighed, and tucked her head down again. My rider didn’t do anything, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t listening. When I spoke again, it was barely above a whisper.

  “When I was maybe five, the church kindergarten had this classroom pet, and whoever had the most gold stars at the end of the day got to feed him. Were you with me back then? Do you remember that?”

  I sat down in the chair again. The wind had calmed a little. The neighbor’s shower was done. My rider’s voice sounded tired, but also amused. Like she was remembering the same things I was.

  “Twinkle, the guinea pig,”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That was his name.”

  I leaned back in the chair. She didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t really feel her, there in my own body with me. Or maybe I was just so used to her being there that it was indistinguishable from normal. The idea that she’d always been there was comforting. I pulled up the phone’s web browser and read some celebrity gossip, downloaded a cheap pattern-matching game, and tried not to sleep. Every now and then, I’d hear a car pass by, tires humming against the blacktop. I wondered where Midian was, and if he’d gone through the centuries without friends or companions. It sounded like a terrible and lonesome existence, but maybe that came with being the kind of thing he was. Maybe it was like killing people. It just didn’t bother him.

  Ozzie’s head came up sharply. Her ears were canted forward, her wet eyes alert and focused on the door. She growled low and serious. I hadn’t heard anything. No cars had driven up. No footsteps on the wood outside. I rose up silently and put my hand on Alexander’s shoulder. His eyes opened and I nodded toward the front. He sat up, the bed creaking under him.

  The knock on the door was so soft and tentative, it would have been easy to sleep through. Ozzie looked from me to the door and back, anxious but quiet. I patted her back.

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  “Jayné?” a young girl’s voice said.

  “Dolores, is that—”

  The door burst in, the frame splintering as pure animal force pushed lock and bolt out of the wood. The stink of sewer filled my nostrils as the enemy rushed into the room, pulling the dark behind it.

  There was no mistaking who they were. Or, more to the p

  oint, who they had been. I recognized Dolores’s wide face. Her older sister, Soledad, still had the unmistakable resemblance of family despite the changes the rider had made to both of them. Their eyes were the perfect black of spent motor oil, and their skin was the same soft brown I’d seen in San Esteban, only covered now with a greenish film like something you’d find on lunch meat left in the back of a refrigerator for years. Dolores wore a dark velvet dress and white leggings soaked with sewage that also clung to her body. Big sister Soledad had blue jeans and a black T-shirt that were just as filthy. Dolores’s open mouth overflowed with a huge black tongue, and green-brown rivulets drained from her nostrils. Something like a black fog swirled behind and around them, particles of raw darkness pressing against the light. The stink was overwhelming and familiar.

  Behind me, I heard Alexander cry out, but I didn’t look back. Dolores—smaller by thirty or forty pounds—leaped in toward me. Her thin arms spread before her, her fingers spread in claws. Behind her, Soledad shrieked and lifted a fire axe over her head, ready to cleave my skull. And then I wasn’t driving. Dolores slashed at my belly as the axe blade came down. I felt the cold pain of claws against my skin, but my body turned away, letting the axe fall past my side and pull the larger girl off balance. My right hand closed in a fist, swinging hard toward Dolores’s thin chest, but the girl dodged. She moved with a jerking speed, like she was stop-motion animation that had forced its way into real life. Soledad leaped onto the dresser, holding her axe in both hands. My body started to turn toward her, but Dolores’s claws dug at my thigh, commanding my attention.

  The girl I’d saved a few days before grinned at me and spat. Her teeth were a stained yellow, and the voice that spilled obscenities from her lips was rough and guttural. My body shifted to the right, bringing up my left knee and kicking hard at her belly. She shifted, taking the worst of it as a glancing blow to the ri but I still thought I felt something give way under my heel and she stumbled back onto the chair.

  I’m sorry, I thought toward the little girl.

  She was eight. In a sane world, her biggest problem would be memorizing her times tables.

  My hip swung around, my weight following it. When I brought my elbow down, she slipped away. The chair disintegrated under my blow. Somewhere nearby, Ozzie was barking in a frenzy. Something behind me cracked like a baseball bat hitting a home run, but I couldn’t even look back to see what it was. Dolores’s hand was on my shoulder, the grip colder than snow and stronger than a vise. I heard my voice cry out in pain, felt myself stumble, and then she was up on my shoulders, thighs squeezing my neck and arms wrapped around me. I was blind, and my throat felt like it was about to collapse.

  Something in my larynx crackled—cartilage starting to give—and I tried to cough, but no air would go in or out. I started to panic, but my rider spread my stance, bending at the knee like a sumo wrestler, and then bent forward hard from the waist. Dolores spun down through the air, crashing through the front window. Her grip on my throat eased, and I sucked in foul air. I almost retched, but at least I was breathing. My flattened hands forced their way between the possessed girl’s legs and my own throat, and we strained against each other. Bones creaked like trees in a high wind, but millimeter by millimeter, she lost ground until all at once, she jumped away.

  “Betrayer!” Dolores cried in her loathsome voice, the thick tongue slurring the words. “Meat-fucker! You turn against your own kind for them, and you will suffer the price.”

  “Oh, whatever,” my rider said, then twisted and sunk a balled fist deep into the child’s solar plexus. I felt the heat of her will in the bl
ow, and the thing inside Dolores grunted, stumbling back. My head turned. The black fog put the whole room in twilight, lights that had burned gold now struggling to a dirty orange. Alexander was on his hands and knees, the older sister standing above him, axe raised above her head like an executioner. Ozzie had her teeth set in the girl’s right calf, pulling at it and growling. The axe arced down as Alexander rolled to the side. The axe rebounded off the floor with a grinding sound. The rip in the carpet bled black.

  Ozzie jumped back, barked, and lunged again, taking a fresh grip on Soledad’s leg. With a shout of rage, it turned its head, taking aim at the dog.

  “Stop,” my rider said. Or I did. It was getting hard to tell the difference. The force of our combined will was like an explosion. The thing riding Dolores’s sister turned toward me. Cold pressed out from it. A black, snake-long tongue slid out from between the girl’s lips, lolling down almost to her belly. Foul saliva dripped in ropes toward the floor.

  “The Desert has no hold over us,” it hissed. “We stand with the Father Ba’al.”

  “I don’t see Father Ba’al here,” my rider said. Soledad’s blackened eyes flickered once, looking behind me, and my body shifted, bending at the knee and swinging back an arm to meet Dolores in mid-leap. I caught her like a baseball, and my arms lifted the little girl over my head. From my distant place behind my eyes, I could feel her writhing, the slick feeling of her skin against my palms. The smell was nauseating. But even when the dark tongue draped down, smearing filth across my cheek, the Black Sun didn’t flinch. Alexander sat up, scooting on his ass until his back touched the wall. His eyes were wide, his face flour-dusted pale.

  “I am the Black Sun’s daughter. These people are under my protection,” my rider said. The voice was like mine, but deeper. More certain. “The dog’s under my protection too, so don’t fuck with her.”

  “Your protection means nothing,” Soledad said. Above me, Dolores was whimpering. Her thrashing was growing wilder. “We came to end you, and we will.”

  “You came to kill Jayné Heller,” my rider said. “And you came because she tricked you. She was the bait in this mousetrap, and I am the hammer.”

  Ozzie, backing up from the older sister, growled. Her bared teeth were worn and yellowed, but the old dog’s expression promised murder. Soledad looked back at her, then at me, then at Alexander rising slowly to his feet. Above me, Dolores began to wail. The older sister whirled, extending the axe so smoothly it seemed like part of her arm. My body had to move back to avoid the blade, and Soledad sprinted for the door.

  “Don’t leave me!” Dolores cried, but she was already gone. The unnatural darkness lessened a degree. The smell of filth became a little less overpowering. Alexander limped to the doorway.

  “Let it go,” my rider said, struggling to hold the thrashing child above me. “You can find it later if you need to. We have what we came for.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Alexander said. He was winded. Gasping for breath. If he doesn’t pull it together, I thought, we’re going to have to take him straight back to the hospital. “The noise. The police. They’ll come.”

  “They might,” my rider said. “But they aren’t here yet and she is.”

  My body turned a half step, shifted to the right, and slammed my burden down on the bed. The force of it broke the frame. The mattress tilted in toward the wall, headboard rattling. My hand was around the girl’s throat, and it felt like I was holding ice. The other rider’s tongue licked out, slathering my face with outhouse slime.

  “Take its name,” my rider said.

  Alexander stood beside the bed and lifted a thin silver cross. Behind him, Ozzie sat back, scratching her shoulder with a rear paw. When Alexander spoke, his voice was shaking.

  “I come in the name of Christ, and in His holy name I command you, beast. Reveal your name!”

  The thing in Dolores said something obscene and arched its back, trying to break free. The white sheet beside Dolores’s head was smeared yellow-green.

  “In the name of God, I command you! Reveal your name!”

  Alexander’s will batted against me like a moth blundering into a window. I heard footsteps coming behind us, but my body wasn’t my own. I couldn’t turn my head to look. Dolores shouted again, her voice deep as a gravel pit, her words sexual and delighted in their perversion. Jesus, I thought, there’s a kid in the room.

  “Reveal your—”

  “What the hell is going on in here?” a man’s voice said. My head turned toward the door. A Hispanic man in his middle sixties stood in the shattered frame. His white hair was wild from the pillow. When he caught sight of the thing writhing on the bed, his mouth went tight and thin. He looked from it to me to Alexander and back again.

  “We have it under control,” Alexander said. “I’m a priest.”

  “Okay, padre,” the old man said. “You need a shotgun? I got a shotgun.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Alexander said. “We’ve got it covered. Thanks, though.”

  The old man nodded, crossed himself, and stepped back into the night. A woman’s voice called out, and the old man said something in a calm, certain tone.

  “There are times I love New Mexico,” Alexander said, and then turned his attention back to the girl. “In the name of Christ, the Lord, reveal your name!”

  “I don’t answer to your God.” Dolores leered. “You and your—“

  My rider’s will rose up from the base of my spine, gathered in my throat, and pushed down my arm. When it reached my hand, the thing in Dolores shrieked. Ozzie, at my side, barked twice and looked up at me, wagging. She seemed to be having a good enough time.

  “Reveal your name!” Alexander said, pressing the thin silver cross forward. I felt my rider trying to gather her power for another strike, and I tried to add my own qi to hers. I had a momentary sense of gratitude, and then we bore down on the girl again.

  “Akaname!” it screamed. “I am Akaname of the tribe of Akaname of the legion of Akaname.”

  “How did you get in this girl?” my rider asked, but Alexander shook his head.

  “Don’t talk to it. Talking to it gives it power,” he said. And then, lifting his voice in a ragged shout: “In the name of Christ the Redeemer, I command you to leave this child.”

  His will was stronger this time, but I could see the cross trembling in his hands. I’d been on the other end of this rite, and I had the sense of what it would take. He didn’t have it in him. He was too weak, too injured, too tired. The thing inside of me hadn’t had it particularly easier. Between the fight with the wind demon and my own near exorcism, I didn’t know how much juice she had left in her. Like it was reading my mind, the Akaname smiled. Dolores’s lips were black, and the dark tongue lolled out of her open mouth.

  “I will not,” the Akaname said. “She is mine. Forever, she is mine. Shi-neh!”

  “We have to do this together,” my rider said, looking up at Alexander through locks of my hair. “Will you let me help you?”

  I saw him hesitate like a video holding a frame a little too long. It was asking him to cooperate with the kind of beast he’d dedicated his life to fighting against. The betrayal would be small. He just had to make common cause with a rider for a f minutes, just this once. The advantages were unmistakable. Going forward with the rite without joining his will to ours might kill him and exhaust us without ever freeing Dolores. And still, if he’d said no, I would have understood. Chapin would have refused.

  “All right,” he said.

  My free hand took his. Still locked in my own head, I felt an echo of him: the bone-deep weariness and the excitement. He had surrendered himself to this ceremony like a swimmer heading out to sea without keeping the reserves to come back. The Akaname writhed, trying to sit up or slide out from my rider’s grasp. The shattered bed creaked and dropped another couple of inches as another support gave way. Tendrils of shadow swirled in the air around us like living smoke.

  Alexander took a deep br
eath, nodded. He was ready. I threw all my own will behind the force rising in my body. Alexander’s eyes were closed, his lips moving in silent prayer, and I felt him beside me. The Black Sun, Sonnenrad, the Voice of the Desert, swirled around us. For a moment, the motel room was gone, and we crouched in a vast, empty plain. Something like a sun but not radiated something that wasn’t heat. The vastness flickered, and we were back in our little room with the chintzy wallpaper and the ruined bed and the stench. But when Alexander spoke, his voice had a weight and authority I hadn’t known he lacked until just then. The words seemed as solid as mountains, and implacable as the sea.

  “In the name of God, I command thee, demon. Go.”

  The sensation of the rider leaving her body was eerie. My hand was pressed hard against Dolores’s chest, fingers digging in to keep a grip despite the slime. As Alexander’s last word resonated, echoing in a space larger than the room we were in, I felt an icy mist rise between my fingers. It bit at the skin between my fingers, burning like acid, and then dissipated. The scent of the raw sewage boiled up, and I felt more than heard Alexander gagging as he sank down to his knees. His breath was heavy and ragged, like a man who’d just run a race. And then the enemy was gone. The room grew brighter as the unnatural darkness fled, and I had my hand on a little girl instead of a demon.

  Her eyes were just brown again, but shocked and empty. Her gaze shifted for a few seconds, disoriented and lost, before fixing on me. And I was driving. My body was once again my own. I stepped back, and her skin made a wet squelching sound. Dolores started to say something, and then her face became a mask of disgust. She rolled to her side and vomited. I stroked her hair while Alexander rose slowly to his feet and stumbled to the bathroom. I heard the water running in the sink, and by the time Dolores had control over her guts again, he was back, a wet white towel steaming in his hand. Dolores sat up, her arms held out from her body, trying not to touch herself.