Darkness of the Soul (14 page)

The
others—Tim
and
Janus,
Richard,
Alice
and
James,
all
of
them—saw
what
was
waiting
for
them,
heard
it
beginning
to
laugh,
and
felt
something
deep
inside
them
quake
in
fear.
Faced
with
this
horror,
they
lost
all
sense
of
innocent
fun
in
their
activities,
turned
tail,
and
ran.

Damien
could
not
run.
His
feet
had
been
rooted
to
the
spot,
as
if
God
Himself
had
decreed
that
it
was
his
task
to
witness
what
he
had
done—Damien
couldn’t
find
any
dissent
within
himself,
any
part
that
said
this
was
not
his
doing—and
pay
the
consequences
of
his
actions.
Only
when
it
had
turned
its
baleful
red
eyes
on
him
was
he
able
to
move
or
speak,
but
he
managed
to
speak
the
words
just
the
same,
the
ones
they
hadn’t
felt
a
need
to
bother
with,
those
that
supposedly
banished
this
creature.

When
his
voice
came
from
his
throat,
at
first,
it
was
lacking
any
authority
or
conviction.
The
words
poured
from
him,
coming
out
with
perfect
recall,
though
he
would
have
sworn
just
the
day
before
that
his
mind
was
a
sieve,
filtering
out
any
useful
information.
The
thing
that
had
once
been
his
girlfriend
continued
to
advance,
her
facial
muscles
twitching.
Damien
realized
she—or
it—was
trying
to
smile
at
him,
trying
to
comfort
him
in
some
twisted
fashion.
That
drove
him
deeper,
calling
on
names
and
words
of
power
that
he
hadn’t
even
realized
he’d
known,
each
spilling
from
him,
not
as
he
thought
of
it,
but
simply
as
if
he
was
being
used
as
a
vessel
for
something
else
that
wanted
to
speak
its
piece.

As
he
spoke,
energy
gathered
in
the
air.
He
smelled
the
bitter
tang
of
ozone,
heard
the
rumbling
of
distant
thunder.
He
saw
every
pore,
each
of
them
writhing
as
the
taint
filled
it,
and
he
saw
the
pain
in
her
eyes
as
he
sensed
whatever
was
left
of
Sheila
trying
to
push
out
the
thing
that
had
taken
up
residence
in
her
body.
None
of
that
stopped
him
from
finishing
though,
even
though
he’d
known
what
the
consequences
would
be.
Nothing
could
be
inhabited,
twisted
like
that,
and
live
once
it
was
gone.
He’d
known,
and
still
he’d
gone
on.

So
here
he
was,
standing
over
her
corpse,
the
twisted
features
once
again
serene
and
human
but
with
no
life
left
in
them.
He
raged
over
it,
speaking
all
the
words
of
all
the
rites
he
knew,
hoping
against
hope
that
some
combination
would
unlock
the
doorway
beyond
death
and
let
her
pass
through.
Nothing
was
working,
and
he
doubted
anything
would
by
this
point.
But
that
was
unthinkable,
so
he
kept
on,
all
through
the
night,
feeling
his
grasp
of
the
powers
he’d
tapped
growing
and
yet
feeling
Sheila
drifting
farther
and
farther
out
of
his
reach.

If
he’d
been
the
man
he
would
one
day
become,
the
man
who
had
harnessed
the
power
within
him
and
who
had
grown
to
understand
the
rules
that
governed
it,
he
would
have
stopped
then.
Even
as
the
grief
rose
up
to
kill
what
was
left
of
him,
he
would
have
walked
away
then.
But
he
wasn’t
that
man,
not
yet,
and
so
he
compounded
his
mistake
by
lashing
out
with
his
energy,
using
it
to
tie
a
tether
around
the
last
fleeing
part
of
the
soul
that
had
been
Sheila
Orlan
and
binding
her
to
the
world
of
the
physical.
How
he
did
it,
he
couldn’t
say,
even
now,
but
somehow,
he
did,
needing
no
ritual,
no
special
words,
just
raw
will.

He
will
pay
for
this
crime
dozens
of
times
in
the
coming
years,
finding
that
fragment
embedded
in
countless
others,
each
of
them
accusatory
and
raging
by
the
end.
More
than
a
handful
of
them
will
try
to
kill
him,
some
subconscious
part
of
them—the
Sheila
part—smelling
death
and
misery
on
him,
scenting
the
remnants
of
his
crime
and
seeking
to
punish
him.
They
will
fail
each
time,
but
only
by
narrow
margins,
and
only
when
he
throws
his
power
at
them,
letting
it
go
without
the
leash
of
focus
or
ritual,
and
each
time,
he
only
exacerbates
the
problem.