Demon Frenzy (Demon Frenzy Series Book 1)

by Harvey Click

  It was a long trek around the compound, but not as long as Amy had expected, and when they got back to the barn she asked how many acres there were. “Seventy, give or take,” Bloody Joe said.

  Just seventy acres. To her it didn’t sound big enough to offer the sanctuary they needed from Sandoval and his demons.

  Before leaving the barn, Bloody Joe frowned sternly at Amy and said, “She says tomorrow you learn how to shoot.”

  “I’ve been shooting since I was a girl,” she said.

  “You’re talking guns, I’m talking arrows. Arrows kill demons, guns don’t.”

  After Bloody Joe left, John said, “Me and Pa are grilling hamburgers tonight and we got plenty to spare if you want to join us.”

  “I’d like that,” Amy said.

  When she returned to the house to move her clothes from the washer to the dryer, she found Neoma at the dining room table with her laptop.

  “I’ll be having dinner out back with the others tonight,” Amy said.

  “You’ll have dinner here,” Neoma said without looking up from her computer. A few seconds later she shut it off and said, “Come upstairs.”

  They sat facing each other at the small table in the small room, Amy with a tablet of lined yellow paper and Neoma with a dozen handmade cards. Each card had a different simple geometrical figure, a circle, a square, a triangle, a semicircle, a star, and so on. While Neoma drew cards one by one and stared at them, Amy was supposed to draw the shape that she believed Neoma was looking at.

  They did this for at least half an hour, Neoma reshuffling the small deck every few minutes and Amy filling page after page of the yellow tablet with circles and triangles, and then Neoma slammed the cards down on the table and said, “This is hopeless. You have no more telepathy than a toaster.”

  “You seem to be in an even bitchier mood than usual,” Amy said. “Tell me why I can’t have dinner with the others tonight.”

  “Because you’re on probation, that’s why, and until I’m certain I can trust you I’m keeping you under close watch. And if you’ve been sitting here stewing about your dinner arrangements, then it’s no wonder you couldn’t tell what cards I was looking at. I’m going to say this once and I don’t want to have to say it again. This place isn’t a holiday resort set up so you can have picnics with your friends. Any day now Sandoval could find out we’re here, so we’re going to have to make our move very soon, and it’s going to have to work just exactly right the first time because there won’t be a second. You’re in training right now so you won’t get everyone else killed, and you don’t have long to train.

  “Furthermore, until all this is over I’m your commanding officer, and you’ll do exactly what I say without any complaints. And if you ever, ever call me a bitch again I’ll knock the snot out of you so hard you won’t remember your own name. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then we’ll work on telekinesis again. I want you to memorize the first paragraph of a book while your fingers memorize an object, and this time I want you to totally immerse yourself in the task. Blank out everything else.”

  Neoma pulled a thick book from a shelf, propped it open with a paperweight on top of the bookcase, and handed Amy a rather heavy wood object. “You have five minutes, starting now,” she said.

  The first three words on the page were “Call me Ishmael,” and Amy doubted that even Melville himself would have been able to memorize a paragraph of Moby-Dick. The object too was more challenging than the previous one. It was shaped something like a bowling pin and was carved with inscriptions that made no sense to her fingers. They seemed like indecipherable hieroglyphs, though after a while she noticed that a crescent moon was repeated here and there as well as a pentagram, an iron cross, and something like a swastika missing two of its elbows. It was as if her fingers were trying to read some ancient foreign language while her eyes were reading nineteenth-century English talking about coffin warehouses and the drizzly November of the soul.

  The difficult task became more difficult when Neoma began to chant in what sounded like Latin, adding a third language to the mix. She was standing a few feet to Amy’s right, where Amy could just barely make her out from the corner of her eye.

  Amy tried to blank out Neoma’s image as well as her chanting, but this became impossible when the corner of her eye noticed that Neoma was slowly raising something slim and shiny up above her head, and it wasn’t until Neoma suddenly leaped toward her that Amy realized the slim, shiny thing was a dagger.

  Amy let out a cry and swung the heavy object in her hand like a club to protect herself, but Neoma leaped back before it could hit her.

  “What the fuck!” Amy yelled.

  “Don’t worry, it’s all part of your test,” Neoma said.

  “You were trying to kill me!”

  “If I was trying to kill you, you’d be dead right now,” Neoma said. “Look at the book.”

  Amy looked, but Moby-Dick was no longer propped on top of the bookcase. Now it was lying on the floor behind Neoma.

  “You have a good aim,” Neoma said. “If I hadn’t ducked it would have smashed me in the face.”

  “How’d that happen?” Amy asked. “I didn’t go anywhere near it.”

  “You didn’t need to. I knew you were telekinetic because your astrological chart told me so. It just took a lot of concentration mixed with sudden fear to bring it out of you.” Neoma smiled faintly and said, “Fear seems to bring out the best in you.”

  Amy sat down and said, “I feel dizzy.”

  “Yes, telekinesis is exhausting. You may rest until dinner.”

  Chapter 11

  Amy was kept so busy that she didn’t have much time to feel sorry for herself. Every morning after breakfast she followed Neoma upstairs to her small study so they could work on telekinesis. It was tiring and frustrating work, maybe similar to what a stroke victim experiences when trying to relearn how to use a hand that doesn’t want to move. Sometimes Amy could make an object move an inch or two, sometimes she couldn’t, and sometimes the object would unexpectedly leap off a shelf several minutes after she had stopped trying to move it.

  At 10:00 a.m. there were saber lessons with Leo, and though at first these were more like choreographed ballet moves with no attempt to make contact, she still ended up with bruises, which were compounded every afternoon when Siliang gave her karate lessons.

  Since she didn’t own a pistol or rifle and had no money for ammo, she spent only two brief sessions at the shooting range, but these were enough to convince Brook, the shooting instructor, that she knew how to handle a gun. Though he was the largest person at the compound, well over six feet tall and built like a quarterback, he also seemed to be the gentlest, with a soft voice and an easy smile.

  In the late afternoon there was archery practice with Bloody Joe. His verbal instructions to her were generally limited to “Wrong!” or “No good!” but he was able to demonstrate what she needed to know by showing her over and over, with impressive patience, how to hold and draw the bow, and before long she could land an arrow not too terribly far away from where she wanted it.

  After archery practice the tattooed woman named Nyx gave her lessons in knife throwing. She wore twelve throwing knives, six sheathed on each side of her chest, and she could deliver them from their sheaths to the target so quickly that all twelve seemed to be in the air at the same time. They flew like bolts of lightning from her hands.

  But a few minutes into the first lesson it became apparent that she was more interested in showing off her skills than teaching them. She handed Amy two beat-up knives and then ignored her while she performed various tricks with her own knives.

  “So how do I hold this, by the hilt or the blade?” Amy asked.

  Nyx shrugged and said, “Just throw it.”

  There was a foam target the size of a mattress attached to a tree. Amy threw a knife at it, and it bounced off and fell into the weeds.

  “What did I do wrong?�
�� she asked. “Did I give it too much spin?”

  Nyx shrugged and grunted, and then let go a barrage of her twelve knives, which embedded themselves in a perfectly straight line running from the top of the target to the bottom.

  “Go get my knives,” she said.

  “Get them yourself,” Amy said.

  The two women stared at each other for a minute, and Amy wondered if Nyx was this unfriendly to everyone. She was skinny and wiry, and if there was anything attractive in her face it was hidden beneath a bitter scowl. Her spiky orange hair might have looked all right on someone twenty years old, but she appeared to be well into her forties.

  “This lesson is over,” Nyx said.

  During the middle of each day Amy would join John and Jake in the barn for classes taught by various people on various subjects. On Thursday Red told them what he knew about the Lost Society, which he admitted wasn’t much because the Lost Society thrived on secrecy. He spoke with the dry tone of a college professor who had said the same things over and over for too many semesters.

  “How does the Unseen compare?” Amy asked him. “You said the Lost Society has headquarters all over the world, so how many do we have and where are they?”

  “Keep in mind that the Unseen thrives on secrecy too,” Red said. “That’s why we only know each other’s first names. If Jake is caught and tortured, do you want him to know your last name? The less you know about other members the safer they are, and the same goes for our organization.”

  “You could at least give us some general idea,” Amy said. “I want to know how much help we can expect if there’s trouble. If we need some backup, is there a headquarters anywhere nearby to help us or are they all halfway across the country?”

  “Okay, let’s suppose I told you there’s an Unseen headquarters thirty miles away,” Red said. “Then Sandoval captures you, so pretty soon he knows it too and everyone at that headquarters is in danger.”

  “I won’t talk.”

  “You don’t know that,” Red said. “If Milady wants you to know more than I’m willing to say, she’ll tell you.”

  The next day Scotty and Lucky showed them architect’s drawings of the Howard Phillips mansion and made them memorize the rooms and corridors. They had a map showing the house in relationship to the factory, and Lucky pointed to a small square building halfway between them.

  “Sandoval had this built shortly after he moved in,” he said. “It’s basically a concrete blockhouse with one steel door facing away from the road. There aren’t any windows, but each side has a cross-shaped opening. Men inside the blockhouse can aim rifles up and down and to both sides through the openings, but they’re so narrow we can’t shoot into them. If we attack the house, you can expect rifles shooting at us from the blockhouse.”

  Despite the heat, Lucky was wearing wool suit trousers, a long sleeve shirt, and a vest with his silver pocket watch in one of its pockets and his sliver fob in the other with a silver chain connecting them. His carefully manicured brown mustache and goatee made Amy think of someone you’d find in a nineteenth-century Texas saloon playing cards all night long, and in fact she’d already seen him dealing five-card stud at one of the picnic tables.

  “The blockhouse is a fortress,” he said, “and so are the house and the factory. Sandoval had iron bars installed on all the house windows so no one can get through them, and the doors are steel. The factory has steel doors and steel plates blocking the windows. Both buildings are solid brick and pretty much impenetrable.”

  “What do they do in the factory?” Amy asked.

  “We think they make designer drugs in there, but we’re not sure,” Lucky said.

  “It’s also a whorehouse,” Scotty said.

  “Probably more like a harem or seraglio,” Lucky said. “Sandoval only allows men to work for him, and they no doubt get lonely. They’ve been seen bringing women to the factory, and they’re not locals. They look more like big-city prostitutes.”

  There were no more whippings since all three of the recent initiates had already undergone their second cleansings. Thursday Amy and John were the only two in the sweat lodge because Jake had completed his fifth and final cleansing, and Amy found it more awkward to sit naked with one man than two, probably because that one man was so obviously infatuated with her.

  Friday she was alone in the sweat lodge, and though she was beginning to feel more comfortable in her astral body, she still couldn’t urge her wings to fly her any farther than Billy’s property line. By now the grass and weeds in Ebbing’s field completely obscured whatever might be left of the chalk line, and as she gazed down from the knoll she felt a terrible sadness clinging to her like sweat. She couldn’t tell if the sadness belonged to her or to the place itself, and she wondered if it emanated from horrors that had already happened or horrors yet to come.

  The next day she asked Neoma why her astral body wasn’t willing to leave Billy’s property.

  “That’s going to take some time,” Neoma said. “When your spirit leaves your body it’s leaving its earthly home, so it instinctively seeks a place that feels like home, in this case your childhood home. It doesn’t want to feel lost.” She gave Amy an enigmatic smile and said, “Let’s can the chit-chat and go to my room.”

  Amy followed her upstairs and Neoma told her to lie on the bed. Amy took off her shoes and stretched out on the soft mattress, which smelled like Neoma’s spicy perfume. She assumed that Neoma was going to lie down with her and make love, and instead of aversion she felt excitement stirring in her groin.

  But instead Neoma sat primly on the edge of the bed. “The steam in the sweat lodge is infused with certain essences that make it easier for your spirit to drift away from your body,” she said, “but now that you’ve finished your five cleansings you won’t need them any longer. I’m going to teach you how to spirit-travel with a sort of hypnosis. Just shut your eyes when they feel like they need to shut, and then let yourself drift.”

  She moved her hands in front of Amy’s face as if weaving the air into some mysterious pattern and began to sing quietly. Amy recognized the same plainsong melody that Neoma had sung each night in the sweat lodge after pouring the pitcher of aromatic liquid over the hot rocks. It sounded like an ancient lullaby in some ancient language, and soon Amy’s eyelids were too heavy to hold open.

  When she did open them, she found herself perched again in the tall maple in Billy’s front yard, but this time the windows of his house and the shingles of his roof seemed to glare like spotlights, and she shut her eyes again.

  She was startled when she heard Neoma’s voice saying, “Where are you, Mary?”

  “I’m in Billy’s front yard,” she said, and then she was startled again because her own voice seemed to be coming from far away, as if a ventriloquist’s dummy were speaking her words in some distant place.

  “Relax and be calm,” Neoma said. “You’re safe with me. Tell me what you see.”

  “The light’s too bright,” Amy said, and again she was disturbed to hear her own voice speaking somewhere far away. “I have my eyes shut,” she said.

  “Your astral eyes are nocturnal,” Neoma said. “But owls can see in the daylight too, even if they don’t like to. Open your eyes and let them get used to the light.”

  Amy did, and the glare made her head ache.

  “What do you see?” Neoma asked.

  “The house still looks empty,” Amy said. “The yard is getting to be a mess of thistles and burdock.”

  “Fly to the woods,” Neoma said.

  Amy tried to, but the harsh light was making her dizzy, and she soon perched in a sycamore tree near the lane to rest.

  “Where are you?” Neoma asked.

  “I feel sick,” Amy said. “I don’t think I can fly any more right now.”

  “Okay, we’ll try again tomorrow. Come back now and open your eyes.”

  Amy opened her eyes and found herself lying in bed with Neoma sitting beside her. Despite the air conditioner
she felt hot and sweaty, almost feverish.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Neoma said. She left the room and returned with a wet washcloth, which she placed on Amy’s forehead.

  “Thanks,” Amy said.

  “Are you feeling better now?”

  “Starting to. The light was so bright, and there was something else too. I feel strange, like I just had really weird sex or something.”

  Neoma smiled faintly and said, “We did have sex, in a sense. We communicated telepathically—we were inside each other’s minds. Isn’t that more intimate than sex?”

  “But we were just talking,” Amy said.

  “Yes, we were talking. But I wasn’t moving my lips, and you weren’t either.”

  While Amy was mulling this over, Neoma said, “I’ll teach you the words of the chant so you can hypnotize yourself. I want you to learn how to spirit-travel on your own without any help.”

  After dinner Amy usually would sit on the front stoop and listen to the laughter and singing coming from the barn. Always there was the same sweet male voice singing, and sometimes some other voices joined his. Saturday night she ventured to the open barn door and looked in. Several people were sitting on folding chairs drinking beer or wine; Lucky, Jake, Scotty, Manda and Brook were there, and even Bloody Joe, who was frowning a bit less severely than usual.

  The man singing was young John, strumming a guitar while he sat on a bale of straw. His back was turned to Amy so he didn’t notice her standing there, and she was surprised by the confident ease of his posture and voice.

  The wind is singing a lonely

  Melody in the pines

  And the moon is like a dagger

  See how sharp it shines

  My feet is tired and weary

  I’m feeling half-near dead

  But there’s many lonesome miles to go

  ‘Fore I can rest my head

  Oh I’m far, so far away from home

  Lost in this endless valley of sin

  Yes I’m far, so far away from home