The Devil You Know (35 page)

“A
female demon.” Marie could not believe what she was hearing. “You want to have
sex with a female demon.”

Father
Joe laughed and stared knowingly at her.

“Oh
God,” Marie said, her heart pounding. Not taking her eyes off Father Joe, she
said to Tom, “They’ve already done it. Conjured another demon.”

“Where
is it?” Tom asked.

“Here
and there,” said Father Joe. “Around the room. You can’t see her yet. She still
needs a body. That’s what we were starting to work on when you interrupted us
with your little gun.”

He
half turned toward the men clustered behind them and waved a hand, indicating
that they should part. Several stepped aside, and Marie gasped when she saw a
woman lying on the table. Like the men around her, she was clothed in one of
the black robes, and when the men moved, she sat up and looked around, a dazed
expression on her face. Marie had to look closely in the flickering light, but
after a few seconds her suspicions were confirmed: it was Laura Tremaine. She
sat there now, her hair disheveled and dark circles under her eyes. There was
no hint of recognition when she looked at Marie.

“My
God,” she whispered.

“Who
is it?” Tom asked.

“Laura
Tremaine. The woman I told you about.”

“Jesus.
How?”

Father
Joe smiled. “Julian’s boys found her wandering the grounds yesterday morning
like a poor lost lamb. We’ve given her a good home.”

“What
did you do to her?” Tom asked, disgust and anger rising in his voice.

“Nothing
she didn’t want done. There hasn’t been any sort of protest from her. Not even
now that we’re preparing her to be the vessel.”

“They’re
going to give her body to the succubus,” Marie said.

“No!”
Tom said, taking a step forward and pointing the gun more directly at Father
Joe’s head. “Enough of this shit! We came for the book, and we’re taking it.” He
waved the gun toward Laura for a second before aiming at the priest again. “And
we’re taking her, too. If I have to shoot every one of you bastards, that’s
what’s happening.”

Again,
there was nervous shuffling among the robed men, but Father Joe raised a hand,
and they all stood still. Then he went on, as though Tom had not spoken. “Do
you know the problem with the bodies these good folk conjured for the first
incubi?” he asked and then continued speaking without waiting for an answer.
“They were fragile. Easily broken, as you’ve discovered. And to gain more
strength, the spirits in them had to drain life from their victims. But there’s
another way—no draining away, no victims, no fragile bodies that need
sustaining. Did your old friend Jasper tell you about it, Marie? Did he tell
you about the ritual whereby a succubus or incubus can occupy a real live body;
possess it, so to speak? The poor victim remains within, completely aware of
the debauchery being committed, powerless to act. A slave, essentially.” He
looked back at the woman on the table. “Laura’s been compliant, but she wasn’t
my first choice of bodies. Now you’re here, though, and we can rectify that.”

“You’re
out of your goddamned mind if that’s what you think,” Tom said coolly, and
Marie thought for a moment that he might actually shoot the priest. She was
about to put a hand on his forearm to calm him, but then he turned the gun back
toward Julian. “The book! Let’s have it!”

Marie
felt herself suddenly grow cold. At first, she thought it was just an emotional
reaction to Father Joe’s betrayal of her and everything he had stood for, and
to the almost predatory way he looked at her now. But then she realized that
there was a presence in the room, and that it had gotten closer to her. “Tom?”
she said, suddenly very frightened.

He
looked at her, but did not say anything, and she knew he felt it, too.

“So
you see,” Father Joe went on, “a little gun doesn’t matter much. What matters
is getting just the right body.”

Marie’s
eyes were locked on his as understanding dawned on her. The men that Julian had
sent to her house had not gone simply to frighten her or to leave her incapable
of meddling with their plans. No, she realized, they had been sent to kill Tom
and render her immobile so that she could be brought back and made the host for
the succubus they had conjured.

Father
Joe saw now that she understood. “Poetic justice, don’t you think?” he said.
“You kill our demons, and in retaliation we make you become the next one. It
was Julian’s idea, I’m afraid, but I went along whole-heartedly. It’s been
almost two years now of imagining what’s beyond all those buttons on your
clothes.”

“That’s
enough!” Tom shouted.

“You’re
right,” said Father Joe.

The
cold Marie had been feeling suddenly increased in its intensity, and she felt a
tightening in her throat. She remembered how Colin had described his first
encounter with the incubi before the ritual that had conjured their bodies: he
had said the formless demons had sexually stimulated several of Julian’s
cronies. Now, the female entity was pushing against her mouth, and Marie turned
away from Father Joe’s stare, gagging as her mouth and nose filled with a foul
smell and taste. Tom had lowered the gun, and she could hear him as from a
distance calling her name as he tried to take hold of her shoulders and pull
her to him. But she couldn’t breathe now, and all she could hear was a loud
rushing in her ears. Once, she had been pulled under the waves at Santa Monica
and had been sure that she would never come up. This feeling was far worse. As
she lost strength and sank to the floor, she could only look up to see Tom, his
face all in panic now. His hands had left her shoulders, the gun had slipped
from his fingers, and he was tearing at his own throat now, also unable to
breathe. The blackness of the curtains seemed to spread out across the room,
and then there was nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When
Marie awoke, it took her only a moment to realize that she had been tied firmly
to the big oak table where Laura had previously lain. She remembered seeing the
table in the adjacent room when she’d first come to the mansion. Then, it had
been laden with food and drink, and the wealthiest and most glamorous people
from Hollywood and Beverly Hills had been here to rub elbows with one another
while unwittingly covering for the incubi’s shenanigans. Now, it was to be the
site of a greater sin, and Marie struggled to move her wrists and ankles, but
thick knots held her fast. They had left her head and neck unbound, so she
could lift herself a little to see her surroundings. She saw that Tom was bound
to the table as well, his feet just beyond hers so that their heads were at
either end. She could not be sure, but she thought he was still unconscious.

Around
the table stood all of the hooded figures, including Julian Piedmont and Father
Joe. She recognized several of the men from the party, and to her left stood
the James Cagney look-alike, who still appeared disoriented and ill. She could
not see Laura anywhere.

“Nice
of you to join us,” Father Joe said. He stood directly beside her and held a
book in his hands that could only be the
Gelamen
Malum Lacuna
. It was thick, its covers tattered, and in the corrupt
priest’s hands it made Marie think of all the times she had seen him holding a
Bible with the same care and reverence. “We could have proceeded without your
knowledge,” he said, leaning forward just a bit. “But there’s
something…exciting about the panic in your eyes.”

“Remind
me to close them, then,” she said.

Father
Joe laughed. “Marie, all that time you spent in the office with me, and I never
would have imagined you had this kind of spunk. A shame I had to wait until now
to find out.” He opened the book and began turning the pages carefully. “When
we’re done with you here, we’ll conjure another incubus for your friend. Then
we’ll have a little floorshow with the two of you. Should be most interesting.”

Marie
strained against the ropes again, but it was no good. Several knots held her,
and there was no play in the ropes at all.

The
priest had found the page he wanted and looked it over now for a moment. Then,
without any preamble, he began to chant, “
Atrum
Senior, audite mihi
.”

“You
can’t do this!” Marie shouted, trying as hard as she could to pull against the
ropes. She wiggled her feet and was able to touch Tom’s toes, but she could
still see no sign that he had awoken yet.

Father
Joe ignored her, continuing his chant. “
Quo
phasmatis adveho pro nos
.”

And
then another voice shouted, “No!”

Marie
nearly cried out with relief when she turned her head to see Colin Krebs
standing in the same entryway that she and Tom had come through earlier. He
looked frantic, his eyes wide and his hair uncombed. He held a small handgun
and pointed it at Father Joe.

“Colin,
put that down,” said Julian. He stood directly to the priest’s left and stared
commandingly at Krebs.

“No,
Julian. No,” said Colin, as tears began streaming down his face. He swallowed
hard. “You never thought I’d say that to you, did you? No.” He laughed
sardonically. “The rest of you should try it. It just takes a little balls. He
never really cut them off of us; just made us think he had. Or would.” Marie
watched as he moved the muzzle of the gun just a little, and she thought he
must be pointing it at Julian now. “Untie the girl, Julian. Let them go.”

Piedmont
made no movement. Instead, he said, “Colin, you put that gun down and turn
around. You walk out that front door and never come back here. And leave your
keys. I should have taken them from you already. We will shun you. The new
religion needs no part of you.”

“New
religion!” Colin barked back at him. “New religion? You’re out of your mind,
Julian. You think this is a religion that you’re founding? It’s his.” He nodded
toward Father Joe. “And when he’s done with you, he’ll cast you aside. He won’t
need you for long, you know. Not now that you’ve given him the book.”

“You
don’t know what you’re talking about, Colin,” Julian said forcefully.

“Don’t
I? Don’t I know how he used me in that confessional to find out everything
about you? About her?” He nodded toward Marie. “I’m going to hell, Julian. And
not just because of what I’ve done, and not just because of what you made me
do, but because of him. Can’t you see?”

“All
I can see is that you need to get the hell out of here, Colin,” said Piedmont.
He was losing his temper, Marie could see, and he stepped out of the ranks of
hooded men around the table, making a move in Colin’s direction. “We’re through
with you!”

“You’re
through all right,” Colin yelled and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was
deafening inside the room, the sound echoing off the walls and high ceiling for
several seconds. Marie cringed when Colin pulled the trigger and watched him
for a second as he stood there with the gun in his extended hand, smoke rising
from the barrel. Then all was chaos. The hooded men began to run in every
direction, most of them yelling in fear. Then she felt something hit the table,
and she turned her head away from Colin just in time to see Julian Piedmont’s
face inches from hers. He had fallen forward seconds after being shot, and now
he slipped off the table and onto the floor.

Over
her shoulder, she heard Colin shout, “And you, too!” Another gunshot followed,
this one much closer to Marie. She closed her eyes involuntarily at the roar of
the gun, and when she opened them she saw Father Joe still standing at the head
of the table, Tom’s smoking Luger in his hand and a satisfied smile on his
face. She did not need to turn her head to know that Colin had been shot.

The
gunshots had brought Tom back to consciousness, and he began shouting, “Marie! Marie!”

“I’m
here,” she called back. “I’m okay.”

“For
the moment,” Father Joe said.

Colin
lay on the floor beside the entryway to the immense room, and Julian Piedmont
was on the floor beside the long table. Father Joe stood at the head of the
table, and the James Cagney look-alike stood off to the side. All the other men
had fled in a panic. With their leader dead, they had no stomach for Black
Masses and demons. Without Piedmont, the center had dropped out of their
devotion, and they had run off into the night, directionless.

“Don’t
need them anyway,” Father Joe muttered. “Let’s begin again.” He cleared his
throat.
“
Atrum
Senior , audite mihi. Quo phasmatis adveho pro nos. Ita is somes adveho pro nos
.”

Marie’s
knowledge of Latin was limited to what she was used to hearing during the Mass,
but she was able to piece together enough of what Father Joe chanted to know he
was talking about the succubus and about Marie’s body having come before his
dark lord.

“
Iam beatus nos ut nos suo duos
,” he
continued, and as Marie tried to decipher the words, she began to feel a weight
upon her. It was the same presence she had felt earlier, just before she and
Tom had lost consciousness. The female demon was now lying on top of her body,
waiting for the remainder of the prayer and its final joining with her.

Terrified,
Marie did the only thing she could think of. Her voice trembling, she began the
prayer for exorcism, starting with, “Creature of Satan, in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. I command you to leave this body.”

Father
Joe began to laugh, but she continued. “We drive you from us, whoever you may
be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked
legions, assemblies and sects.” There was no change in the weight she felt upon
her body. The demon still lay on her, its essence bearing down on her, waiting
to penetrate and form a union with her.

“What’s
wrong, Marie?” Father Joe asked. He bent down closer so she could see his face
above her. From where she lay, his face was upside down, and he looked
frightening with his eyebrows below his eyes rather than above them, his mouth
at the top of his head. “Have I caused you to lose your faith? Or did Colin do
that? Maybe it was never so strong to begin with.” He chuckled again and then
straightened up, turning his attention back to the spell.

He
started over yet again, no doubt wanting to cast the spell perfectly. And as he
chanted, Marie felt panic rising in her. She darted her eyes back and forth,
terrified of the weight of the demon on her body. She could sense Tom near her
and thought she heard him calling out to her, but his voice had a dreamy,
distant quality to it. The idea of faith seemed far away as well, and she
realized that she no longer believed that the exorcism prayer would do any
good, or that there was a God in heaven to hear it. Ever since Ryan had died,
it had been Father Joe who had helped her to keep her faith, to take comfort in
the promise of the afterlife and the eventual end to all her suffering and
sorrow. And now he had shown her that his every prayer and good wish for her
had been hollow, a mask behind which his perversion and monstrosity had
perfectly hidden. She did not even consider that the exorcism prayer had worked
before; all she knew was that now it would not work.

In
an almost hallucinatory way, Jasper’s words echoed in her head, as though he
were here in this room and speaking in her ear: “But rather the right actions—often
words—along with absolute, unbending faith, Marie,
faith
can draw these energies together and effectively create
something out of nothing.”

And if they can be
created, they can be destroyed
, she thought.
But
only with faith
. And she suddenly had none.

Tears
ran down her cheeks, and the weight of the demon on her was becoming
unbearable. She felt as though it was about to split her open, and she feared
that in seconds she would literally feel it enter her. And when it did, she
knew, it would take complete control of her. The thing in her would do
everything Father Joe asked of it, and Marie would be powerless, trapped within
and able only to look through her own eyes at the unspeakable things the
succubus would make her body do.

And
then her eyes opened wide, and she gasped. Only faith could save her, she
realized. And while she had no faith in God right now, she did have faith that
the thing bearing down on her was real, had been called forth by men who did
believe in something, if only the devil, and that it could be sent away if she
made it believe her faith was stronger.

Clenching
her jaw and trying to resist the force of the thing upon her, she concentrated
on all that she had left to believe in—the knowledge she had gained from
Jasper. Her mind raced, thoughts bouncing from one bit of information to the
next as she tried to recall all he had taught her about these spirits. Even as
the thing began to press harder at her loins, causing a stirring of desire
unlike anything she had ever felt in spite of a growing sense of revulsion, she
remembered that the being had no body, no physical existence at all. It
couldn’t be pressing on her. It was impossible.

In
a moment of revelation, she understood. In this state, the succubus could do
nothing but work on its victim’s mind, invading her thoughts, making her
believe what it—and Father Joe—wanted her to believe. It had not
choked her and Tom into unconsciousness earlier, but had only made them believe
that it was. And now it was not physically touching Marie, but it was working
on her mind, making her think she was being sexually stimulated and letting her
brain and her nerves do the rest. It was all hallucination, made manifest by
Marie’s belief that it was real.

The
only way she could think to fight it was to turn her mind to other things that
she knew were real. While the thing kept making her think something was lying
on her and now grinding against her, muting the monstrous priest’s intonations
and Tom’s distant shouts, Marie made herself concentrate on other things—on
real things that could not be denied. She pictured Tom on top of her as he had
been just hours ago on her couch, recalling the feeling of his weight upon her,
of his kisses, of how it had felt to wrap her legs around him as they writhed
together. Her memories combined with the stimulation the succubus was forcing
on her, and her body lurched with an orgasm that shook her to the core. It
seemed to last forever, the intensity of it opening her mind even further to
the things she knew were real, a multitude of images and memories flooding her
brain simultaneously—thoughts of Elise, the incubi, every moment with
Tom, Jasper’s corpse, the feeling of old books in her hands, Jasper’s painting
of the woman bound to an altar.

Suddenly,
in a moment of complete clarity, Marie knew what she had to do, believing with
all her heart that it would work, and knowing that her faith alone would be
strong enough to cast the succubus out and away. But it was not belief in God,
or exorcism, or even St. Lucy. She did not have to try to remember the words
from the Lovecraft manuscript. She had only to open her mouth, and the words
came out.

“
Namon dagoreth ashtakar sa,
” she said.
She could hear her own voice loud and strong enough now to make Father Joe look
up from the book of spells. As she said the words, she thought of Jasper and
all he had taught her about evil entities and negative energies and the ways
they could be called together and dispersed.