Demonized (3 page)

“Thinking about it,” I admitted. “I need some advice.”

“At three in the morning? Can’t it wait?”

“I wouldn’t have dragged you from your crypt if it could,” I snapped. “It’s about demons.”

She stayed quiet for a few seconds while I drummed my fingers agitatedly on the countertop and considered hanging up again. Then she spoke, voice low and compassionate, like she was talking me down from a ledge. “It’s about the cacodaemon, isn’t it?”

I don’t remember much of my brief possession, except a feeling of heart-stopping panic and chilling cold, a feeling of being a stranger in my body. If Stoker said it was a cacodaemon that was fine by me. “Yeah, that thing. It…I…”

“Part of it is still inside you,” she finished for me. “I could have told you that back in Shoregrave.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“You wouldn’t let me! You had to do the big tough man routine, didn’t you?” She sighed. “Are you okay?”

“Do you think I’d be calling you at three am if I was?” I paced the tiny kitchen and drank more coffee. “Fuck, I don’t know, Stoker. It’s…I don’t know, it’s horrible. Nasty. It likes violence and misery and it talks to me. Right in my head. I think I might go crazy. I was at this murder scene earlier and all I could think…” I broke off, shuddering at the memory, Rhian Ellis, dead and pale. The Voice sucked it up, loved it, and lived off it.

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” Stoker said.

I shrugged off the crawls creeping down my spine. “I guess you did what you could—”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to help.”

Her words felt like a kick in the balls. I’d picked up the phone expecting an instant solution from my undead expert.
Stupid of me, really
. She might be a few hundred years old, but Stoker bumbled around like a cut-price Inspector Clouseau, bouncing from one bad move to the next.
Why would she be able to help me
?

“I’m sorry,” she said again when I didn’t answer. “I just don’t know enough about demons to help you. Maybe if Emma was around, I could ask her…”

“It’s fine,” I lied, sitting down on the floor. Mutt came and laid his head in my lap and I stroked him absently. “I guess I’ll just have to go crazy. I’ll go out in style, go burn down a few churches or something. Maybe I can get myself committed.”

“A church might not be a bad idea,” she remarked.

“You want me to burn down a church?”

“No,” she said with heavy patience. “I think you should talk to a priest. About an exorcism.”

“Are you serious? I’m not going to some fucking Bible-basher so he can tell me I’m burning in hell for smoking and swearing. You can fuck that shit, Stoker.”

“Well, it’s the best I can come up with,” Stoker replied, managing to yawn and sound angry at the same time. “I don’t know anything about demons, Ethan, beyond that I don’t like them. If you don’t get rid of the cacodaemon, I don’t know what will happen to you, but I’m sure it won’t be nice.”

Mutt whined and I bowed over at the waist, resting my forehead on top of his mangy head. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Ethan.”

“Stop saying that.” It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the sentiment. It was just that it didn’t make any difference, so she may as well save her breath. “I’ll go see a priest. Maybe a dose of holy water and a few Hail Marys will fix me up.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Yeah.” It occurred to me I should make polite and ask her how she was, so I did. She sighed.

“I’m terrible,” she said, “but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go—call me after you’ve spoken to the priest.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I hugged Mutt and wondered if a trip to the House of God would really help. What if I couldn’t even get through the door? I might be struck by lightening on the threshold. I didn’t know if I believed in God. I didn’t know if mixing with demons and ghosts proved or disproved the afterlife. I did believe that if God did exist, knowing my luck, he was the Old Testament version, fire and brimstone and killing your kids, that shit.

The Voice chuckled at the thought of dead kids. I thought of dead hookers and Doug Baxter. Somewhere between getting Mutt de-wormed and myself exorcised, I had to figure out what drove his sweet little fiancée to stripping and death. Busy day.

Chapter Three

Mutt had fleas, worms, malnutrition, mange, and a strong dislike of vets. Luckily, most of those things could be cleared up with medication and a good diet. The vet thing, not so much. Half an hour after we arrived at the vet’s, I hauled Mutt off the poor guy’s leg by the collar, yelling at him to drop it.

The vet acted pretty understanding about it. I offered to replace his ruined pants, but he insisted it was all part of the job. At nine-thirty that morning, Mutt and I left the vet’s with a bunch of doggy pills, a few tins of special doggy food, and a small fortune in beds, toys, leashes, and treats. “You don’t know how lucky you are,” I told Mutt as he jumped into the car with a squeaky lamb chop in his mouth. “I had to make do with a toy gun and a plastic sheriff’s badge when I was your age.”

Summer heat still crushed the city, and most people stayed out of the sun. I saw a few kids licking dripping ice creams on dead-grass play parks as I drove away from the vets. A few guys hung out on stoops with cold beers, but the rest of the world stayed locked away behind pulled shades.

I could have gone for a few cold beers myself, maybe even a case of them. Instead, I was heading to church. I still wasn’t sure Stoker’s exorcism theory had worth much, but I’d spent the rest of the night pacing the kitchen, high on caffeine and full of the Voice’s twisted little whispers. I felt exhausted, desperate, and running on empty. So church it was.

My folks didn’t raise me to be religious. Dad worshipped the bottle, and Mom kept her head down and her mouth shut. Not that Dad was abusive. I gotta make that clear. Dad was crazy and paranoid, not violent. Mom coped with it all remarkably well, by keeping her head down and her mouth shut. Anyway, we weren’t churchgoers.

So when I pulled up outside the Overture Church on the outskirts of town, the shiver that ran through me surprised me. I stared at the building, a low, modern affair that didn’t look like anything to do with God or religion. It looked like a youth center or a social club or something. No stained glass windows, no crosses with bloodied Messiah figures. Just white bricks with a big sign on the door reading, “Don’t let your worries kill you. Let the church help.”

I couldn’t decide if it was intentional irony or unintentional humor, but either way it didn’t make me feel any better. The Voice agreed, whispering in my head that burning the church down was the best way to go.

“
Idiot men with their empty symbols. They know nothing of Hell, nothing of sin.”

Huh
. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the Voice felt scared.

“
Scared? Of this pathetic house of lies? I could show you real fear, Ethan. I could show you nightmares you’ve never imagined.”

Yeah, sounds like a real fun time
. I moved the car into a patch of shade under an oak tree, wound the windows down for Mutt, and headed for the church. All the way up the dark gravel drive, the Voice fought me, urged me to turn back, and threatened foul deeds upon me. My new best friend was freaking out.
Kinda makes me feel better about things
.

I still hesitated in the doorway, waiting for the lightning bolt and heavenly chorus. All I got was the creak of the door swinging, and cool air swirling around inside the church.
Fuck, if they had air conditioning, I was there
.

I stepped inside, ignoring the Voice’s cries of protest, and sighed in relief. The air con was cranked up, drying the sticky beads of sweat on my forehead.
Huh
. It wasn’t a typical church on the inside, either. I saw no heavy gold crucifixes dangling from the ceiling, or wall paintings of angels chopping up lions, or whatever angels did. The seats were pale wood with red velvet padding, none of the old scarred, chipped oaken pews you always saw in churches on TV. The stained glass windows didn’t have any martyred saints or bleeding Christ figures either, just abstract patterns in purple, gold, and green. It looked nice, slick, modern, and kinda weird. I expected hellfire and brimstone and I got this bland sort of anti-church. Not that the lack of Christian knickknacks made the Voice any happier.

“
This place is vile,”
it spat. “
Take me back to the dead hookers and miserable humans. I need to feed.”

The Voice’s hunger hit me hard, sending images of dead, pale Rhian Ellis spinning before my eyes. I wet my lips, trying to fight down the nasty mix of lust and disgust it filled me with. I wasn’t the Voice. I didn’t need to suck up every bit of despair and horror I found, even if I might want to.

While I struggled to ignore the Voice, a narrow-faced guy about my age appeared, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his long nose and frowning at me. I wondered if I’d been muttering to myself, or dribbling pea soup or something.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m looking for a priest.”

He beamed at me. “You’ve found one. I’m Father Crane—Daniel.” He hurried over to shake my hand. “How can I help you, son?”

“You’re in charge?” He looked way too young to be calling me “son”.

“As far as the Lord lets me be.”

‘Right.’ I scratched the back of my neck, my words stuck in my throat.
Do I just come right out and ask for an exorcism? Or do I have to make a confession first or something
?

I guess Crane picked up on my internal hand-flapping, because he smiled at me and gestured to the seats. “Sit down, please. How about we talk about what brought you here?”

“Sure.” I sat down, shifting my weight on the creaking chair. Despite the padding, it felt pretty uncomfortable. I guess they didn’t want the parishioners getting too cozy, lest they forget that Jesus died for their sins.

“Jesus was nothing but a charlatan and a con artist! Nothing and nobody can absolve you from damnation if you are to be damned,”
the Voice informed me.

Crane’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry?”

Shit
. There I went with the crazy man routine again. “I said...” I realized there was nothing remotely plausible I could say, so I abandoned the attempt and plunged straight into the heavy stuff. “Never mind. Listen, do you believe in demons?”

“I believe in the evil forces that tempt us in our daily lives,” Crane replied seriously. “Drugs, gambling—”

“No, not that. I’m not talking about abstract concepts or personal temptation or any of that shit,” I cut in. “I’m talking demons. Horns, pointy tails, pitchforks. Demons.”

The Voice bristled at my cartoonish vision of a demon, but Crane suddenly looked worried instead of serious. I could see him mentally fitting me with a straitjacket as he replied.

“Do you believe in demons, Mr. Banning?”

I weighed my answer carefully. I knew I sounded crazy. I remembered how sure I’d been that Stoker was crazy when she sat me down in her kitchen and explained to me about the undead mafia running Shoregrave. That happened after I’d fought a vampire and watched Stoker turn into mist. I didn’t want to spook Crane, but I didn’t want him to dismiss me as a kook off his medication either. I wanted him to take me seriously, and think seriously about what I told him. If after that he still decided I was a few chips shy of the cookie, fair enough.

“Look,” I said. “I know how this sounds, okay? I know you’re looking at me wondering when I’m going to start drooling and ranting about the leprechauns who tell me to start fires, but bear with me. Because, yeah, I do believe in demons. I’ve been up close and personal with them, and now I’ve got one...inside me. Riding around with me. I want it gone.”

I wasn’t one of life’s great orators. Another reason I became a private dick—I got to spend a lot of time alone talking to myself, and when I did talk to other people the dialogue was pretty limited. Once I figured out the key phrases—“How much will you pay me?” and “I knew this dame would be trouble”—I was pretty much set. I didn’t have to spend a lot of time being eloquent or persuasive. So I didn’t expect Crane to be bowled over and convinced by my little speech. I just wanted him to listen to it.

And I think he actually did. Instead of laughing me out of the building, Crane leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands under his chin. He studied me over the rims of his glasses, pursing his lips. “How did you acquire this demon?” he asked me finally.

Judging by his inflection on the last word, he still thought I was talking about some tangible vice rather than monsters from the pit. I sighed. “It jumped down my throat. I don’t really remember much of the actual event, which I’m grateful for, as I’m sure I’d be traumatized by it. It didn’t last long—the demon got...taken out of me. Mostly, I guess. It left part of itself behind, and now I’ve got this voice in my head, feeding off misery and anger, all the shitty parts of life. I want to get rid of it.”

“You’re asking me to perform an exorcism,” Crane said.

I blinked. “You believe me?”

Crane rubbed his nose. “Whether I believe you or not is immaterial, I think. You believe you.”

I didn’t agree, but I didn’t push it. “So you can do it, then? You can exorcise me?”