Earthbound

by Melora Johnson

  I stared at the guard until he met my gaze, then leaned forward and put my hands on the table. “I know it was you,” I accused, narrowing my eyes.

  He smirked.

  “I know it was you,” I repeated, this time jumping up and leaning into the table with my hands.

  “Miss Reynolds, sit down, or I will hold you in contempt,” the judge ordered.

  The bailiff had started forward, but the guard from the jail did exactly what I had hoped, he stood up and leaned forward, mimicking my posture. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Samson put a hand on the table as well, pushing himself away.

  I reached out with my senses and surged forward. The returning pulse took me a moment to process, then I knew. “Both of them.”

  Shoving my chair back, I scrambled up onto the table then across it. I knew without looking that Matt followed me. We didn’t have any weapons on us, but I didn’t need any. I had two hands. The bailiff was fast, but we were faster. The DA backpedaled to stay out of the way, further impeding the bailiff.

  I leapt from the table onto the guard, reaching out for his face, and made contact. There was nothing of the human left in this one. He started shrieking as smoke poured from under my palms. Matt got a hold of Samson and took him down to the ground. I glanced back to gauge the threat from the bailiff and saw Mr. O’Neill doing a good job of entangling himself. The guard screamed and tried to head butt me. He connected, but I held on even as my skull reverberated. I heard Father Patrick to my left, saying the words for the casting out of demons.

  “Order! I want order restored to my chambers,” the judge yelled.

  “Sir, for your own safety, please stand back,” Mr. O’Neill said, deferential and yet forceful.

  I glanced over as I winced from the impact of the guard’s head on mine again and saw the DA watching in horror.

  A cool, refreshing rain of water fell on me, but the guard only shrieked louder as the good father blessed us. Then the guard finally went limp.

  I let go of the guard and turned my attention to Samson. Matt was restraining him. “Relinquish that body.”

  The demon just grinned, and his eyes rolled back. I watched sadly as Samson went with the demon. “Oh no, angelic one, I’ll be taking him with me back to hell, he’s no innocent…”

  There was nothing I could do about it if the demon had the right to drag him into the fire for his sins. Except… I could try to heal him. I could end up killing him too. If he’d help, maybe I could save him, or at least save his soul.

  “Detective Samson, you can still be forgiven. You once took an oath to uphold the law and protect the innocent. Push the demon out, ask for forgiveness.”

  I saw a struggle begin on his face, as if two people were inside the same body, each taking control in turns. It looked as if he were being strangled. “Help me,” he managed to gasp out.

  That was what I wanted to hear.

  I leaned down and placed a hand on his forehead, closed my eyes, and pushed the energy through my hands, picturing the demon being pushed out of the man’s body. The demon and the man both screamed in a two-tone note that defied description as Father Patrick repeated the prayers again in a stream that ran on and on. Then the resistance simply vanished, and the energy came flooding back to me. I dropped to the ground.

  Matt let Samson fall and grabbed for me. “Ally. Are you okay?”

  I looked at him and grinned. “Woohoo!”

  He grinned in return.

  I turned to check on Samson. His breath came hard and fast, but his eyes were open, and he looked a little dazed. He focused on me. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “What the hell?” the judge said.

  Father Patrick wiped his brow. “Yes, precisely.”

  I hadn’t noticed when the judge and bailiff had stopped trying to intercede. Perhaps it had been when the demon voice had come out of Samson’s mouth. Now the judge regained his composure, standing at the end of the table. “I demand an explanation for these antics, immediately.”

  Matt and I each took one of Samson’s arms and helped him to his feet. “I think I should be the one to explain, Your Honor,” the detective said.

  “Then do it fast.” The judge craned his neck, looking past us at the guard on the floor. “Should we call an ambulance for him?”

  I looked at Matt. “That might be for the best. We can explain it as some sort of accident, but the guard is dead.” I felt a twinge as I said it. It felt like a personal failure that I hadn’t been able to save him, though I knew logically, it simply wasn’t so.

  Sensing the direction of my thoughts once again, Matt took my hand. “He was already gone.”

  “Bailiff, call for an ambulance,” the judge directed, then he looked back at us. “Start talking, fast.”

  “Your Honor,” Detective Samson began, “I was possessed by a demon just over a week ago.”

  The judge looked at him steadily but didn’t say anything. He sat down. “Go on.”

  “From what I was able to understand during that time, Ms. Reynolds was the focus of his being here, to somehow take her into captivity or destroy her outright.”

  It took a while to explain things to the judge’s satisfaction, but between Samson’s testimony and Father Patrick as well as the testimony of his own eyes, he finally accepted what had happened. When the ambulance arrived, the guard was pronounced dead on arrival due to an accidental electrocution. A frayed cord to an ancient air conditioning unit in the window was blamed.

  “No one is to speak of what occurred here today,” the judge said. “The records are to be sealed.”

  “No one would believe us anyway,” the DA said, speaking for the first time.

  Epilogue

  Matt and I sat down to a full breakfast in the sunny kitchen of my farmhouse the next morning, Shanda twining around my legs, happy to have me back. I was deeply grateful to be in my own home, as I took in the ivy patterned curtains and the warm, honey-colored wainscoting below the white walls. I sighed happily.

  “In my forty years living on Earth,” Matt began to pontificate.

  I looked across the table at him as he picked up a pancake. “You are not forty years old yet,” I scoffed, forking bacon onto my plate.

  “Nearly.” he said indignantly.

  “Exaggerating angel.” I shook my head slowly, as if at a naughty boy. “You always were prone to hyperbole.”

  He smiled slowly. “What else do you remember now?”

  My heartbeat faster at that killer smile. It was like bottled sunshine, warming. I grinned back without answering. I liked him. I even trusted him. I felt some of the love we had shared, but there was more. I was a woman, and he was a man, and we were not angels anymore. We were human, with all of the needs and desires inherent. Right now, my need for food was warring with my need for him.

  “Ally?” He touched my hand, and a shock went up my arm.

  I looked down at my plate of pancakes and bacon. I put my fork down and picked up my orange juice. We weren’t in a hurry, and no one was after us, at the moment. Food, then we’d see what happened afterward. I glanced out the window. Provided no one, and no thing, showed up in the meantime. “Oh, just bits and pieces.” I picked my fork up then looked back over at him. “I’m more concerned with the here and now.”

  He returned my smile and took a bite of pancake. I joined him.

  * * *

  Demons and angels and possessions must make this all sound like the apocalypse waiting to happen, but when you take a step back and look at it from a slightly different angle, it begins to seem a whole lot less scary. We’ve got each other, and we’ve got the skills we were born with. Joseph Campbell said the world is perfect; it’s a mess. We’re here to straighten out our own lives.

  I’m here to help the people and animals or demons that I come in contact with. Redeem what is redeemable. Banish the irredeemable.

  Sure, I’d like to be able to sit down with God and have a chat, but I don’t think that’s goi
ng to happen. I believe when we start talking about God as if he were human, that’s where we make a mistake. I suspect he/she/it is beyond our understanding.

  Matt is still angry. He still thinks of God as a He and someone he can direct his anger at. Maybe that’s one of the purposes, I don’t know.

  So, where do we go from here? I don’t know that, either. We’re human, and that’s good enough for me. I know a few angels who would have a problem with it, but we’re doing good. Truth be told, I am heartily enjoying the human side of the experience, particularly when the lights go out at night.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

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  ABOUT MELORA JOHNSON

  Melora Johnson grew up in a small town in Upstate New York, and still lives in the state with her husband, daughter, a black cat, and quite a few chickens. She writes poetry, horror, science-fiction & fantasy but dabbles in other genres and daylights as a librarian because that is where she hears the best stories. She also runs a thriving writers group. Of course, into every life a little rain must fall, as well as the occasional tornado, but you'll find that amply covered in her writing.

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