by P. S. Power
Mal winked at her when it was done.
“Nice work! Pull him in. We have more people coming. Also, get the firearm. That will probably be easier to use. I can guide you in it more than we did here. Distance weapons are fun that way.”
She had to wait again, and fumble through reloading, which meant robbing Rick’s corpse for ammunition. Jess tried not to think about anything. Except for Mal, just in case that part of things was important for real. Waiting, a thing that took a long while, should have given her time to consider so many things. Like how she was expected to make a living, not being trained for anything yet, or suitable for functioning in public, like she was.
Also, she was going to have to make all the bodies vanish and probably go on the run, herself. She didn’t know if that was going to work out at all.
A cool breeze came into the house through the partially open door. That went up her skirt, reminding her that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it now. She was a little sore, the pain of being raped that way still upon her. She tried to put that out of her head as well. It wasn’t simple or easy to do. Still, she tried, as one and two at a time, most of the coven came to see about helping to remove Debbie’s body.
June was the first one, after Rick. She was shot in the head, three times. Then Malia had Jess move that body to the other room as well. Of interest, Roxy didn’t come at all. Most of the others did though. She vaguely recognized them as they died.
Finally, after nearly six or seven hours of this, Malia pointed at the door.
“One more… Deamon. This… you can’t beat him. Not alone. I… Don’t think I can control you well enough, without being part of you. We should run. Except that this whole world is of his making. This won’t be pleasant. If we merged, for real, in the outer world, that might do it. I know it will, actually. That’s dangerous for you though.”
Nick’s face showed up in the door then, the weapon in her hand being slapped away by a physical hand, acting faster than she could even see. That caused something to break, as the weapon went flying to the side.
“Hey, is that any way to greet your one true love, Jess? I’m hurt. I mean, not as much as you’re about to be, but still… It gets me right here.” He grabbed his chest then.
The same hand moved out, suddenly, hitting her in the mouth. The back of it landed in the center of her face. Hard enough that she felt a burning as teeth came out and pierced her lips. A second movement of the same hand sent her to the floor when it landed on the side of her head.
Then Nick, or Deamon, looked at Malia.
“Oh, I should have known you’d be showing up for this. Do you think you can take me again? In here? You aren’t in the little girl this time. Last time… Well, I wasn’t ready. Now I am.”
The words confused Jessica for a moment, which had Nick looking at her. Reading her mind, no doubt. He shook his head.
“All the lies around here lately. Not that you didn’t get to live them your entire life, Aunty Jess.” He waved at Mal then, who was standing about ten feet away, her feet planted far apart, seeming ready to fight. She didn’t though.
Nick’s face grinned.
“Fourteen years ago, you and she worked together to remove my host of the time. Mark Close was… a complicated and powerful man, in his own way. He was far worse than Nick here. True, Nicky is willing to fuck his pretty aunty, but Mark… he was willing to do pretty much anything. Together we killed so many. Then Malia and you murdered me. Working together like that. A thing that no one could have seen coming. Using you like that, for a few moments, then letting you go to save your life. That was… Brilliant. A sign of power that I can’t manage at all. If I left Nick here for too long now, he’d simply die. Malia though, the great one, she can do it. Only you aren’t doing it now, are you? Why is that Mal? Feeling a bit tired? No… It won’t be that.” Nick snapped his fingers.
Then hit Jess in the cheek again.
“I bet I know! You have a deal with little Jess here, don’t you? To protect her, or fix her world, as if even one of us could manage that. Only this is my place now. A thing you don’t control. So you’re going to be forced to stand there and watch me destroy her, right in front of you. That serves you right, you know. This world is mine, not yours. This girl is mine. I’ll take my time brutalizing her, while you watch. Maybe this time you’ll learn.”
Then, carefully, slowly, compared to before, Deamon began to beat her. First, he stomped her legs, then broke out the rest of her front teeth. Just slapping her, over and over again. Carefully not killing her.
Finally, feeling broken and like she was about to die, Jess looked up at Malia. Willing her to do something. A voice spoke then, inside of her head.
“I can’t affect him, unless I’m in a body. A real one. You might die if I take yours now. Even for a moment or two.” The words were inside of Jess’s head, but felt like Malia. The girl wasn’t a child though. She wasn’t human at all.
Another blow came in, taking her in the side of the face. Collapsing the bone there with a sickening crunch. The pain was horrible, and the world was going dim. That was, she knew, a sign that she was about to die. Not that she could fight back at all. She tried. Her hands went out, flailing as the world around her darkened.
Finally, since being dead was kind of final, she tried to nod. She couldn’t speak, her jaw and face too battered and broken. Even if she died though, Jess didn’t want to leave Nick out there, hosting a killer entity like he was. A thing that might not matter at all to anyone else.
So she thought at Malia then.
“Do it. Take me. Kill him, if you can. In the real world. We need to take out as many of them as possible.” Speaking didn’t happen, but the girl nodded anyway, then moving in, carefully, she hugged Jessica to herself, closely. Until they were one.
Then with a single push, her left arm making a clicking noise as it straightened, Malia threw Nick back and stood.
“There we go. Now, Deamon…” Other things started to make noise inside of their body. She grew hot in an instant as well. Burning up, as if possessed by the worst fever imaginable. Jessica could feel strength come back into her limbs as Malia stood back, using her body.
Getting ready to fight. Repairing all of the damage.
Finally, after a minute of this, Nick standing there seeming a bit bored, Jess felt her own mouth work.
“I suppose you can drop the illusions? I have her now. Come out, everyone.”
Jessica didn’t get it. Not at first. When Carlos came from the kitchen, his head was attached and his clothing had been fixed. There wasn’t even blood on him. She’d left the rapist with his pants down, but with no head, that wasn’t what was going on here. Right behind him, her parents strode in, both of them looking…
Smug. Not like how she thought of them at all. It was annoying, to tell the truth.
That made it even worse, seeing them there now, alive. With Malia in charge.
Possessing her. Totally, since, like a fool, she’d asked the entity in. It had been a trick, but she’d not only spoken the words, she’d meant them. Each of them.
One by one, everyone that had died that day came out. None of them were touched at all. Their clothing wasn’t even messed up. No one tried to explain anything to her, until Malia spoke.
“She’s still in here. I can’t believe how strong she is. I think we nearly didn’t win this one. Still, in the end, we did it. She’ll make a good host. Maybe the best to have ever lived. Now, what are we going to do first?”
She looked around, no one actually answering her.
Most of them seemed normal enough, but from the overlay of things, Jess could tell things now that she hadn’t before. For instance, Carlos didn’t have an entity inside of him at all. He was different than the rest, but that was mainly in that he seemed evil. It was all him, though.
Debbie stared at her and then shrugged.
“Nick faded instantly. How is it that Jessica is lasting any longer than that?”
/> Deamon snorted then.
“Nick was a pussy. Jessica here was, she still is, something more than that. A fighter. I know, I know, she doesn’t look it. Still, if she’d had half a chance, she would have kicked our collective asses. Good thing she didn’t know which way was up.” Then, looking almost sincere, the boy, who was no older than she was, grinned at her. “Don’t worry, Aunty Jess, I’m sure that no one will do anything too horrible for you to live with. Not that you get a choice in the matter.”
Everyone laughed then, as if it were a joke. A game to them.
Then, slowly, they began to disrobe. After that, they did things that left Jessica wishing she could die, of course. All of them used her, including her own parents, or at least did things with Malia, in her body. Then, after they were sated, Carlos snapped his fingers at her.
“Good. Now, I have a list of people who need to die. Take care of that for me. Try to make it seem like they were in accidents. Don’t get caught.” A piece of physical paper, which looked like thick card stock, possibly being handmade, came out then. Her hand took it. Jessica couldn’t feel what she was doing, but could see the list of names.
Interestingly, Roxy was on it. So were several other people. Ones in the room with them. Her parents weren’t. Then, they were probably the heroes of the hour. The people who had raised the perfect host body for their demon pal.
Leaving the room, going to her own bedroom first, Malia changed their clothing for them, after a shower. Then she put on makeup. Doing it exactly the same way that Jess would have. Really, given that she didn’t have any friends, no one was going to notice any real difference in her. The only people that could have, her parents, or possibly Nick, were already in on the whole thing.
When they left, wearing shoes that weren’t suited to the task, Malia finally spoke. She used their mouth for it.
“You aren’t dead. I kept my bargain with you. Because you are my friend. My best friend. Now we’ll be together, forever. Like you promised we would be, when you were little.”
Jess wanted to roll her eyes, but couldn’t. She had said that though, so it was true enough. Thinking, not knowing if Malia would hear her, she answered.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we could do that without me being trapped and you having to do those things with… everyone?” She was traumatized by it. Not broken, but it was closer than she wanted to admit.
Malia simply shrugged. It was the same one that the girl had always used with her.
“There are rules. When we come here we agree to live by them. Plus, it’s fun having a body. Doing those things… We’ll be doing a lot more of them, before we can both be free, so you might as well get used to it. Now, let’s go and kill some of master’s rivals. Then… Well, I bet we can find a lot of things to do. Friend.”
Jessica wanted to scream, but didn’t bother.
No one that mattered could hear her.
Then, Malia laughed.
“Don’t worry. I have a plan. It includes you. It’s a real one. We have to make this seem right though, for the time being. You’ll have to just play along. Being my friend is going to be more than worth it to you. I promise.”
Epilog: An old man dies.
Sitting in the mansion, the silver haired man looked at the hand-written page in front of him. His minions, Reid and Megan, along with that fool, Carlos, had pulled out a win for them. The entity inside the girl, his own daughter, was powerful, compared to the others that they’d managed to entice into their control over the years.
The only troubling bit, for him at least, was that Jessica had managed to survive somehow. That couldn’t be allowed. After all, no matter how powerful a being was, they could be removed from a body. If the girl was still in there, then she’d hold what secrets she learned. Whatever they told Malia to do, she’d know about it.
Things that might come back on the rest of them, which would be unfortunate.
It could be, anyway.
He used the phone on his desk. A land line. A thing from the last century, since he was a good bit older than he looked. Times changed, and while he could as well, Joseph Walsh hadn’t let that particular affectation go yet.
Picking it up, he dialed Megan, directly. He’d always liked her, after all. Mainly for the sex, but she was a good minion, as well, outside of that. When the woman picked up, her voice was serious. Only one person was ever going to call her on that particular line, after all.
“Yes, Master?”
“Megan, Dear! I just read the report that Reid sent over, about the situation with your daughter and Malia. We need to have the girl removed. Have Malia kill her, as soon as possible.”
He didn’t explain why they needed to do that.
Then, the woman on the phone didn’t ask about it. She just sounded sad.
“I understand. I had hoped… Well, Jessica is a good girl. She went through so much…”
That was true. Really, that she’d come out as anything other than a monster was amazing.
“I know. We can’t risk it. If we don’t manage the dangers to us, then everything we have, everything we’ve gained, can go away. This is why we had her in the first place. To turn her into a host for our slave. Don’t weaken now, Megan. We have no choice.”
There was a sigh from the phone.
“I know. I’ll see to it.”
Then she hung up, without waiting to see if he wanted, or needed, anything more from her.
He heard something behind him then, and turned, just as his mind flashed on the picture. It was a girl. One that he’d seen, several times. His daughter, in fact. She was dressed nicely, and also held a blade in her hand. That whipped out, taking him across the throat before he could go for the pistol in his desk.
A thin leg lashed out, taking him in the chest.
The voice that spoke wasn’t, he didn’t think, that of Jessica. No, it was Malia.
She chuckled.
“You failed, Master. You created this girl to be my host, to accept me as a friend. Not realizing that I’d do that back. She and I are one now. We are master and slave in one body, working to a single purpose. I want you to think about that as you lay dying. One by one, you and your people will perish. Even better, none of them will understand who’s doing it. Not until it’s too late.”
Then, quickly, the girl moved in, causing the old man to stop being alive.
After that, she walked to the door.
Saying something.
“I told you I had a plan for us, Jessica.”
Then she left. Heading to remove the next name on the list. The one inside her head, not the thing that had been given to her by a fool who thought that a being like her could be controlled.
She smiled though, or rather, the girl did. Joe noticed that as he left his body. Shadows, beings made of darkness, were already there to collect him as he watched the girl and the being inside of her leave.
He didn’t bother screaming as he was dragged into the dark. He deserved it, after all. That had always been the reward that was in store for him. Instead he considered the girl, as he faded from being.
She was stronger than he ever would have thought.
Stronger, in the end, than he was. As he began his eternal torment, the man smiled. Only for a moment, in pride. Then the pain became so great, he doubted that he’d ever manage to smile again.
Afterword
Thanks for reading!
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