Devil's Taunt and Other Stories

by Percival Constantine

  No response. I circled around in front of him and knelt down slightly so we were at eye level. “I know you spoke with Shelly. I know you saw something that…well, that put you here. I need to know what you saw.”

  Weeks just continued to stare at the window, as if I wasn’t even in the room. I waved my hand in front of his face but he did nothing. Snapped a few times and still, no reaction. I sighed and rose to my feet.

  A total dead end. Great. Seemed like a long shot that he could help me anyway, so I’d have to find some other way to learn about the demon. Could consult the books and see what they say about—

  My thoughts were interrupted by Weeks grabbing my wrist. I looked down at him and he slowly turned his head, staring up at me. His eyes still had a glazed-over look, but he finally spoke.

  “It knows your fear.”

  He let go of me and went back to staring out the window, slowly rocking in the chair again. I watched him for a few moments, thinking over those words.

  “There anything else you can tell me, Doc?” I asked.

  But Weeks was through talking. He had nothing else to add. I waited in silence like that, hoping for some other reaction. None came and soon enough, the door opened and Hickman stepped inside.

  “Time’s up, Detective Cross.”

  “Right, of course.” I patted Weeks on the shoulder. “Good luck, Doc.” I walked up to Hickman, who smiled at me.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll find out soon enough.” I gave Weeks a parting look before leaving his room with Hickman. The chief of psychiatry walked me to the front entrance where he bid me farewell.

  As I got into my car, I still thought about Weeks’ only words to me: It knows your fear. Now I had a pretty good idea of what I was up against and I needed to prepare. I started the car and left Northview in my rear-view mirror, getting back on I-90 bound for Chicago.

  * * *

  The Albany Park studio apartment had a small kitchen area to the left of the entrance and a futon that turned into a bed. A coffee table with a laptop computer on top sat in front of the futon. Stacks of musty, old, leather-bound books lined the hardwood floors.

  I took my coat off as soon as I closed the door behind me, putting it in the closet. While loosening my tie, I took a bottle of Ballentine’s from a cabinet above the kitchen counter and poured myself a glass of scotch. With drink in hand, I walked across the studio to the futon and sat down, lighting a cigarette as I raised my monitor’s lid.

  It knows your fear. That’s the only thing Weeks had said. Could be why the poor guy went nuts. He has a session with Shelly and the demon does something to him, shows him his worst fear, and it breaks him. Being a psychiatrist, would make sense if his worst fear was going crazy.

  So a fear demon. Made sense, they’re pretty common in possession cases. Lots of these lesser demons subsist on the negative energy of humanity—that’s why we call them feeders. Some are just parasites, latching on to whatever pathetic person they can find and riding the wave. But the more powerful ones tend to be proactive.

  Seems that’s what we had here. This thing inside Shelly, it was trying to make people scared. That’s what it did to Weeks. Tried to do it to me, too. Rattle me by talking about my mother. Probably was whispering things to the Harwoods, too. There was that crack it made about Stuart and the maid.

  I did an Internet search for fear demons. Lots of results and I groaned as I looked over the list. This would take a while. Searching for legitimate information about the supernatural on the Internet was like trying to find an honest politician in Washington. I sucked on the end of the filter and kept at it, though. Something would have to come up eventually.

  Most of what I could find that was worth knowing was stuff I already knew. The demon hadn’t done anything specific to alert me to itself, so I was still at a loss for what this thing’s name was. I kept at it for a few hours, going through three scotches and several cigarettes. Nothing of note turned up in the search. I was losing patience with this.

  That’s when the phone rang. I answered it by saying my name. And on the other end was Diane Harwood.

  5

  Diane told me I had to get back to the house immediately, said something was really wrong. I raced the Camaro down I-90, weaving in and out of the lanes of traffic, my left hand pretty much constantly resting on the horn, ready to sound it at any interference.

  I had asked her to describe the scene. She said she didn’t really know where to start, just that I needed to get there as soon as possible. The terror in her voice was unmistakable. That fear would feed the demon, only strengthening it and allowing it to dig its claws even deeper into Shelly’s vessel.

  This morning, I’d made the trip to the Harwoods’ house in just over half an hour. My frantic highway driving tonight put it at about twenty minutes. I was desperate to get to them as soon as possible.

  I pulled up to the gate and the security guard on duty. Different guy from before. Didn’t have time to go through the pleasantries so I stared at him and my eyes hummed with demonic power. The guard’s eyes glazed over for a moment.

  “Open the gate,” I ordered.

  He said nothing, just went back into the booth and did as he was told. I drove through the community nearly swerving as I turned to pull into the Harwoods’ driveway. I ran up the path to the front door and Maria opened it before I could hit the bell.

  “Please, hurry!”

  She turned and ran up the stairs. I followed her up to the second floor. That’s where we found Diane, sitting against the wall outside Shelly’s room. Her arms were wrapped around her bent legs, knees held to her chest. Eyes were wide open, staring at nothing in particular. They were red with tear streaks down her cheeks.

  I knelt down beside Diane and placed my hand on her shoulder. There was no reaction from her. “Diane, can you hear me?”

  There was no response. I stood and looked at Maria, who was in a state of shock herself. “I was just on the phone with her not twenty minutes ago. What happened?”

  Maria still stared at her employer, mouth agape but no words coming forth. I snapped my fingers in front of her face and she jumped. Taking a breath, she finally answered.

  “After she got off the phone…she went into the room.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Goddammit. I told you not to—” I stopped in front of the door to Shelly’s room. The sigil I told them to draw on the door was there. But a line had been carved on the door, breaking the mark. I reached for the handle and instantly pulled my hand away once my fingers touched the metal. So could, it felt like grabbing an ice cube.

  I cast a final look back at Maria and then tried again, opening the door. I stepped inside and saw Stuart standing in the corner of the room, staring towards the bed. Continuing in deeper, I saw Shelly.

  She sat cross-legged, floating a few inches above the bed. Her eyes glowed pale yellow and books from Shelly’s shelves flew around her rapidly. The overhead light and the bedside lamp both flickered incessantly.

  “Hello, Luther. So good of you to join us,” said Shelly.

  The demon was stepping up its game. Hiring me must have alleviated the Harwoods’ fear at least a little bit. A feeder wasn’t going to stand for being deprived of its meal ticket. It wanted them scared, so now it was showing off.

  I took a breath to steel myself. Couldn’t let the demon affect me, too. Try to push it out of your mind, Cross. Get Stuart out of here and then you can think of what you’ll do next. I walked past the bed over to Stuart, who wouldn’t look away from his daughter. I blocked his sight and that was when he finally acknowledged me.

  “I-it’s not my daughter,” he said in a terse whisper. “What is it?”

  “Listen to me very carefully. This thing feeds on your fear. So what I need you to do is calm yourself.”

  “Calm myself? Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you see what she’s doing?”

  I heard a chuckle behind me. The demon wa
s loving this. I pulled Stuart from the corner and practically dragged him from the room. The demon’s chuckle now erupted into a laugh.

  “Hurry back soon, Luther. We’re just getting started.”

  We stepped out of the room and I shut the door behind me. I reached into my jacket and took out a pen and drew a new sigil on the door. Though with the fear the demon had absorbed already, who knew if this sigil was strong enough to contain it anymore.

  “What happened?” I asked, pointing to the other sigil. “Who scratched this?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Stuart. “I didn’t scratch anything.”

  “What about Diane? Did she do it?”

  Stuart sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “The sigil is a ward against evil. It keeps the demon from getting through that door, keeps its power contained,” I said. “But it only works if the sigil remains intact. If it’s broken in anyway, then it may as well not even be there at all.”

  “It wasn’t Diane, I don’t think,” said Maria, who was kneeling down by Diane’s side to comfort her. “I was with her when she drew it. She told me to be careful not to touch it. So I don’t know why she would do it.”

  I sighed. It wasn’t Diane, wasn’t Stuart, and wasn’t Maria. And the demon couldn’t have done it itself. So just who in the hell could it be?

  And then it came to me. I couldn’t believe I forgot. “Your son,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “Tim? He’s in his room.”

  “Take me there.”

  “What does Tim have to do with—”

  “Take. Me. There.”

  My voice was stern and my tone told anyone listening that now was not the time to fuck with me. The message was received loud and clear, because Stuart just gave a nod and turned away, walking down the hall. I followed behind him and we came to another room. I opened the door and stepped inside. The room was dark with flickering light coming from a TV. A boy of around fourteen or fifteen sat on the bed, a wireless controller in his hand and wearing a headset. His thumbs moved furiously across the buttons, his eyes fixed on the screen, the images reflected in his glasses.

  I looked around the rest of the room. Posters of movies and bands hung on the walls, a computer sat on a desk in the corner of the room, dirty clothes littered the floor, and the room reeked with the stench of teenage boy.

  When I took the headset off, Tim looked up at me in annoyance. “Dude, what the—” He grew silent again when he saw who was talking to him.

  “Tim, we need to have a chat,” I said. “The symbol on your sister’s bedroom door. Did you do anything to it?”

  “Huh?” asked Tim. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Just answer his question,” said Stuart.

  “I did! I don’t know anything about any symbol. Honest.”

  I could sense something in the room. Something else at work. I moved closer to Tim and he slid back on the bed. I held my hands out, palms up. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Tim was back against the headboard, looking frightened. I moved closer to him, studying him carefully, trying to sense what was wrong with the kid. I was so fixated on that, I didn’t realize what he was up to.

  Tim moved quick, pulling his hand out from under the pillow. I felt a sharp pain on my arm and looked down, seeing a gash in the sleeve of my trench coat, going all the way down through my jacket and shirt and having drawn blood on my arm. When I looked up again, Tim had rolled across the bed and gotten off it, holding a butcher knife in his hand.

  “Tim! What in God’s name are you—?” asked Stuart.

  Tim just laughed. He raised the knife up and licked my blood off the edge.

  “I-is he possessed, too?” asked Stuart.

  I watched Tim carefully, never taking my eyes off him, trying to look for any of the telltale signs of demonic possession, trying to sense any mystic energy coming off him. And then, I shook my head.

  “No, he’s not possessed. Just enthralled.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What happened when you got home, Tim?” I asked, moving to stand between the boy and his father. If Tim was going to attack again, I’d be the one to stop it.

  “I was walking past Shelly’s room and I stopped to look at that weird symbol on the door,” said Tim. “And then I heard this voice. A whisper in my head. But there was no one around.”

  “The demon.”

  “I thought you said it couldn’t get past the symbol?” asked Stuart.

  “Think of it like a prison cell. You may be locked inside, but you can still whisper through the bars,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, it sure did. Told me it could give me everything I ever wanted. The power to get back at the idiot jocks at my school. And all I had to do was take this butcher knife and carve a line across the symbol.”

  “Tim, please, stop this right now,” said Stuart.

  The boy just chuckled and took another step forward. I blocked Stuart completely, and Tim just looked at me in annoyance. “Oh come on, you really think you can scare me?”

  “Don’t have to scare you, just have to stop you,” I said.

  Tim raised the butcher knife and came at me with it. I grabbed his forearm and twisted it behind his back, then pinned him down on the bed. I pushed up on his arm and he yelped in pain.

  “Drop it,” I said. “Drop the knife or your arm breaks.”

  “Let go of my son!” shouted Stuart.

  “Tim, the knife. Drop it—”

  Something hit my back, but I managed to keep my grip on Tim. I looked up and saw Stuart held a baseball bat in his hands. He raised it again and brought it down on me a second time. The demon must have gotten to him, too. At first, it could only whisper to Tim, just push him a little bit to break the seal. But now, the demon was capable of influencing everyone.

  Stuart rained several more blows on me with the bat. I had no choice but to let Tim go and stand and face the elder Harwood. Stuart took a few steps back, holding the bat in a defensive stance, glaring at me.

  “You did this!” he said. “I don’t know how, but things only got crazy after you came into our lives!”

  “Stuart, put down the bat and let’s talk about this,” I said. “It’s the demon. It’s polluting your mind. Turning you against each other. Making you do things you’d never do.”

  Stuart shook his head. “No, it’s you. You’re behind all of this!”

  He came at me, swinging the bat. I grabbed it this time and pulled him towards me with it, slamming my free fist against his face. Stuart stumbled back. I was about to move on him again, when I felt a stabbing pain in my back. Then I heard Tim’s voice whispering in my ear.

  “Gotcha.”

  He pulled the knife back and I slumped to my knees. I felt a warm wetness where the knife had been, my shirt sticking to my side. I reached my hand down to touch the wound and brought it back. It was covered in blood. Not deep, but hurt like a bitch.

  Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stuart coming towards me, raising the bat again. The back of my head was struck and everything went black.

  6

  My eyelids slowly opened, my vision blurry. The back of my head still stung, as did the cut Tim inflicted. I tried to push back the pain, focus on the here and now. I tried to reach a hand to my eyes to rub them, but I couldn’t. Both my wrists were lashed to the armrests of the high-backed executive chair I found myself sitting in and my feet were tied together at the ankles.

  I tugged on the bonds, but no use. The ropes were strong. Standing in front of me was Shelly, holding a teddy bear with a dark smile on her young face, her eyes still glowing yellow. Behind her was Tim, the butcher knife still in his hand. And tied up, gagged, and on their knees beside the kids were Stuart, Diane, and Maria.

  “Luther, you’ve been a very naughty boy,” said Shelly with a snicker. “Look what Tim found in your car and on your
person.”

  Tim picked up my leather satchel and dropped it between us so I could see. He rooted around inside and pulled out several items, holding each up—holy water, a crucifix, a book of exorcism rituals, and also, my revolver and dagger.

  The dagger really caught his interest. Tim inspected the blade, holding it up to the light and watching it shine off the silver-coated surface. He ran his fingers over the Enochian symbols embedded into the blade and the hilt.

  “I like this,” he said. “Think I’ll keep it.”

  I cast a look around the room. The ceiling was pretty low and there was a thin layer of carpeting. A bar in one corner, a TV with a couch and some chairs, and a staircase leading up. Not a single window in the whole room. Must be the basement.

  Looking at the three hostages, I could practically smell the fear coming off their bodies. They were terrified. And who would blame them? This sweet, innocent little girl they loved had managed to twist her brother into a psychopath, tie them up, and was now ready to start cutting into them. That’d be enough to leave anyone scared shitless. And the demon was getting fat off it.

  It was more powerful than ever now. I didn’t even know if an exorcism ritual would be enough. It had rooted itself into Shelly’s body and its evil was now infecting Tim, too.

  “He’s a good boy, isn’t he?” asked the demon. “Timmy here’s going to take your knife and use it on Mommy, Daddy, and the slutty housekeeper. Then, he’ll use it on himself.”

  She paused to allow herself a giggle. It sounded just like the kind of giggle a little girl would give off after hearing a joke. But in this context, that only made it unsettling.

  “When the police come, they’ll find little Shelly traumatized, covered in the blood of her family. With Luther Cross standing in front of her, holding a bloody dagger.” Shelly glanced down at the satchel. “With all that stuff you carry around, they’ll think you’re some kind of satanic serial killer. And then you’ll be locked away.”