Dorian felt like she was floating outside her body, the shock setting in hard that these two men would have any idea what it was like for her. “Did you get my medical file or something?”
Lennox laughed and nodded to the couch. As if unable to control herself, Dorian crossed the room, giving Dash wide berth as she made her way to the couch and sat. After a second, she reached into her back pocket, then set her phone in the middle of the table. Lennox regarded her for a long moment, then glanced at her phone before he answered. “I don’t need to see your medical file, lass. It’s all the same. With everyone.”
“Everyone.” Her voice echoed in the room, and it gave her shivers.
“There are more like you, Dorian. Hundreds of thousands. Seventeen percent of the human population. Most of them aren’t as bad. Some of them go their entire lives without being tapped. But you…” He trailed off, giving Dash a dark look. “Something’s got its claws in you, and it’s powerful.”
She tried to swallow, but it got stuck in her throat and she gave a small cough, trying to regroup. “Okay. Okay, what? Because whatever you’re trying to say, it’s not making any sense.”
Dash walked over, choosing to sit on the opposite side of the couch near Lennox, and he gave her a kinder look than his partner currently wore. “I know it all sounds a bit mad. We get it. We, that’s to say Lennox and I, are part of an organization in charge of finding people like you.”
“Like me.”
He nodded. “Tapped. Possessed. We call them doorways.”
Even the word sent chills down her spine and she shook her head. “Why? Why that word?”
The pair exchanged another look she couldn’t read, and this time Lennox answered. “Because it’s what you are. Born with it, unfortunately. It’s why you have such an aversion to them.”
“To doors?” She laughed and her head shook from side to side. “Look, that’s… cute. I guess. But I already know why I have that issue.”
Lennox chewed on his lower lip for a second, as if contemplating his answer. “I know what your doctors have told you. I know they’ve got all the medical jargon and all the answers in their little text books. But have they been able to explain why you can knock over coffee cups with your mind?”
Her face went red hot and she felt her breath trying to escape again. “That’s… that hasn’t… doesn’t…”
“New, is it?” Lennox glanced over at his partner. “So it must mean they’ve only recently gained a steady foothold on her. It’s promising.”
“If only a little,” Dash conceded.
“Hello! I am sitting right here. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Demons,” Lennox said, obviously done with beating around the bush. He leaned forward, his arms resting over his thighs. “I’m talking about a demon dimension. Billions of them, in fact. Some people call it hell, but it’s not quite that. It’s something else, something normally benign to our own universe, only they’ve found a way in. Through the mind of certain humans born with that tiny little opening in their subconscious. A doorway.”
Rubbing her hand down her face, she fought back a frustrated laugh. “You do realize you’re still making no sense, right? A demon dimension using people as doorways to what? Earth?”
“In a sense,” Dash said with a shrug, leaning back. “Our doctors have come up with a billion ways of excusing people’s strange behavior. And yeah, some people are just chemically imbalanced. But not all of them. And not you.”
This time she did laugh and she crossed her arms tightly over her middle. “You’re trying to tell me that my entire life, my life of getting booted from foster homes and group homes and even state facilities because of my issues, weren’t really issues? They were demons?”
Lennox’s face fell and he glanced over at Dash. “Your entire life?”
Letting out a bitter laugh, Dorian shook her head. “Yeah. Since I was two, in fact.”
Dash and Lennox’s eyes went wide and both let out a small sigh. “I didn’t realize,” Lennox replied after a second. “It doesn’t change things, not really. But I didn’t realize it had been going on since you were that young.”
Her cheeks began to ache with her smile, and she glanced over at the door, contemplating her escape route. “Listen… I mean, I get what you’re saying. I’ve met people like you, okay? When I was sixteen, I was in this foster home and this guy was really into occult stuff. He told me everything I had going on was because a demon had a hold of me and…” She trailed off with a laugh, remembering how much she liked Grant. He was cute and he paid her attention which didn’t happen often shuffled from home to home. She felt so stupid afterward.
“I was into it, you know, because I thought if there was some simple solution to all my problems, if I could just stop taking all these goddamn meds and sleep like a normal person and not have… not have…” She waggled her fingers near her temple and cleared her throat. “All these thoughts and ticks which made every decent foster family send me packing, maybe it would all be okay. I got so into it. Stupidly. He did this exorcism thing, burning sage and other stuff. I remember screaming and howling until I thought the roof would cave in.”
Lennox and Dash were watching her, eyes hooded, but with rapt attention. “Sage?” Lennox’s voice was soft, not mocking, but very curious.
Dorian’s head nodded up and down. “I remember feeling dizzy and loopy after. He told me I was cured. And you know the funny thing was, I felt great. What I didn’t consider was maybe my meds were doing their job, and then I stopped taking them. Next thing I knew, I had an episode. They locked me in psych for six months.”
The men exchanged pained looks, and Dash reached over to touch her leg, but Dorian flinched away. He dropped his hand and let out a sigh. “Look, we’re not here to tell you we have a simple solution. It’s not easy going through what you go through.”
“How the hell would you know, anyway?” Her voice was raw and bitter, and her throat tight with unshed tears.
Lennox looked at the floor as he answered. “Because we know people who’ve been there. People like you. Some of them worse. We don’t always have the answers, and we don’t have an easy fix.”
Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. “So what the hell am I doing here?”
“You have potential. There’s… it’s…” Lennox floundered, running his hand back through his hair in frustration. “We’ve got a way to prove it. If you’ll let us.”
Her eyes were narrow and she crossed her arms. “Oh yeah? Some crazed sex ritual or something?”
Dash barked a laugh, but Lennox didn’t find it funny. “We can draw the demon out, make it so you can remember every time it visits you. It’s a ritual, yes, but it’s just symbols.”
Dorian felt panic well in her stomach and she took in a breath. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Down the hall, first door on the right,” Dash said with a wave of his hand. As she got up and started down the hall, she heard him call after her. “There’s no window in there, love. So if you’re thinking about trying to run…”
She slammed the door, cutting off his words. He was right, there was no window. Just a tiny, closet-sized room with a standing shower, toilet, and sink. Dorian was barely reigning in her panic attack as she stood with her face pointed down at the small, half-rusted faucet. She realized after a moment, there were no mirrors there.
But no. There was no way these guys were going to be right about her. No damn way. She was not possessed. She hadn’t come this far in her therapy to regress back to her emo teenage years where she wanted her issues to be anything but her own brain.
Splashing water on her face, she patted herself dry with a slightly sour towel, then leaned against the door. She could run, sure. Easily. But they’d catch her. They were already prepared for her escape. She could also agree to the ritual, provided it didn’t involve either of them forcing themselves on her or drinking anything strange. Maybe if she complied, they’d let her go.
Still
, she wasn’t sure they weren’t going to murder her and turn her into a lampshade.
A small voice in the back of her head told her not to agree to anything. To run. To fight. To claw their faces off and escape, because they would hurt her. What they wanted to do was dangerous. Dangerous to her and to others.
It was a bizarre thought, and she shook her head, trying to regain control. She had to keep her head about her right now. She couldn’t give in to her condition, to the voices and the paranoia. Her next steps were critical.
Pressing her ear to the door frame, Dorian cracked the door and closed her eyes. Concentrating, she could just make out what Lennox and Dash were saying.
“…abused. I mean it’s obvious.” Lennox sounded stressed, trying to keep his voice down.
“I get it. We’ve seen enough of them coming through. But whatever’s got her, you’re right. It’s strong. You really want to just let her walk out and trot on home?”
“She needs to know for herself. Just… don’t be yourself, okay?”
“Oh, don’t be myself? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A handsy tosser,” Lennox spat. “Let me handle it, and maybe she won’t think we’re trying to murder her.”
Pushing the door shut again, Dorian wondered if they were just trying to throw her off, or if they were serious. Either way, she couldn’t lock herself in the bathroom all day, and if it did come down to kill or be killed, they would have a fight on their hands. She hadn’t learned nothing in her years of group homes full of angry teens.
She straightened her shirt, ran her hands over her hair, then opened the door and walked out. Lennox was by the kitchen table now, Dash still on the couch holding the neck of a beer pinched between his thumb and crooked finger. He tipped her a nod as she entered the room, her hands in her pockets.
“You feel better?” Lennox was holding a small silver bowl and was mashing down something with a wooden pestle.
“What’s that?” Dorian couldn’t help but ask the question, her nerves on edge.
“Part of the ritual. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to feel great after.” When her face went drawn, Lennox held up a hand. “Not like that, lass, swear it. This is just a bit of oil and sage. Repels any sort of mind control the demon puts on you. It’ll allow you to speak freely to it.”
“And what, you want me to drink that poison?” She scoffed, her head shaking.
“Just gonna paint a couple symbols on your wrists. Nothing more.” Lennox took a step toward her, and Dorian took a step back. “See for yourself. No funny business, I promise.”
Peering over the bowl, Dorian’s eyebrows knitted downward in a frown. The liquid in the bowl was thick, chunky, and the color of dark rust. “If it’s just oil and sage, why’s it all red?”
Lennox shrugged and tried to evade the question before Dash piped up. “Just a bit of lamb’s blood, love.”
Whirling around, Dorian started shaking her head and laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Lamb’s blood. Lamb? Like Mary had a little lamb?”
“As in one of the most effective tools in fighting demons,” Dash said. He rose from the couch and approached Lennox who now had a small, wiry paint brush in the bowl. “I swear it’s nothing creepy. Bit of sage, bit of oil. Dollop of lamb’s blood, and a pinch of…” He said something else, but his voice was low and slurred.
“Nice try,” Dorian snapped, crossing her arms.
Dash let out a sigh and flopped his hands down. “Powdered relic.”
Dorian blinked a few times as she processed what he’d said. “Wait. Relic? As in the dead parts of a saint?” She’d heard the term enough times now having worked at the church.
“It’s completely harmless,” Dash insisted. As Lennox stepped toward Dorian, Dash’s hand whipped out and he grabbed the brush from the bowl. “I swear it.” With that, he drew two swoops under Lennox’s nose like a curling mustache, then grinned widely at his work.
Lennox’s eyes went narrow as he rounded on his partner. “Are you serious right now?”
“Just trying to show her it’s harmless!” Dash punctuated his sentence by painting a triangle on his chin like a blood-colored soul-patch.
She was torn between wanting to laugh, cry, and run like mad. Eventually, she let out a huge breath, rolled up her sleeves, and extended her wrists. “Fine. Please get it over with.”
The mood instantly sobered, and as much as it would have been hilarious to watch Lennox get to work with a fake mustache painted on his face, it wasn’t. There was something pressing in her gut, telling her to stop them, to run, to escape what was about to happen.
In fact, before she realized it, Dorian had taken several steps back from Lennox, moving until she bumped into Dash who’d positioned himself behind her. He took the backs of her arms in a firm grip and when he spoke, his voice was directly in her ear.
“It’ll make you want to run. The demons don’t like being exposed, and if you have a high ranking, powerful fellow in your head, he’s going to have a lot of power over you.”
Dorian strained to listen, but she could barely hear over the buzzing in her head. Her adrenal gland was firing, her fight or flight making her jumpy, and she tensed as Dash held her. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” she said, her voice breathy. “Maybe I should just…”
Lennox took the opportunity, as Dash held her, to start the first symbol. He was muttering something under his breath in a language she didn’t understand, and the moment the liquid made contact with her skin, it started to burn. Dorian let out a high shriek and started to pull away, but Dash held her with a strength she didn’t expect.
There was a roaring in her ears, louder than anything she’d ever heard, and her knees started to buckle. She sagged against Dashiell’s front, and he held her up as Lennox completed the ritual. The symbols were small, full of little turns and slashes and dots. The burning cascaded up her arms and for a moment, she thought she was going to pass out from the pain.
Then Lennox stopped muttering, the brush was back in the bowl, and everything went silent. Dorian’s ears rang for a few minutes, her head swimming, but as the world righted itself, it was like the pain had never been. Her breathing began to even out as she stood on her own, and she looked between Lennox and Dash who stared at her with trepidation.
“You okay?”
Dorian licked her lips and nodded. “Yeah I um… don’t know what happened.”
“It’s got its claws in you deep, lass,” Lennox repeated, his tone grave. “But you’ll be alright.”
She stared down at the symbols which were beginning to dry and fade into her skin, and she fought the urge to scratch them off. “How long will it last?”
“How long will you be able to see the demon?” Dash clarified, then shrugged. “Few days, give or take.” He hurried over to the table, digging through a small wooden box, then came up with a small silver charm twisted into a shape Dorian didn’t recognize. “This isn’t foolproof, but if the demon becomes too much for you to handle, this should calm things down till you can get back to us.”
“And what if I think it’s all a load of crap?” she challenged. “What if nothing happens?”
“Then consider us standing corrected,” Lennox said, his face still and unreadable. “But you know where to find us if things get bad.”
“Then what? Then you’ll exorcise me?” Dorian looked around and saw her phone on the table. Neither of the men moved to stop her as she went for it, and she found her set of keys directly next to Dash’s abandoned beer.
When she turned around, Dash had the door standing open for her, leaning on the handle. “We’ll discuss what comes next, if there is a next. I put my number into your mobile there, so if you need anything, please ring us. Any time of day or night. We honestly never sleep.”
Dorian nodded, though she wasn’t sure they were really letting her go. She took swift steps to the door, passed through into the hall, and almost sobbed in relief when Dash closed him and
Lennox in on the other side. She raced toward the stairs, taking them down two by two, and when she was out on the street, she flung an arm around a lamp post and leaned over at the waist, taking in huge gulps of air.
The entire thing was so surreal. Had that really all just happened? Had two British men kidnapped her, told her she was possessed, and performed a ritual on her?
She almost thought she’d hallucinated it all, but she was clutching the pendent in her hand and her wrists still felt heavy with whatever it was Lennox had drawn on her. Forcing herself to calm down, she looked around to see if anything was different.
But it wasn’t. The world was the same. Perhaps Lennox and Dash were lying. Maybe they were as crazy as she was. There was no way to tell, but what Dorian did know was she was determined never to run into them ever again.
Chapter Eight
Amazed the entire altercation with Dash and Lennox had only taken a short while, she still had time to grab her art supplies, deposit her paycheck, and have some lunch before heading back home. And each one of those errands went without incident. In fact, she felt extremely clear and more calm than she had in a long time. Energized even, and that carried with her into the evening as she prepared her lesson plans for the week.
Though she hadn’t heard back from her doctor, Dorian was starting to wonder if she really needed a change in her meds. She was feeling great and centered, and had to wonder if maybe the entire situation with the two British weirdos had been just the thing to shake her back to her old self. Maybe she just needed a good scare.
Whatever it was, she took dinner in the staff hall, made pleasant conversation with a few of the other teachers, and even Father Stone who showed up late told her she looked better. “Definitely more rested,” he said as he passed her table. “Things going well?”
Dorian gave him a rundown of her plans for the classes that week, and he was happy, sending her off with a bounce in her step. She showered, dressed down for the night, and spent another hour at her desk getting everything ready. By ten she was on her evening cup of tea, the television on low volume in the background, and she was curled up in her arm chair enjoying being alone.
The Reaping: Language of the Liar Page 5
