by Nikki Sex
He forces me to meet his gaze. His pale blue eyes gleam unnaturally. Inside this outer shell, the human horse to this demon has lost his mind. Oh, yeah, lots of loose screws in that rattling head of his.
Christ.
Suddenly, I want to beat my chest, scream, and weep. I long to bash my head against the solid rock of this cave. I’m lost to despair.
Oh, God! I want to die!
The demon causes these emotions, dragging them up from moments of pain buried in my past.
Talented empaths, demons know everything about their victims. As easy as breathing, they identify every phobia, weakness, and fear.
Legion speaks to me mind-to-mind. The sound of his voice in my head silently shrieks—a hungry, consuming emptiness; a black hole of evil. I want to writhe and scream, but I can’t. All I can do is suffer.
Excruciating spikes of anguish, grief, and failure stab my chest.
“Your body knows it’s master, even if you do not. You are nothing. Something to be eaten, to be taken, used, and discarded. I am Legion…and you will yield.”
In response, I feel a familiar warm sting in my eyes.
I view the world so much clearer through my demon’s red gaze.
Chapter 70. Demon Caught
Time is a funny thing. Like water, it feels as though it flows.
You remember the past, you anticipate the future, while you live in the present. Yet the division between the past, the present, and the future is an illusion. It is all now. Only now is relevant.
Einstein once said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”
To really confuse everything, just add magic.
Thanks to magic, I can have an hour-long conversation with a ghost in less than three seconds.
Captured by a demon, unable to even breathe without his approval, I stand frozen and terrified. In this endless now, a number of things happen at once…
Legion becomes cognizant of my inner demon. In the joyous “hey-hello-you-are-just-like-me” meeting between two malevolent spirits, I am forgotten. Perhaps not actually forgotten, but suddenly unimportant.
Instead, I am relegated into the mind of Ira Edward Segal.
At first it’s as though he’s telling me a story—the story of his life.
Ira was the oldest child of a well-to-do, non-practicing Jewish family. He had a younger twin sister and brother, both born with Down syndrome.
As is common with the first-born child, for years Ira had been his father’s pride and joy, and the object of his mother’s devotion. He received one-on-one, full-time attention until he was six years old.
At school, not surprisingly, he was found to be very bright.
When the twins were born, everything changed.
Initially both children were difficult—breast feeding twins can be a challenge. Mother’s full focus was on her imperfect babies.
Father’s attention went toward supporting Ira’s mother.
Ira resented his siblings. He was embarrassed and disgusted by their genetic deformities. Buried somewhere under this hate and angst, he also cared for them. As time went on, they were loving and sweet toward their big brother.
As much as humanly possible, Ira ignored them both.
In the manner of unexamined childhood decisions, this resentment and sense of entitlement carried on throughout his schooling.
Ira knew he was different. He knew he was special.
When he was found to have extraordinary mystical talents, he was immediately recruited and trained under the Regius Magnmus herself.
It’s human nature to take life’s gifts for granted. Despite his privilege and entitlement, Ira never felt grateful for all he had. In fact, he felt he deserved more—much more. When the Sorcerer’s Guild became too restrictive, he decided the Guild’s rules didn’t apply to him.
A genius can be driven and focused. They allow nothing to stand in the way. Unfortunately, Ira carried these principles too far.
As an acolyte, he became obsessed with the idea of summoning a demon. In secret, he intently studied every text concerning the dark arts. With a demon at his beck and call, Ira knew he could rule the world.
I view his life from the position of a spectator—then something changes. Suddenly, I see everything from within his body, from his memories. I feel his anguish as if it’s my own.
I am him.
The moment I become Ira, I relive every moment of his recent past.
~~~
The underground garage is cold, dark, and quiet, illuminated by one candle. The smell of fresh laid cement fills the air. Except for an unconscious homeless drunk, I am alone.
No one’s near—my repelling invocation has been effective. I cast the spell through the magic of the Orb I appropriated from the Regius Magnmus, which immediately tripled its efficiency.
The silly old woman never had the courage to use it.
The Orb hangs heavy on my neck. It glows bright green, humming with power. I carefully chant the drawing spell while chalking the pentagram onto the smooth cement floor.
When this important step is complete, I place the old man in position, light all ten candles, step back, and admire the magic I’ve wrought. Everything is prepared as I wait for the stroke of midnight.
The cold metal of the razor-sharp blade is in my hand. I feel squeamish. It’s one thing to kill from afar—quite another to physically hack through someone’s throat.
Yet the offering must be made with fresh blood.
I know exactly what I’m doing. For years, I’ve studied and prepared for this exact moment. When the clock strikes twelve, I begin casting my spell. I grip the smelly homeless man’s hair.
I’m glad I wear gloves as the drunk’s hair is disgusting. When I pull his head back, a tattoo shows on his chest.
Military.
For an instant I wonder how and where he served, and for what country, but then I don’t care. I grit my teeth and hack away at the neck of my demon’s offering, sawing through tendons, cartilage, muscle, and soft tissue. It isn’t easy to carve through a person’s throat while casting a spell.
Finally, red blood bubbles, spurts and pumps out, gushing over the pentagram.
Disgusted by the sight and smell, I drop both man and knife.
As I continue to chant, I feel the reluctant spirit’s incredible power. Like all demons, he has no wish to visit our earthly plane, yet he has no choice. I am in charge.
From now until forever, he will do as I say.
I hear a roaring sound like a train coming—thundering toward me with great speed and power.
Directly above the pentagram, a sickly green cloud forms. The cloud splits apart. With a rush of crimson light, a gateway to the demon realm rips open with a fiery shriek. An acrid smell of burnt matches and rotten-egg scents the air.
I cringe and grimace, but with my bloody gloves on, I’m unable to cover my ears.
It’s as though every demon from Hell calls out all at once as a funnel of dark smoke forms. It twists and swirls like a black tornado, dropping from the edge of the split in the green cloud.
The gateway closes, the noxious cloud disappears. Black smoke lands on the blood, drinking in the magic from the dead man’s soul.
An ocean of raw power rushes through me.
The moment the powerful spirit arrives, tears of joy flood my eyes and run down my cheeks. I worked long and hard for this. I am invincible!
I did it! I finally did it! I knew I could!
The smoke accepts its gift, then slams into my body, becoming part of me. My God the power! I’ve never felt such exultation, such success, and euphoria! Now there’s nothing I can’t achieve. With unlimited demonic powers, I will rule the world!
“Demon, I am your master,” I say with the authority of command. “You will do as I say.”
A sibilant hiss forms inside my mind, “Mortal, I will make you suffer.”
The devil’s terrifying voice chills me, freezing my chest as if a shaft of ice is thrust into my heart.
“I can taste your panic,” the demon whispers, each word a knife to my brain. He’s an endless black hole of evil, sucking away all that is pure. “I long to hear you beg—yes, you will beg to die.”
Utterly terrified, I can’t move. I can’t breathe!
What happened? I followed the spells in the grimoire exactly as written. I did nothing wrong. This isn’t my fault!
He’s a chilling bottomless pit of nothingness. Sensing him within me is like seeing myself through a dark, malevolent mirror.
The demon has possessed me completely.
The pain! Oh, the torturous pain of it!
Suddenly, I’m on fire! Every cell, every nerve ending, every part of me shrieks in burning agony.
With no control over my mouth, how can I scream? A silent screech echoes in my brain.
Using my body like a puppet, the demon forces me to lift one hand. It strokes the tears on my cheek with curiosity, contempt, and revulsion. It makes me walk back and forth as if practicing its control.
I find myself picking up the knife—I can’t stop myself. I’m forced to remain silent as I stab myself in the thigh again and again.
He throws back my/our/his head. I hear my voice through the demon’s twisted, malicious laugh.
Every action he forces upon me is a form of physical, mental and psychological torture. He feeds on my anguish and terror. He knows of my parents, and my siblings with Down syndrome. He whispers in my mind a vicious list of details. I hear all the inhuman things he intends to make me do.
No! Instead of his master, I am his slave.
What have I done? This can’t be happening.
There’s no way out. Only death will free me from this malicious spirit.
With strange clarity, I view the whole world differently. I never understood how much I loved my sister and my brother. I never appreciated the life my father and my mother gave me. I used to be happy.
I lost everything before I learned to treasure all I had.
I’ve been a thoughtless, selfish fool.
Chapter 71. Demon Killed
I stand holding my silver dagger just below Ira’s throat, utterly unable to move.
If only I could shut my mind’s eye. If only I could stop seeing what I’m seeing, doing what I’m doing!
I live through everything the demon makes Ira do. I hear, smell, feel, see and go through every action. The torture of the wolf, the vampire, and those with Down syndrome.
I watch as sweet Hope and Owen helplessly scream and writhe. Legion makes sure the werewolf and the vampire are starving so they suffer, too. One man’s hubris created all this!
Physically healthy, one of Ira’s greatest fears was terminal illness. Over the last week, to be monstrous, the demon has given him an aggressive form of cancer. Now, he suffers crushing headaches and nausea. His skin is marred by sores, his bones hurt, and every nerve ending burns.
The magic from such a powerful demon is too much for his human body to bear. No wonder all that’s left of the man is a gibbering, drooling creature. He’s hardly human at all.
Everything Ira feels, I feel.
Fucking ouch!
I can’t even gasp, writhe, or scream. Going from pain free to excruciating agony enlarges my experience in a manner I would’ve preferred to cheerfully avoid for the rest of my life.
There are some things no one should experience, not even spoiled and unappreciative murders like Ira.
After suffering virtual “real time” days of his torture from the moment Ira became possessed, I feel as though I’m losing my mind. I’d shake with fear—if I could move at all.
Demons are incredibly gifted; they’re the ultimate empaths. Other than my own inner monster, demons use their sensitivity to torment and cause pain.
Death would be a mercy and a blessing.
When he’s finished with the sorcerer, this demon will start on me. He’ll discover exactly what terrifies me most—then he’ll make me do that and more.
Oh, joy. Things are going to get worse.
Ira’s sensory memories are so visceral! The appalling things I did to Hope and Owen!—I mean that Ira and his demon did to Hope and Owen. I have an intimate understanding of what it feels like to be controlled, to helplessly torment others, to hurt people I never wanted to hurt.
Owen had begged for his innocent sister. Poor Owen. Poor Hope!
Please, God, please! Let me unsee and unknow these terrible things.
Thoughts of Hope make me abruptly recall…
I flash back into a memory. Ray Mitchel Delaney regards me with a tranquil gaze, surprising me with eloquent eyes. “You know what happened.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“To pass on a message.”
“Oh?”
“Remember, when you can see no way out, don’t forget. There is always hope.”
Hope. I can’t contact her, or anyone. I’ve tried.
Abruptly I recall her white animal ghost, the wolf with demonic red eyes. Hope is utterly unaware of her ghostly companion. The spirit animal is unable to communicate to Hope, and I haven’t told her about him.
A crazy idea pops into my pounding head. Can the demon wolf help me?
I’d asked the wolf ghost once, “Why are you here?” He’d heard me, but his reply had been only to turn and stare at me with his crimson eyes.
I don’t know if he’ll respond if I call him. It can’t hurt to try.
The white wolf isn’t normal. Other than being an animal ghost, the first and only one I’ve seen over the last two-hundred years, I also think he may be some kind of demonic spirit.
Does it take a demon spirit to fight a demon spirit? Christ, I hope so!
As I’ve mentioned before, physical laws don’t apply to the dead. There is no distance between us, no physical barrier. No difference in time. To those in the spirit world, all is now and here.
I picture the strange creature, a vivid image in my mind.
Using the mental-communication I reserve for ghosts, I call out, “Hey, demon wolf! Hey, Hope’s animal spirit!”
To my astonishment, I manage to bite my tongue with the effort of trying to move.
Blood!
Blood is the basis of all magic of the soul. Blood calls to supernatural creatures. If anything will bring the demon wolf, it will be blood.
Power rises up within me in a wave. I don’t use a drop to ease my pain. I use it all—reaching out with a flash of metaphysical energy—discharging it into Hope’s crimson-eyed wolf.
I call him over and over. I scream, I beg.
And he comes.
The wolf takes in what’s happening in a glance. The thing about wolves is, they are natural predators. They know exactly how to attack, to divert, and confuse their victims. To work with their pack to bring large prey down.
Sharp fangs sink into Ira’s leg.
Neat! The demon has teeth! Hope has a wolf poltergeist as her spirit guide.
The sudden surprise of an unexpected attack stuns the older demon. For a timeless instant, I’m free. I can move!
Using every ounce of fear, need, and effort I have in me, I drive the double-edged blade upward a couple of inches behind his chin. I thrust it hard and deep, through his skin, his tongue, his mouth—
—directly into his brain.
Letting go of the knife, I step back—I stumble backwards, as far and as fast as I can. I move at least six feet away from the evil spirit known as Legion.
Only distance will keep him from entering me—if he can enter me. Multiple demons are magically bound together like Ira’s victims were, but they only register as one. I’ve never heard of anyone being possessed by two separate demons at once, but you never know.
Ira crumples. His dead body falls to the floor, while his spirit shoots up toward the ceiling, but doesn’t cross over. He remains trapped on the earthly plane.<
br />
My mind bubbles with quicksilver laughter. Karma baby! Ira Segal gets to hang here at the site of his first murders, along with the spirits of the people he killed.
Yeah, buddy. After what you did, you’re not getting away easily.
The sorcerer is gone. I killed him. As a result, a delicious wave of dark death-magic flows into me. It’s icy power scalds along my skin, making me tremble with pure pleasure.
My God, it feels too good. This is another reason I don’t go around killing people; my demon could easily learn to love it.
Earth magic from the Vortex, warm and comforting also seeps in. Apparently, Legion’s presence had been blocking it. The power from Ira’s passing provides delicious, potent energy.
Every pain I suffer instantly disappears.
Oh, the relief.
I’m so very grateful. I promise to truly appreciate being pain free from now on. Why have I never been thankful for my good health before?
“Goodbye, brother,” the evil spirit sends to my demon in farewell.
A high-pitched screech makes me cover my ears as swirling black soot rises up from Ira’s corpse. A glowing crimson crack splits open in the cavern floor.
A gateway.
The demon’s smoky essence drifts downward like a funnel of fog flowing over a cliff. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. Black smoke passes through the jagged red fissure…then it’s gone.
The malevolent spirit vanishes, the gateway to the demon realm, like cooling lava, closes. All that is left behind is an empty husk, the corpse of a man seduced by evil.
Thank God the dark spirit has returned to the demon world.
My own demon screams with the loss of his “countryman.” I’ve never heard him do that before. My inner monster had been enjoying…what? Conversation? Energy swapping? The malevolent spirit’s favorite recipes—a “how-to” for torture?
Emotionally my other half makes me instantly feel the same grief I knew when my mother died. I’m genuinely sorry for my inner friend’s sadness at losing one of his own kind. However, for myself and the rest of Vancouver, I’m buoyant.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Tell me about it. That bible passage takes on new meaning.
