The Demon Pool

by Richard B. Dwyer

  She closed her eyes and tried to relax. Something filled her, but it was not the water that forced its way into her body. Something else. Something dark, soothing, and powerful. It spread through her until it finally touched her mind, embraced her soul.

  Her body went limp.

  Her mind cleared.

  Under the water, she opened her eyes. Bright light streamed from above her head. Testing her arms and legs, she swam toward the light, trying to escape the water. Her lungs burned. Breaking the surface, she gasped, gulping in huge quantities of air. Gaining her composure, she swam toward the bank where Bruce stood.

  Kat felt the bottom under her feet and staggered to the edge of the pool. She sat on a blanket of grass, shivering in the warm sun. In spite of nearly drowning, a new strength, a new power, energized her. Revitalized her. She looked up at Bruce.

  “You should try it,” she told him.

  The color had left Bruce’s face.

  “For God’s sake, Kat, I thought you had drowned.”

  Kat searched his face. She saw weakness. It pleased her. Her mind was on fire with plans and schemes. Cold calculation waltzed with blazing ambition. Fire and ice. Each with its own power. Each with its own ability to inflict pain on one’s enemies. That pleased her even more.

  ***

  In a dark place, deep inside Kat’s mind, Baalzaric was also pleased. As he entered Kat and probed her thoughts and memories, he discovered that this woman was close to the key that would unlock the secret to human immortality. One of her employers, Advanced Genetic Technologies, focused on life-extending research that held the promise of an eternal human host. Apparently, science had come far in the last one hundred years. Farther than he could have imagined or dared to hope for.

  He knew that hope was not a concept embraced only by the God-lovers. Even a fallen angel could have hope. Lucifer had hope that he would someday triumph over God and rule both a kingdom here on earth, and finally, in heaven above. Baalzaric had hope that one day he would be forever free of the pool.

  ***

  Kat’s mind had wandered. Unfocused, distant. She forced herself to concentrate. She recalled what Bruce had said earlier, that the estate owners were rumored to have left a fortune behind. Now she understood. Government-bureaucrat Bruce had money to spread around in strip clubs, Bruce had access to this property, and Bruce had a brand new Viper.

  Her experience in the pool had done something to her. Changed her somehow. She knew things — new things — and she felt more aware, more alive, more empowered than at any time other in her life, and one of the things she knew was that Bruce would be useful. At least for a season.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Baalzaric had attached himself to Kat’s subconscious, but possessing a human being in a way that was useful required care. Especially if there was to be the kind of control Baalzaric wanted and needed with Kat Connors.

  In their rush to experience the pleasures of the flesh, many demons destroyed the flesh and found themselves dispossessed — exposed to the Avenger, the so-called Son of God, the hated Nazarene.

  Even if the dispossessed demon avoided the pit, the place where the Nazarene appeared to have the power to send some of Lucifer’s soldiers, it could be years, or even centuries, before that demon acquired another host. The demon would be disembodied, full of hatred, with no physical means to express it. That could drive even a demon mad.

  The demon had to meld slowly with the spirit of the host after taking control of the host’s mind. Done too quickly, the host would often experience a total mental, emotional, and spiritual breakdown, which led to insanity and even suicide.

  It wasn’t always this way. Before the great rain and its ensuing flood, men and women had become delightfully wicked. Pleasure was virtually unlimited and life with a host could be long and sensual. Then the great rain began.

  In the ensuing flood, millions of humans died, and millions of demons lost their comfortable existence. Yet one human family had survived. The germ of Lucifer’s new kingdom lurked in the seed of the survivors.

  Apparently, the Adversary’s creation had displeased him. Humankind had chosen knowledge and freedom, following their desires, instead of following the Adversary’s dictatorial whims.

  Since some demons, unfortunately, seemed subject to the authority of the Adversary and his insipid son, Baalzaric feared disembodiment outside the pool. He did not know for sure if he had the power to resist a command by the Adversary or his junior partner, the Nazarene, to enter the pit. So he took no chances. When he had exhausted the mind, spirit, and body of his host, he always returned them to the pool.

  Yet, even in his watery isolation, Baalzaric had not been alone. Life thrived in the deep waters of the pool, and, from time to time, Baalzaric would enter one of the pool’s resident creatures.

  Nevertheless, possessing beasts, whether on land or in water, had little semblance to possessing a human being. Instinct ruled in place of pleasure and with the water creatures, cold supplanted warmth. The connection with an animal host seemed tenuous, disjointed.

  Worst of all was the cold. It was the one thing that Baalzaric hated more than the isolation. Almost more than he hated the Adversary. Finally, after nearly a century of numbing, bleak seclusion, he had a human host again. He had this Connors creature — Kat Connors — and Kat Connors was warm. Very, very warm.

  ***

  Kat drove the Viper north toward Tampa. Cognizant that something had changed, she looked over at Bruce, who slept quietly in the passenger seat. She had drained him, physically and emotionally. Kat fussed with the Viper’s satellite radio until she found a darkwave station. She kept the music low.

  Something supernatural had touched her at the pool. It must have had something to do with her candle ritual. The magick worked. She had asked for power and somehow Bruce had led her to the pool. A tingling sensation, like an electric current, coursed through her body, and her mind had never been as clear. Yet something troubled her.

  Someone or something had attacked her in the pool. Someone, or something, had been beneath the water, waiting. Kat was sure of that (or at least she thought she was sure), but maybe it was a trick of nature. What she thought were eyes staring up at her might have simply been an illusion caused by the glare of the sun on the surface of the pool. The ice-cold water lying still beneath the sun-warmed surface could have caused the shock that made her limbs slow.

  Well, it didn’t matter. Bruce’s secret had been revealed and soon she would exploit it. Kat’s thoughts went back to the pool. Somehow she understood that the pool was deep, very deep, and whatever someone buried there, stayed buried. Forever.

  Bruce snorted in his sleep, but did not wake up. She had drained him, giving him what he wanted in the grass next to the pool. I own you, you ugly little man. I know your secret. I will suck you dry and consume your soul. Then I will bury your sorry ass in that pool.

  Her last thought surprised her. While she had always known she could do whatever she needed to in order to survive, Kat had never thought of herself as ruthless, as someone who would wantonly kill to get what she wanted. At least not before the pool. Not before the magick began working. Yes, something is definitely different.

  A morose song by a band named Dead Faith oozed from the Viper’s speakers as she pulled the car into her apartment complex and parked next to her own vehicle, a reliable and reasonably affordable Acura TSX. Something you might expect an upwardly mobile, lab technician to drive. While her income from the club added substantially to her nest egg, most of that money went unreported, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. No sense in giving the IRS a reason to question her lifestyle.

  She put the Viper’s transmission in neutral and set the parking brake. She left the engine running, allowing the air conditioning to keep the Viper’s cabin cool. She closed her eyes and listened to Dead Faith’s lead vocalist sing about fate, faith, and the uncharted paths of lost souls.

  ***

  Baalzaric liked this h
ost. She was strong with a warm, comfortable body, perfectly designed for pleasure. She relaxed as she listened to the music and he probed her mind, searching her memories. So many years had passed between hosts that the technological progress humans had made, progress he had discovered warehoused in Kat’s mind, amazed him. Yet human nature never changed.

  He discovered that human society, once again, was moving away from the camp of the Adversary. He knew, from his time with the Spaniard centuries ago, that this time there would be no rain. While the Spaniard had little use for the priests and conventions of their religion, he had gone to their schools and knew the stories in their book. According to that book, God had stupidly promised the survivors that he would never again flood the earth. That was God’s great weakness. He always kept his promises. Even to pathetic and unfaithful humans.

  Baalzaric linked himself to Kat’s deep memory, a soft connection that could be easily broken if the host displayed any untoward symptoms, any disruptions that might lead to a mental breakdown. He triggered her deep memory synapses and watched Kat’s life play out as if he were watching a moving picture show. He had seen moving pictures once before. Many years ago. The projection had been a grainy, black and white image that cost his host ten cents to see.

  He had a different host then. A man named de la Garza, whose distant ancestor, a captain named Juan Carlos de la Viña, had served with the Spanish adelantado. Unlike the grainy, silent film of the past, the moving pictures he saw in Kat’s mind unfolded in vivid color. Baalzaric not only saw, but also experienced Kat’s memories.

  The demon watched a dark shadow creep into Kat’s bedroom. It was an old memory, but Kat’s mind supplied all of the details. Ten-year-old Kat and her mother lived with Robert Greer, who worked at a garage and smelled like oily rags and sweat. Kat’s mother worked nights in a hospital laundry and left Kat home alone with Robert. Robert liked Kat. He liked her very much. He bought her presents and told her that when her mom was at work, Kat would be the woman of the house.

  Robert’s weight pressed down on Kat’s slender body. His hand covered Kat’s mouth, keeping her from crying out until he finished. Hot tears streamed down Kat’s cheeks as Robert led her to the bathroom to wash away the evidence of the abuse. As the memory played out in Kat’s mind, Baalzaric stifled his excitement over the depth of this early connection with Kat. He carefully, reluctantly backed off from the memory, not wanting to push too hard, not wanting to exchange years of future pleasure for a moment of lustful indulgence.

  ***

  The memory flooded into Kat’s mind. She pushed it away, back into the dark mental closet where she hid the ugly parts of her life. She turned off the Viper’s ignition. With the air conditioning off, the late afternoon heat began its relentless intrusion into the Viper’s cockpit. Kat reached over and shook Bruce awake. He woke up with a start. Poor Bruce. Dazed and confused. Soon to be used and abused.

  “Where are we?” Bruce asked.

  “My place, Lover. I have to get ready for work. You have to go home now.”

  Kat’s voice communicated a soft, but unarguable command.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Apparently he had slept the entire trip back to Tampa. He was not a newcomer to sex, he had been married many years to two different women, but Kat had exhausted him in a way he had never experienced. Neither of his ex-wives would have consented to sex outdoors, let alone initiated it. Kat was incredible, and the sex they had in the grass next to the pool was indescribable. Gotta find a gym and start working out or this girl is going to give me an early heart attack.

  Bruce took the Viper’s key fob from Kat. She gave him a quick kiss and stepped outside. She turned back and bent down, looking at Bruce.

  “Come see me tonight, Lover.”

  A flash of excitement pierced the fog of his fatigue. He nodded. He could barely get the words out.

  “I’ll be there,” he managed. Kat strolled away, and Bruce was amazed at his luck. He had an important job, a killer car, the hottest girlfriend in South Florida, and, for the first time in his previously crappy life, he had money. Lots of money. Lots of secret money that he’d better not tell a soul about. Not even Kat.

  He thought about his comment to Kat about the treasure rumor at the de la Garza estate. He would need to find some way to walk back any idea that the rumors of a lost fortune had anything to do with his current good fortune. He liked Kat and he could tell that she liked him. But no sense in taking any chances.

  For the time being, he would be content to live just above his means. Much like all the other overworked, middle-class losers who borrowed their way to the appearance of success. For now, his only real excesses would be the Viper and Kat. Just a little middle-aged craziness that that could be easily excused.

  Bruce climbed into the driver’s side and started the Viper. He squinted into the late afternoon sun. He turned the air conditioning up a notch and adjusted the driver’s vents so that the cold air blew directly onto his face. His gaze shifted to the rearview mirror and he watched as Kat walked up the stairs to her apartment. She did not look back. Not at Bruce and not at the Viper. He sat still, waiting until she went into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Just watching her walk was enough to get him going again.

  Bruce put the Viper into gear and drove out of the parking lot. He steered the Viper toward Hillsborough Bay. A few miles later brought Bruce to his cul-de-sac at the north end of the Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club. Bruce steered the Viper up his driveway and into the garage. He sat in the Viper for a moment, listening to the exaggerated purring of the car’s ten-cylinder engine and the rattle of the garage door closing behind him.

  Bruce had financed the Viper and had also made a large down payment on the Spanish-style hacienda that he called home. Paying cash would have raised too many red flags. He had always been frugal, and, even after his last ex had taken half of his 401k in their divorce ten years ago, he was still able to borrow enough against the remaining balance as a cover for where the money had come from.

  Besides the home itself, he had allowed himself one additional luxury. From the interior of the Viper, Bruce could communicate with the house, unlocking doors, turning on lights, and adjusting the environmental system that kept the hacienda cool and comfortable when both the temperature and the humidity gave hell itself a run for its money.

  All of the sophistication came through the Viper’s high-end electronics built into the after-market GPS radio. The rest of the Viper’s dash looked as plain Jane as a 1960 Jaguar. A speedometer that pegged out at 220 miles per hour, a tachometer that redlined at 6,200 RPM, and a gas gauge that showed 3/4 of a tank. As functional and boring as Bruce himself had always been.

  Sitting in the Viper, in the quiet of the garage, he finally took notice of the station on the radio. Someone was singing about mystic love potions and gothic lust. The singer’s voice was low and raspy, not what Bruce would call talented. However, the music had an ephemeral quality about it that intrigued him. He kept waiting for the song to end, but it would renew itself circling around and around, pulling him in until it lolled him to sleep.

  Something screamed.

  Bruce’s eyes popped open and he shot up in his seat. His head snapped right, then left, then right again as he fought to identify the source. It took him a moment to identify the sound — the garage’s carbon monoxide sensor.

  His head ached. Something in his stomach slid up to his windpipe and threatened to explode into the cabin. He choked it back down. He realized the Viper was still running and switched off the ignition. Then he hit the remote control to open the garage door.

  Dizzy and nauseated, Bruce opened the Viper’s driver’s side door and tried to step out. His legs refused to move. Something was terribly wrong. His arms hung limp, useless, and the throbbing in his head increased, like someone driving a bridge pylon into his skull. Spots and tiny flashes of light sparked and skipped in front of his eyes.
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br />   His vision blurred, refocused, and blurred again. Bruce caught himself in the Viper’s rearview mirror. Broken blood vessels in his eyes gave him the appearance of some freakish, scarlet-eyed monster. Bruce watched in horror as tiny drops of blood oozed from a subconjunctival hemorrhage. His vision blurred again as the blood mixed with his tears and created a strawberry-colored film over the lenses of his eyes.

  Panic rose from somewhere inside his gut and his chest heaved with every forced breath. His brain seemed to swell within his skull and the pressure threatened to push the soft, grey tissue out through his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. The pain became unbearable.

  Bruce tried to cry out for help, but his mouth mocked him with silence. Drumfire boomed in his head like some internal, improvised explosive device. Just as Bruce slipped to the edge of unconsciousness, the pain stopped. His eyes focused and the red-tinted fluid that had dimmed his vision cleared. Bruce felt his legs again and his arms responded to the weak instructions from his battered brain.

  He got his legs out of the Viper, his feet onto the garage floor, and stood. He weaved and wobbled, barely able to hold himself upright. He left the Viper’s door open as he half-shuffled, half-stumbled toward the door leading into the house.

  As a facilities manager, he knew something about the dangers and symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Yes, he had left the Viper running. Yes, the garage door had been down. Yes, there had been enough of the gas to set off the alarm. But what he had just experienced went well beyond what he knew about exposure to the gas. He needed to lie down, get off his unstable feet. Pushed beyond exhaustion by his day with Kat, he had nearly killed himself. The Viper’s advanced cabin filter system had apparently done its job.

  Maybe. God, what an idiot. What the hell is wrong with me? Maybe I got too much sun?