Demonized (8 page)

“
You’re pathetic! No wonder the pretty police woman won’t sleep with you.”

“Shut up,” I said through gritted teeth. “Mutt, c’mere.”

Mutt strained at the end of his leash, still barking at the kids who were now long gone. I appreciated his efforts, but it was a lost cause. He came back to me when I tugged at the leash, placing his front paws on my knees and washing my face, whining anxiously. I scratched his ears, trying to get a grip on reality again.

Okay.
I’d fallen asleep on the bench like a hobo. No shame in that, at least until the neighborhood kids came and clocked me with their empties. On the plus side, I hadn’t had any nightmares. Maybe the Voice was laying low ahead of the exorcism?

“
Or maybe you don’t have the brains to know when to be scared anymore,”
the Voice sniped.
“
Poking around in the kind of dirty magic you do, you deserve to die. The incubus could have snapped your neck yesterday.”

“Is that concern I hear?” I mused, checking my watch. I’d really been out for the count–it was mid-morning, edging toward noon, and I only had a couple more hours to kill before my appointment at the Overture Church. I decided to fill it with food. A tacky-looking café sat across the street from my bench, with a nasty, orange sign and faded paint around the door. The greasy scent of bacon and burgers wafted from the doorway, and Mutt licked his chops as we approached.

“I’m not sure you’re allowed in,” I told him, eyeing the café interior doubtfully through the window. They certainly couldn’t ban Mutt on hygiene grounds, from the look of the place. I shoved the door open, keeping him close to my heels, and headed for the counter. The place was empty of customers, nobody to complain about Mutt.

The acne-scarred youth behind the counter stared dully from me to Mutt and back again. “That your girlfriend, man?” he sneered.

“Boyfriend,” I corrected, “and I’ll thank you not to stare. Bacon sandwich to go, lots of ketchup; and a coffee.” I glanced at Mutt, who looked up at me with big soulful eyes. “And a hot dog. Is that cannibalism?”

“I think it’s probably okay,” the youth assured me as he began frying my bacon. “There’s not a whole lot of meat in the hot dogs.”

He turned his back on me to attend to the fryer and I had a split-second image of shoving his face into the bubbling fat, holding him there while he burned, until his eyeballs melted and smoke rolled off his jug-eared head…

“
Do it. Do it now, there’s nobody else here, do it…”

I wished I could punch the Voice in the head. Instead, I turned away from the boy and stared at the hideous abstract artwork on the walls. The patterns were all done in oranges, yellows, and reds, and after a few seconds, I felt like I stared into a fire, which just lead me back to shoving the kid’s head in the grill.

Itchy and impatient, I turned back to stare at him. “We done yet?” I needed to get out of here before the Voice started up again and forced me to drive a drinking straw into my eyes or something to shut it up.

“
You could do that anyway. Nobody would care. Anna might even laugh.”

“
Shut the fuck up,” I told the Voice.

“Hey, you want the damn hot dog or not?” The youth glared at me with one hand extended to offer me my hot dog. Not sure whether to be embarrassed or apologetic, I settled for grouchy and snatched the hot dog from him. “You’re welcome,” he snapped.

“
Hit him. Snot-nosed brat. It would be so satisfying.”

Yeah, it really would.
I kinda felt I’d earned the right to hit something, anyway. I clutched the hot dog reflexively, crushing the bread bun and sending the sausage shooting out to hit the kid in the chest. “Shit.”

“Asshole!” He retaliated by flinging my bacon burger at me. It slopped down my shirt and onto the floor, where Mutt lapped it up with gusto. “You just come in here to abuse the staff, do you?” the youth growled at me.

“I haven’t started yet.” I reached across the counter, grabbing his shirt collar and yanking him hard against the counter. “Customer is always right, pal, okay? That means if I want to rip your fucking tongue out and feed it to my dog, I’m right. Right?”

At my feet, Mutt snarled. I had no idea who at. The boy quaked in my grip, eyes wide, and I wondered suddenly what I looked like. I released him so abruptly he stumbled back, bumping into the fryer and splashing hot grease over his legs. He cried out in pain and the Voice laughed joyfully.

“
You’re a step away from full-on public meltdown, you know that?”

“
Me? You’re the crazy guy here, man, not me!” the kid spat at me.

I recoiled from him, realizing the Voice had used my vocal chords. Revulsion filled me, and bile rose in my throat.
Shit. I’d been so close
... I really wanted to hurt the kid, still did. I could almost smell his skin crisping in the boiling oil and...

I vomited over the counter, spewing nothing but whiskey and stomach lining. The kid hooted with laughter and I reacted without thinking, swinging wildly at him. I connected with his fat nose and sent him sprawling to the floor. The Voice roared with laughter.

“Shit,” I said, staring down at the kid, who stared back at me like he was waiting for the deathblow. I wiped my mouth and my hands trembled. A hasty retreat was in order.

Swallowing hard, I nudged Mutt out the door. “C’mon, boy, time to go to church.”

I left the café with a torrent of abuse from the kid and the Voice howling in my head.
Not my finest hour by a long shot
.

* * * *

I arrived at the Overture Church sticky, hungry, and in a sour mood. Mutt trudged at my heels, looking forlorn and sulky. The image of shoving the café kid’s head into the fryer replayed endlessly in my mind as the Voice delighted in reminding me just how close I’d come to doing it.

Shuddering, I pushed open the door to the church, empty and silent inside, just like yesterday, with a sort of heavy tranquility in the air. Mutt wagged his tail as the air conditioning breezed over us, and I felt some of my bad mood lift as well. The Voice retreated a little too, maybe cowed by God’s presence or something,
I don’t know
. I just knew it was a relief to have the image of the café kid’s boiled head out of my mind.

“Mr. Banning?” Father Crane walked down the aisle toward me with a Bible in hand. He peered at Mutt over his glasses. “Would your dog like some water?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I sat down on one of the chairs and Mutt settled at my feet, licking my boots half-heartedly. Crane disappeared through a side door and emerged a few seconds later with a bowl of water for Mutt and a glass for me.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked me as he set the water down for Mutt. The dog lapped noisily from the bowl, splashing water up my jeans.

“Pretty shitty,” I admitted and then wondered if swearing in church would count against me in the exorcism. “It’s getting worse. The Voice is...” I made crazy-person hand gestures by my head. “Getting worse. Everything’s getting worse.” I chugged my water. “So if we can hurry up and purge me, I’d be really grateful.”

“Well.” Crane sat down next to me and flicked through the Bible idly. “I consulted with my district superintendent, who was somewhat dubious initially, but agreed that an exorcism might help put your mind at rest, and that we had a responsibility to do that.”

“Okay.”
So the district superintendent doesn’t believe me either. Okay, that doesn’t matter. As long as they do the ceremony, it doesn’t matter
.

“
You don’t think belief matters?”
the Voice mocked. “
You don’t think it matters if the priest thinks you’re an unhinged lunatic?”

I ignored the Voice and concentrated on Crane instead. “So what do we do?” I asked.

“I did some reading around,” Crane explained, “and decided to go back to my roots.” He beamed at me when I stared blankly at him. “The Pentecostal deliverance ceremony,” he elaborated. “Pentecostalism teaches that a true Christian believer cannot be possessed, and focuses on delivering non-believers, which I think suits us better here.”

“Okay,” I said again, none the wiser. “So, what? Do I need to pray or ask for forgiveness or anything?”

“We’re going to start with simple Bible recitation.” Crane rose, beckoning for me to follow. He led me to the altar and gestured for me to kneel. “You should understand that this is not technically an exorcism,” he warned me. “A deliverance ceremony is part of ongoing counseling, as opposed to the one-off ritual of exorcism.”

I frowned up at him. The wooden floorboards felt cold and hard on the knees, and I wasn’t going to kneel down here like an idiot if I wasn’t being exorcised. “Listen, I don’t need counseling, okay? I need exorcising. If I wanted counseling, I’d have gone and paid some lousy shrink for it.”

Crane frowned back at me, lifting a small silver bowl of water from the altar. “If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Banning, I will be flicking you with holy water throughout.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better.”

He sighed and gestured for me to stand again. “Mr. Banning, if you’re expecting burning crucifixes or levitating beds, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Far too many unscrupulous people have made money by preying on others’ fears and superstitions when it comes to possession. I am offering you a practical solution to a spiritual and psychological problem. Either you want it or you don’t.”

I shifted my weight around uneasily and looked back down the aisle at Mutt. He’d curled up under one of the chairs to doze. Since he seemed happy enough where he was, I figured I might as well stick out the exorcism, or ceremony, or counseling session, or whatever. “Yeah, okay.” I knelt again. “Let’s do this shit.”

“I might also ask you to mind your language,” Crane added mildly.

I bit my tongue to hold back the vile reply the Voice had for him.

Crane opened the Bible, his voice sonorous and solemn. “And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying.” As he spoke, he dipped his fingers in the holy water and flicked it at my forehead. I waited for it to start sizzling or something, but nothing unholy happened. The Voice snickered.

“The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, these men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation,” Crane continued, flicking more water on me.

I flinched as the droplets hit my head, and the lights above the altar flickered and blinked. I shook my head, sure I’d imagined it, but no...there they went again. On, off, so quick it was barely noticeable.

“And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.”

“
I won’t leave,”
the Voice snarled, an edge of anger and panic in its tone. “
Nothing can make me leave.”

Crane looked taken aback for a second and then spattered more holy water on me. “You will leave,” Crane responded. “I command you in the name of God to leave.”

The lights flickered again, on-off, longer this time, so I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. The cool air in the church slowly warmed up too, turning oppressive and foul.

“
You think your words and water scare me? You think your precious God has anything to do with the Netherworld?”
the Voice spat at Crane. “
We were around long before your savior walked the earth. We existed when your church was nothing but a few madmen wandering the deserts crying about angels.”

The lights blinked once more and stayed out this time. Tiny bursts of shattering glass filled the air as the bulbs broke. Way behind me, Mutt growled and whined. The church felt hot now, and the shadows at the edge of the aisle shivered and twisted like they were alive. Sweat poured down my brow and Crane’s. Creeping fear filled me. The Voice sounded pissed off.

“
This mortal is mine. This body is mine, and no amount of prayer and hope will save him,”
the Voice crowed. My body shook as the Voice forced me to my feet, squaring off against Crane. “
I will ride him to his death, to the moment he chooses to eat his gun rather than spend another day with me, and then I will move onto you, priest, and drive you to the same fate!”

It felt like watching a movie. Nothing I did felt like I did it. I watched in horror as my hands clasped Crane’s throat, shaking him until he dropped the Bible. I watched helplessly as the Voice backed the man up against the altar, relishing in the terror in the man’s eyes. New voices rose to join the Voice. Shrill voices chanted hellish prayers, just at the edge of my hearing.

At the edge of my sight, I saw the shadows writhe and pulse, throwing orange and red light across the church to glow off Crane’s pale face. Mutt howled. The temperature shot from hot to blazing, and I almost saw the hell fire rising up around us.

Crane stuttered and struggled, trying to free himself from my grip. “In the name of the Father, the Son...”

“
Fuck you! Fuck your god and fuck your pathetic exorcism!”
The Voice flung Crane to the floor. He landed with a crack and a cry, but immediately scrambled onto his knees and grabbed the bowl of holy water from the altar.

“I cast you out!” he screamed, throwing the bowl at me.

The water hit me like a fist in the face, and I staggered back with a shout. The Voice howled through my mouth, and for a second I heard both our voices echoing in the rafters. The choir of hellish singers around us shrieked, and I felt flames beating at my legs.

“For fuck’s sake, stop!” I bellowed, not sure who I talked to. I hurt all over, hot and tortured and full of violence, and something had to give before I killed Crane or myself.

“
I’ll never stop,”
the Voice promised me. “
Until the day you die, I’ll be here.”

I dropped to my knees as despair swept over me. Digging my nails into my skull, I tore at my hair, as if I could rip the Voice out through my head. “No,” I growled. “No, fuck you, fuck that.”