by David Risen
“Good,” the man says. “You’re awake.”
“Who the fuck are you, and where am I?”
A deranged glint twinkles in his hosts’ eyes. The man is slim, and his face was almost boyish – and a loose look of innocence combined with depravity colors his mien.
“Oh, I can be anyone I want to be,” he boasts.
He snaps and transforms into Dena, as she appeared the one and only time they ever mated – nude with all her imperfections. She crosses her arms over her breasts.
“I’m a virgin. Please don’t hurt me.”
She snaps again, and she morphs into his mother decked out in her judge’s robe. She grinds her teeth and slaps him across the face hard enough to cause a pins and needles sensation in his cheek.
“You’re nothing but a lazy, stupid jock,” she barks. “You wouldn’t know a good thing even if it slapped you in the face.”
She snaps, and Rider finds himself gaping at Lauren wearing her black-framed glasses with a lacy, white teddy, and knee-length stockings.
She winks. “I’ll be loyal to you until the end if you do exactly what I want. Go fuck yourself.”
She snaps again and transforms into Ben Viracocha decked out in his black Stetson, black suede vest, and chrome bolo tie.
He smirks and then does an Indian skip dance in a circle.
He snaps again, and Adam stood before him with his maddening, blank grin.
“Hi, my name is Adam. I used to prance around the Garden of Eden with my twig and berries flopping. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
He snaps again and becomes the tall, lanky guy again with the boyish face.
“I get it,” Rider says. “I’m dreamin.”
The man wags his juvenile head. Then he steps across the room, rolls the black, leather office chair out from under the black, lacquer desk, sits, and folds his hands behind his head.
“Actually, my name is Baal.”
Rider’s face darkens into a dangerous look. “A damn demon.”
Baal’s face brightens. “Oh, you’re a fan! Perhaps you’ve seen some of my work in Rome, Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, and let’s not forget my bestie, Bin Laden.”
“Where the fuck am I?”
He grins like the Cheshire Cat. “In your head. There’s new management in here, now, and I promise to fuck up a lot more than you.”
Rider leans forward. “I’m so tired of you fuckers. If you leave now, I promise not to bend you over that desk and jam that cheap touch lamp up your ass.”
Baal’s grin broadens. “That’s big talk, for an oversize princess wearing a purple, sequin dress.”
Rider feels a draft in his nether regions.
He looks down to find himself wearing a skimpy sequined party dress.
Baal laughs. “I told you there was new management.”
Rider dives after him.
Baal holds up a hand in a stop motion. A powerful and invisible force slings him back into the overstuffed chair.
“What do you want?” Rider roars.
Baal leans forward giving him a glib shrug. “That’s the best thing about my particular calling. I don’t have to want anything. I just like to fuck shit up.”
Rider snarls. “Keep it comin, motherfucker.”
Baal laughs. “You people – all so self-righteous. Ever stop and think that all of this, even me, is part of the plan? Or to put it in the terms of one of my favorite poets, ‘Did he who made the lamb make thee?’ The answer to the question is of course he did. That was William Blake by the way, in case you slept through that part of every literature class you ever had.”
Rider grins. “I’m going to cut you open and watch your guts spill out on the floor.”
Baal cocks a single eyebrow. “You don’t have the juice, so you’re going to do what I say. Now, I don’t have anything on the lesson plan for today, so we’re gonna watch a video.”
He claps twice like an aristocrat summoning a servant.
The door to Rider’s left opens, and Rider’s former editor, Michael Baines – the one that he beat half to death – a five-foot-two fat man with a scraggly womb broom mustache pushes a cart with a television strapped to it into the office.
Michael usually wore slacks with a pastel polo shirt, but not this evening. Apparently, he traded in his normal duds on a French Maid costume.
Rider watches him like a hawk as he pushes the cart all the way over to the right side of the desk before the window, and plugs it in. Then he presses the power button, and the 1990s style television lights up – glowing with the image of the ceiling of the motel room partially obscured by the translucent tip of Rider’s nose.
“What the fuck is this?” Rider snaps.
Baal holds up a finger.
The camera – Rider – sits up, and the comforter falls away from him. Rider seems to stare at the blank television across from him sitting on top of a cheap, motel dresser.
Rider looks left and down to see Amelia’s bare back and left shoulder protruding from the comforter.
Rider cranes his head forward again and his eyes follow his bare feet as he slips them from beneath his comforter and stood. He looks down to find his nakedness exactly as he always saw it.
He crosses the motel room, and opens the drawer beneath the television to find his jeans. He fishes around in the back pocket and pulls out the large pocketknife that he always carries. He opens it, and tests the sharpness of it with his thumb.
Then he turns and eyes the sleeping Amelia in the bed.
The pause symbol covers the center of the screen.
“What the fuck?”
Baal grins maliciously. “Putting an end to you putting an end to things. Since we hosts can’t seem to kill you, I guess we’ll just have to use you to kill her.”
Rider lurches after Baal, but the force holding him on the couch yanks him backwards.
“Oh, that’s not the worst of it,” Baal says. “When you’re done here, you’re going to pay a little visit to your daughter and put her down for a very long nap. After having a little fun.”
Rider snarls.
“You’ll never find her.”
Baal grins broadly. “Let’s take a little look at the files, shall we?”
He licks his index finger, spins around to the file cabinet behind him, opens it, and leafs through manila folders.
“Let’s see what we have here. Mommy Dearest, Article Ideas, Lauren, Dena, Amelia, MILFs, Aurora/Alyssa.”
He plucks the file folder and drops it on the desk.
He reaches in his breast pocket, pulls out a pair of novelty glasses with springy eyes, and puts them on grinning back at Rider with the plastic eyeballs bouncing.
“The old peepers aren’t quite what they used to be.”
He opens the file folder and riffles through the pages of thick 8 ½ x 11.
“Ah-hah! She’s staying in the Viracocha Ranch in South Carolina with....”
He gives Rider an exaggerated screwed up look. “Big Chief Jesus Christ?”
Rider says nothing. He just glares.
Baal grins and waves his middle finger at Rider. Then he picks the bouncy eyes glasses off his face, folds them and frowns as if in deep thought. In a moment, his eyes light up with epiphany.
“I get it. Ben Viracocha. Ben means ‘son’ Viracocha ‘sea foam.’ Viracocha was one of the names of the so-called white God in Native American traditions. Son of Viracocha – Son of God.”
He nods as if satisfied with himself. Then he turns back to the file cabinet.
“Let’s see what we have on old Benny.”
He finger-walks through the tabs on the manila folders a moment longer before picking a new file from the drawer. “Bingo!”
He pivots and places the file on the desk. He licks both his index fingers and smiles at Rider like a gameshow host.
“Let’s see what we have here,” he mocks.
He pulls yet another set of glasses out of his breast pocket -- this time a pair of Groucho
Glasses with the funny nose, mustache, and puffy eyebrows.
He opens the file folder.
“Ding, Ding, Ding, we have a winner!”
His mouth and eyes curve in a malicious grin, which was hard to pull off with the Groucho Glasses.
“Florence, South Carolina, huh? Guess the place is heavily warded.”
Rider concentrates on keeping his face neutral, though panic pangs through his chest.
Baal shrugs. “Well, they have to come out sometime. I’ll assure you that you’ll be waiting there on them.”
Baal leans forward propping himself on his desk with folded arms like Larry King.
“You know what would be just super? What if you were to get a new vehicle? Something huge – say a Freightliner. You wait for them to come out, and you T-bone them doing eighty?”
Rider lunges again.
“Ew, are we getting frisky over there?”
He sighs and stared to the right of Rider’s couch.
“Well, let’s just get back to the show. The suspense is killing me, too.”
He produces a remote from his middle desk drawer that looks remarkably like the one in the movie “Click.”
Rider’s other self starts across the dark motel room brandishing the pocketknife like a dagger. He reaches Amelia, and then he just stares down at her as if he’s locked in a daze.
Baal presses pause, and Rider glowers at him.
“Awe, isn’t she just so precious when she’s sleeping. Sweet little Conciliator Matron. Maybe I should wake her up and fuck her first.”
Rider lunges, but the power of the demon held him fast.
Baal smiles at him and presses play.
Rider’s left hand grasps the corner of the comforter, and he pulls it down to her waist. Amelia hadn’t bothered to put on a nightgown after their encounter. The upper half of her right arm covers her breasts, and her right hand rests on the pillow just before her face. And Baal is right.
Rider’s left hand appears again, and he gently rolls her over on her back. She moans slightly with displeasure, but she complies.
Her right arm moves with her, and rests on her stomach.
Baal presses pause again, and gawks at Rider.
“Those are some pretty bodacious ta-tas she’s sporting there. Nice job, buddy!”
Rider scowls.
Baal ignored him and presses the play button.
On screen Rider grasps the handle of the pocketknife with both hands and cocks it over his head.
Back in the office, Rider springs from the couch and dives across the desk after Baal. He grasps Baal’s neck with both hands and stares directly into his eyes.
Baal giggles like a small child being tickled by his father.
“Get out of my head. If you come back, I’ll destroy you, and every trace you’ve ever made on creation.”
Baal’s eyes bulge with fear. The wall between the windows behind him melts away.
A whirlwind behind it pulls hard at Baal. He grasps the edge of the desk, but his fingers slip.
And just before he disappears into the mist, he gives Rider the coldest stare Rider had ever seen.
“I’ll tell your daughter you said hello.”
The point of the blade stopped a few centimeters from the left side of Amelia’s chest.
Rider exhaled a shuddering breath. A thin film of sweat had broken out on his forehead. With trembling fingers, he closed the knife, dropped it to the floor, and kicked it under the bed.
Then he shook Amelia.
She grunted with displeasure.
He clapped his hands over her face.
She didn’t even flinch.
“Amelia,” he cried.
She opened her eyes halfway and gaped up at him. She acted as though someone drugged her.
“We’ve got problems!”
Something flickered behind her eyes. She sat up.
“What is it?”
Rider shook his head. He shook all over.
“We have to go, now!”
The look of grogginess on her face morphed into a look of concern.
“What happened?”
He looked at her and shuddered. “We can’t stay here, and we can’t run from them. They’re getting better and sneakier at attacking me.”
She turned her palms up. “I don’t understand.”
“They sent a fuckin demon to possess me!”
She frowned. “Are you certain it wasn’t a nightmare?”
Rider sighed with frustration. One thing about women that always lit his fuse was that they had a way of asking twenty questions when you wanted to answer nothing.
“I almost killed you. There was a demon in my head pullin the puppet strings. Get dressed and packed. We have to go.”
Lauren Fields-Rider opened the door in the domicile where the sisters that she brought along slept in the Memphis Convent, and flipped on the lights.
“We’ve got to move,” she said.
Most of the women rose from their beds without complaint.
Arch Seer Maria Zottolli was the only one to ask questions.
“What happening?”
Lauren gave her a stark expression. “Rider defeated Baal. They’re going straight for Skitts Mountain. Gather everything you need, and get the vessel.”
Maria Zottolli shook her head. “We eight hours from Skitts Mountain. They hava only two. We never make it.”
Lauren bunched her lips. “We’re taking a private plane. That should get us there in about two hours.”
“We needa time to prepare vessel.”
Lauren nodded.
“Get whoever oversees it to give the Tennessee Police an anonymous tip about what they’re driving and where they’re headed. Between that and the wards we have in place, it should slow them down enough.”
Maria Zottolli nodded.
Lauren turned out of the dorm and clacked her way back down the white-tiled hallway to her quarters to gather her things.
The old engine of the Pathfinder strained down US 321 toward The Great Smoky Mountains and their eventual destination – Skitts Mountain, Tennessee.
“Are you ready to talk yet?” Amelia asked.
Rider gave her a semi-spiteful look. “Yeah, you go get the Häagen Dazs. I’ll get the fingernail polish, and hair dye. We’ll just have ourselves a little slumber party.”
Amelia sighed.
Rider let his nasty sarcasm hang in the air a while longer, and then he looked at her.
“If we get separated here, don’t wait on me. Get back to South Carolina as fast as you can. The demon Baal is going after Viracocha and Aurora. I pissed him off good.”
She glanced at him.
“How did they get to you?”
Rider sighed with frustration. “They sent this Baal fucker while I was asleep to possess my body. He was going to use me to kill you and then go after Aurora. I barely got rid of him.”
She gave him a look of compassion. “Are you okay?”
He bunched his lips and looked at the gray floor mat.
His anger boiled, and he glared at her. “Would you be? I nearly stabbed you to death.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”
He gave her a bitter look. “I just want all of this to be over.”
She nodded. She was just about to open her mouth to reassure him when two police cars swished past her on both sides of her car. The one to the right bounced past her on the median, the one on the left shot past her in the passing lane. The two cars met in front of her, and braked.
Two more cars still sandwiched her.
She glanced in her rearview mirror to find two more cruisers at her rear.
“What the fuck?” Rider said.
At the same time, all six cars turned on their lights.
Amelia glanced into the darkness of the cruiser on her left. A Deputy-Sheriff outfitted in brown with a thick Tom Sellick mustache motioned for her to pull over.
“These guys are serious,” Rider said. “Wha
t are we going to do?”
Amelia frowned. “Give them what they want.”
She flipped on her right blinker.
The cruiser riding on the shoulder backed away.
Amelia guided the Pathfinder onto the shoulder and slowed to a stop.
The two cruisers in front of her sped on for a moment and then came to a rest fifty feet away from her with the cars positioned bumper to bumper.
She watched with mild interest as the police quickly dismounted their vehicles and hunkered low behind their cars with only their Stetson-adorned heads poking above the hoods.
In their hands, steadied by the hoods of their vehicles they pointed their pistols back at her Pathfinder.
She looked in the rearview to find that the two cars behind her had done the same.
She looked out the driver’s side window to find that the car that had been cruising along side of her in the passing lane had positioned himself on the opposite shoulder and had taken a similar attack position as the others.
And two more cars that she hadn’t seen before now were blocking traffic.
The loudspeaker of one of the cars in front of her kicked on with the hick drawl of one of the Deputy-Sheriffs.
“Raise yer hands where I can see ‘em.”
Amelia glanced at Rider. “Better do what they say.”
Rider sighed hard. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Remember the Bennigan’s? There’s a warrant out for us, and there’s another warrant back in Georgia for the murder of Dena Carcer with Nick Carcer’s name on it.”
Rider raised his hands. “Fuckin’ bitches. I’ll kill every goddamn one of them.”
“Driver,” the hick behind the loudspeaker said again, “Reach down with your right hand, and turn off your engine, raise your hand with your keys in them, roll down your window with your left hand, and then toss the keys out of the car with your right hand.”
Amelia reached down with her right hand, and cut the engine off. Then she raised her hand holding the keys.
“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Rider snapped.
He dropped his hands, kicked the passenger door open, and stepped out into the cold night.
“What the fuck is the problem?” he screamed.
