by Adam Dark
Okay, fine.
Ben heard the muffled click of Peter opening the silver box in his arms, which meant he’d seen the flash of green light and had obviously come to the same conclusion.
Without turning to look at Peter, Rufus raised a calm hand toward him to signal for Peter to wait. “I know they’re coming,” he told the woman-demon-thing who didn’t quite look or act like any of the other admittedly few demonic possessions Ben had seen. “We’re doing everything we can to prepare. And that’s why we’re here.”
Those unseeing eyes returned to Ben’s face. “Well, then.” The woman’s head swiveled on her neck. “Let’s get it over with, shall we? I’m quite tired of waiting for end after end.”
He had absolutely no idea what that meant, but he couldn’t expect a demon having hijacked a woman’s body to make much sense about anything.
“Peter,” Rufus said quite calmly, still not looking away from the trash lady. “If you’d like to use that clever contraption of yours, now would be the time.”
Ben couldn’t help it. He turned just a little to look at Peter, who met his gaze for the first time and nodded. The guy looked surprisingly confident and resolute, though that could have still been anger. Ben nodded back, and Peter took a few steps forward until he stood on the other side of Ben. Then he bent and placed the open box on the ground, with a new, empty crystal clutched in the center setting surrounded by the painstakingly etched symbols of summoning and compulsion and, yes, those meant to keep the demon inside the stone inside the box—which they’d all learned only lasted for a certain amount of time.
The old woman practically squealed in what might have been delight. “Oh, I haven’t seen those in centuries. Sometimes the old ways are the best, aren’t they?” She might have chuckled, then, but it sounded like she was choking.
“Ben,” Rufus said, turning to look at him.
“What?”
“We have our own way of doing this,” the man replied, the corners of his mouth lifting in a small smile. “Your methods seem a little less… severe, though. And I’d very much like to see it for my own eyes.”
Much less severe? It had never been easy for Ben to command a demon from wherever it was into the stone. Not once. What could be more severe than what he and Ian had done only a handful of times?
‘Dude, I don’t even know how,’ Ian said. ‘I mean, I can’t even see the thing—’
“Just say please, dear,” the woman croaked, her eyes flashing green again as she opened her mouth and let out a coarse, whispery cackle. It gave Ben the first real glimpse of the inside of her mouth, which was missing all but maybe four teeth, which looked like they were about to go too at any minute.
Ben swallowed and raised his palm toward the woman, because that was what he did when they were putting one of these things into the box, right? “Please?”
‘Please,’ Ian said at the same time.
Her eyes filled with the green light again, and Ben’s palm let out a brief flash of its own. Then the light drew out of the old woman’s cloudy eyes, filtering away from her and toward the stone in Peter’s box like a strand of spider silk in the breeze. The minute the light entirely left her, the woman’s lips parted in a small reaction of surprise. “Oh,” she said, but that was it.
The demon’s green filament of light went calmly and cooperatively right into the stone at Peter’s feet, not once fighting Ben and Ian’s command like all the others had. What did you do differently? he asked Ian.
‘Dude, I didn’t do any of this.’
What?
Then all the green light was inside the stone, which pulsed just once with a brighter flare, then settled into a dull green completely unlike the black or milky pink of the others. Rufus nodded at Peter, who then bent down to close the sides of the metal box and pick it up again. And that was it. Easy, simple, totally unlike any other demon they’d ever had to banish into a stone before. If Ben had known all it took was to say please, he would have started with that first. It wasn’t like being polite was ever the first thing going through his head when he found a demon messing with somebody’s life or trying to end his.
“Ben, look,” April whispered, nodding toward the pile of trash bags and the old woman who’d been so easily released from her possession. Something was definitely wrong.
18
Rufus had already started to walk away. “Hey,” Ben called after him, “is she okay?”
The man stopped and turned back to look at the old woman, who’d now fallen limply back against all the bags of trash, her eyes closed and her mouth still open in that small measure of surprise. Then he looked at Ben. “She’s dead.”
“What?” April took a step toward the woman, like she meant to go see if he was right—if there was anything she could do. But her hand flew up to her nose against the stench and she stopped to turn back toward Rufus.
Ben’s stomach curdled again, this time with an added dose of guilt. “Is it because I… banished the demon?” he choked out.
Rufus gave him a small, sympathetic smile. “She didn’t die because of you, Ben. It’s just part of the process.”
“No it’s not,” Ben replied quickly, staring in disbelief at the man who’d just let him inadvertently kill a woman. “That’s never happened before.” He threw an arm back toward the woman and the trash. “Ever. You said my methods were less severe.”
With a nod, Rufus said, “Yeah, they are. And I’m sure that woman appreciated it a lot more than she would have if I’d done this myself. We have to go now, and we don’t have a lot of time. So…” He pivoted again and headed back the way they’d come.
“We can’t just leave her here,” April added.
Rufus stopped again, tipped his head up to the black sky overhead, then turned over his shoulder. “We can, and we will. She lived a lot longer than she was ever supposed to, and as far as anyone else is concerned, this woman was homeless and at death’s door anyway. So, I’d really like to get going and finish what we started.” A tiny smirk curled his lips. “Please.” Then he took off again and rounded the corner of the theater building.
Ben glanced at April, who’d gone completely white and looked like she might have been about to cry. Of course, she didn’t.
Peter slowly turned from where he’d stood, almost frozen, staring at the dead woman in all that trash. He blinked a few times, as if he were coming out of a bad dream, and looked at Ben. “That would have been nice to know beforehand,” he said, then focused entirely on the silver box in his hands. They all walked slowly together in Rufus’ footsteps.
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Ben replied, not really all that relieved that Peter was talking to him again, because they’d just killed somebody without knowing what they were doing, and now the demon that had been inside her was being carted away in Peter’s hands. “I’m glad you came, Pete.”
Peter looked up at him quickly, then stared straight ahead. “This doesn’t make us cool.”
‘Yeah, hi, Pete,’ Ian said in pretty much the same tone.
Fine. If they weren’t cool with each other again yet, at least that wasn’t getting in the way of their business. Business. Like this was their job. Like they’d already joined the Sectarian Circle, and the rookies were out for their first day.
‘Ben, I think you might wanna take a look at this,’ Ian added.
What?
‘Pull you through?’
Yeah, sure.
Ben started to turn around toward the old woman and the black bags behind them, and halfway there, Ian pulled him into the spirit realm. His lungs squeezed a little in his chest, and he blinked to see this delivery area behind the movie theater exactly as it was in his world—only green and glowing, with those same nasty black cracks filtering up the wall of the theater. He looked down at Ian’s twelve-year-old likeness standing next to him. Ian raised his eyebrows and pointed toward the pile of trash bags.
There was the old woman, standing now on the asphalt and still covered in blac
k plastic. But she was gray now, like all the other spirits Ben had seen in this realm. Definitely dead, then. She was grinning fiercely, all black gaps between her few remaining teeth, and she raised a frail arm to wave it over her head at them. “Bye,” she called, sounding more like a child now than anything else. “Goodbye. Have fun!”
Ben couldn’t not wave back at her; she actually seemed pretty happy. Or like she had no idea what had just happened. When he did, Ian joined him, and the woman let out that same dry-throated cackle again.
“So, maybe it’s not a bad thing she kicked it?” Ben asked, turning toward Ian.
His friend shrugged and tossed his straight, sandy-blond hair out of his eyes. “I guess. I’m still not really liking the fact that I never saw that demon. Kinda creeps me out.” He squinted and peered all around them, understandably suspicious now of what he could and couldn’t do here, even in the realm in which he’d spent the last thirty-thousand years—spirit-time, of course.
Nodding, Ben scanned the green-lit space around them behind the movie theater, and then he caught movement in the corner of his eye. There, on the wall. The blackish, fungus-like cracks that ripped through everything in this realm twitched. Then they moved, undulating on the wall like waves. “Ian…” Ben couldn’t help it; he thought immediately of the rag-demon and its non-face made of the same stuff. The minute he did, another sharp flash of agony seared through his head. He cried out and doubled over, and Ian grabbed his shoulders to help lift him up again.
“You okay?”
“No. Dude. The walls.” Ben nodded at them, where the black cracks and the goo inside them were moving up and down, faster and faster, and the constant green light in this realm that never changed—ever—dimmed.
“Uh…” Ian’s mouth just dropped open, and Ben really started to worry that the rag-demon was coming back for him. It made sense. Only here, in the spirit realm, he wasn’t exactly capable of doing anything. He and Ian were separate here.
A shout came from the other side of the theater building, followed by flashes of blue and white lights. Huge flashes, growing bigger, until Ben realized they were headed right toward them. He wouldn’t have been quick enough to get out of the way even if he’d tried. But instead of blasting right into Ben and Ian, the two lights changed direction and hurtled right into the wall beside them. A hiss came from the wall as the light flared along those wavering black streaks, like so many ignited fuses, and something else made the ground buck beneath their feet. Ben stumbled sideways into Ian—it was really weird to feel him like a solid presence here—and then the dimmed green light of this realm brightened again into its not-quite-natural state. The slithering tendrils of oozing black stilled again on the wall. Like nothing had ever happened.
Ben looked up to where he’d seen the white and blue lights originating. A man dressed all in black darted back around the opposite corner of the theater building, and he didn’t come back. “Did you see that?” he asked Ian.
“What?”
“That dude. He just went around the building.”
“Nope. Another spirit?”
Ben swallowed. “No. He was… like us.”
Ian squinted up at him. “You’re gonna have to explain that one a little better.”
Looking down at his friend, Ben added, “He was alive. Like, full color and everything.”
With a frown, Ian glanced back toward the now empty end of the building. “Time for us to go back, I think.”
“Yep.”
The breath drew out of Ben’s lungs again as Ian pulled him back into his own world and his own physical body. He hadn’t been in the spirit realm for that long in a while; the time he’d stopped to talk with the twins’ mother’s spirit, who’d come to help them banish the demon plaguing her sons, was a close second but still shorter. The instant he returned to himself, he felt his legs give out and stumbled for a few steps just to right himself again. That same pain bashed around inside his head, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the last time.
“Woah, you okay?” April asked, gently grabbing his shoulders to help him up, almost exactly the same way Ian had.
“Yeah,” Ben grunted and shook his head. “I just got…” He was about to say that he’d just gotten a little lightheaded, but then he remembered April and Peter both knew everything now. Mostly. “We saw that woman’s spirit,” he said instead. April’s eyes widened. “She, uh… she looked pretty happy and okay with everything.”
Peter glanced down at his silver box again. “Right.”
“I guess that’s good,” April said, blinking a little in confusion. “Why’d you trip like that?”
Ben puffed out a breath. “There’s a few more things that have happened since this morning,” he said. “Haven’t had the chance to tell you guys yet.” April just raised her eyebrows, wordlessly prompting him to continue with that one. “Let’s finish this thing with Rufus first, huh? Then I’ll tell you about it.”
“Sure.” April kept moving after Rufus, who hadn’t gotten that much ahead of them anyway; it was maybe only a second later now in this world compared to the few minutes Ben had just spent in the spirit realm. Time was weird.
Peter took off with her, not looking at Ben again. Ben glanced back at Chase, who’d just finished blowing out a massive cloud after hitting his vape. The guy was staring at the old woman’s now quite dead body like he expected it to start moving again. “Chase,” Ben called. When the guy looked up at him, Ben nodded toward the dumpsters and their way back to the parking lot. Chase shrugged and walked quickly toward them so they could get to finishing whatever Rufus had told them they’d started.
Still no idea what that was? Ben asked Ian. He felt like at least one of them should have been able to figure out what was going on with that rag demon, or some other living guy running around in the spirit realm, or at least the fact that Ian hadn’t been able to see the demon inside that old woman until they’d literally drawn it out of her with her last breath.
‘For the first time, man, I’m as clueless as you are.’
“You’ve got deflecting down to a science,” Ben muttered.
Chase’s hand clapped down on his shoulder, and the guy bent his head forward to look at Ben as they rounded the corner of the theater toward the parking lot. “Ian giving you crap?”
‘Dude, he doesn’t even know me.’
“Nope,” Ben said, wishing the guy would remove his hand and quit plunging into all the business that definitely wasn’t his. “We’re all good.”
“Great.” Chase pretty much bounced across the parking lot now, only pausing for a minute when he and Ben both realized that Rufus wasn’t heading back toward any of their cars. “Looks like we’re going for a walk.” He pulled out his vape again and took a long, hissing pull on it. The white cloud floated right back into Ben’s face as they walked, and it smelled like pineapple.
Oh, jeeze.
19
All four of them walked quickly and uncertainly after Rufus, who’d led them out of the theater parking lot entirely and now marched down the sidewalk like a mother goose leading her totally clueless chicks. What a great way to boost moral for the self-proclaimed demon hunters allegedly having their eyes opened to all the wonders the Sectarian Circle might have to offer. Not. Ben felt more like a sheep being led to slaughter without any idea of when or how it was coming for him.
‘Yeah, that’s positive.’
But Ian didn’t argue with the sentiment, either.
The traffic wasn’t very busy on the street running past the movie theater. For as short as he was, Rufus walked incredibly quickly. The guy actually stopped on the sidewalk ahead of them to look both ways before walking right across the street, no crosswalk or stoplight or anything. Ben caught up to April and Peter while they waited for the next two cars to pass, and they all jogged across the street after the guy they hardly knew. Chase cursed behind them just before a driver laid into the car horn, which went blaring past them down the street. Ben turned back to
see Chase flip the car off and run to catch up with them on the other side.
Yeah, this was going so well.
Rufus stepped off the sidewalk and onto a narrower concrete path running between two commercial buildings. They followed the guy into the parking lot of a business complex, then across the other side of that toward a wide brown building three stories tall. It had its own enclosed parking lot, surrounded by trees and gravel filling the barrier medians, and Ben couldn’t tell in the dark where anyone might have entered with their car instead of cutting across so many other properties like this.
“We couldn’t have just driven here?” April asked, looking around with a weak smile. It was tinged with irritation, though, and Ben was feeling pretty much the same thing. But the unexplained walk to an unknown destination was probably still a lot better than trying to squeeze the five of them into any one of their cars and all driving together. That would have bumped the awkwardness and tension up to a completely new level, seeing as Ben didn’t think any of them had quite gotten past the fact that Rufus hadn’t warned them about the unfortunate little side effects of banishing his pre-selected demon into another stone. Namely death.
“Anybody else notice Rufus talking to that thing like they knew each other?” he asked softly. The man was still a few yards ahead of them, and though Ben wouldn’t have felt bad if his comment had been overheard, he’d rather prevent that if he could.
“Kinda hard not to,” April replied. They’d almost reached the end of the small walkway, which led up to the front doors of the building and past a blue and white sign announcing the place as Patron Hill. Apartments, maybe?
“How many demons you think actually take the time to sit back and have a little chat like that?” Chase asked from behind Ben. Beside the guy, Peter said nothing.
“Well, if we find another one,” Ben said, not really succeeding at keeping the irritation from his voice, “I’ll make sure to ask the thing just what kind of demons like to talk to people before they kill somebody.”
