The Devil You Know

by Richard Levesque

  Marie turned to him questioningly. “Why would he think that?”

  Tom shrugged. “I spent some time around some really sad cases at the VA. When everything’s falling apart, sometimes you need someone to blame outside yourself. Maybe Colin’s scapegoating the priest and the church.”

  “And damning himself even further.”

  “He probably sees no hope for himself.”

  Marie certainly didn’t see any hope for Colin now, either. “Now what?” she asked. “Call the police?”

  Tom shook his head. “They’ll know about it soon enough. We don’t want to get tangled up in this. If they get the call now or in the morning, it won’t make any difference.”

  Tom had a handkerchief in his coat pocket, and he used it now to wipe down the light switches and door handles as they worked their way into the parking lot again. “We didn’t get any holy water,” Marie said as they walked quickly back to the car.

  “We may not need it.”

  “Why?”

  “If Colin’s crazy enough to do this to the church, maybe he’s set his sights on Piedmont next. If we’re lucky, he’s already doing our work for us.”

  * * * * * * * *

  As they drove into the hills, they worked their way above the fog. At first, it grew thinner, and then it ceased, and the Chevrolet emerged as though passing through a door and coming out the other side into a completely different night, this one fully lit by moonlight with every house and hill and street sign looking crisp and clear in the headlights as they passed. At one point, a coyote walked calmly onto the road in front of them, looked for a moment at the approaching car, and then disappeared into the chaparral on the other side of the road. It was easy for Marie to navigate for Tom, the absence of fog helping her remember how all of this had looked the day she and Jasper had come the same way.

  When they reached the estate, they found the gates locked, so Tom pulled off of the road and parked the Chevrolet as close to the wall as he could. They both got out of the car on the driver’s side and walked to the gate for a moment. The house looked completely darkened, but in the moonlight, they could make out a few cars parked on the circular driveway before the main entrance. Tom could not be certain, but he felt confident that one of them was the car he had seen parked in front of Marie’s house.

  “You scared?” Tom asked her.

  She was silent for a moment. “A little,” she said. “Just a little.” For years, she had read stories about old dark houses with unspeakable things inside them, and hapless heroes who braved the dark and the evil in hope of bringing it to light—almost always failing, or succeeding at great cost. The stories had given her delicious thrills, goose bumps, and the occasional exhilarating nightmare. As a teenager, she had imagined what it would be like to be on such an adventure, and now that she was actually faced with entering a dark mansion with real monsters in it, she felt no chills, no thrills, only enough fear to keep her other emotions in check. She was more determined than afraid, but the fear that she did feel kept her cautious.

  They went back to the car, and Tom helped her climb onto its roof. From there, Tom was chin-high to the top of the wall, while Marie could still not see over it. “You never saw any dogs here, did you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You think you can do this?”

  She raised her eyebrows optimistically and said, “Only one way to find out.”

  With a little hop, Tom got his elbows onto the wall and then pulled himself up to sit on it. Balancing himself with one hand, he bent down to hook his other hand under Marie’s upper arm and helped pull her as she struggled up beside him. She scraped her wrist on the rough concrete along the top of the wall and told herself that she needed to buy herself a pair of pants at her first opportunity. The dress she wore was sensible, but hardly suitable for scaling walls.

  His back to the house, Tom leaned down to grip the top of the wall and then swung his legs over before slowly lowering himself. Marie cringed as she watched his face slip farther away from her. When he held on only by his fingertips and his arms were fully extended, he let go, and she watched him curl up on himself as he landed. She held her breath until she saw him stand up. In the darkness on the other side of the wall, she could barely make out his smile and the thumbs-up sign he gave her. Then it was her turn. She slid over the same way he had done, thankful for the thick sleeves of her coat as she raked her forearms along the rough edge at the top of the wall. As she lowered herself, her arms trembled, and she was relieved to feel Tom’s hands on her ankles and then her thighs. If her arms gave out, she knew he would at least help break the fall. When she could lower herself no farther, she let go of the wall and felt him put his arms around her waist as they fell together into the soft grass.

  “You okay?” he said. They lay side by side, their arms around each other, and their faces inches apart. She wanted to kiss him.

  “Yeah,” she made herself say instead. “Let’s go.”

  There were no cars and few trees in this section of the estate, so they moved briskly across the lawn, conscious that the moonlight took away all the cover they had once they left the shadow of the wall. If anyone had been watching from inside the house, it would have been clear that there were intruders on the grounds.

  Relieved not to have detected any sign of alarm, Marie and Tom reached the courtyard on the other side of the circular driveway and stealthily approached the door. Tom tried it gingerly at first, and then, finding it locked, twisted the knob a bit harder, hoping it might not have been latched all the way. He shook his head at Marie and whispered, “Windows?”

  She shook her head and waved for him to follow. Moving as fast as they could without making a noise, they crept around to the side of the building. Marie was looking for a gate or staircase that would lead down to the pool at the back of the house. She spotted an opening in a hedge at the building’s westernmost corner.

  “Down that way,” she whispered. “Then back upstairs.”

  “And if it’s locked?”

  “Then windows.”

  The stairs were steep and had no rail, so each ran one hand lightly on the side of the house as they approached the pool. On the far side of the steps, the estate was not landscaped, and wild chaparral and other plants grew right up to its edge. Marie carefully lifted the latch on the wrought-iron gate that led to the pool, hoping the hinges would not squeak. The lights that had burned around the pool on the night of the party were extinguished now, and she was grateful to see no moonlight swimmers in the water. Carefully pushing the gate open, she led the way, and Tom closed it silently behind. Marie found the door she had walked out of the night of the party, and when she looked up, she saw faint, flickering light coming from the ballroom, the great picture window she had looked out now offering the only point of reference as she stared up.

  Carefully, she tried the door and exhaled with relief when she felt the knob turn. Nodding to Tom, she twisted it open and then stepped aside to let him go first, Luger in hand. It took several seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dark; when she could see clearly enough, Marie tapped Tom’s shoulder before taking his arm and leading him to the stairs. Her perception perhaps distorted by anticipation, it seemed to Marie that it took them longer to climb these stairs on the inside of the house than it had taken to descend the concrete steps on the outside even though they had to cover the same distance. She followed closely behind Tom, not even wanting to breathe so that she could listen more closely for signs of activity in the house above.

  The stairway opened onto a small room not far from the main entrance. Marie remembered clearly the layout of this part of the house, so she took the lead through darkened rooms, both of them taking deliberate steps as they moved toward the ballroom. As they moved through the darkened house, Marie could hear voices ahead of them, none clear enough to be intelligible. Soon, though, the voices took on an ominous sound, as they unified and began taking up what she thought must be a chant of some kind. Sti
ll, there were no words, only low hums, made by several male voices all at once.

  There was considerable light ahead of them once they rounded one more corner, and Marie knew that she would soon be able to peek around the next wall and see into the main room. They were approaching it from the side, coming into it at a point parallel to where the band had played the night of the party. She squeezed Tom’s wrist to indicate that they should stop, and they stood there barely breathing as the chanting continued around the corner.

  She saw Tom nod to her in the dark, and so she crept around the corner, her hands on the wall. Tom kept one of his hands on her hip just to let her know he was still there. Peeking slowly, she saw that the great room had been transformed since the night of the party. The artwork and mirrors that had lined the walls had all been hidden behind immense black curtains that stretched from ceiling to floor; the ornate chandeliers that had lit the room that night were all extinguished now, and the only light in the room came from the dozens of candles that burned throughout. There were clusters of them on every tabletop and candelabras mounted on stands in at least ten spots that she could see.

  All of this she took in peripherally, as her eyes were drawn to the activity in the room. She counted quickly and saw twelve men standing in the center of the room forming a horseshoe around the sides and end of a long table. Each wore a long, black robe with a hood pulled over his head, chanting the same succession of tones over and over in unison. The hoods were large enough to cast shadows over their faces, so Marie could not identify any of them. They all had their hands extended over the center of the table.

  She turned to Tom, who had moved up beside her. Together they watched for a moment as the strange ritual continued. Then he looked questioningly at her, as if to ask how he should proceed. All she could do was raise her eyebrows and shrug. They had not known what they would encounter when they got into the house, and since they had come in without a plan, all they could do now was improvise.

  Tom took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. He pointed the gun at the wall of men before him and said, “Piedmont!”

  The chanting stopped immediately. The men in robes began to shuffle in a panic, but then a voice rose up, shouting, “None of you move! None of you.” One of the men at the head of the table peeled the hood back off his head and looked at Tom and Marie. It was Julian Piedmont. He looked terrifying and completely mad to Marie, deep lines on his forehead and the bridge of his nose accentuated by shadow, the whites of his wide-open eyes and the white teeth in his maniacal smile reflecting the flickering light of all the candles. He looked past Tom, his gaze settling on Marie, who had stepped partly out of the shadows when Tom interrupted the ritual. “You see, gentlemen?” Piedmont said after a moment. “You didn’t fail. Our little angel of death has come before us of her own free will.”

  Sounding fed up, Tom said, “Enough. I want all of you to back against the wall.”

  “He’s not going to shoot us,” Julian said. “He’s not a murderer. None of you move.”

  “Don’t push me, Piedmont,” Tom said. He sounded angry. “Which one’s Krebs? He’s the first of you sons of bitches I wouldn’t mind putting a hole in.”

  During the exchange between Tom and Julian, the rest of the men had remained obediently still. Marie watched them for any sign that one might be Colin or the incubus. Then she saw another figure over in the shadows at the corner of the room. “There’s another one over there,” she said to Tom, not worried about being overheard now.

  “Get over here,” Tom said. “Is that Krebs?”

  “That’s just our poor Malliol,” said Julian. “Come into the light, Malliol,” he said in the direction of the lone figure.

  Marie watched as the fifth incubus stepped closer to one of the candelabras. This was the one that looked like James Cagney, but there was clearly something wrong with it. While the other incubi had all swaggered confidently and inhabited their male bodies with bravado, this one seemed to be shrinking in upon himself. He shuffled with hunched shoulders and twitched his head and arms frequently. Every so often, he would whip his head to the left or the right as though startled by something beside him that was not actually there. With difficulty, Marie remembered how this same creature had once propositioned her at the bottom of the stairs; it looked so feeble now that it was hard to imagine the damage it had done to Elise and all its other victims.

  “Malliol needs to be released,” said Julian sympathetically. “There’s something not right about him.”

  “So if he’s not Krebs, which one is?” Tom asked.

  Piedmont smiled even more widely. “As for our friend Colin, I’m afraid none of us has seen him for days, not since he failed to keep Ezgeroth out of the clutches of Blondie here.” He nodded toward Marie, and the smile was tempered with disgust.

  “You’re lying,” Tom said. “That son of a bitch came to you and told you it was Marie killing your demons. How else could you have known?”

  Julian laughed loudly, his only response to Tom’s questions.

  “Because I told them,” said the man next to Julian. Marie gasped involuntarily when she heard the voice and then watched in disbelief as the man pulled back his hood. For a moment, she feared she would vomit at the sight of Father Joe standing beside Piedmont, his priest’s collar traded in for one of the absurd robes.

  “No,” Marie said, her voice barely audible.

  “Who is he?” Tom asked, keeping the Luger’s barrel pointed at Julian Piedmont the whole time.

  “Father Joe,” she said feebly, shaking her head.

  “The priest?”

  “Not anymore,” said Father Joe. “At least not in the traditional sense of the word.” He held his arms up, his hands barely sticking out of the robe’s sleeves as the material hung down, looking like dark wings. “This is my new church. My new flock.”

  “Is it really him?” Tom asked. “Or another one of those things?”

  “I assure you I’m not an incubus, young man. Although the same may not be said about you, for long.” Father Joe smiled broadly at them as he spoke.

  “Do you understand what’s going on here, Marie?” Tom asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “Colin confessed to you, told you everything, didn’t he?” The priest did not answer, but just kept smiling at Marie while she spoke. “And you got curious. He told you where to find Julian. And the book. You’ve been coming up here since. You’ve been helping them.”

  “Essentially,” he said.

  “And then you abandoned Colin, didn’t you? Spiritually. You left him on his own after he bared his soul to you.” She looked at Tom. “That’s why he defiled the church.”

  Father Joe laughed at this. “Did he? The boy’s got more guts than I gave him credit for.”

  Marie turned back toward him, saying, “And it was you who told them about Ryan. Sent the incubus after me.” As she had been speaking, the whole conversation had carried a dreamlike quality, the sort of feeling she had in dreams when one person changed inexplicably into another. But all of this was more real than anything she could ever have imagined. Now, all she could say was “Why?”

  “To stop you, of course.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Why all this? Why the whole thing?”

  He chuckled. “My dear, this life offers so much more. Do you think God cares which of his creatures I attend to? Julian has helped me find my true self, my true religion.” He rubbed his hands together. “And now we’re going to make it so much better.” He took a few steps away from the table, toward her and Tom. When Tom trained the Luger on him, he stopped and held his hands up. “No reason to get upset, young man. This can all be quite friendly. You see, when you started dispatching our friends, you actually did me a bit of a favor. They were amusing, but only to a point. What we need is not an incubus but a succubus. The thing that fool Krebs should have conjured in the first place.”

  “A female demon.” Marie could not believe what she was he
aring. “You want to have sex with a female demon.”

  Father Joe laughed and stared knowingly at her.

  “Oh God,” Marie said, her heart pounding. Not taking her eyes off Father Joe, she said to Tom, “They’ve already done it. Conjured another demon.”

  “Where is it?” Tom asked.

  “Here and there,” said Father Joe. “Around the room. You can’t see her yet. She still needs a body. That’s what we were starting to work on when you interrupted us with your little gun.”

  He half turned toward the men clustered behind them and waved a hand, indicating that they should part. Several stepped aside, and Marie gasped when she saw a woman lying on the table. Like the men around her, she was clothed in one of the black robes, and when the men moved, she sat up and looked around, a dazed expression on her face. Marie had to look closely in the flickering light, but after a few seconds her suspicions were confirmed: it was Laura Tremaine. She sat there now, her hair disheveled and dark circles under her eyes. There was no hint of recognition when she looked at Marie.

  “My God,” she whispered.

  “Who is it?” Tom asked.

  “Laura Tremaine. The woman I told you about.”

  “Jesus. How?”

  Father Joe smiled. “Julian’s boys found her wandering the grounds yesterday morning like a poor lost lamb. We’ve given her a good home.”

  “What did you do to her?” Tom asked, disgust and anger rising in his voice.

  “Nothing she didn’t want done. There hasn’t been any sort of protest from her. Not even now that we’re preparing her to be the vessel.”

  “They’re going to give her body to the succubus,” Marie said.

  “No!” Tom said, taking a step forward and pointing the gun more directly at Father Joe’s head. “Enough of this shit! We came for the book, and we’re taking it.” He waved the gun toward Laura for a second before aiming at the priest again. “And we’re taking her, too. If I have to shoot every one of you bastards, that’s what’s happening.”

  Again, there was nervous shuffling among the robed men, but Father Joe raised a hand, and they all stood still. Then he went on, as though Tom had not spoken. “Do you know the problem with the bodies these good folk conjured for the first incubi?” he asked and then continued speaking without waiting for an answer. “They were fragile. Easily broken, as you’ve discovered. And to gain more strength, the spirits in them had to drain life from their victims. But there’s another way—no draining away, no victims, no fragile bodies that need sustaining. Did your old friend Jasper tell you about it, Marie? Did he tell you about the ritual whereby a succubus or incubus can occupy a real live body; possess it, so to speak? The poor victim remains within, completely aware of the debauchery being committed, powerless to act. A slave, essentially.” He looked back at the woman on the table. “Laura’s been compliant, but she wasn’t my first choice of bodies. Now you’re here, though, and we can rectify that.”