by David Dwan
He suddenly felt his head swim for a moment and had to look away. If Minx’s physical appearance was deteriorating from show to show, its eyes still had an undeniable power in them. He was quite sure a man would go mad if he stared into those twin pools of hate for too long.
Then those terrible eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Or did the old German give you nothing. Are you just like those other pious bastards? So self-righteous in there absolute conviction they could exorcize me?”
Minx’s talon tipped thin fingers gripped the upholstery of the chair. The material shredded under its touch. “Are you a liar, priest?”
Ross couldn’t help but feel stung by the naked accusation in the creature’s horrible voice.
“I came here to end you and end this show,” he replied with conviction.
“Then do it!” Minx shouted. “Fuck my mission, and fuck Michael Davis! If you have it in you, end me!”
Before Ross had chance to react, Minx leapt out from behind the chair with surprising speed. The thing was a blur of movement in the darkness and was on him in a moment.
Ross cried out in pain as Minx slammed into his chest knocking him backwards. The creature clung to him like an infant clinging to its mother, its thin needle like claws dug into the flesh of his shoulders instantly drawing blood. Ross lost his footing and stumbled backwards.
Then there was a split second when both priest and demon hung in the air, and then Ross fell hard onto his back, knocking the wind out of him with Minx still on his chest.
Minx pressed its reptilian like face close to his and for a horrific moment Ross thought it was actually going to kiss him. Its scaly forehead touched his and the priest closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look into Minx’s.
“Kill me,” Minx hissed. “Say the words, draw a symbol in blood or shit, I don’t care. Do whatever Hauser taught you to do and just fucking KILL ME!”
“I, I...” Ross fumbled for the words.
“Kill me or I will torture you to the very brink of insanity,” Minx taunted. “Then I will drag you over that edge and I promise you, if you don’t then kill yourself first, you will be lost to madness forever!”
Even in his growing terror, Ross was aware of a camera whirring close by. Zooming in for a close up no doubt. It was easy to forget with a demon perched on your chest that all this madness was playing out live on the internet.
Although Minx didn’t look like it weighed much, the thing was radiating a cold harsh aura that was threatening to freeze the breath in Ross’ lungs. He had to force himself just to take the shallowest of breaths and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that hard won breath misted the air.
Kill Me. The two unspoken words tore themselves into Ross’ brain like twin bullet hits making him gasp out loud.
Then although it didn’t seem possible, the creature’s face softened slightly as it looked down on him. It seemed to be studying his intentions desperately searching for any sign of its destruction within his face.
Oh, God. Ross thought. It wasn’t a prayer just a cold hard realisation. As he looked up into the creature’s face looming over his, he was hit by Minx’s true motivation.
This thing just wanted to die. Not to torture, not to maim, but to be free of its pathetic pain filled existence. He had bargained the monster would be cowed by the mention of Hauser’s name. The one man you had defeated it. But this wasn’t fear. This was a desperate hope of release.
‘Kill me or I will torture you to the very brink of insanity,’ Minx had said. And Ross had nothing.
Minx waited for a coup de grace that would never come. After a long pause a flash of confusion crossed its nightmare of a face. Its misshapen head tilted to one side as it studied Ross.
The demon screwed its eyes tight shut forcing blood red tears to stream down the ragged scales on its cheeks, as it seemed to realise this was not the final encounter it sought.
“I’m sorry,” Ross choked out. It was all he could think to say.
Minx didn’t move for the longest time then it let out a heart-wrenching sob. It was so raw Ross feared his own heart would break.
“Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance?” Minx asked and Ross could hear genuine emotion in its grating voice.
“I don’t know,” the priest replied.
The demon shook its head and more crimson tears came. “Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve such suffering,” Minx said as it stifled another sob.
Taking his chance with the demon distracted by its own woeful existence, Ross twisted under it and freed his left shoulder from its grasp. Then before Minx could react he punched it as hard as he could in the side of its head.
The whole right side of its face seemed to crumple under the impact of the blow, as if the bones in it were made of nothing more than glass and Minx was sent sprawling to the floor.
Ross gasped and gratefully sucked in lungful after lungful of air as the heat returned to his chest. He frantically scrambled backwards away from the prone creature until he was sitting facing it with his back against the wall.
Then he did his best to ready himself for the onslaught to come. But it soon became apparent Minx was no longer a threat as it laid in the foetal position with its chin tucked into its sunken shuddering chest. At first he thought it was unconscious, or dead even, but as he watched sobs began to wrack its emaciated body.
All Ross could do was look on in disbelief at the pathetic sight. This was no act, Minx was a defeated creature. Not from his blow, but because it had hoped, as perhaps it had always hoped every time a new priest had entered the house, that this time would be the last. This time it would be defeated and put out of its misery.
No wonder it had been so cruel to the others. It had taken out its frustration on them for their failure to end it all.
Clearly it had let itself truly believed this time would be the last, no doubt due to the mention of Hauser. So this latest failure had been too much for it to bear. It was finally crushed under the sheer weight of it all. But worse still, despite Ross’ physical assault. It could not die.
Not whilst Michael Davis lived.
THIRTY-FIVE
Not whilst Michael Davis lived. That was a fact Davis himself knew all too well.
Everyone in the control room was staring open mouthed at the live feed playing out on the large monitor in front of Miller the director. It was a slow zoom in to Minx prone on the floor. This was the clearest and longest shot ever of the creature on the show. And it was not a good one.
“He’s beaten him,” Tiff whispered almost in awe from behind Davis.
But Davis knew better, Minx would soon regain its strength. Self-loathing was a powerful catalyst, and Minx had enough of that to burn.
Yes and he knew when that emotion kicked in, it would soon give way to hate, then to cruelty and finally to a red, red rage. And when it did, and with Davis so tantalisingly out of reach, there would be only one place for all that power to go. Father Shane Ross.
“Give him time,” Davis said with the confidence of a man who had read this particular script before. “Give him time.”
He was already concocting a plan in his head to explain away why for the first time ever on demon time. A priest had actually died.
Davis took a look at the other smaller monitors showing the non-live camera shots. The crowd were almost hypnotized by the drama they were witnessing. Many were actually on their feet, some clinging to others in dreaded anticipation of what was to come. And yes, some were actually weeping.
Miller, ever the masterful live director cut to a panning shot of the crowd. It zoomed in on a young couple, perhaps just in their twenties. They were both openly crying.
“Fucking beautiful,” Davis said to himself. The only sour note was that they were both wearing one of those unofficial ‘Mister Minx Army’ t-shirts. Still it was a pretty cool design Davis mused; a black and white sketch of the creature done in minimalist broad powerful strokes, with the Mister Minx army logo in blood red.<
br />
He would rip that off for sure in readiness for the next show.
“What are you?” Ross asked as Minx slowly pushed itself up from the floor and slumped down in a sitting position, its head bowed, bloody tears drip, drip dripping onto the wood floor boards by its knees.
“A figment of someone’s imagination,” Minx replied softly.
“But whose?”
Minx shrugged its bony shoulders, but didn’t raise its head as if it were ashamed to face the priest. “All I know is why I was created, not by whom.”
It was such a wretched sight that Ross found himself feeling sorry for the creature. Even a little guilty for nearly caving its skull in. He had expected mind games, he had expected violence even, but he had not expected this.
Again that damn whirring as the cameras around them panned and tilted for the best shot. Intruding on the unfortunate creature’s grief with an indecent disregard, like news crews swarming around a school bus crash.
Then before he even felt it creeping up on him, Ross suddenly flew into a blind rage. He grabbed a hold of a nearby coffee table and smashed it repeatedly against the floor until one of its legs splintered off. He tossed the table aside and scooped up the leg. He felt the satisfying weight of it in his hand. Yes that would do nicely.
Minx looked up at Ross as the priest loomed over it. It held its face up, willing the blow to split its skull in half whilst still knowing even if it was beaten to a pulp it would heal in time.
But Ross wheeled away and smashed the camera closest to him, then he leapt up and smashed the one attached over the window looking down on them. This left just one attached up in a corner where the wall met the ceiling by the side of the door.
Ross strode over to it making sure it had a good view as he approached. He raised the table leg above his head and paused for a moment. He knew it was a cliché but he said it all the same.
“Show’s over,” then he threw the leg at the camera. It was a sweet shot smashing the lens first time.
“Oh, you bastard!” Miller said in the control room as he switched from one dead camera to the next. “What do I do? What do I do?” He babbled. Then his professionalism kicked in an instant later. He cut to a shot from above the front door looking down the long hallway to the closed door of the room Minx and the priest were in. He tapped a couple of keys and the shot began a very slow dramatic zoom into the doorway.
“Perfect,” Davis said. If he was honest he was surprised that none of the other priests before Ross had thought to do that just to fuck with the show. Although to be fair, Minx could be quite distracting when it was in full flight.
“Where’s Keeler?” Someone said referring to the show’s head gaffer. The one who would normally be charged with fixing the cameras in there.
“Keeler quit, remember?” Someone else replied.
Davis glanced at Nico who actually smiled at this. Keeler had been bludgeoned to death the other day whilst in the house and Davis had almost forgotten the story they had concocted to explain away his sudden departure from the show.
“Don’t worry,” Miller said. “We can make this work. Just look at the crowd, they’re lapping it up.”
It was true, a good two hundred or more of them, the real hardcore fans of the show were now on their feet eyes fixed on the massive screen.
Tiff came to Davis’ side. “Boss, Dex wants to know if he should go up there and say something whilst we figure out what we’re gonna do?”
During the show and much to his chagrin, Dexter was relegated to underneath the main stand where he had to wait for the priest to come careering out of the front door before he could get back in front of his beloved cameras for the exit interview.
“This is what we are going to do,” Davis replied. “That ham just wants to get in on the action. He’s no fool, he knows this is history right here. Tell him to stay put and out of the way until I tell him to move.”
“Okay, Boss,” Tiff said. She was about to move off when she glanced at her IPad. “God’s teeth!” She exclaimed.
Davis reluctantly looked away from the observation window. “What?” He said.
Tiff showed him the IPad screen. It was showing live viewing figures. “Just leapt up ten thousand in the last five minutes!”
God bless social media, Davis thought. Yes this was going to be a night he would never forget.
THIRTY-SIX
Father Ross slumped down in the tatty arm chair Minx had been hiding behind and surveyed his handy work. There were thin wisps of smoke drifting from two of the destroyed cameras. The other was laid smashed close to where the demon was sitting.
“Why did you do that?” Minx asked. It was looking at the smashed camera as it spoke. No, Ross realised not at the camera, but at the charm that had been attached to it, which had fallen close by.
“Because it needed doing,” Ross replied.
From where he was sat Ross could see that the ornately carved charm looked to be about the size of an American silver dollar, round but with several V shaped cuts in it so it almost resembled a small non-symmetrical Chinese throwing star.
Minx, never taking its blood shot eyes of the charm, edged away from it a little, as if fearful it would leap up at it at any moment.
“If I get rid of all those things, will you be able to leave?” Ross asked.
The demon shook its head ever so slightly. “They wouldn’t let you. Besides where would I go?”
That was a good question. “What can I do to end this?”
“It can only end with the last beat of Michael Davis’ black heart,” Minx said and turned to look at the priest. “Then I will be myth... Perhaps even at peace.”
Ross inadvertently gasped and looked away so as not to meet its gaze. After all despite its condition, those eyes were still those eyes.
“This is not my fault!” Minx said. “I cannot help what I am.”
“I know, but that doesn’t change what you are. What you were created to do.” Ross gestured around the room and to the smashed camera on the floor. “All this is wrong, despite what you are. This is a cruelty you don’t deserve.”
Minx chuckled, it was a horrible gurgling sound that brought bile to the back of Ross’ throat. “Perhaps I do,” it said with a shrug.
Ross couldn’t help but look at the creature again and was damn glad it was staring off into space and not at him. He felt so conflicted. On the one hand this thing was capable of such great brutality, that was after all why it existed.
But still he couldn’t shake the feeling that if anything Minx was the real victim here. It couldn’t help what it was just as Ross couldn’t help who he was. No one, demon or priest alike can run from what they really are deep down. Good or evil, right or wrong. We are what we are.
“You know the worst thing about all this?” Minx said after a long while, clearly the creature had long wanted to unburden itself. “Worse than all this public humiliation? I was created to react, not to think, certainly not to contemplate my existence! I had one purpose and one purpose only from the moment of my conception. To kill, kill, kill Michael Davis. Make him suffer in the most terrible of ways...”
Outside the house in the area hundreds listened on. In the control room and back stage area, crowd, cast and crew alike were transfix. Everyone could hear Minx’s voice at as it blared out of the P.A system and they hung on its every word. It was like some demonic soliloquy delivered to the masses.
High up in the control room Michael Davis didn’t hear the collective gasp from his colleagues as the demon mentioned him by name again. Often many had wondered how he had come across such a creature (those who believed it was real anyway) and now that they had their answer they turned as one to look at the producer.
Davis was standing by the large observation window with his arms wrapped around himself shaking ever so slightly. And although he had his back to them it was clear he was terrified. It was as if his worst nightmare was coming true right before them all. A well-kept secret broadcast
for tens of thousands live across the globe.
No one, least of all Davis himself thought to cut the live audio feed to the house. All they could do was hang on the demon’s every heart felt word.
“From the very first moment I can remember,” Minx continued. “It was as if I had spent a thousand years planning my revenge on him. It was though he had done me some terrible wrong. I felt nothing but the burning desire to reap my vengeance on him, although in reality there was no vengeance to take. I didn’t know why he had to suffer, and in those exquisite moments of ignorance that followed my creation, I didn’t care. I was made solely to cause him harm. Although I was only self-aware for a heartbeat or so before entering his hotel room, I had millennia of hate welling up inside me.”
Minx paused for a moment, it seemed to shrink a full foot as it remembered all this. Yes Ross thought to himself, this was a confession. And wasn’t confession supposed to be good for the soul?
“I was in rapture, perched there on his chest,” Minx remembered. “I was going to make his suffering last a week if I could... Then came the pain, my pain, the first I’d ever felt. That bastard Hauser trapping me, mocking me as I writhed in an agony I could not comprehend.” Minx stopped and held up a shaking bony hand which it made into a fist.
“Such pain,” Minx said. “I was only supposed to last as long as it took Davis to die at my willing hands. Then be glad of the release once the deed was done.”
It looked around the room, its prison cell. “I wasn’t meant for this. I wasn’t meant to think, contemplate my place in the world. Just to act on instinct, torture, kill and be gone. Yet here I am, carted from one indignation to the next. With only brief moments of relief from the agony of simply existing. And those moments of bliss? Torturing your kind. Not for hatred of the church, that’s as abstract a concept to me as love or friendship. No, I torture you in lieu of the one human I should have despatched long ago now, Michael Davis.”
