“Bev, the holy water…” Rebecca remarked. “The burn on your head?”
He looked at her accusingly, ignoring the looming sensations in his body and mind. “You’re buying into this?”
She shrugged her shoulders, eyes watering. “I just—“
Sweat broke on Bev’s head.
Hot flash
. “And how is it that both Thornton
and
Allieb want me at the house?” Bev asked. “That doesn’t make sense, either.”
“Allieb wants you so that he can draw the Devil out of you, into him. Thornton wants you for opposing reasons: to keep Satan inside of you, so that He may oppose the demonologist. Thornton wants to get to you first so he can prepare you for the battle ahead.”
“Prepare me? What the hell does he want to do with me?” A surge of dizziness filled his head. He closed his eyes and rubbed them, trying to fight it off.
“
We
want to give you a chance to live, to save God and mankind by allowing Satan complete use of your body so that he may oppose Allieb here on earth. It sounds crazy—Satan being used to save God—but it’s true. You see, if Allieb succeeds in harvesting Satan, then He would exist no more. His powers and abilities would be absorbed by the demonologist for his own personal use here on earth. Allieb, in a sense, would
become
Satan, and would control the legion of demons inside of him. So, in this situation, Satan would opt for the lesser of two evils, so to speak.”
“This is absurd,” Bev muttered, shaking his head in denial. A burning sensation rolled in his stomach.
“Look, Bev, it was no accident that we met at the party. About a month ago, Thornton had hunted your location down, and established as to when you’d be returning home. That was when Thornton alerted me of you—the individual harboring Satan. Knowing that you’d be our only chance of defeating the Legion, I tracked you down through Jake Ritchie, whom I purposely befriended. The sacrifice at the church was
Allieb’s
way of trying to deter me, but it didn’t work.”
“The sacrifice…is that what happened to Jake, Father? Was he sacrificed?” Bev looked down at his hands, unblemished, free of any scarring. Suddenly, images of pain and murder suffused his mind, of a drunken Jake dying at his hand. He closed his eyes and drew in deep breaths, trying to wash the vision away. It would not go.
Don’t panic, don’t panic
.
“In order for the demon to enter a vehicle’s body, a sacrificial ritual must be performed, whether it be an animal or human. Up until Jake’s death, there had been twelve sacrifices made by way of
Allieb’s
influence on the person used for harboring the demon. Through the power of dreams, Allieb set each ritual into motion. The person involved would commit the crime unbeknownst of their actions—it would be done while they were asleep.”
Bev rubbed his eyes, shuddered. Looked at his hands again. His skin crawled. “My god…I killed Jake, didn’t I?”
Danto nodded. Rebecca began to cry. Stood. Pressed herself against the wall, wobbling, sobbing uncontrollably. “What’s going on? What’s going on?”
“Additional sacrifices will be made before, during, and after the drawing of the demons. This concerns me…we don’t know where Kristin is.”
“
Kristin?
”
The priest stood abruptly. Looked out the window again. A sudden wash of light ignited the raindrops on the glass. “The car…it is here. We all must go now.”
“What car?” Bev stood again, despite the persistent dizziness trying to take him down. He shoved the priest aside. Looked out the window. In the rectory lot outside, headlights cut into the rain-filled darkness.
Rebecca, hands over her mouth, eyes suddenly swollen with tears, looked back and forth between Bev and Danto. “What is it, Bev?”
Bev shot Danto an enraged glance, his head and body feeling hot, as though he’d been caught in a blast of steam. “You’re in on it! You and that damned Thornton guy. Jesus, you’re a priest for Christ’s sake! Whatever happened to appealing to God for a duel with the Devil?”
“Bev, please understand…Thornton and I are working together to help you. If you do not work with us, you will be killed, that much is certain. And so will everyone you love, including Kristin.”
Downstairs, the front door to the rectory opened. A man’s voice called in: “Hello?”
Bev paced back and forth in the small room. Shaking. Frightened. Running his hands through his hair. His senses felt suddenly heightened, as though he had antennae clutching at the environment, telling him that he was wholly exposed to the approaching menace, like vulnerable prey. “Jesus, I just don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe
me
Bev,” Danto implored. “You have the knowledge inside of you now. Use it to fight evil!”
Scratch…scratch…scratch…
Bevant
…come play with me.
Bev grabbed his head. “It’s Allieb…
he’s back!
” he yelled. “God, it
hurts!
”
Rebecca: “Bev! What is it?”
“
It’s him! It’s him!
” Bev’s legs wobbled. He staggered forward.
Danto grabbed Bev by the arm. “We must go now. Come on.”
Something inside Bev tried to push his body away from the grasping Danto. His world spun around him, the drab colors of the room swirling into pallid gray tones. He felt hands clutching his shoulders, leading him out of the room into the musty hallway, body hitting against the wall, his waning balance nearly sending him to the floor. He did his best to stay still, feeling his mind being probed by the ghostly fingers, the voice within laughing, calling,
Bevant
, come to me. Bring your demon with you
. Bev shook his head hard, a flood of awareness assaulting him, shoving the invading entity away.
A sharp, sudden vision leaped across his mind, that of parting flames and a dark monster rising up from a sea of boiling lava, black-skinned, eyes aglow with emerald flames, serrated horns curling out from a misshapen, bulbous head. It reached its sharp-clawed hands out toward Bev, snorted a gush of visible smoke from its widening nostrils, green and sulfuric; a harsh burning odor infiltrated Bev’s nose, and then the grunting demon sank back down into the boiling sea.
Hands groping for support, Bev stood in the hallway, breathing heavily, his eyesight returning to the real world. He looked at Father Danto. Standing beside him: Rebecca.
“What’s that smell?” she asked, eyebrows arched with distress. “Something’s burning.”
“It’s me,” Bev answered, almost automatically.
“You fought him off again, Bev. Allieb.”
Bev stiffened. He placed a supporting hand against Danto’s shoulder. His heartbeat quickened, skin riddled with gooseflesh as a chill of horrible fear invaded his body. He stood immobile, staring at the floor, stunned with disbelief.
“Bev?”
He looked at Rebecca, her face taut with fear, revulsion, horror. Shook his head. The black beast he’d witnessed rising from the lava of his dreams—it wasn’t imaginary. It was
real
, appearing as though he were actually there with it.
In Hell.
“It wasn’t me,” he whispered, taking a single step forward. “I didn’t ward off Allieb. It was Him.”
Bev fell forward, his strength suddenly giving out, Rebecca and Danto each supporting him as he collapsed. Despite his immediate loss of motor skills, he could feel his eyes rolling into his head, bringing blackness in his sights, exposing the vein-swelled whites. He could feel his body being dragged across the carpeted hall, thumping down the steps, one at a time, until they reached the bottom.
A strange man’s voice: “What’s wrong with him?”
Bev’s eyes rolled forward, the man before him coming into focus: standing in the foyer, staring at them, eyes filled with suspicion.
A cop.
The limo coursed the deserted streets of Torrance, pacing slowly through the torrential downpour. The wipers slashed at the driving rain, the man seated in the back using their incessant beat as a semi-hypnotic cadence for prayer.
Will God really fight alongside Satan?
he’d recently asked the Priest.
We can only pray so
, had been his answer.
He shivered, shifting his position, the black leather upholstery of the limo’s seats squeaking hollowly beneath his weight. He peered up at the blue digital readout of the limo’s clock, set in the ceiling’s dash. 7:34.
He swallowed a dry, uncomfortable lump in his throat. Tried to rub away the pain in his temples. There seemed no hope for solace. The feelings assaulting him were nearly unendurable, and he wondered how he’d made it this long after breaking his hypnotic bond with Allieb.
Drive. Passion. The will to live
. He felt overwhelmed with guilt and shame, compounded with anger and resentment, even pain. Yet, at the same time, he’d never felt so purposeful, despite the discomforts plaguing him. He had a mission to accomplish: the B-movie hero about to take on a seemingly undefeatable monster threatening the world with its evil. Christ…the whole scenario, it seemed so made up, like the imaginative writings of a horror novelist; but…this was no creative release—this was
real
life, and he, Reverend James Thornton, was playing the part of the meek little turtle reaching its head out of its shell in attempt to attack the ever-menacing giant.
Despite his limitations, he possessed a great deal of knowledge about his enemy, every tidbit of vital information gathered from the very mouth and actions of the entity he sought to crush. He collected every last detail and shared them with the only man capable of understanding the sheer magnitude of the circumstances. The only other man who would stand beside him in his very own turtle shell, unafraid to expose himself and take his best shot.
Father Thomas Danto.
He peered out the rain-soaked window, wondering how it had all come down to this. He’d wanted to father a child. But, it had not been God’s will; some things were never meant to be, and his sterility had guaranteed his childless future to be one of them. Still, with much regret, he’d challenged God’s preference, seeking his progeny beyond man’s natural intentions. The punishment of doing so had been severe: at once his life was glutted with evil—an evil that had thrived in his home like maggots on a corpse.
A deafening clap of thunder shook the car. Lightning ignited the gloomy night. Above, the streetlamps flickered, and went dark. The golden lights within the surrounding homes vanished. A gentle trickle of electricity danced across his skin, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.
In his mind: faraway laughter. Deep. Caustic.
Eager
.
God help me
, he thought.
God help us
.
Then, knowing that righteousness alone would not be enough to defeat the ultimate in evil, he prayed to a different God.
It’s okay that I’m doing this
, he attempted to convince himself.
It’s just like fighting fire with fire. It’s the only way to win
.
He folded his hands in prayer.
And looked down.
Satan, help us
.
Thunder clapped. Lightning flashed. The lights inside the rectory blinked. Somewhere upstairs, a clock alarm started tolling.
The cop, a middle-aged man wearing a moustache and full uniform, kept his eyes pinned on the suspicious trio—they narrowed as his hand caressed the gun at his hip.
“He isn’t feeling well,” Danto exclaimed, eyes nervously probing the room’s walls.
Bev, eyesight flitting in and out of focus, did his best to maintain his composure, a task not so easily secured. His legs were painstakingly numb, bordering on powerless, as though nearly devoid of blood; his weight continued to challenge him, and he felt no choice but to crumple into the supporting arms of Rebecca and Danto. Closing his eyes, he drew in long deep breaths, begging his strength to revisit. A third set of hands seized him beneath the armpits, pulled him over toward a loveseat in the foyer. He settled down into the soft cushions, eyes gradually opening, taking in the swirling blur of colors that had become his world. He thought,
I-I’ve never lost my vision like this. Never
…