Living Violet

by Jaime Reed

  My brain went on automatic shutdown, taking one task at a time; trying not to think, or else I would bug the hell out. That could wait until I got home. I parked Caleb’s car back at Buncha Books, tucked the keys under the visor, and bounced.

  When I got to the house, everything was as it should be—no sign of predators with glowing eyes, though that did nothing for my accelerated heart rate. Thank goodness Mom was already asleep. I couldn’t talk tonight. What could I tell her anyway?

  My mind tried to provide a logical explanation, but logic didn’t drive through my neighborhood anymore. I wasn’t half asleep, I wasn’t seeing things, and I wasn’t high on anything but caffeine and fear. Just as sure as I knew the night’s events were real, I knew I would have to confront it. The question was who would make the first move, me or him.

  Once church ended, I received a barrage of sympathy hugs and pats. The congregation saw my haggard state and assumed the worst. The deacon offered me a few dollars until I got back on my feet. Once his back was turned, I snuck some vials of anointing oil and went home. I circled my house, my car, even made the sign of the cross over my door with the oil.

  When I called in sick to work, it didn’t surprise me when Linda revealed that Caleb had done the same. With that accomplished, I called Alicia to see if she was all right. Mr. Holloway kindly informed me that Alicia was on restriction and could not receive phone calls. I was just glad that she was safe, so I didn’t argue the point.

  I shut off my cell and took another shower. Pain and guilt washed over me with the spray. I grieved for Garrett and for his parents when they heard the news.

  I’d known Garrett since seventh grade, back when he was still a beanpole who hadn’t grown into his body, the shy kid who helped me burn my Barbies in the backyard. He didn’t get into his asshole years until he joined the junior varsity team. His behavior was inexcusable last night, but that didn’t stop the tears from stinging my eyes. He was a shining star in our school with a bright future, and now he was gone.

  I began thinking about my future. What would the police think of all the bruises on Garrett’s face? Would they come after me? Would I be sharing a prison cell with a large hairy woman named Jerome? The disappointed look I imagined on my dad’s face made the tears flow in a torrential downpour.

  By six o’clock, I curled into a fetal position on the couch. To Caleb’s credit, he forced me to partake in an activity I never thought possible: watching the news with Mom. My eyes stayed glued to the screen, waiting for any word about a murder.

  “Honey, are you all right? You’ve been acting strange all day.”

  “Fine, Mom,” I mumbled from under the blanket.

  When she stroked the top of my head, I flinched. “Baby, what’s going on? Are you sick?”

  “I’m good. I’m just tired.”

  “Well, go upstairs and lie down,” she ordered as the doorbell rang.

  From under the covers, I expected Mom to go through her customary greeting to anyone who came to our door. “Who are you? What do you want? Are you a registered sex offender?” And so on.

  Instead, soft voices and giggling accompanied her line of questioning.

  I pulled my head from its hiding spot as footsteps approached. I had no idea how I made it to the other side of the living room, but there I was, with an iron poker in my hand.

  “Samara, that is no way to treat company. This young man was kind enough to return your wallet. You’re scaring him.” Mom reached over and stroked Caleb’s head.

  I held the poker like the Excalibur sword. “Mom, go to the kitchen and call the police.”

  “Samara, what is wrong with you?”

  “I mean it, Mom. Back away slowly.”

  Mom rolled her eyes and turned to Caleb. “I’m going to the kitchen to make some green tea. Would you like some, honey?”

  “I’d love some, thanks.” Caleb’s eyes slid in my direction, heated with intensity. “Is it all right if I speak to Sam alone?”

  “Of course you can. You’re more than welcome to stay.” Mom continued playing with his hair, dragging her fingers along his nape and twirling the ends.

  “Mom, could you stop petting him and call the police?”

  “What for, baby? Caleb hasn’t done anything. Now you two just have a seat, and I’ll be right back with your tea.” With visible reluctance, she wandered into the kitchen.

  Caleb simply stared, his expression blank. For every step he took, I took one back.

  Before he could open his mouth, I said, “Don’t even give me the ‘we need to talk’ spiel. Just give me my wallet and get out.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You had no problem walking in here.” So much for the anointed oil. Next time, I’ll try holy water.

  “We need to resolve this,” he said.

  “I swear, if you hurt my mom, I’ll—”

  “I’m not here for your mother.”

  That chilled me even more. His tone, his intent stance—it all screamed “predator.”

  After a hard swallow, I asked, “Would I be asking too much for us to just forget about last night, and go our separate ways?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. And we are going to talk about it, so you might as well get comfortable.” He took a seat on the couch and placed my wallet on the table. “I’m not here to hurt you. That was never my intention. If that were the case, I would’ve done it the first day you started working at the bookstore.”

  That fact didn’t ease my anxiety in the slightest. I stood my ground.

  “I know you have questions. What do you wanna know about me?” he asked.

  “Only what I need to do to get you to leave.”

  “You have to listen to me. That’s all.” He patted the cushion next to him.

  I scooted to the armchair in the corner. “I’m good here.”

  “Fine. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I wanted to find the right time to tell you, but—”

  “Here you go, sweetie.” Mom floated in, all buoyant and domesticated. The only things missing were the vacuum cleaner and pearls.

  Caleb set the cup on the coffee table and smiled. “Thank you. Could you leave the sugar bowl?”

  Watching the exchange, my mouth gaped open. When Mom left, I asked, “What did you do to my mom?”

  “The same thing I do to all women. Nothing.”

  “Oh, you did something. That woman is queen of the feminists. How you managed to get through the front door without an X-ray is a miracle.”

  “You’ve seen how women act around me. Are you really surprised that your mother would have the same reaction?”

  “Why? What makes women do that?”

  “It’s what I am; what’s in me.”

  “What’s in you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He just piled five spoonfuls of sugar in his tea. After blowing the steam from the cup, he snuck a glance at the entryway. Satisfied with our privacy, he asked, “What do you know about spirits?”

  “That I’m too young to drink any,” I threw back.

  “I mean sentient beings, or souls.”

  “I’m sorry; I’ve already had my dose of church today.”

  “I doubt they’ll tell you what I have to say in church. But spirits are all around us, and I’m not talking about ghosts.” He set down his cup and balanced his shoulders. “Let me explain.”

  “Please do.”

  His elbows rested on his knees, his hands clasped together. “I suffer from a type of possession.”

  “Like The Exorcist?”

  “Not that bad. Let’s just say that there’s more than one conscious life inhabiting my body.”

  “Ah, you have a roommate,” I chided. “What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one.” Caleb leveled me with a stare that swept all humor from the room. “Sam, I need you to listen to me. This isn’t a joke. There are different types of spirits around us. Some are good,
some are bad, and some are downright evil.”

  I crossed my arms with the poker held tight in my hand. “What category does yours fall under?”

  “The bad,” he replied in a noncommittal tone. “The spirit in my body is just a piece of a much larger entity, a creature older than time. Even after centuries of human experiences, my being still carries a few of the traits from its origin. A creature that’s still among us today, one that is known throughout folklore as an incubus.”

  “Which-bus?”

  “Inc-u-bus,” he pronounced slowly.

  My eyebrows rose. “Like the band?”

  “Like the demon that seduces women and sucks the life out of them.”

  I was speechless, motionless, and officially struck stupid. Meanwhile, Caleb just sat there like we were swapping chemistry notes instead of tales from the underworld.

  He extended his hand in appeal. “I know this sounds farfetched, but—”

  “You think?” I snapped. He might be all blasé about ghouls hijacking his body, but it would take a minute for me to drink this in.

  “If you have a better explanation for last night, I’d love to hear it.” Eyes locked to mine, he reclined on the sofa and waited.

  As if to reinforce the creepy atmosphere, his eyes ignited in a purplish glow. They possessed their own power source, which detained and refreshed with each blink, a feature that no optometrist or contact lens could achieve. Watching the light fade, or simply return to its violet origin would easily take hours out of one’s day. No trick of the eyes, no second-guessing, no room for error or denial, but a formal introduction to an unknown presence. Then just like that, it disappeared, and Caleb sought his tea.

  I knew there were forces among us that I couldn’t understand. However, I had never held a fear of the supernatural. Mom kept me busy with a healthy fright of creatures in the tangible realm. Man did far worse things than any demon could contrive. But all the things I’d seen left no doubt that what sat across from me, sipping liquid sugar, was not normal.

  He paused halfway through his drink and said, “I don’t mean to scare you. I’m just giving you the backstory, where my spirit originally came from, what it used to be. See, everything in existence has three components: a vessel, a spirit, and life energy. Trees, birds, humans, even demons—believe it or not—encompass all three in some form. What lies inside me has no viable life and no body, just a spirit. To compensate, it uses me as a vessel, and feeds off the energy I supply.

  “It’s like electrodes. Little sparks and neurons and wavelengths, an entire switchboard of life going all over your body. That’s what you saw coming out of Garrett’s mouth.”

  “You ate his life?” When he affirmed, I asked, “How?”

  “It pulled from the mouth. The kiss of life ... and death,” he intoned.

  “Like a dementor.”

  He looked confused. “A what?”

  “Dude, you’ve worked in a bookstore for two years, and you’ve never read Harry Potter?”

  “No,” he returned; although his expression seemed to shout, Why would I?

  I sighed. “I’ll lend you the series. But why does it only attract women?”

  “Because it’s male. That’s his weapon. The spirit gives off a signal that draws females in, kinda like pheromones. It pulls them in with an allure so powerful they lose all sense of control. When they kiss me, the spirit pulls at their energy. The magnetism works best on vulnerable females. Most unhappy or lovelorn women are especially drawn to me. The more desperate they are for love, the stronger the attraction.”

  “And my mom?”

  “If you weren’t in the house, she would probably be all over me.”

  “Ugh. I think I’m gonna be sick,” I replied, more to myself than to my strange company. The thought of Mom going cougar on Caleb left a bad taste in my mouth. “So, what does this mean? What do you do about it?”

  “I try to ignore most of them. But things happen, as I also told you before. As a result, the girl in the bookstore parking lot. She jumped me and—”

  “And your little roommate heard the dinner bell,” I cut in.

  “Yeah.”

  “Has this happened before? Is there any way to resist?”

  “Yes and no. It’s like having a pet tiger. It’s wild and carnal, but it has recognition. After a period of time, it recognizes people. I have sisters and female cousins and the spirit never reacted. It won’t draw from anything it recognizes.”

  “Well, you know what happened to Siegfried and Roy.”

  Wearing a mask of boredom, Caleb darted his finger at me. “All right, look, that tiger didn’t attack his owner. An excited fan approached the stage and spooked him. The cat acted in defense and pulled Roy away from potential danger and forgot his own strength. That’s pretty much what happened with the women at Buncha Books and Europia Park—”

  “So it was you! You were the cause of their heart attacks.” I accused.

  He at least owned the decency to look shamefaced. “The spirit only attacks when confronted. Those women jumped on me, and it responded. It really has no conscience when it comes to the unfamiliar. It just knows what sustains it. If it can’t feed on others, it will feed from its host.”

  That got my attention. “What?”

  “Over the years, I discovered that the spirit can be appeased by large amounts of endorphins, the ones that come with excitement or when I eat sweets. It’s a passable substitute if a life source isn’t available, but I have to be replenished constantly.”

  At his words, his weird baked-goods fetish began to make sense.

  Wait, no, it didn’t. “So it feeds off euphoria?” I asked.

  “Euphoria, fear, anger, adrenaline, excitement. It all produces dopamine, a different quality or grade of energy. Do you know what life is? It’s not flesh, blood, and bones. It’s the spark. It’s that universal core that makes us what we are, the beginning of all things. It’s not the body, not the soul, but the bridge where the two meet; what keeps the soul in the body. That is what it eats.”

  I tried to follow, I really did. “Okay, then why didn’t the women die? They just had heart failure.”

  “Because I fought against it. If they held on any longer, the spirit would have taken more, and ...” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t wanna hurt people.”

  “Then how do you explain Garrett?”

  He brooded over the question while sipping his tea. “That was my fault, not the spirit’s. That can never happen again.”

  I leaned away from him. “Your fault?”

  “Like I said, the spirit’s primary prey is women. I’m a slave to its cravings, but I can curb the appetite. When I saw Garrett hurt you, I reacted, and things got out of control. I couldn’t stop.”

  “Why?”

  “Garrett had an unusual amount of energy. He’d been using an artificial stimulant.”

  “Like steroids,” I supplied.

  Caleb nodded. “It was killing him before I even touched him. I started giving him CPR when I felt his energy in my mouth. The spirit got one taste of that and went completely haywire. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Then there’s the fact that I didn’t want to stop. I wanted Garrett to pay for hurting you and Alicia. And the pull was so damn good, so painfully exquisite, it brought me to tears.”

  I reared back. “And here I thought you were crying out of grief.”

  “I just know what I felt, and remorse wasn’t it. But it scared me, Samara. I’ve never let it go that far before. I’ve never ... killed anyone before.”

  His features twisted with anguish. I noticed his skin appeared paler than usual, and he likely hadn’t slept all night.

  “What did you do with Garrett’s body?” I asked.

  “I went to Robert’s house and called the police.” Scowling, he leaned forward in his seat. “What? You thought I buried him in the backyard?”

  I lifted my hands in resignation. “Hey, I don’t know how these things work.”

&
nbsp; He just stared at me, disappointed and greatly offended. “I’m not a monster, Sam.”

  “Then what are you?” I demanded.

  “How’s everyone doing in here?” Mom chimed from the hall. She made a beeline for Caleb and continued with the touchy-feely.

  He handed her his empty cup. “We’re fine. Could I have some more tea, please?”

  “Of course. You can have anything you want,” she assured in a breathy voice that made me cringe. I tried to ignore how her fingers caressed his when she took the cup.

  When Mom left, Caleb turned to me. “I’m not a monster. We call ourselves ‘Cambions,’ because of the spirit’s origin. I am one-hundred-percent, flesh-and-blood mortal with a few stipulations, that’s all. I’ve had this thing all my life and I can control it.”

  “What if you run out of doughnuts and your little pet is starving for energy?”

  His face set in a hard block of determination. “I see to it that it doesn’t happen.”

  Mom’s head popped from around the corner. “Did you want milk or lemon with your tea? I forgot to ask.”

  “Nothing. Plain is fine,” Caleb called back.

  Flashing a wink, Mom disappeared.

  He looked back at me. “I can control it, Sam.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t rely on that.”

  Mom’s head reappeared. “Do you want some cookies to go with—”

  “Mom!” I yelled. This fixation was getting on my nerves. And where did she get cookies? I scoured the four corners of the house and found not a crumb of junk food. “Could you give us a minute to talk, please?”

  “Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she announced, almost running into the wall to leave.

  “Let’s take this outside.” I went to the front door with Caleb fast behind me.

  The heat felt like an octopus latched onto my head—clammy, suffocating, and highly intrusive. The smell of charcoal and barbecue drifted up the block, escorting the sun on its journey west.

  Leaning against the railing, I folded my arms. “All right, let’s take this from the top. Act one, scene one. How did you get a demon in your body?”

  His eyes narrowed at me. “I don’t like the word ‘demon.’ ”