by KJ Robinson
I waited until Demetrius and Ali got back to my place. It took a lot of cajoling to get a leap to agree to come back. I may have even thrown out the godparent card on him.
They stepped through the door both still looking battle weary even after a day of rest. I guess when you’re facing down a demon apocalypse looking fresh faced isn’t the easiest thing to do. I embraced both of them and then put my arms around their shoulders walking them into the living room where I had cleared a large space in the middle of the floor.
“So where’s the pentagram?” Ali joked.
I checked them on his head lightly and gave him a little nutty to boot. “No pentagram needed sorceress in the house,” I said.
Demetrius looked at me puzzled. Sheba, my cat, joined us in the living room as if she were part of the deliberations. Which I guess she was, without her finding that piece of the symbol I would’ve never gotten this far in the first place.
“So what are you trying to do here, Trey?” Demetrius asked.
“So, if I can’t find Tyler so that we can go to him. I thought why not bring Tyler to us.”
“A summoning spell?” Ali asked. “You gotta be using some pretty powerful juju to do that. Are you going to be able to do that with those?” He gestured towards my tattoos.
I shook my head yes. “A wise man told me that I had the power all along,” I said giving Demetrius a meaningful look. “I also thought the spell would be stronger if we all came together for it. You and Demetrius combined have at least a millennium of power between you two.”
Demetrius step forward. “That’s true, but we’ve never used are magic in this way.”
“I don’t need you guys to use your magic at all I just want to use you guys to amplify mine,” I said. Both guys shook their head and ascension and I took their hands.
I close my eyes and pictured Tyler the last time I saw him. The first sensation I felt was cold not like freezing, but like someone had noticeably dropped the temperature in the room. I then started to feel lightheaded, but I persisted still feeling Ali and Demetrius hold in my hands.
The floor beneath us started to vibrate and I thought I was finally getting somewhere. Until I was by myself in the darkness. The dark was so encompassing I could feel it before I opened my eyes. I no longer felt the warmth of the guys holding my hands. I was alone.
A shadowy figure loomed in the darkness. My tattoos glowed a bright red so bright that it illuminated the darkness of the wherever I had transported to.
“I am Azrael. And you, you are the infamous Traylor Ford. An unfortunate name for such an enchanting woman. Or should I say sorceress.” The demon bowed to me like a knight to his queen. As he rose and walked closer to me, I noticed his unnatural physical perfection.
His skin was a golden tan that seemed illuminated from the inside. His eyes were a darker gold color and gleamed like burnished bronze. His proportions were as perfect as Michelangelo’s David. He wasn’t quite the Morning Star, but as perfect as I’d seen in my lifetime. Damn fallen Angels and their unnatural beauty.
“What do you want with my son?” I asked him keeping my guard up.
“Why so…antagonistic? I just want for myself, what I want for you. What I want for all of us,” he said appearing behind me. He gently fingered my hair and wound a long curl around his finger. I jerked my head away from him and he then vanished and appeared again in front of me.
“You and I aren’t on the same side.”
He tsk, tsk’d and walked a little further away from me. “Is that so? Wouldn’t you like to be able to use your powers without condemnation? To truly be yourself?”
I shook my head agreeing with him, but wanting to tell him no.
“I will never understand the so called natural order of things,” he continued. “Why should the humans be given so much more precedence over us, clearly the more dominant and better species?”
He was saying things that I’d thought a million times before. Why did I have to hide who I was just to not accept humans. Why did I have to dim my light because of their own petty fears and insecurity.
“I don’t need your boy to do the work I’ve set in motion. You would do, in fact more than do. We could start a new kingdom here on earth. You reigning beside me as my queen having dominion over demons and humans.”
I shook my head in disgust. “I would never reign with you.”
He laughed and then slithered closer to me. “Maybe if I took a form that was more pleasing to you?”
I cocked my eyebrow at him. What was he talking about, a form more pleasing than his current form? Did that even exist?
Off my look he chuckled and gestured at his body. “Oh, this? I can’t use this on Earth, not yet. You’re currently in the NetherRealm, if you hadn’t guessed yet. But my machinations on Earth have required the use of a body. A most willing body, but one that is not useful for,” he paused. “Other more carnal uses.”
Disgusting.
“I’ll find Tyler and when I do, I will defeat you.” I spat at him.
He ignored my comment and went on, “Maybe if I had a more pleasing figure. One like your beloved Chase,” he said shapeshifting into the form of Chase. “Or maybe like your lover’s brother, Benjamin,” he said as he morphed into the form of Demetrius.
I gasped at both his transformations and what he casually revealed.
“Oh, you didn’t know? Demetrius never told you,” he said as he tutted like a concerned mother. “Where did you think Demetrius got his body from? demons are so…tricky,” he settled on.
I knew that I couldn't trust the word of a demon. I also knew that they would say anything that they could, to distract or disarm you. I couldn’t deny the look that Chase had when he first saw Demetrius, he was almost certain it was Benjie. I filed that little tidbit away for later.
Azrael used my preoccupation to slink even closer to me, he began to stoke my long dark hair like a favored pet. "I've been watching your lives, you and Tyler. Constantly behaving like you have reason to be ashamed of your power. It isn’t right,” he said sympathy coating his voice. “I’ll give you a bit more time, but not too much. The time is nigh,” he said.
The room started to tilt. The darkness receded and I was back in my living room. Demetrius and Ali looked panic stricken and Sheba mewed furiously. “Tray, where the hell did you go?”
“We didn’t summon Tyler. Azrael summoned me.” I said and then collapsed on the floor.
Chapter Eleven
I came to lying on my couch a cold wash cloth across my forehead and Sheba sitting on my stomach. I leapt up and Sheba flailed to the floor, but landed on her feet. Standing was not a good idea and I laid back down just as fast. The action disoriented me further.
“Are you okay,” a male voice said.
I opened my eyes and saw Chase standing over me. I rose again, this time a million times slower, and sat upright on the sofa. Looking around the room, I saw Demetrius and Ali looking like caged tigers in different corners.
“When you said the name Azrael, we feared the worst.” Ali said from his corner.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“The Qur’an refers to him as the Angel of Death. The Hebrew translation of his name is Help of God. They say he resides in the Third Heaven. We call it the NetherRealm.” Ali began.
Demetrius continued, “He’s described as having four faces and four thousand wings, and his entire body consists of eyes and tongues whose number corresponds to the number of people inhabiting the Earth. It is foretold that he will be the last to die, recording and erasing, until the end of time in a large book the names of men at birth and death.”
“That didn’t look like the person I’d seen in the NetherRealm at all,” I stated.
“Word on the street is he’s sick of his job, wants to get his own slice of the pie,” Alie said.
“Yeah, that sounds like the dude I met,” I joked.
I had almost forgotten that Chase was still in the room so transfixed by the story
that Ali and Demetrius told me. “How’d you get here?” I asked him.
“I’d been trying to call you all day. When you didn’t answer for the twentieth time. I drove over.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked. I saw Demetrius and Ali look at one another faces pensive. “How long!” I screamed.
Demetrius made his way to me on the couch. He got on one knee near me. “We thought you were gone,” he started. “You were out for a day. When you came back your heart rate slowed lower than is humanely possible and we couldn’t wake you up. We were afraid that you were dying”
Chase started to pace, “Jesus! And no one called a doctor?”
I took in Demetrius’ face, so close to mine and then slapped the hell out of him. “I know what you did,” I hissed at him. He slowly stood and backed away from where I lay.
“I wouldn’t have slapped him, but…” Chase started.
“It’s not about that,” I interrupted him. I stood up and started looking around the room. Spying what I was looking for, I grabbed my mother’s grimoire and my stepfather’s Lesser Key of Solomon copy.
I hustled towards the door and grabbed my keys out of a cat shaped miscellany bowl on my entry table. Sheba walked over to me and I patted her head gently. “I need to go alone Sheba. I mean that. No popping up out of thin air,” I admonished her and then slammed the door behind me, leaving the guys agog.
I couldn’t believe I had been out for a day. As we all might not have realized it, but he’d led me exactly to where Tyler was. It was so obvious now, it was painful.
There were very few people that Tyler would go off with. I automatically assumed it was his father. He was missing the influence of a strong man in his life. But I was ignoring the other missing influence on him, the person who whether he admitted or not led him to choose theology as his major.
My stepfather’s neighborhood was unnaturally quiet. I surveyed the area with my magic looking for any magical snares. I was convinced that Tyler was somewhere in my father’s home and I was going to find him.
I stalked up the sidewalk and to the front door. Before I could knock, the woman from before who I assumed was his nurse opened the door.
“Your father has been waiting for you,” she said as she waved me in to the house.
It was quieter than a mausoleum and just as dark. How could she see in this? I turned around to ask her just that, but she had disappeared. That wasn’t normal, not at all.
I ambled deeper into the house. It was always scary to me as a child. So big and intimidating. Most rooms were off limits to me then. In retrospect, it wasn’t like the all-white living room of Jacinda that screamed, don’t come in here I’m fancy. It was more like our home was full of secrets that I was never privy to.
I stepped lightly, but my footsteps still reverberated off the gleaming hardwood floors in the hall. I walked back to my stepfather’s bedroom where I found him last. Instead of languishing on the bed as he were before, he stood stock still peering out the window with his back turned to me.
He turned swiftly around and I saw a vibrancy in his countenance that wasn’t there when we spoke last. He looked as fresh as he did in his Sunday television programs. I gingerly walked over to where he stood.
“How could you? You’d sell your soul and your only grandchild? For what? Power, fame money?”
“You don’t understand. You never understood.” He said as he stroked his goatee like a pet. “Your mother understood. Understood that I should be the one with the power, not her. She submitted to me like a good wife should. You. You were always the wild one. The dangerous one. Never knowing her place. And why should you know power that I never could?” He paced back and forth keeping his eyes on me like a lion on a gazelle.
“You know I never wanted this,” I looked down at my hands. “This power. I would have traded it all to be normal, to live like everyone else.”
“That was your problem. You always saw your power as a limitation instead of the freedom that it entailed. That type of power in the right hands. My hands. Can change the world.”
Had it always been about this? His hatred for me wasn’t because he saw me as inferior or as an abomination, it was jealousy. Always jealousy. Why didn’t I see it earlier?
I never would have thought he would stoop to inviting a demon to possess him just to get that power. How could he give it all up for a power that he didn’t even know how to control? Didn’t he know you could never trust a demon, especially a demon Prince. They didn’t care about humanity and would say and do anything to get you to handover your soul. There was no way this demon Azrael was going to let my stepfather keep any type of control once he’d gotten what he wanted.
“Dad, this isn’t you,” I started. “You’re being manipulated.”
“I’d rather be manipulated than dead. If not for Azrael, I’d be gone. I had stage four cancer. Untreatable they said, but now. Now, I am a god.”
I was wondering if demon possession included side effects of insanity because he’d certainly lost it. Before I could answer his rant, I heard footsteps. I turned swiftly.
The face that I saw brought tears to my eyes. “Tyler, I was so worried,” I cried.
Tyler plodded towards me and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m fine mom,” he said as he patted my back.
I reached up to grab his face and looked into his eyes. “Why would you go with him”? I asked.
“He’s changed,” Tyler started.
No shit, I thought. He was possessed by an immortal demon who was hell-bent on making Earth his footstool.
“He wants to be a part of our lives now. He released me,” Tyler finished.
“What do you mean, released you?” I asked. My eyes darted around the room, wondering if this was really my Tyler. I took his hands into mine and held them. I tried to use my magic to sense if there was anything different with him.
I could feel his power pulsing through his veins. What was once a steady hum of magic now writhed like a cabal of snakes. I unhanded him and looked again in his face. I touched his cheek with caution.
“Tyler, I don’t know what this man told you, but he is not your grandfather. Your grandfather has been possessed,” I said as I held his cheek in my palm.
He placed his hand over mine and kissed me on my forehead, but then walked closer to the figure of my stepfather. “I already know that. He wants to help. He doesn’t want us to have to hide anymore.”
I had reached my breaking point. I tore my hand away from his face. “He killed your girlfriend!” I spat.
As if on cue, another set of footsteps fell outside the door of the bedroom. The face that was attached to those footsteps threatened to upend me. Standing before me was, Jacinda, Tyler’s very dead girlfriend.
Chapter Twelve
I stepped backwards still in shock at what I was seeing. “How. How?” I stammered still walking backwards until I ran into the bed posts of my stepfather’s massive four poster bed. I leaned into the sturdy wood of the post, the solidity of the wood grounding me in reality. This couldn’t be happening.
I heard the silky sound of Azrael’s laughter coming from the form of my stepfather. It was as unnerving as seeing Jacinda alive, undead, in front of me. She stepped closer to Tyler and gave him a long and lingering kiss. Never before have I wanted to throw up in my mouth so much.
“What did you do,” I shouted pointing at Azrael.
He raised his shoulder up in a helpless gesture. “Wasn’t me. I can’t reanimate anyone. A bit above my,” he paused to think. “Pay grade as it were. That was all Tyler.” He walked over to where Tyler and Jacinda stood creating an unnerving family tableau.
Tyler stepped away from them and walked closer to where I stood transfixed. “Mom, it’s okay. He taught me how.”
“How?” I repeated, not knowing if I wanted to know the actual answer.
The copy of the Lesser Key flew from under my arm where I had tucked it and opened on its own. It hovered in the air and seemed
to glow. I walked over to where it floated and read, the passage that was illuminated.
INVOKATION: Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether; upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
“You did this?” I asked Tyler. “You recited this invocation and brought Jacinda back to life?
Tyler nodded his head solemnly. “I would do anything for her.”
“Well did Azrael and your grandfather tell you that it was their goons that killed her in the first place?”
My stepfather stepped closer to me. “Of course, we had to show Tyler his power. What is more powerful than the power of necromancy.”
“Tyler, you don’t understand. This power, this magic is too much for you.”
“How would you know?” he spat. “You never let me use my power. You stunted my growth. Azrael says I am more powerful than any other supernatural being he’s ever seen.”
I shook my head in disgust. “He’d say anything to get you to do what he wanted. Don’t you see he’s using you? Did he tell you what he wants? What he really wants?”
Tyler looked to his grandfather like a child awaiting instruction. Eyes full of hope and trust. I was going to kill Azrael for taking advantage of Tyler’s need for family. I balled my fists and my tattoos started to glow on their own volition. I wondered if I could take Azrael out without hurting Tyler in the process.
Before I could test out my theory a loud crack rang out. Someone was breaking down the front door.
Tyler looked alarmed, but my stepfather just stood placid. “Ah, more guests, right on schedule,” my stepfather replied with a cool air.
Demetrius, Chase, and Ali stormed into the room looking around eyes wild. Chase’s mouth fell open as his eyes fell on Jacinda. He pointed at her mute, trying to get his brain and mouth to catch up to what his eyes were seeing.
