Afterworld (The Orion Rezner Chronicles Book 1) (3 page)

A flash of light exploded across my vision and I hit the floor hard. Dazed, I rolled over and watched the demon stalk toward me, holding the heavy candle holder that had sent me to the floor. I tried to get up but crashed back against the nightstand, my head swimming. The room teetered like a ship on stormy waters, and I puked on the floor as if seasick.

The possessed boy grinned at me with a bloody mouth that had bits of kitty between its teeth, and my stomach heaved again. He kicked the still-recovering father in the face, stepped over him, and grabbing a handful of my hair, hit me with a quick uppercut that sent me crashing back against the wall.

“Would you like to see her again?” the demon jeered, tilting his head unnaturally to the right. “
He
has her. You need only open yourself to Him.”

My fury helped me recover from the blow quickly, but I still had not gotten my bearings. I swung at the demon miserably high and wide, and it grabbed me by the throat and floated upward. My head banged off of the ceiling as I clutched the floating boy’s arm, and I struggled to breathe as the supernaturally strong hands choked the life out of me.

Father Killroy rose to his feet and hit the boy over the head, just as his mother came crashing into the room.

The already-spooked Old Ben jumped out of his own ghostly body at her sudden violent entrance, and Trevor released me. We fell to the floor, with me landing on top, and he began to wail, “Mama!”

His mother was suddenly possessed by maternal instinct far scarier than any demon, and sprang toward Father Killroy, slamming him against the wall. Caught up in the effects of the demon’s illusions, she screamed bloody murder and repeatedly hit the good father in the face. When he seemed out for the count, she grabbed me by the collar and belt, and flung me like a sack of rice over the bed.

“He did things to me, Mama! Kill him, please—he is hurting me!” the demon pleaded in Trevor’s voice.

“Die, you sick bastard, die!” she screamed.

I got to my feet laboriously and, summoning my strength, bellowed an incantation.

The spell hit the possessed boy, and the demon went into writhing convulsions as it fought the effects. The boy’s mother shrieked at the sight of her screaming son. She sprang from Father Killroy and charged at me with murder in her eyes. I cocked back and hit the berserk woman with an uppercut to the chin, sending her down.

The fatigue that followed a spell such as the one I had just unleashed hit me like a ton of bricks. I sagged against the wall, spent, as Trevor’s mother dropped to the floor unconscious.

I slid down the wall and landed on my ass, but the binding spell held the demon floating above the bed. Father Kilroy groaned and breathed heavily as blood flowed freely from his nose. He picked up his Bible and cross, and began anew his prayers in a barely audible whisper.

The demon fought against the binding spell, chanting in a language born of hell, and began to claw at the boy’s skin. Father Killroy’s voice cracked and faltered, but he struggled on, forcing the words in a spray of bloody spittle. He bravely stepped forward and, after touching thumb to bloody mouth, reached through my binding spell and drew a cross on the boy’s forehead. I don’t know what kind of allergy demons have to the blood of holy men, but the effects were immediate. The demon arched and began to shudder. Like an electrocuted cat, it thrashed and screamed in a dozen tortured voices.

Trevor’s mother roused and suddenly became alert to the ensuing battle. “Trevor!” she screamed.

“Oh, shit, not again,” I heard myself say, and slowly stood for round two against mommy dearest.

The demon turned to float upright as it strained against the spell and Father Killroy’s blood cross. With eyes of black it stared at the mother of its host. She sobbed and brought both hands to her mouth, covering it in horror.

“Give yourself to me,” the demon hissed. “Give yourself to me or your baby boy dies.”

“No!” she screamed and reached for him.

I bolted over the corner of the bed and grabbed Mrs. Marks, pulling her back against the wall.

“Don’t listen to him,” I urged. “The father is nearly there.”

If she heard me, she gave no indication. She reached for her son and struggled weakly against me.

“Mama, oh, Mama, please help. It’s killing me!” the demon pleaded in Trevor’s voice as tears of blood fell from his now normal eyes.

Father Killroy’s voice found its strength, and he furiously sped toward the end of the long-winded prayer.

“Mama!” Trevor shrieked once more, and it was all she could bear.

My apprehension rose as she stopped struggling, and I tried to cover her mouth—but was too late.

“Take me instead!” she begged the demon.

“No, Serena!” Father Killroy yelled.

My bonding spell had been strong enough to contain the demon, and would have held out until the father had finished the exorcism, but Mrs. Marks’s invitation broke it in an instant—the way an invitation to a vampire can counter all spells keeping him out.

Trevor’s unconscious body fell limply to the bed, and Mrs. Marks became rigid in my arms. I looked to Old Ben but found only a sympathetic look of helplessness. The ghost of Benjamin Franklin couldn’t meddle in the affairs of the living; I knew that. But I suspected that as a spirit he could do something against the demon. Maybe he feared for his soul. I don’t know, but he didn’t move to help.

As I held Mrs. Marks, the demon in her began to laugh like a demented lover. Her cheek caressed mine sensually, and she put her arms around me, trapping me in the embrace.

“What does Poor Richard say about courage?” I begged Old Ben, as the demon licked my face.

The ghost looked to the floor with terror-filled eyes and shook his head, ignoring me.

“C’mon, man, what does Poor Richard say about courage?”

The ghost of Benjamin Franklin looked up as the demon’s rancid kisses dotted my cheek toward my lips. Father Killroy had begun the cleansing prayer anew and doused it with holy water. The demon found my lips, and I cringed helplessly in its iron grip.

In a heartbeat, Old Ben was standing next to us. A sudden fury found his voice as he bore down on the demon. “Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, and my kindness for weakness! For without justice, courage is weak,” he said, and shot a hand toward us, hitting the demon with a blinding ray of light. I shoved it off me and it staggered back into Father Killroy, screaming. The father, having seen the ray of sudden pure light, found renewed strength. The demon retaliated with an outstretched hand that shot forth pure darkness, and the opposing forces collided. Old Ben struggled against the onslaught, and the demon’s face twisted in rage as it stepped forward.

Trapped between the wall and the clashing forces of light and darkness, I carefully reached my right arm across my body and unleashed my other binding spell. It hit the demon in the chest, And Father Killroy, still assaulting with the word of God, reached forward and drew another cross in blood upon its forehead. Old Ben stepped closer, and the gleaming light of my mentor slammed into the demon once again.

I cast my third and final spell and sagged to the floor. The extraction spell was my last resort, due to the inherent danger to the possessed person, but I had no choice.

The demon shuddered against the combined effects of Old Ben’s light, Father Killroy’s prayer, and my two spells. I watched, awestruck, as writhing tendrils of darkness snaked their way out of Mrs. Marks’s eyes. Father Killroy’s voice boomed and was accompanied by a redoubled blast of light from Old Ben’s ghostly palm.

The demon smoke rose above the body of Mrs. Marks and then disappeared in a flash into some unknown void. She fell to the floor, and I passed out with a stupid grin on my face.

I
awoke with the world champion of headaches throbbing at my temples, and had apparently been chewing on sand. Father Killroy knelt next to me, lightly slapping my face. I was a little more than pissed to be awoken from my glorious sleep, and it took me a month of Sundays to see clearly.

“What!” I protested, stretching out on the floor.

“You injured, lad?”

My eyes fixed on his, which were beautifully blackened, and he wore a butterfly bandage across his busted nose. In a rush of clarity I remembered what had happened.

“Oh, shit!” I shot up and looked around wildly and soon realized we were alone in the room.

“Where is the boy, his mother?” I whirled around on Father Killroy. “What happened to the de—”

“Relax, Orion, we got her under control. You did well. Now sit down and get your bearings.”

I sat.

“They’re all right,” he continued. They’ve been taken to the hospital, but they’ll live. The demon is gone.” The memory of me choking the life out of the father played across my mind and I cringed. As if reading my thoughts, Father Killroy patted my leg and laughed. “It’s all right, lad, but you owe me a beer, at least. Lucky for me you choke like a girl.”

I gave him a shocked look. “You’ve been choked by a girl? Was that when you joined the priesthood? Bad first time behind the ole wheel, huh?” I gave him a little nudge in the gut as I ended my teasing.

A belly laugh escaped him. “Ha-ha, my son, you have it all wrong. God made the priesthood my calling to give the women of Boston a fighting chance.”

I tried not to laugh—my ribs were killing me. I was still pretty loopy, having summoned so much power for the three spells. The one-two punch at the end had really taken a toll. We wizards can dish out some pretty intense whoop ass, but we are highly susceptible to fatigue. I looked to the merry father—he didn’t seem shaken up at all. I knew he’d been a pretty heavy hitter in the battles since the Culling, but something about him told me he’d been a warrior before joining God’s army.

“Those bandages and the busted-up nose—why do they suit you, Father?”

Father Killroy looked me dead in the eye, flexed the arm closest to me, and kissed his bicep. “2001 Golden Glove Champion.”

“Hah!” I yelled. “Bullshit!”

“That ain’t none, son,” he said coolly.

In my mind’s eye, he went from one of the Tweedle brothers to Rocky BalBuddah, and I chuckled. “Well, why didn’t you just take me down when I attacked you?”

“I needed you in the game,” he said with a shrug. “That spell of yours, with the bright light—it was like God had ended his silence and come to lead the charge. It was glorious.”

I couldn’t take the credit for Old Ben’s handiwork. “Father, that…that wasn’t me who did that.”

“What do you mean, ‘wasn’t you’? It sure as Chinatown wasn’t me. If it wasn’t your magic—” He suddenly gave me THE look. “Oh, no, lad, you aren’t trying to tell me…Benjamin Franklin did it?”

I just sighed and raised my hands with a shrug. “You know I can’t cast that many spells at once. I was casting binding and cleansing spells when the light erupted from Old Ben—couldn’t have been me. Hey, if it wasn’t him, maybe it was an angel…or God.”

“Don’t even think of downplaying the Lord and Savior, son. I get what you’re saying. But Dominican Republic, man! The ghost of Benjamin Franklin?”

Again I shrugged. “Anything to drink around here?”

By the time I got back to my apartment my head was swimming. I closed the curtains in the large bay windows and managed to get one boot off before hitting the couch.

When I woke up I thanked the Big Guy I hadn’t dreamed and shuffled to the kitchen. From the ice box I took half a brick of cheese and tore open the bread. Noticing that I had only a shot glass worth of milk left, I cursed whoever had left that little—though I live alone…kind of—grabbed a bucket, and went out the back door.

“Good evening, Matilda,” I said to the apartment’s milking goat.

Ten minutes later, and after more than a few kicks from Matilda for making her work so late, I had my milk, warm though it was. I walked back into the apartment with dreams of cheese and bread and a protein shake—and stopped dead in my tracks. The cheese was gone, and the only sign of the bread was a trail of crumbs that led to an angry chimp.

“Dude, what in the hell are you…aw, man, all of it? I told you demons are too dangerous. You would have crapped your chimp-panties if you were there.”

Dude, my growth-stunted pet chimpanzee, wasn’t buying it. He made a face that could have gotten his hairy ass on the cover of
Nat Geo
and wrote me off. When I say he’s my pet, I mean master. The little menace runs the show. Just ask him.

“Anyway, thanks for asking. I’m all right. Old Ben tore it up—we took down the demon. I got slammed around pretty good by the boy and his mo—by the demon. But don’t worry about me. Just eat my only food!”

Dude cowered at my anger and I instantly felt bad. Call me a sucker, but it’s hard to stay mad at a pouting chimp.

“I’ll take that as an apology.” I tried to sound as tough as I could. Dude bowed his head and made a pathetic attempt at a smile. My heart melted. I walked over and opened my arms for him to jump up into, like always. Instead, he leapt with all his might and head butted me in the Rezner family jewels.

“Duuude!” I croaked as I hit the floor, cupping my tender vittles. Pain exploded in my kidneys, and I helplessly watched him strut over to the bucket of fresh milk. He turned to look at me as he dumped it over his head. After a quick fart impression, he bolted out the door.

I wasn’t too worried about him at the moment; if I needed to find him, it wouldn’t be hard. A chimpanzee that smells like sour milk tends to stick in people’s minds, especially when he’s wearing a Superman outfit—though he insists it means Superchimp…don’t ask.

When I finally recovered, I crawled my way back to the couch and punched out for the night. This time the nightmares found me. In my dreams I was brought back to the weeks following the Culling. I had barricaded myself and my sister, Mary, in the house I grew up in, though I hadn’t been there for years. Outside, hordes of Cain pounded on the doors and walls and threatened to break through the boarded-up windows.

“Give us the girl! She is one of us. She is Cain!”

I awoke with a start and jumped as a voice came from behind me.

“Whoa there, lad, it was just a dream,” Father Killroy said soothingly. I looked behind me and saw him drying off Dude. He must have washed off the goat’s milk. Dude gave me a scowl as he enjoyed the soft toweling from Father Killroy. The little traitor looked as though he was enjoying a day at the spa.

“You hungry?” Killroy asked.

“If you’re asking Dude, no, he isn’t hungry. The little brat ate all my food and— well, you can guess what he did to my goat’s milk,” I said stiffly, sitting up on the couch.

Father Killroy only laughed. “On the counter—brought you some warrior food.” He was preoccupied with making faces, which Dude mimicked.

I sprang from the couch and tore open the brown paper bag—not a bottle-of-wine-sized bag either, a straight-up grocery bag. Inside I found a bounty of canned food, a loaf of fresh sourdough, a half-dozen eggs, first-of-the-year’s strawberries, and a small bottle of milk…and to my delight, outdated peanut butter.

Frothing at the mouth, I cracked an egg on the counter, swallowed it, and washed it down with two more. I tore into the loaf and stuffed my mouth with moans of satisfaction. Father Killroy gave me a disapproving look and I froze. I hadn’t said grace.

With a mouthful of bread, I waved my hand around in a miserable interpretation of the sign of the cross and said, “God is good. God is great. Yay, God!”

Father Killroy rolled his eyes and I shuffled to the couch, clutching my precious food. I dug into the peanut butter and, finding I had no knife, used my fingers to glop it onto the sourdough. Dude sprang from the confines of the towel and leapt up onto the arm of the couch. He gave me his cutest face and eyed the peanut butter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said through a mouthful.

Dude made a sad face and, in sign language, said, “Dude hungry please.” I flipped him off and made sounds of sweet satisfaction as I chewed. He shrieked and leapt onto Father Killroy’s lap in the armchair opposite me. I ate half the loaf and almost all the peanut butter, washed it down with the entire bottle of milk, and sat back, contentedly popping strawberries into my mouth.

While I ate, Father Killroy informed me that Mrs. Marks and Trevor were doing all right, although the boy was quite sick, due to having eaten a cat—and I had knocked out one of Mrs. Marks’s teeth.

As I lay back in full-belly bliss, Killroy came around behind the couch and put his fingers in my hair.

“Jerusalem, son, you need a woman.”

“What?” I said, annoyed at him for disturbing my chillaxing.

“This, you dolt!” He scratched at my scalp. Pain shot through my head and I puked in my mouth slightly. “You’ve got dried blood caked to your pretty brown locks there, curly. And you probably could use a few stitches. Why’d you tell the paramedics you were all right?” He sounded perturbed.

“I’ll take care of it, Killroy. Chill. I didn’t know it was Mother Killroy. Je—” The father pulled my hair so that my head was cranked back and I was looking up into his nostrils. His eyes dared me to take the Lord’s name in vain. “—eepers creepers,” I finished, and he released me.

As I rubbed my hair and mouthed obscenities at my laughing ape, Father Killroy went to the kitchen, started a fire in the cook stove, and put on a pot of water.

“Where is your suture kit?” he asked.

“Bathroom,” I told him, “above the towels.”

Within half an hour my head had been cleaned, stitched up, and bandaged by the good father. Having only outdated aspirin to soothe the pain, I took four with a glass of water and sat back once more.

Father Killroy put everything away and looked toward me with a question on his mind.

“Any ideas about that demon yesterday?” I asked.

He blinked as if being snapped out of deep thought, and after a moment, said, “Beats the Helsinki out of me. All I know is it was very powerful. This was no smalltime baddie.”

“It destroyed my binding ward like I was a rookie.”

“You are, in terms of demon fighting.”

“True, but if I’m good at anything, it’s wards. The demon had to pack one hell of a punch to break it like so much dried spaghetti.”

The father nodded. “It did take the full might of the both of us—”

“Three of us,” I said, alluding to Old Ben.

“—you get my drift,” he finished with a sigh.

I tossed Dude a piece of sourdough so he would stop staring at me. He had crept closer, inch by inch, and was literally breathing down my neck and making sounds that reminded me of a rapist.

“Rezner,” Father Killroy began, his words carrying a gravity with them—I knew what he was going to ask. “The demon, when he changed the boy’s appearance…the little girl…she is your sister?”

I inwardly cringed as my eyes darted around my apartment, avoiding him at all cost. Finally I put my pounding head in my hands. “Mary, yes.”

He shook his head with a sympathetic face and heavy sigh. “If you ever want to ta—”

“I would rather not, Father. Not now, but thanks.”

He looked as though he could barely contain his urge to speak more on the subject. I was thankful that he did not. Instead, he shook his head as one would at a funeral and looked to the floor.

“Well…” he sighed, getting up, “I must prepare for Mass. Will you be joining us?”

I rubbed my head as I stood. “I don’t think I’m up for it this time, Father.”

He nodded knowingly. “Uh huh, well then, see you soon. Take care of yourself, son.”

I followed him to the door.

He walked past the threshold and stopped to take in a deep breath of the outside. “Get yourself some fresh air at least, Rezner. It’s a beautiful day. With the Lord’s help we’ll have a bountiful summer.” He smiled at me as I squinted against the bright sunshine. “And thanks. You did great yesterday. The Lord sees your good deeds, and I’ll let the council elders know what a help you were.”

“Thanks, Father, for everything.” I waved as he left, and watched as he made his way whistling down the sidewalk.

“The Lord sees my good deeds,” I said to Dude as he followed me into the apartment. “I don’t see his of late.”

Since the Culling, seven years ago, the Big Guy and I haven’t really been on speaking terms. I hadn’t been much for religion before the Culling anyway. The end of the world as we knew it had different effects on different people. While some became more devout in their particular religion, others lost all faith. I happened to be the latter. Father Killroy would argue that the very fact that I believed in—and had seen—demons should be enough to make me realize God and the devil existed too. But I wasn’t buying it. For all I knew, demons, or whatever possessed the boy and his mother, were just interdimensional parasites.