House of the Rising Nun

by Dakota Cassidy

  And it had for a time—until now.

  “Trixie! Wake up!” Coop hissed.

  Wake up? Usually she was demanding I stop.

  Instantly, I realized I was struggling against her, but that was nothing new. I always fought when coming down from a demon attack.

  As I forced my body to go limp, I felt the fan of Livingston’s wing on my face, brushing against me as he soothed, “Trixie-lass, shhh now, darlin’. We’re here. Listen to our voices and relax. Shh-shhh now.”

  As he purred the words to me, I focused on the tone of his voice, easy and mellow, his Irish accent lulling me. In small increments, my muscles unclenched the way they always did, one at a time and then all at once. My toes uncurled, my fists released, my vision went from hazy and blurred to clear, bringing Coop’s face into focus.

  My immediate concern was the same as it always was. “Did I hurt you, Coop? Livingston?”

  “Nay, darlin.’ This time…this time was—”

  “Different,” Coop interrupted, swinging her long legs off me to rise, the bed shifting as she did. She offered her hand to help me sit up—a hand I took with a shaky tremor.

  “Different?” I asked, sitting at the edge of the bed, noting the room wasn’t torn apart and the bed was only mussed. “How was it different?”

  Come to think of it, I felt a bit different. I didn’t feel quite so depleted, and the usual headache that followed an attack was almost nonexistent.

  Coop stood in front of me, her long arms crossed over her chest, her thermal pajamas with the cute ghosts on them a bit askew.

  “You weren’t violent, Trixie Lavender.”

  I blinked, astonished.

  I was always violent. Always. If not for Coop, who’d been present at every attack I’d had, I can’t even imagine how much harm I could have inflicted on people. Especially when even Coop—who was as strong as a football team—had trouble containing me.

  Running my hand over my hair, I noted I wasn’t perspiring, either. A possession of the kind of force I’ve experienced in the past always came with a whole lot of sweat.

  “Okay, so what happened? Livingston must have seen it. Last I knew, I was talking to him and sketching. I remember that very clearly…”

  Coop moved toward the end of the bed, stepping over some of the cream and blue throw pillows I must have upended, and grabbed my sketch pad, holding it up.

  “This is what happened, Trixie,” she responded, her eyes glittering under the lamp’s soft glow. “You drew that while you were in the grips of some sort of frenzied fit.”

  As my eyes focused on the pad, they widened and I gasped, gripping the edge of the bed and clenching the thick comforter between my fists.

  “That’s a picture of the…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. I was horrified.

  “It’s a picture of Dr. Mickey’s body, at the shelter, sitting at the table the night he was murdered.”

  Chapter 8

  Coop handed me the sketch pad, using her index finger to point to the very detailed picture I’d drawn. Indeed, it did look exactly like the setting at the shelter the night of the party, right down to the cup of punch Dr. Mickey had fallen into, except it hadn’t been spilled yet.

  But what was most disturbing was who had him in their grip—by his hair, no less.

  A gorilla.

  I rubbed my eyes and shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand what’s happening, Coop. What’s happening?” I crowed, my throat tight.

  Why would I draw something like this? Sweet Pete, this was horrifying.

  Coop’s lips thinned as she pointed to the pad again, running her finger over the thick paper. “Look closely at the picture, Trixie. Look at what the gorilla is doing—look at what’s in his hand.”

  I forced my eyes to focus only on the gorilla—and I gasped again, my hands trembling.

  Much like I’d surmised when I’d first seen Dr. Mickey’s hair so mussed, the gorilla stood behind him, one hand on his head, the other at the base of his skull. He’d used his one hand for leverage, threading it through Dr. Mickey’s hair to get a good hold, then yanked it back and rammed whatever the instrument was into his skull.

  The gorilla was holding something small and sharp—there was no denying what I drew.

  “How…?” I murmured, my throat growing tighter, my head still unable to process the sketch. Maybe why was a better word? Why would I draw something so repulsive?

  Was it just my imagination creating a visual scenario to fit the murder scene? Goodness knows, I make up things in my head all the time when I’ve been confronted by a murder scene, but this was much different.

  I shivered, terrified of what this meant.

  Coop sat on the bed next to me as Livingston cuddled against my other side, rubbing his head on my forearm.

  “This was a very strange attack, Trixie. I don’t understand it. Not at all.” She put a hand on my thigh and thumped it in her awkward way of consoling me.

  I inhaled and exhaled, trying to control the crash of my heart against my ribs. “What does strange mean?”

  Livingston pressed his head to my arm. “It means ya were scribblin’ like yer life depended on it, dumplin’. It took ya all of maybe five seconds to draw that, and ya were yellin’ while ya were doin’ it.’ Not sentences, mind ya, but words. Some gobbledygook, some not. It was almost as scary as the other kind of attacks minus the bloody noses and fat lips.”

  “That’s what brought me in here, Trixie. I heard you yelling. When I entered your bedroom, you were drawing on that pad, and no amount of yelling at you to stop helped. It was as though you were somewhere far away. It was the strangest thing I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of strange things,” Coop said.

  If I’d managed to tamp down my fears about the demon inside me, if I’d managed to hide my head under the covers, only poking it out when absolutely necessary, this yanked the covers off those fears, brought them to the surface and left me terrified.

  “What was I yelling?”

  I saw Coop look to Livingston, and I watched his big glassy eyes go rounder. “Well, some words don’t bear repeatin’, Trixie. They were your usual fare. But some of the others…”

  I gripped Coop’s wrist, my tone urgent. “Tell me, Coop.”

  “You were yelling a name.”

  My frustration level was rising with every avoidance and stall tactic, but I fought to keep my temper in check. “Stop making me pull teeth, guys. Whose name was I yelling?”

  Coop looked away from me, definitely a bad sign if she couldn’t look me in the eye. “Artur.”

  But I tugged on her chin to force her to look at me and gave her a desperate, searing glance before I loosened my grip on her wrist. “Artur? Who’s Artur? Do you know that name, Coop?”

  I didn’t know an Artur. Not one I could recall, anyway. But it sure felt like Coop did, and while I was almost afraid to hear the answer, I had to know.

  “To be precise, darlin’, ya said I am Artur,” Livingston said—and then he looked away from me, too.

  I hopped up from the bed, knocking the pad to the floor, and began to pace. “Guys! What’s with all the secretive glances at the floor? Tell me what you know!”

  Icy anxiety crept along my veins, chilling me to the bone even as my cheeks flushed and my pulse raced.

  Coop sighed, her green eyes capturing mine, but her voice grew quiet when she said, “He was a demon we both knew in Hell.”

  So my demon was a he—and he truly existed.

  A name.

  We had a name? Hadn’t Coop said the best way to exorcise a demon was to find out its name? My legs began to shake, and I had to grip the edge of the bed to keep from collapsing to the floor.

  “Is that the name of the demon inside me? Is that what this means? Is that why you guys look like you’ve seen a ghost?” I squeaked.

  Coop visibly swallowed, her usually olive-toned skin ashen. “We do know Artur. Not personally, mind you. We only know of him. He is legend where we
come from.”

  Livingston rocked back and forth on the pads of his little owl feet, a nervous skitter that had him teetering across the bed, sinking and rising into the thick comforter.

  “Let’s not beat around the bush, Coopie. ’Twill do no good to hide the inevitable. We must tell her the truth.”

  Now my hands were icy, my feet like glaciers, and as the rain began to beat down on the roof, I felt full-on panic settle in my topsy-turvy stomach as I waited for Coop to speak.

  “What do you know of Artur?” I rasped.

  Coop grabbed my hand in a rare gesture of solace. That meant this was going to be bad.

  “Artur is a horrible, terrible demon of the worst kind. He, like me, was created by Satan himself for the sole purpose of torturing other souls. It was his job to harm…to create havoc…to inflict the utmost pain and anguish.”

  I almost couldn’t breathe. I had a demon inside me who was the antithesis of everything I stood for, everything I still hoped to accomplish.

  Everything.

  But Coop gripped my hand tighter. “Trixie Lavender, you must not focus on what—who Artur is. You must focus on the fact that we now know his name. That means we can begin the process of exorcising him.”

  I’m not sure if I fell to the bed or Coop guided me there. I only know my knees suddenly felt like they were made of water. Leaning forward, I clung to her hand as I tried to calm my stomach.

  Several deep breaths later, and I sat up. “Well, that explains the hallmark of my possessions—violence, pain, pandemonium. He certainly has his finger on the pulse of chaos, doesn’t he?”

  Coop squeezed my hand harder, almost until it began to hurt, but I didn’t care. It grounded me. The pain was a reminder I was still me.

  Her jaw was tight; so tight, I saw a tic begin to pulse. “I won’t allow you to dwell on the bad, Trixie. We can’t get caught up in that. It’s like quicksand. It will sink you faster than you can blink.”

  “Hah,” Livingston murmured, his voice far away. “Funny ya should mention quicksand, Coopie. Do ya remember the time we were in the pit of quicksand in the south corner of Hell, and ya were chasing that dink of a man named Jarvis? Ooo-wee, was he runnin’ to beat the band—”

  “Livingston, not now!” Coop reprimanded with a sharp gaze in his direction. “We have other things to be concerned about. Like this drawing Trixie’s done—and I think you know exactly what I mean by that.”

  Well, Livingston might know what she meant, but I sure didn’t. Forcing my panic aside, I asked, “What exactly do you mean by that, and what do you know about this drawing?”

  “My theory is Artur’s taunting you,” she offered, far too simply for my liking.

  My eyes went wide. “Taunting me how? Isn’t it enough that he turns me into the Incredible Hulk on an acid trip whenever the mood strikes? What does the sketch have to do with that?”

  Coop’s frown frightened me. I knew she didn’t want to tell me, but she realized she had no choice, and it was upsetting her. “My best guess is he’s using you as a conduit to depict what happened that night. He probably saw who killed Dr. Mickey. He knows it will upset you that this drawing came from your hands, and he’ll enjoy your pain, Trixie. He lives inside you. Certainly, he knows how much you want to help Dr. Mickey’s employees, so he’s giving you a clue, but a vague one, a very vague one. Thus, he’s doing what he was created to do. Hurt you.”

  If my head wasn’t spinning before, it sure was now, but mixed in with the fear was an irate sense of helplessness, and that made me angrier than a poked hornet’s nest.

  Who the heck did this Artur think he was, anyway?

  A demon, Trixie. He’s a demon. A malevolent force that enjoys inflicting pain, and he’s bigger and badder than you.

  But I didn’t care. How dare he take over my body and use it to terrorize me, to make me anxious and fearful I’d hurt someone? The very idea infuriated me.

  Still, I tried to keep my head on straight and be sure I was hearing Coop correctly. “Wait. So let me be clear. You think this Artur saw who killed Dr. Mickey, and he’s using me as some kind of weird conduit to sketch the murderer in order to mock me?”

  Coop nodded, her eyes somber and direct.

  But hold on one flibbety-jibbity minute… “Well, joke’s on him, isn’t it? He showed me who the murderer is. How can that hurt me? Didn’t he give me the answer? It’s a gorilla.” Easy-peasy.

  Livingston nuzzled his way onto my lap and gazed up at me, my reflection looking both worried and afraid in his marble-like eyes.

  “Nay, lass. He didn’t. It wasn’t a gorilla that killed Dr. Mickey. ‘Twas a person dressed as a gorilla. How many of those did ya know at the party, Trixie-darlin’?”

  Oh, right.

  There was that.

  Chapter 9

  Armed with a decent night’s sleep thanks to some weird concoction of tea Coop made for me (demanding we use the “don’t ask, don’t tell” method for the ingredients), I was ready to face the day with this new knowledge about the demon possessing me.

  I had a name. That was more than I’d had since this whole mess began. I refused to let fear rule this possession of mine.

  So I did what I’d come to rely on when I needed to figure something out. I researched.

  Artur was nowhere to be found in the Bible (thank goodness for a reading device and global searches), nor was he anywhere on the Internet. And that was fine. I liked a good mystery, and I told him so personally as I stared at my reflection in the mirror of my bathroom while I got ready for the day ahead.

  With my index finger, I traced the outline of my face and narrowed my eyes. “Just a head’s up in there, Artur. I don’t know why you decided to reveal your name or why you think I’m going to let you stop me from finding Dr. Mickey’s killer, but gird your loins, demon. Not happening.”

  I rocked back on the heels of my sneakers and waited—watched—wondering if I’d spy anything different about myself after calling him out. But I only saw my reflection looking back, and I looked as average as I had every other day of my life.

  Yet, as I swiped some mascara across my eyelashes and dabbed on a bit of lip stain in a peachy rose, I also wondered if the drawing was truly factual or if it was just another way to toy with my head.

  Had the person in the gorilla costume truly killed Dr. Mickey? We’d been at a Halloween party, after all. It was entirely likely someone disguised themselves as a gorilla to do the deed. But I didn’t remember seeing anyone in a gorilla costume, and neither had Coop or Livingston when we’d discussed this last night—once I’d managed to get past the shock of finding out my demon’s name, that is.

  Pursing my lips, I gazed thoughtfully at the mirror, trying to imagine what this Artur looked like. Was he the male equivalent of Coop—beautiful and made of rippled marble? It seemed as though Satan enjoyed creating beings who were easy on the eyes.

  “So here’s a question for you, Artur—who was in the gorilla costume? If I couldn’t see him, you probably couldn’t, either, could you? Who’s taunting who now?”

  “Except, he doesn’t care who was in the suit, Trixie Lavender. But he knows you do,” Coop said, coming up behind me with a steaming mug of what I hoped was coffee.

  She handed it to me without saying a word, her flawless face full of her expression’s version of concern.

  I took it with a grateful smile. “So do you think the sketch is real? As in, someone was dressed up in a gorilla suit and might be the person responsible for killing Dr. Mickey?”

  Coop took a swig from her bottle of orange juice before she said, “I think it’s very possible, Trixie.”

  Taking a sip of the coffee, I forced myself to remain calm. I wasn’t giving in to this Artur. He could taunt me all he wanted, but in reality, he’d given me a clue, and I was like a dog with a bone when I latched on to one of those.

  I set my coffee down and reached for my brush, dragging it through my hair and fluffing the ends around my shoulders.
“So maybe I need to be looking for a guy who dressed up as a gorilla for the party. Do we know if Higgs has cameras in the rec room? I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed.” But I was certainly going to ask him as soon as I had my coffee.

  Coop shrugged, her gaze thoughtful, her beautiful face glistening under the lights of our bathroom. “I don’t know if there are cameras in the rec room because I never do anything bad enough to worry it will be caught on video. So I don’t look for cameras.”

  I smiled as I spritzed a little hairspray on the barrel rolls Lavinia had taught me how to create. “You’re a good demon, Coop.”

  “I have a question.”

  “Shoot,” I responded.

  “I will not. I would never shoot you.”

  “No. I mean go right ahead. It’s another stupid human expression to signal you should continue.”

  She drove a hand into the pocket of her jeans and leaned back against the doorframe. “How do you know the gorilla is a man?”

  That gave me pause and made me shrug “I guess I don’t, but if it takes a lot of force to kill someone by stabbing them in the skull, it was probably a man.”

  “That’s sexist,” she chirped, pleased with herself, judging by her expression. “I’m a woman, and I could stab Dr. Mickey in the skull. I would die first, but I could, and I’m female.”

  She said it almost in a “so there” fashion, making me wonder if Coop hadn’t been spending too much time watching the news. I was all for feminism, but I wasn’t for nitpicking everything to death where men were concerned. We had bigger fish to fry in the world today.

  Putting the hairspray back in the drawer of the antique white vanity I loved so much, I popped my lips. “How many female demons do you know who might have wanted to kill Dr. Mickey?”

  “Good point,” she said, tipping her bottle of juice at me. “But there are strong women, Trixie. Physically strong enough to do something like stab someone in the skull.”