The Edward King Series Books 1-3

by Wood, Rick

  Almost as soon as her feet touched the ground, police burst in through the door behind Kelly and shoved her against the wall, restraining her hands behind her back. From the moment they handcuffed her, walked her to the car and took her to jail, she did not for a moment stop smiling.

  21

  “So you mean, it actually worked?” Jenny’s eyes lit up, her jaw dropped and her smile grew. She looked almost elated, hugely impressed at the feat of Eddie’s power.

  Eddie gushed, delighted he had prompted such a reaction. It made a nice break from the animosity he and Derek were facing at the university.

  “Yeah, I was just not saying one of the words right,” he recalled to her. “Once I had corrected it, it sucked the demon right out of its mouth and it disappeared into grey smoke.”

  Jenny nudged Lacy next to her, who was also impressed; though not nearly as much as Jenny. Lacy was Jenny’s more relaxed, laid-back girlfriend, whom Eddie adored. He had been there when they first got together and witnessed how much controversy they’d had to overcome, mainly from Jenny’s conservative parents. It was warming to see them sitting here a decade later, strong as ever.

  “So what are we trying now?” Jenny enquired, crossing her legs and sitting forward on the garden bench as Lacy rubbed her back and watched on with intrigue.

  “Well,” began Eddie, lifting his book up and glancing over the spell before him. “This is a much higher level kind of spell. It’s far beyond pumping a demon out of a boy’s chest.”

  “What is it?”

  “Conjuring a fireball.”

  Jenny raised her eyebrows, stumped, turning to Lacy and acknowledging her impressed reaction too.

  “Well fuck,” Lacy took over, noticing Jenny was too jaw-dropped to reply. “Why not, eh?”

  Eddie nodded and turned toward the tree, perched across the garden from them.

  “You did say you wanted to get rid of this tree, right?”

  “Yes,” Lacy nodded. “And we didn’t want to pay for a tree surgeon. This is a good solution.”

  Eddie nodded, dropping the book to the floor beneath him, looking over the spell. He put one foot in front of the other, preparing his stance, focussing his eyes ahead.

  “So what do you have to do?” Jenny enquired.

  “Well, supposedly I rotate my arms around each other, say the incantation, and throw my arms forward. It should just, like, fire out of me.”

  “And there’s no chance of us getting hit, right? I mean, I love you, but I don’t want to burn to death.”

  “I think you’re fine. Who knows if it will even work?”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  Eddie nodded. True, he had said that. Nevertheless, he still worried, still hesitant, honestly not expecting it to succeed.

  He readied himself, closed his eyes, took in a big deep breath – then focussed ahead.

  He rotated his hands around in a 360-degree angle, spinning around in a circle, slowly at first, then faster and faster. As his arms sped up, he glanced at the book to remind himself of the words, then faced dead ahead.

  “Igne egredientur, igne egredientur,” he spoke, ensuring he was saying it right this time, enunciating every sound. “Igne egredientur, igne egredientur.”

  His hands flickered. A spark ignited quickly and went out within the circle he created with his hands. It gave him a glimmer of hope.

  “Igne egredientur, igne egredientur.”

  His hands moved quicker and quicker, more and more sparks igniting. He felt energy flowing through his arms, blood quickening pace, his fingertips singing with heat.

  “Igne egredientur, igne egredientur.”

  His heart skipped a beat, his gut lurched forward, and he grew hopeful. He was vaguely aware of Jenny and Lacy from the corner of his eyes, avidly watching, but was too focussed to direct his attention elsewhere.

  “Et ignis furorem,” his voice rose, more and more flames alighting and disappearing.

  His eyes opened wide and he screamed the final part of the spell.

  “Converte ad lucem vitae!”

  He threw his arms forward, his muscles rattling in his arms as his bones shook with such ferocity he thought they were going to fly right out of their sockets.

  And from his hands before him flew…

  Nothing.

  The tree remained. The flickers had ceased. No flames exuded from his pores.

  He had failed.

  He fell to his knees, the energy the spell had zapped from him taking his legs from beneath him and he fell flat out on his back.

  Next thing he knew, Jenny was over him, screaming for Lacy.

  “Lacy, we need you!”

  She shoved Jenny out of the way and took over, her nursing skills coming into action.

  “What…” Eddie tried, but found his voice straining.

  “His nose is bleeding!” Jenny cried out.

  “He’ll be fine,” Lacy told her. “He’s just suffering a bit of concussion. Let’s get him to the sofa.”

  He may have been dizzy and unaware, but he knew enough to know the spell had failed. His scattered thoughts flew that reminder around his head in a tornado.

  He awoke around an hour later and took a few paracetamols, feeling fine. Though, not fine enough to attempt the spell again.

  22

  5 December 2001

  It took a dozen police officers to drag Kelly into a cell. Sergeant Jack Sony was the mental health liaison officer and was called as soon as they checked her background and saw that she had previously been sectioned.

  Once he arrived, he stood with the custody sergeant and watched her through the cell window.

  She was in a manic frenzy, bashing from side to side of the cell, screaming obscenities and blasphemous threats, causing more damage to herself than the walls around her.

  “We can’t leave her like this,” Jack told his colleague, folding his arms.

  “What do you suggest, we restrain her?”

  “No, she’s not mentally fit to stay here. We need to have her sectioned. Call the doctor and ask them to send someone.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned to leave and Jack put his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “Actually, best ask him to send a team. Then get the papers needed from the Crown Prosecution Service to delay her charges pending assessment of her mental stability.”

  Jack remained outside the cell, peering in on her. Six hours she had been attacking the walls, she must have been bruised to hell. And still, she showed no sign of letting up.

  *

  Jason sat with Ava on his lap, listening to her reading a book about Tim and Tom and their journey to go to the sweetshop or something, following the words along with his eyes, his mind somewhat absent.

  Once she was finished, he gave her a hug, congratulated her, and told her there were some chocolate mice in the fridge as a treat. She sped off to retrieve them.

  Jason sat up and watched Linda across the room with Mia on her lap, both asleep. He couldn’t help but smile. What a lovely sight; all those nights back when they first got married she would fall asleep in that chair, then once they had Harper, she would fall asleep with Harper on her lap in that chair, and now, here she was, with Mia, doing the same.

  History sure does have a way of repeating itself.

  The doorbell rang and Jason stood, pausing for a second as he willed the stiffness from his legs. This was the problem with getting older; everything you don’t want getting stiff damn well does.

  “Must be Harper,” he said, despite knowing his wife was fast asleep and wouldn’t be able to hear him.

  He straightened his back and, ignoring the old-man pain he felt, hobbled his way to the front door and opened it.

  There, on his porch, stood Derek. Drenched from the pouring down rain, his clothes soaked through and his hair flattened to his head.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Jason growled.

  “Mr Aslan, please, if I could just hav
e a minute of your time.”

  “Damn it, man, my grandchildren are here. What is wrong with you? Have you no dignity?”

  “Please, I just need a minute of your time.”

  “I have nothing to say to you!” Jason snapped and went to close his door.

  “Well I have something to say to you,” Derek replied forcefully, holding out his hand and halting the door. “I’m not here to start an argument. One minute of your time and then I will never bother you again, you have my word.”

  Jason hesitated, looking the man up and down. He was wet, he was desperate; he almost pitied him that his belief in the irrational had driven him to this. Still, a promise of never being bothered by him again was tempting. He looked pathetic.

  “Come through to the study,” he barked. “I’ll get you a damn towel.”

  “Thank you, thank you so much.”

  Derek shuffled his feet on the mat to dry them and was ushered into a study, Jason closing the door before Derek could see anyone else was in the house. After a few seconds, Jason joined him and shoved a towel his way.

  “Thank you,” he acknowledged, and half-heartedly dried his hair. “Can we sit?”

  “Sure.”

  They both sat on the easy chairs and looked at one another. Derek dried his hair for a few more moments, then laid the towel down on his lap, hesitating, contemplating what to say next.

  “This is where you tell me what you want,” Jason prompted him, not dropping his grumpy persona.

  “Right, yes, okay,” Derek stumbled. “I do not blame you for what you have done, you must know that. Were I in your position, and I witnessed such a thing with the belief system you hold, I would be inclined to do the same.”

  “Right,” Jason accepted, then shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘so what?’

  “But what we have now is a girl in a huge amount of trouble. She has the highest signs of possession we have ever seen. We have been disallowed from carrying out our activities, but that is not going to stop us, Mr Aslan. We are determined to help this girl, whatever the consequences.”

  “That’s fine. What’s it got to do with me?”

  “She has been sectioned, Mr Aslan. She was arrested for an attack and was moved to a psychiatric unit shortly after. It is crucial – no, it is imperative, that we get to this girl before it is too late.”

  “Like I said, what’s it got to do with me?”

  Derek sighed, bowed his head and closed his eyes.

  “We can’t get to her, Jason. Thanks to what has happened, we can’t even go near her as a visitor, not on our own. We need your credentials. We need you to get us in.”

  Jason looked Derek up and down. Was this a joke? He saw Derek’s face was deadly serious and he burst out laughing, practically guffawing.

  “Are you serious?” he managed through breaths of laughter. “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “I don’t know, good will? Doing the right thing?”

  “Doing the right thing,” he began, ceasing the laughing and turning serious again. “Doing the right thing would be to ensure that you get locked up for the rest of your life away from any member of society you can affect with your bullshit.”

  “I will make you a deal. On the condition you stand and watch, and you may film, but this time you do not interfere.”

  “What kind of deal do you think I would make?”

  “The boy you saw showed signs of possession. This girl is the living embodiment of it. If there was ever going to be clear, unarguable proof that the paranormal exists, and it exists in demon form, it would be here. You would have your proof. And you would not be able to argue with it.”

  “You already offered me that.”

  “Yes, but this is the deal I am prepared to make. Should I not convince you, should you not take this as unequivocal evidence, I will remove myself from the post I hold. You won’t need a court order, or an investigation, or a police charge – I will leave the university and cease engaging in any of this activity ever again.”

  Jason paused for thought. This was an opportunity. The university was investigating him, but chances are they would find nothing strong enough and he would be reinstated. If he filed a police charge, they would need to gather enough evidence to arrest him, then find enough to take to a judge; it could take months, maybe even years. Even then it may not pan out; the evidence could be poor, their lawyer could be too good, the jury could be religious nut jobs themselves.

  But this deal… that he would stop completely; if he could prevent anyone else being harmed after the hundreds these frauds had already brought harm to, that would be the pinnacle of his career. That could be his defining achievement. That would truly make him one of the greats.

  “You have a deal.”

  Derek smiled a smile so huge it almost spread across the entirety of his face. He stuck out a hand and Jason gratefully shook it.

  What a fool.

  23

  6 December 2001

  Derek could see that Eddie looked a little nervous. He was avoiding eye contact and he kept pulling the expression he pulled when he was deep in thought. He had never seen him like this before. It was startling to see someone who could do the things Eddie could displaying such apprehension.

  After Jason had shown his identification, they were led to a secure medical room and the security guard stood outside. As soon as they were inside, Derek took a plank of wood from his bag and slid it between the door handles. To make doubly sure, he also produced some rope and tied it around the door handles.

  Jason raised his eyebrows, taken aback at what he saw as deceit.

  “If we get interrupted, it will ruin the whole thing and leave her in a far worse position than she is in now,” he discreetly informed him.

  The coldness of the room hit them; it was always cold in this situation, but it felt like the temperature was even lower. Derek could feel the moisture in the air against this face and goosepimples grew on his skin. He glanced at Jason, who avoided eye contact and set his camera up at the end of the bed, tightening his jacket around himself to protect himself against the freezing nature of the room.

  “You’d have thought they’d turn the heating up in here or something,” Jason complained.

  “You think it would make any difference if they did?” Derek asked, and Jason shot him a look you would give to a child who was intentionally being difficult.

  Eddie approached the bed Kelly lay upon. The sound of her breathing filled the room; deep, croaky, and slow. Her eyes were open, revealing fully dilated pupils and red, bloodshot veins as thick as string. She stared at the ceiling without blinking or moving her eyes whatsoever.

  For the first time in this situation, Derek felt worried. Not only was Eddie clearly anxious, he was facing something that may potentially bring out the dark side in him. Derek began to wonder if he should let Eddie do this, and realised there wouldn’t really be much he could do to stop him.

  “Jason.” Eddie spoke softly and calmly. Derek recognised a bit of shakiness in his voice. “I must ask you to not speak directly to it, nor do you intervene with anything we do. It is crucial.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. If you see nothing, we will stick to our word. But if you run off to grab security at the first sign of stress, you will ruin everything.”

  “I said I heard you.”

  Eddie turned his focus to the girl who lay in front of him. Her wrists and ankles were restrained to the metal table, though Eddie knew that if the thing inside her was as powerful as they thought, these restraints wouldn’t hold her for long.

  “Kelly, my name is Edward King. I am here to help you.”

  Kelly did not react.

  Her gaze was fixated on the ceiling above her. Her cracked breath lingered visibly in the air, grey, floating up to the ceiling.

  “If you can hear me, Kelly, hang tight. We will get rid of whatever is holding you captive. If you can, we need you to fight also. We will do all we can from the outsi
de, but you need to fight from the inside.”

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder at Derek, unfaltering fear spread across his face. Between them, they shared a moment of understanding, a moment when they both knew what they were up against.

  Derek, because he had run the tests.

  Eddie, because he felt it.

  He felt it in his bones, his blood, his mind. He was in the presence of something not only powerful, but occupied with unadulterated evil.

  It filled his body with fury, and he was doing all he could in his mind to cool it.

  “I speak now to the entity within. I give you the opportunity to release God’s child and return to hell.”

  Kelly grinned.

  “I give you this opportunity now, because I will not give you any mercy.”

  Kelly cackled. It was deliberate, with each “ha” sarcastically pronounced, her voice inexplicably deep.

  “Demon, what is your name?”

  Its cackles grew. Eddie grew irritable. He continued calming himself, adamant to sustain his wavering perseverance.

  This thing was affecting him too much and he couldn’t understand why.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I demand of you, demon, tell me your name.”

  “My name…” the demon muttered.

  Several books flew off the shelf across the room and Eddie had to duck out the way to avoid being struck.

  Jason turned his head to Derek, wide-eyed, unable to believe what he just saw.

  “You think you can take on me?” the demon requested, winding its face toward Eddie, lurching at the impudence.

  “The Holy Church venerates you as her guardian and protector. Tell me your name.”

  “It is you…” the demon uttered, its eyes transfixed upon Eddie. “I have drawn you here, and you came…”

  “I do not know you, demon. To the Lord, entrusted the souls of the redeemed to be led into heaven, he demands you tell us your name.”