The Paranormalist
5: The Possessed
WILLIAM MASSA
Critical Mass Publishing
Copyright © 2021 by WILLIAM MASSA
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Raul Ferran/shutterstock
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Also by WILLIAM MASSA
About the Author
Chapter One
The demon had returned.
Laura McCormick felt the dark presence as it wormed its way through her terrified soul. Probing, prodding, infiltrating her most cherished, most private moments. There were no more secrets, no emotions that she could call her own anymore.
Laura gripped her pulsing head, and a scream of pure anguish exploded from her lungs. With a violent spasm, her eyes snapped open, air escaping through clenched teeth as she jerked awake in her king-sized bed. Her breath came in ragged bursts as sweat dripped down her face in fat droplets. Her sheets were soaked and tangled, but that wasn’t the worst part.
A muscular arm was wrapped around her heaving form.
Disoriented, she stared at the man who was pinning her to the mattress. For a terrifying beat, she thought she was looking up at a stranger. Then the confusion passed and she recognized her husband.
"It's okay, honey," Jory whispered. "You had a nightmare. Everything will be alright. Just breathe."
His words broke through Laura's panic, terror giving way to a growing sense of exhaustion. She took in the pastel-colored walls of her bedroom, lit by strips of pale moonlight seeping through the half-closed curtains. She was home. She was safe.
"Oh my God, it felt so real," Laura said, voice a strangled whisper.
Jory loosened his hold on her, sensing that the worst was over. He handed her a cup of water. Laura greedily welcomed the cool liquid against her cracked lips.
This scene had become a familiar ritual for them, but it seemed to be getting worse each night. Why had the past come back to haunt her, now of all times?
Laura took a deep breath and slipped from the covers.
"You okay?"
Her husband's question hung in the air, unanswered.
No, I'm far from okay, Laura thought as she reflexively gave Jory the thumbs-up sign.
She shuffled toward the bathroom, feeling his concerned gaze following her.
Ten years had passed since that fateful day when true evil invaded her reality. She'd been sixteen, a happy young girl with her whole future ahead of her. Sure, she'd experienced her fair share of teen angst, but the insecurities and confusion of those years paled when compared to the terrible darkness that followed. Mere days after she celebrated her sixteenth birthday, a monstrous entity entered Laura's soul. The demon corrupted her spirit, turned her world into a living nightmare. But she'd survived the ordeal, thanks to Father Andara, the exorcist who freed her.
It hadn't been easy, but she gradually moved past her horrific experience. She met Jory, fell in love, got married, had a child. More and more, those terrible memories had faded in the rear-view mirror of her life… until six days ago. That's when the nightmares started up again, growing more vivid each night. In her dreams she was back in her childhood home, a young, defenseless teenager at the mercy of a foul creature that hungered for her soul.
Laura leaned over the bathroom sink, turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her red face. It felt good against her feverish skin.
Laura toweled off and eyed her haunted reflection. She barely recognized the ashen-faced ghost staring back at her from the mirror.
Could nightmares age a person in a few nights? Then again, these weren't ordinary dreams. They seemed more like resurrected memories, infused with the terror of the trauma she had survived.
The demon is gone, she told herself. It can’t hurt you anymore.
Still so naive, Laura, a voice inside her responded. I promised I’d have your soul, and I keep my promises. And this time around, no priest with a crucifix is going to tear us apart.
The thought came unbidden, ripping through Laura’s mind like a bolt of lightning. Her entire body went rigid and she held onto the sides of the porcelain sink with all her strength, bones sharply outlined against the skin.
“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “You’re not real.”
Is that any way to welcome an old friend?
Swallowing a scream, Laura bolted back into the bedroom, desperate for the warmth of her bed and the strength of her husband's embrace.
Pale moonlight shafted into the room and cloaked Jory in shadow. Even without seeing his face, Laura knew he was wide awake, his deep concern palpable. She was a lucky woman to have such a caring, understanding man in her life. Jory's love had nurtured her for years, the light in his heart pushing back the darkness of her past.
Until now.
Laura…
She froze, praying that the alien thoughts ricocheting through her head were her own. Losing her mind was terrible, but the alternative would be so much—
Laura, stop being a rude little bitch and look outside your window.
She wanted to hide her head under her pillow and pretend none of this was happening. But there was no running from the demon. No hiding. Feet moving of their own volition, she drew closer to the window.
That's a good girl, don't be scared now.
Fuck scared. Laura was terrified. Her heart clawed at her rib cage as she pressed her forehead against the frosty glass. A thin film of condensation obscured the nocturnal landscape outside.
As if in a trance, Laura wiped away the water droplets and peered into the blackness beyond. Her next breath caught in her throat as her roaming gaze landed on the figure silhouetted beneath her bedroom. A figure sculpted from shadows, it lurked just outside the circle of light cast by the streetlamp.
The entity jerked to life, taking a determined step into the light.
Laura swallowed a scream as the face of the nocturnal trespasser grew visible in the milky haze. She was looking down at… herself. Correction: at a distorted funhouse mirror version of herself.
A dark grin stretched the waxlike skin, eyes sparkling with a devilish light. And then the features melted into a shapeless mass, and the intruder erupted into flames. The roaring fire failed to hide the sardonic smile pasted across the doppelgänger's face.
Horrified, La
ura recoiled from the window and caught a nauseating whiff of acrid smoke. The sound of roaring flames assaulted her eardrums, and she realized the fire was no longer just outside.
She spun around. Her bed had transformed into a raging inferno. Laura watched in horror as ravenous flames engulfed Jory. He was writhing in agony, but no scream escaped his throat.
Laura recoiled from the searing heat, fresh tears pearling down her face. The form on her burning bed, now only vaguely recognizable as human, stopped moving, succumbing to the blaze. More flames licked up the wall and spread across the ceiling, a tsunami of heat.
Jory was gone. Her rock, her true love. How was she supposed to go on without him? How was she going to raise their son alone?
Oh my God, Sean.
Their four-year-old was sleeping in the room next door.
Laura's maternal instinct shattered her stupor, and she dashed through the bedroom's doorway seconds before a wall of fire would have trapped her.
As she hurtled down the hallway, the flames tore after them like the tentacles of some hellborn beast.
The demon had claimed her innocence, had devoured the man she loved, but the monster wouldn't get her son.
Face set into a determined mask, adrenaline soaring, Laura stormed toward Sean's bedroom door. A crudely drawn picture of Spider-Man decorated the entrance.
Laura's hand closed around the doorknob and she gasped in pain. The metal was searing hot to the touch. She stifled a scream as she turned the knob anyway, parental love conquering physical pain.
Her fingers throbbed something fierce as she barreled into the room and surged toward Sean's bed. He groggily looked up at her, an angel returning to the waking world. Alarm flicked across his innocent features, and it broke Laura's heart to see her little man like that.
But there was no time to coax him gently out of bed. Blood roaring in her ears, Laura brusquely scooped her son into her arms. He cried out in confusion but there was no time to comfort him. No time to explain.
She ran from the bedroom, tucking his head against her chest. The entire house was on fire now. Laura ignored the heat and smoke, her mind laser-focused on the task at hand, her world reduced to three objectives:
Make it down the stairs.
Cross the living room to the door.
Get out of this place before it's too late.
She reached the ground floor within seconds, taking the stairs two, three at a time.
Laura's eyes fixed on the doorway at the other side of the living room. She crossed the space at top speed and flung the front door open with all her strength.
Fresh air raked her skin, and she welcomed the night's icy touch. Snow had begun to fall and the flakes felt blessedly cool on her face.
They’d made it.
She took three stumbling steps before the falling snow froze in midair. Reality reduced to a freeze-frame. Then her world spun violently, the fiery heat returned and…
They were back in the house.
The doorway they'd just stepped through transformed into an unbreachable wall of flames.
Sean let out a loud shriek.
No, this wasn't fair. They’d escaped the fire. She’d saved her son.
Ominous laughter greeted Laura's despair.
Don't you remember? I never play fair.
Above her, the wooden beams supporting the second floor moaned menacingly under the fiery onslaught. Smoke choked Laura's throat, her tear-filled eyes unable to look away from the ceiling. Any moment now, the burning beams would come tumbling down on them.
Laura's helpless gaze turned toward the door one last time. A familiar figure stood outlined there. A woman was smiling and waving back at her, a woman who could have passed for her evil twin.
Laura averted her gaze. She refused to let the monster see her tears and fought the temptation to beg for mercy, to plead for the beast to at least spare her son's life. It was incapable of such emotions and would only bask in her misery. She refused to give the creature such satisfaction.
It wasn’t fair. For years Laura had avoided anything resembling a serious relationship, terrified that one day her past might catch up to her and target those she loved. She'd broken off countless promising relationships for that reason, choosing to be alone, believing that it was the only way to protect others from future harm. But then Jory had entered her life, charming and handsome with a smile that made her melt, and she'd allowed love back into her heart. But as her son's sobs rose into an anguished crescendo, Laura wished with all her heart that she had the strength to remain alone.
Jory had paid for her terrible mistake. And now it was her son's turn.
Laura crouched down, shielding Sean with her body—as if that would do any good.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears evaporating in the heat before they even had a chance to roll down her cheeks. An instant later, the second floor collapsed on top of them, erasing their world in a hellish blaze.
The bodies arrived at the city morgue around four a.m. The ambulance crew informed the coroner that he would need to look at three burn victims: a husband, wife, and child. Dr. Driscoll’s face grew hard at the grim news. Despite the long parade of bodies that had passed through his morgue during his years on the job, the death of an entire family, especially one with children, could still affect him.
Features locked in a professional mask, he stepped up to the first black body bag and began his grisly task. He started with the husband. The zipper sounded unnaturally loud in the cold morgue as he opened the body bag and exposed the husband's remains—not much more than a collection of blackened bone fragments.
The child was next. Here, too, the fire had stripped almost all traces of humanity from the meager remains. The coroner was glad he could pretend that the pile of bones didn't once belong to a smiling, joyful child with his entire life ahead of him.
The coroner took the required pictures and filled out the forms, the snapping camera and scratching pen the only sounds in the icy morgue. Then his attention turned to the last corpse. As he opened the third body bag, a deep frown furrowed his brow. Unlike the first two victims, the fire hadn't touched the wife; her remains were perfectly preserved. How was this possible?
Still wrestling with this mystery, the coroner noticed a symbol etched into the woman's left shoulder. VI. The Roman numeral for the number 6. His gloved finger traced the Roman numeral, its black color forming a sharp contrast against the pale flesh.
Dr. Driscoll noted the tattoo on his report and reached for the stainless steel cart that held his autopsy tools. Although Driscoll had no way of knowing it, there was a simple reason Laura's body remained untouched by the blaze. The demon who’d murdered Laura was sending his greatest enemy a message that, once received, would set a terrifying chain of events in motion.
Chapter Two
It was another glorious day in Malibu.
A world of endless beaches, swaying palm trees, eternal sunshine, and excessive wealth on constant public display. A world far away from the darkness that defined most of my waking moments.
Or so you might think.
Things aren't always what they seem. Take my sprawling Malibu mansion—the ultimate beach pad, as long as you ignored its sordid history. Less than two decades earlier, this beachfront slice of paradise had housed the temple of the Children of the Void, a hellish cult led by my father, Mason Kane. Behind this facade of beauty and affluence, dark forces had flourished. Deep within the rocky outcropping on which the villa stood, Dad's followers had performed human sacrifices to appease their demented god.
The moral of the story? Not all monsters dwell in the shadows.
I know. I'm a real hit at parties.
I guess it's hard for me to sit back and stop thinking about the dark forces that course through our reality. I've seen what's out there, waiting for humanity to let its guard down. That’s why I was fighting my way through an ancient tome on demonology—one written in Latin, mind you—while the rest of Los Angeles had taken
this gorgeous Saturday off to frolic on the strip of beach running alongside my property.
At least I was doing my homework outside in the sun. On my assistant Vesper's urging, I'd traded my father's stuffy occult library for the sprawling wooden deck that overlooked both my pool and the beach beyond my property. Granted, a fantastic view, but it does come with one big problem. The playful shrieks and excited laughter of the beachgoers kept breaking my concentration. Turns out it's hard to focus on the infernal horrors while sun-kissed, bikini-clad beauties play volleyball in the near distance—who knew? If that wasn't enough of a distraction, my lovely assistant was lying out next to the shimmering pool. While Vesper loaded up on Vitamin D, blue water sparkled invitingly in the brilliant sunlight, and it took all my willpower to keep fighting my way through my most unusual of beach reads.
I shifted my attention away from the natural beauty surrounding me to my thick Latin dictionary. The tiny print on those yellowed pages seemed like a poor substitute for Malibu on a Saturday afternoon. Or any day, really.
I sighed. Occult studies and the beach just don't mix. I should have locked myself in my library. Or my cellar. Any moment now, Vesper would ask me to apply sunblock to her perfectly formed back, and that would be all she wrote. But I was resolved to hit the books every day for at least a few hours. A good tan would not save my ass if Nazmaroth, whose acquaintance I'd recently made in Maine, paid me a little visit. Knowledge was power in this game. Still, I was only human, and my discipline was reaching its limits.
My ringing cell phone yanked me out of these thoughts. A glance at the caller ID identified the person on the other end as none other than Father Joe Andara, a world-renowned exorcist and leading expert on demonology.
The Possessed (The Paranormalist Book 5) Page 1