“Here,” Marlene said, handing her the papers. “I printed out some information for you. I actually got in touch with the priest who helped me, Father Graves. He told me that he’d be willing to help you too. I can get him on the phone right now, if you think you’re ready.”
Cassidy flipped through the pages. There was a printed Wikipedia page for the Order of St. Michael and a few other assorted pages about the history of demonic possession and the demon Abaddon. At the very end was a photocopy of what looked like a business card. It simply read, “Father Thomas Graves, Order of St. Michael.” Beneath the name and title was a phone number with an unfamiliar area code.
“Like you said,” Marlene continued, “time’s running out. I’ve been where you are right now. I can help you through this.”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy said, staring at the paper. “I should talk this over with my pastor first.”
“Sweetie, there isn’t time. And you can’t be talking about that pastor who did the exorcism. A lot of good that did you. He doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with here. You need a real specialist.”
With a trembling hand, Cassidy picked up the phone and dialed the number. Three rings. Then, a click.
“Hello?” said a baritone male voice. “This is Father Graves speaking.”
“H-hi,” Cassidy stammered. “Um...you don’t know me, but, a friend said you might be able to help me out. You see, I’m dealing with something I can’t really explain.”
“Is this Cassidy?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” Cassidy replied with a deep exhale.
“Of course. Marlene told me about you. Why don’t you tell me your story?”
Cassidy took a deep breath and then completely unloaded. She told him about the strange vision, the song, the exorcism. She even went into the gruesome details of her childhood abuse. She must have talked for nearly five minutes before finally stopping to breathe.
“It sounds like you’ve been through a lot,” the priest said. “As you probably know, I have confronted this demon before, and a lot of what you’re saying is very familiar to me.”
For the first time since the exorcism, Cassidy felt hope surging through her entire body.
“We can beat this,” Father Graves continued. “Can you get to Los Angeles?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Good. Let Marlene drive you. It’s not safe for you to make the drive by yourself right now. Not until we get this thing taken care of. I’ll be in my office—”
Just then, the phone line began to cut out. Father Graves’ words became choppy and unclear, and Cassidy could only make out scattered words like “dark,” “pray,” and “Marlene.”
“Hello?” Cassidy shouted into the phone as the priest’s voice dropped altogether. “Father Graves? Father Graves? Are you still there? Hello?”
On the line, there was only static and a faint hiss. Cassidy called out to Father Graves once again, but he didn’t reply. Instead, there came the familiar xylophone melody and the chilling voice of the young girl.
The devil creeps into my room
To sing a lullaby
He softly whispers
Pleasant dreams
For soon it's time to die
Cassidy dropped the phone on the table and cupped her hands over her mouth, trembling. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was fighting the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. The song was loud enough for Marlene to hear.
“We need to get going,” Marlene said. “Now.”
13
At around 8:30 p.m., Allison found herself lying in bed with a half-empty glass of Jack Daniel’s and a book about the psychology of possession and exorcism in America. An old Bad Religion punk rock album played on her Bluetooth stereo system, and her flimsy ceiling fan wobbled precariously above her head. Outside her bedroom window, she could see the bright lights of the Vegas Strip off in the distance.
She was reading about the glaring inconsistencies in the case of Roland Doe, the boy whose heavily publicized exorcisms inspired The Exorcist. As she turned a page and read statements from the eyewitness accounts, the iPhone on her nightstand vibrated.
Allison placed the book and the whiskey glass on the nightstand and picked up the phone. The phone number appearing on her screen was a local 702 number, but there was no name assigned to it.
Allison rolled off the bed, jogged across the room to the stereo, and turned down the volume. Then she accepted the call and raised the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
At first, Allison could hear only labored breathing, as though someone were running a marathon while making a phone call.
“Hello?” Allison repeated, pacing across her bedroom.
“Andrea…” came a trembling whisper.
Allison stopped cold. “Cassidy? Is everything okay?”
Cassidy whispered something, but Allison couldn’t make out the words.
“Cassidy, I can barely hear you,” she said.
“Please listen,” she whispered. “I’m hiding under the bed. Please. I don’t have a lot of time. Jesus...I hid my diary in the floorboard. Please find it. Please make sure my mom gets it. Please. This is so important. Please.”
“Cassidy, what’s going on? Where are you? Are you in trouble?”
Allison heard more heavy breathing and what sounded like crying, and then the call dropped. She prepared to call back but quickly stopped herself, realizing that she might compromise Cassidy’s hiding place if the poor girl’s phone rang or even vibrated.
A few seconds later, a text message appeared on Allison’s phone. It was from Cassidy. The message contained only an address: 14621 Oasis Crossing, Henderson.
Allison dialed 911 on her smartphone.
“Nine-one-one emergency,” came a woman’s calm voice.
“Yes, there’s a home invasion at 14621 Oasis Crossing in Henderson. I need police to get there immediately. My friend is hiding, and she’ll be killed if you don’t hurry up. This is a life-or-death situation.”
“Okay, ma’am. Are you in the house with your friend?”
“No. She just called me. Please send police immediately.”
“Ma’am, just to confirm, the address is one-four-six-two-one Oasis Crossing in Henderson. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Please hurry.”
“Okay, ma’am. I’m notifying the Henderson Police Department so they can get someone out there right away.”
The dispatcher then asked more questions about the nature of the incident, but Allison wasn’t able to provide much information. By the time the dispatcher started asking personal questions about Cassidy, Allison was already dressed and in the elevator of her high-rise apartment building. She didn’t own a gun, and she had no idea what she was up against, but she wasn’t about to let Cassidy suffer and die alone in that house.
As she raced toward her car in the dimly lit basement garage, the dispatcher confirmed that Henderson PD officers were on their way to the scene. Feeling mildly hopeful, Allison hopped into the driver’s seat of her car and gunned it for Flamingo Rd.
With help from her phone’s GPS, she reached the Henderson house about twenty minutes later. It was a typical suburban desert tract home with two stories, a sand-colored paint job, a white garage door, and a roof that came to multiple points. It looked like every other home on the cul-de-sac—except that it had three police squad cars parked out front.
Allison parked on the street in front of the neighbors’ nearly identical house. She then frantically exited the vehicle without locking the door and raced toward the sole police officer who stood outside of Cassidy’s house. The officer was tall and resembled a young Denzel Washington with a shaved head.
“Is Cassidy okay?” Allison asked the officer.
The cop turned to her. “Are you family?” he asked in a deep voice.
“She’s...my best friend,” Allison lied. “I’m the one she called when she was hiding under the bed. I made the 911 call.”
The
man studied Allison. “We’ve got some of our best guys going through the house for evidence, but so far, there’s no signs of foul play and nobody in the house.”
“What do you mean?” Allison asked, breathless and puzzled.
“I mean it looks like no one’s been in or out of that house all day. Are you sure this is the place?”
Allison ignored the officer’s question. “How do you know no one’s been in or out all day?”
The officer pointed to a tiny bullet camera hanging above the front door. “You see that camera right there?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s connected to a DVR security system. My boys checked the DVR footage, and no one’s come in or out of here all day. And everything inside looks pretty normal. Did your friend tell you for sure that she was inside?”
Allison could almost feel her head spinning. Technically, Cassidy had not said that she was inside the house. She had only said that she was ‘hiding under the bed.’ But what bed? This address was presumably the location of the diary that Cassidy wanted Allison to find, but could Cassidy have been somewhere else entirely? Allison had a dark feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“I don’t...know,” Allison said. “She just called me. She was incomprehensible. I thought she would be here. Are you sure the house is empty?”
“Like I said, my boys are going through the whole house looking for evidence, but we’ve been in every room.”
“Did you check under the beds?”
“We looked under the beds, in the closets, everywhere a person could possibly fit. There’s nobody in there, and I didn’t see any signs of a struggle. It’s actually one of the cleanest houses I’ve ever seen on an emergency call.”
Allison waited with the officer for nearly an hour. He asked her about her relationship with Cassidy and grilled her about how long the two women had known each other, whether Cassidy had any known enemies, and even whether or not Cassidy had a love interest.
Allison tried to dodge the questions at first, but she finally “confessed” that she had met Cassidy at a church service and forged a brief but meaningful friendship. Most importantly, she made sure to point the finger at Dominic Maffiore, the Las Vegas Exorcist. This whole strange business started when Cassidy got wrapped up with the exorcist, and Allison wanted that fact on the record. The officer had never heard of Dominic Maffiore but assured Allison that he would look into the matter.
He asked Allison if she’d be willing to come to the station and make a statement on the record, and she agreed. Before he could say another word, though, she was already halfway back to her car, puzzling over what to do next. If Cassidy wasn’t in this house, where was she?
Allison leaned against her car and stared up at the night sky with its faint dusting of stars. She tried to make sense of everything that was happening, but she also wanted to convince herself that none of it was real. This was all some huge, bizarre misunderstanding. Yes, that had to be it. Cassidy had taken one too many anxiety pills and was now just loopy from the drugs, probably at one of the nicer hotels on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Allison’s phone rang. Frantically, she reached into the tight pocket of her jeans and retrieved it. It was the same number from which Cassidy had called her earlier that evening. Allison’s finger was trembling so much that she could barely tap the green “Accept” button on her phone’s display. When the call did finally connect, she pressed the phone firmly against her ear.
“Cassidy? Is that you? Where are you? Tell me where you are right now.”
“Hello? Who is this?” said an upbeat female voice. It definitely didn’t sound like Cassidy.
“Who is this?” Allison shot back in a much less friendly tone.
“This is Candace,” the woman replied. “I just found this phone on the sidewalk and I was wondering if I might find the owner. This is the last number that was called, just a couple of hours ago, so I thought you might know who’s phone it is. Are you a friend?”
“Wait, what sidewalk? Where are you?” Allison asked, pacing back and forth along the empty street.
“Maybe I can meet you somewhere,” the woman said, still sounding oddly chirpy and enthusiastic. “I’m actually in Henderson right now. If you just tell me where you are, I can bring the phone to you and you can give it to your friend. You said her name was Cassidy?”
“Yeah, Cassidy…” Allison said softly, her voice trailing off at the end.
“I’m sorry,” the woman continued. “I didn’t get your name. On this phone, your name just shows up as ‘Church Friend.’ That’s kind of funny.”
Allison felt a cold chill reverberate through her entire body. Something definitely didn’t feel right about this. Why was the woman so desperate to learn Allison’s name? And why was she asking to meet up with Allison rather than just asking how to get in touch with Cassidy?”
“Where the fuck is Cassidy?” Allison spat with gritted teeth. “I’m here with the cops right now. We’re going to find you, I swear to god.”
For a moment, there was only silence on the other end of the line. Then Allison could hear faint murmuring; it sounded like the woman was talking to someone else in hushed tones. After several seconds, Allison could once again hear the woman’s heavy breathing.
“You want to find out where she is?” the woman said, her voice now cold and shrill. “It’s a big fucking desert, bitch. You better start digging.”
14
“Excuse me?” said the visibly frustrated man standing in front of the counter. “Do these herbs work for erectile dysfunction or not?”
The loudness of his voice—or perhaps the foulness of his breath—caused Allison to awaken from her trance. She was standing behind the counter at her shop, ostensibly serving customers but really just leaning against the counter’s sharp edge and mentally replaying the horrors of the previous night.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked the man with an annoyed scowl.
The balding man slammed the bottle of pills on the counter. “This horny goat weed,” he spat. “Does it really help with boners?”
“No, you fucking waste of jizz,” she shouted. “None of this shit does fucking anything. Look around. Every pill, every crystal, and every magic spell in this shithole is carefully designed to capitalize on the stupidity of people like you! Hey, if those pills don’t work, we have copies of The Secret on aisle three. Maybe you can fucking manifest yourself a bigger dick.
“Or, here’s an even better idea. You’re like...what? Forty-two, forty-three years old? If you can’t get a hard-on, maybe your problem isn’t herbs. Maybe you just need to lay off the fucking YouPorn and stop treating your dick like a balloon animal as you spend endless hours watching depraved videos of golden showers and crack-addicted women fucking their stepsons. If that doesn’t do the trick, come back in a week and I’ll sell you all the horny fucking goat weed you want. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
The man stood frozen in shock. He didn’t even look angry, just stunned and speechless. Maybe even hurt. “Actually, I have a heart condition,” he said with a slight whimper.
“Oh,” Allison replied awkwardly. “Then you really shouldn’t take those pills. Trust me.”
She slipped out from behind the counter, walked toward the massive bookshelf that comprised the center aisle, and handed the man a brightly colored book on meditation and mindfulness.
“Read this,” she said, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. “It’s on the house. If you have a bad heart, you want to keep your stress down, right? Maybe I should give that one a read as well.” She let out a forced laugh.
“Uh...okay,” the man said, now clearly confused as he stumbled toward the exit.
After he left the building, Allison returned to the counter and proceeded to press her forehead against its surface.
Keep it together, she kept saying to herself.
The man had seemed decent enough, if not a bit curmudgeonly. And Allison had never blown up at a customer bef
ore.
Maybe it was just exhaustion. After all, she had been at the police station until 3 a.m. answering questions about Cassidy.
Maybe it was grief. But then again, she hardly knew Cassidy.
Then she had a miserable feeling in the pit of her stomach. Maybe...it was guilt.
“What the hell is happening to me?” she asked aloud, her face pressed firmly against the cold countertop.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” asked a male voice.
Startled, Allison stood up straight, eyes forward. Standing right across the counter was Aren Anzalone. He was barely recognizable in the unassuming street clothes he wore. His form-fitting gray t-shirt showed off his impressive physique, and his tight blue jeans made him appear almost like a normal human being. His face, though, would stand out in any crowd, on account of his deep blue eyes, chiseled chin, high cheekbones, and thick chestnut hair. Without his familiar goth attire, he looked like he belonged on the cover of GQ. Even his eyebrows looked as though they were artfully tailored in some swanky Beverly Hills salon.
“Hey…” was all Allison could think to say. She was equal parts excited and horrified. If he knew that she worked in a place like this, the jig was up. There was no way he would help her or give her any sort of information. “How did you…”
“I Googled your phone number,” Aren said, “and oh to my surprise, this magical wonderland popped up in the results. I seriously had to see it for myself. Do all PIs work out of snake oil shops these days?”
“But...you didn’t even keep my number,” Allison said. “You crumpled it up and threw it at me.”
“Oh, come on. I didn’t throw it at you. I tossed it gingerly. I didn’t need it anymore. I just memorized the number and gave it back to you. I’m an illusionist, remember? Memorization is sort of a key skill set. So what are you doing in a place like this?”
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