The Demon Side (3 page)

Although he would own whichever family member he attached to, I would rightfully own this property. Should the unwelcome guest appear, we would have to fight for both. I had no interest in a turf war, but I wouldn’t give up my home so some other jerk could move right in. My only hope was that, like me, he’d decided to stay at Etta’s last home and torment the next family. To be safe, I had to get rid of the Divads, and soon.

I waited for a few hours until I could be sure everyone was asleep before climbing down the attic access. I stood at the edge of the bed and watched Etta sleep. I was no longer worried about how to get Dad out, after seeing how he reacted to Etta when she was screaming for me to get out of her. He would do whatever it took to keep his daughter safe and sane, even if it meant leaving a fifty thousand dollar investment in the middle of the night.

Etta would be a slight challenge. I would probably have to physically hurt her or threaten her life, which is against the celestial laws of staying on Earth among the living. I could drive a person crazy enough to kill themselves or their families as long as no part of me ever physically touches them in a way that could permanently harm or taint them. The penalty was steep: your soul being banished to an eternity in Purgatory. I wouldn’t take the risk. As long as I kept my distance, there would be nothing anyone could do.

The only way I could get complete access to everything this girl feared was to do a walkthrough while she slept. So many walkthroughs in one day was tiring. The deeper you go, the more exhausting it is. Demons don’t sleep, but we still need downtime, the same as everything else in the world, to regain our energy. If I became fatigued while inside her, I could get trapped there, which would obviously be dangerous for the both of us.

That’s where the idea of possession comes from. A Demon pushes too hard and traps himself in a body. The whole puking up split pea soup while a person’s head rotates three-hundred-sixty degrees is all a crock. Yes, we can make people do things they normally wouldn’t, but we can’t defy human capabilities. As for the convulsions you see in movies, those are real. That’s a good sign the Demon is dying. Except we don’t die the way a living person does. If we get deprived of energy long enough, our physical form disintegrates and our souls go straight to Purgatory. The human body at its fullest potential can only feed us for about a week, and it can never give us enough strength to exit the body. It doesn’t matter how much fear you try to generate in the person or how many priests their families call; the end result is always the same. Our disintegration slowly burns our victims from the inside out, which explains the mystery of human spontaneous combustion. The Demon dies, taking the human with it.

The buzzing of the alarm down the hall was annoying, but even more annoying was the rock n’ roll station of Etta’s radio. Why did she torture her ears? Even with the racket going on between alarm clocks, Etta didn’t budge until her father came in the room.

“Time to get ready,” John said, using a typical drill instructor roar.

Etta moaned as she pulled the covers over her head.

“Up and at ’em. You have school today and I have to get to work. Maybe we should talk to Medical about changing your Seroquel dosage. You seem to be sleeping through everything now.”

Etta sat up in bed, rubbing her face. She hadn’t realized I was standing there. From the bright light beaming on Etta’s face, I knew John had opened the drapes to let the morning sun brighten the room. Briefly, I thought she looked angelic in her long white T-shirt. The moment was quickly shattered by a strange tingling in my stomach, like a million maggots crawling inside of me. I was weakening. Grabbing my stomach, I turned toward the closet to access the attic, but walked inside of Etta.

Her thoughts were happy ones, of an average looking guy six-feet-tall, with shaggy blond hair and large green eyes. His complexion held an olive tint, but his black clothing made him look almost spectral. Whoever this guy was, she obviously had a crush on him. Hopefully, it would be a boyfriend at school who would come to the house. I would use him against her. As useful as this new information would be, I could not dig any deeper. My energy seemed to be draining quickly.

Then in a blink, Etta was in front of me. She must have walked through me when I turned my back. But why would she do that? Every other time she’d avoided a possible walkthrough and now she just offered one up on a silver platter?

Popping up in front of her as she scavenged through her closet, I waited for her to demand I leave her alone. Her eyes never shifted my way. I was left puzzled as she went to the bathroom with her clothing. In a few short moments, she returned fully dressed to the room. I had missed a great opportunity for a peepshow.

As she sat on her bed putting on her shoes, I blew my freezing cold breath on her cheek. No reaction? No shiver? Etta must have decided to ignore me. I hoped so, because sometimes annoying someone is better than scaring them. Eventually, she would no longer be able to ignore me. Her frustration would boil over until she either gave up or mentally imploded. Either way, I would win.

Months passed. Etta still ignored every effort on my part to scare her out of my home. John stayed at work and René, Etta’s mother, wouldn’t get out of the liquor cabinet long enough to notice anything other than an empty bottle. Every now and then, Etta would slip up and ask me to move or she’d double check the bathroom before undressing. If I was in the bathroom, she’d avoid it and go days without showering until she felt comfortable enough to try again. If no one else occupied the house, she might yell at me to get out. I used the time to study her bad habits and quirks. Every time she readied herself to yell at me, she would bite her fingernails. I was breaking her down.

One evening, she tried on a hideous sequined blue hand-me-down gown. It looked like the 70’s had thrown up blue Kool-Aid on her. But Etta twirled in front of the vanity mirror that hung on her closet door as if she were Cinderella. I grew bored with the topic of Etta’s graduation and party after listening to the whole Divad family talk about it for weeks. Tired of being ignored and tired of watching her suck in and push out her stomach over and over, I decided it the time had come to up the ante.

I cut the straps around her neck that held the dress up and exposed her bra. Etta quickly grabbed the straps and ran to the bathroom as I followed. I’d been watching her day in and day out, waiting for a chance to see what she desperately tried to hide under her baggy clothes.

“Get out!”

I cracked up as she hid behind a towel, laughing so hard that I let Etta go right past me as she ran back to her bedroom. Still chuckling, I flashed back to the bedroom, but she’d already dressed, and I’d missed another great opportunity to see her naked.

I was still laughing when John came in the room. “Everything okay?”

“
No, Daddy. A Demon tried looking at my boobies
.” I used my best little girl voice.

Etta glared at me.

“I’m fine. Mom’s dress snapped.” Etta held out the dress to show John where I’d cut it. That explained a lot. René had horrible taste in clothes.

“Oh, that’s an easy fix, baby. Why don’t you get your shoes on and we’ll drop it off at the tailor, then I’ll go ahead and take you to school?”

Etta raced to her shoes, had them on in an instant, and ran out of the room. Before I could taunt her any more, Etta and John disappeared through the black fiery fog of the front door. I finally had her where I wanted her. Once I had my energy back, I could think of the best way to rid the house of the Marine and Etta, the Demon Magnet. The running water in the upstairs bathroom reminded me of the third person in this family. I plopped down on the couch and waited for her to appear in the family room.

After one restful hour, Mrs. Divad appeared in a bright pink pantsuit and the biggest matching necklace I’d ever seen. The woman looked as if she were walking around with castrated testicles on her neck and earlobes. They bounced like them, too, as she walked to the bar in the dining room. Only nine in the morning, and she already opened the vodka, just as she had every morning for the past four months. I watched for hours as she finished glass after glass. When the bottle dried, Mrs. Divad stumbled to the hutch, grabbed her purse and keys, and stepped out the door.

With the way that woman drinks, I might not have to worry about getting rid of her
. She was more likely to kill herself going to buy another bottle than to become a nuisance for me. I could simply drive her to drink herself into alcohol poisoning. I don’t make it a habit of trying to kill my tenants, but she was a woman who obviously wasn’t grateful for her life.

As happy as planning possible antics made me, I needed time alone. When there were no distractions in the house, it was much easier for me to regain my energy. As I approached the attic, I heard the front door open. I was surprised to find Etta back home. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon and even though I’d never gone to school, I knew it wouldn’t end until three-thirty.

“Come down here!” Etta yelled, slamming the door behind her.

I knew she could only be talking to me since no one else was home, but her body language told me she couldn’t see me. She searched her surroundings. This would be a good opportunity to start laying some groundwork. Mustering up what little energy I had left, I blew a cold wind at her, pushing her toward the door.

“Oh, a funny guy, huh? Is that all you have? C’mon!” Etta’s face furrowed in anger.

She was egging me on, and I didn’t like it one bit. Maybe she had forgotten exactly who I am, what I am capable of. I’d allowed her get too comfortable during the past few months. With proper rest, I would have shown her exactly what I could do, and it would send her screaming out of the house. Etta scowled again, trying desperately to look fierce. The way her bangs fell into her squinted eyes was cute, in a pathetic sort of way.

I screamed as the twitching returned to my stomach. It wasn’t painful. Pain isn’t something I feel, but the strange sensation was intolerable.

“Ah ha! I know you’re on the stairs. I heard you. Quit being a coward and come down here right now!”

That made me ignore the tingling in my gut. As much as I wanted to slam her through a wall, part of me was curious what she wanted. She couldn’t see where I settled, but she could hear me just fine, so I crept down the stairs to hide my exact location. I stood close enough to see one single hair ruining the otherwise perfect part in her hair. The oils from her scalp sparkled and glistened like dew in the sun that beamed from the decorated front window. It reminded me of a sunrise I watched on television once.

I waited for a moment before I lowered my lips to Etta’s ears. “I am here,” I hummed.

Echoing is another great tool I have. I can stand in front of you, throw my voice and lead you to believe I’m under the house or in a different room completely. Etta shivered from the cold air I created, distracted from whatever plan she had in mind for me. I could smell the doubt and fear that now emanated from her. She second-guessed her decision to give me the what-fors. So sweet the smell.

“We need to talk.” Etta’s teeth chattered as she turned toward the family room. Even though she could feel the cold near her, my echoing confused her.

“Then talk.” This time I threw my voice upstairs. Etta jumped around staring at the ceiling above her.

“I know what you’re doing. You can’t fool me.”

“Why would I ever want to fool you?” My sarcastic reply was just a stall tactic. The longer she talked to me, the more I got to play with her.

“I am only going to say this once. You want to run around here playing tricks or whatever it is you do, I don’t care. Just leave me alone and stay out of my room.” Etta’s voice trembled. Her confidence gave way to her fear. I’ll give her some credit though, not many people have what it takes to try to go toe to toe with me.

“And if I choose not to, girl?” Calling her “girl” would really get under her skin. Etta was at the age where she wanted desperately to be perceived as a woman.

“I know how to get rid of you and I’ll do it. I’ll send you back to whatever Hell you came from.” This poor thing may have known a few things about what I was, but she remained clueless about what she could and could not do. No prayer or exorcism could banish me from my house. Only lack of energy or an Arch’s blade could get rid of me. But what bothered me most was the fact that she honestly believed she could. Human arrogance is a major pet peeve of mine.

“I highly doubt that,” I growled. “Girl.”

“My name’s Etta. If we’re going to be stuck together and you’re going to continue talking to me, call me Etta or nothing at all.” Etta spoke slowly, trying to keep her tone stern. I enjoyed watching her eyes shift around and her body fidget.

“Okay, Etta.” It would benefit me later if I let this girl think she had some control. Once people feel they have lost what little control they had, it intensifies their fears, which in return gives me more power and control over them.

“Have free reign of the house, do what you want. Smash vases, run up and down the stairs. Just stay out of my room.” This girl really thought she could order me around. I was okay letting her have a little wiggle room but she wasn’t about to tell me where I could and could not go. It was time to take off the kid gloves.