Demon Read online

  The Brimstone was verging on the point of entry when I lost it big style. Rage swept across me like a tidal wave. The injustice of the whole situation wound me up to breaking point. How could they do this to me? After everything I’d done for the Church. I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t deserve this. And if they could do this to me, what were they planning to do to Neve? I didn’t see amber anymore; I saw red.

  The wrist binds tightened, not because Locke was securing them, but because I was transforming into my demon form. I let my mind melt into the background as the demon took hold. The straps snapped, the buckle went flying across the room, smashing a glass beaker. Locke was taken aback. His tough-guy persona shattered temporarily as he stood like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Arms free, I ripped the drip outta my vein. A crunch and, whatever that plastic thing was in my mouth, was bitten in half by my superstrong teeth and spat out. As I clawed at the tethers binding my ankles, shredding the leather, Locke snapped back to life. His immediate reaction was to go into exorcist mode. He held out the tiny silver crucifix he wore around his neck and chanted a few run of the mill Bible verses in Latin. I could’ve laughed, like that was going to do anything. The Cardinal was wrong. You can’t exorcise the demon out of me. I am the demon!

  Ankle ties off, I sprung to my feet, my great tail toppling the saline drip and the medical tray to the floor with a loud clatter. Realizing that the power of prayer wasn’t going to stop me, Locke dashed over to the metal lockers at the other side of the room and pulled out the tranquilizer gun he’d shot me with earlier. Panicking, he fumbled with the case of darts and spilled them all over the floor. I didn’t give him the chance to get anywhere near them; I was on him in an instant, pinning him up against the wall by the throat. Gasping for breath, he dropped the gun. Now it was his turn to go red in the face. I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted to see him suffer for a bit, to see how he liked being at the mercy of someone else for a change, but I wasn’t in control. The demon was.

  It looked like my demon wanted to enjoy this, to take it slow. That was something new. It got up close and personal, shoving its fangs into Locke’s face and letting out a rumbling growl. Anyway, my demon chose the wrong time to start playing with its food. Locke was an old hand at this. Even though my initial transformation had caught him off guard, he’d been around the block and knew how to handle himself. Something startled my demon. It let go of Locke, stumbled back a couple of steps and looked down. One of the tranquilizer darts was poking through the hospital gown and into my guts.

  I didn’t know how long it would take to take effect, what if I passed out and woke up back on that gurney like a slab of dead meat. Locke took a moment to recover, gasping for breath, rubbing his sore neck, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He quickly recovered the gun and started loading another dart.

  “Get out! Run!” I shouted in my mind, not sure if the demon part of me could hear me or not. I was backing away. That was good. Maybe it had come to the conclusion on its own that getting out of there was a good idea, but it slipped on the saline bag that’d spilled everywhere when I’d freed myself. I was on my back before I knew it. Locke snapped the barrel shut, readied himself, and took aim. Bang!

  Chapter Two

  I heard the gun being fired, but the dart never reached me, though I soon wished it had; as I’d put my hands down to break my fall, my torn and bloodied wrists had touched the Brimstone-tainted solution; Brimstone had merged with blood, and I was torn out of this world and straight back to Hell. I’d have gladly torn Neve, Archie, and the rest of the world into tiny shreds with my bare hands without hesitation if it meant ending that pain, that’s how bad it was, and even though it felt like I was enduring it for eternity, it was all over in the blink of an eye.

  When I stopped screaming, I was still sat on my bare arse and still wearing nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. What a picture that must’ve looked: a demon in a hospital gown. But at least here I was back in control of my body. Typical that Hell was the only place I could be both demon and Cait.

  It was pitch dark, cold, and damp. The smell of disinfectant had unfortunately vaporized and had been replaced with gag-inducing rot instead. I had to presume I was still in the Pit. Of course, it would be Hell’s version of the Pit, so anything could be about to go down, and by fuck it did. As the pain dissipated from my body, I became aware of heavy breathing, snorts, and whimpers. I tried to visualize where the door might be, not that I knew where it led or anything, but it had to be better than here right? Right? A buzzing snap came from a strip light hanging from the ceiling followed by the double flash of a fluorescent bulb. That was the first time I’d seen electricity working in Hell, but I wished I hadn’t. The two quick bursts of light were enough to illuminate the room. It wasn’t good.

  The flash of light burnt the image of the room onto my retinas. It was the same medical room I’d just come from, only the beds, lockers, and equipment were strewn all over the place. Nothing was upright. The walls were covered in scratches, gouges, and smears of who knew what, and so was the floor. The fact that my bare skin was touching it wasn’t the worst part, there were three, maybe four, things in the room with me. They were horrible, disfigured, and mangled; half-human, half-something else.

  One stood close by with its hunched back to me. It was human-shaped; a big, bald bulk of a thing, skin blistering with giant bubbles or boils. Another was hunched in a ball in the far corner. This creature was much smaller, perhaps younger or a female? Long, dark hair hid her face; she had the same mutilated condition as the brute. Sharp-looking spines jutted out from her forearms, they looked red and sore. There had been something swaying on the spot next to her, again, I got the sense it was female, but only ‘cos of the slight build. She had horns, like me, only one side of her face had been torn away, revealing white cheekbone and glistening teeth fixed into a permanent grin. The only other thing I remember was the big round eyeball peering straight at me. No eyelid, just scarred flesh holding it in place. I’ll never forget that eye. I sometimes still see it in the dark, just after I’ve put the lights out.

  Most awful of all was that they were all wearing the same hospital gown that I was. Torn, shredded, stained, and barely covering some of them, but they were definitely the same checkered, mint-green garments. My stomach churned, they were Homalus! Twisted, mangled, half-morphed Homalus. Had these poor souls died in the Pit? Was that why they were there? I didn’t have time to dwell on it; in the time it took me to take in the horrific scene, the one with the protruding eyeball had caught sight of me, too.

  A disturbing screech and a flurry of movement came at me through the pitch dark. The creature charged across the room; I rolled to my right, knowing there’d been a space there. Haunting screams came from the others; shrieks and moans reverberating off the walls. I shuffled backwards a few steps and found myself backed up against the wall. Another shuffle of movement, clattering debris on the floor; glass crunching under bare feet; more grunts, yells, and screams. They were searching for me, at least one-eye was. Footsteps padded past by me; I breathed slowly through my mouth, trying to minimize the sound, but I was trembling. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was found.

  I tried to picture the room in my mind’s eye to work out where I was in relation to the door. It had to be on my left. I was sure I had arrived in the room somewhere close to the gurney I’d woken up on. If I worked my way along the wall, then that should take me to the door; it would also take me in the same direction that the one-eyed abomination was heading. I was scared; I mean I was practically naked and completely blind in the dark room, but, I reminded myself, I had my claws, and they were razor sharp. I had my tail, my awesome tail, that could stab, grab, cut, and slice. And I had my teeth; my fangs were strong, maybe even stronger than my claws. I had enough to defend myself if I needed to. I’d decided the best course of action was to cause a distraction; throw something at the opposite side of the room. I could get to the door quietly, pick the lock, if nec
essary, and get out of there. The strip light buzzed back to life, now swinging from a solitary wire connecting it to the ceiling; it flickered on and back off again. It had given me just enough time to see my escape route, only problem was, there wasn’t one. There was no door!

  I really was trapped, no way to get in and no way to get out, plus I’d been spotted. It was the muscled bulk this time. Before being plunged back into darkness, I saw him start towards me. Blindly, I bolted out of his path and smashed into something big and metal: a gurney. The clatter was deafening, but it was soon drowned out by more cries and shrieks as the room erupted into frenzied noise. Large, cold hands landed on my back; the lumbering mass had caught me. He grunted oafishly, panting as he bear-hugged me. The sound of him licking his fat lips in my ear was revolting. Crushed against the toppled gurney, I couldn’t get up. He was a deadweight lying on top of me.

  His grabbed me with shattered claws; he was going to do something awful to me, I knew that. With no way of defending myself and nowhere to run, I took a chance and tried the only thing I could think of. I took hold of the end of one of my horns and, using all the brute force I had in me, I snapped it off. It wasn’t a clean break. It was splintered and jagged. It didn’t matter; I stabbed it deep into the only other part of me I could reach, my thigh.

  It worked. An eternity of agonizing pain later and I was back in the land of the living. The beds and equipment in the room were all back in their rightful places, the clean odor of bleach greeted my nostrils, and the beautiful bright strip lights were secured to the ceiling and back in working order.

  A crushing weight floored me from behind. I wasn’t a demon anymore; I was weak and weary Cait Murphy again. The crash knocked the wind pure out of me, as well as helping to stab the shard of horn even deeper into my leg. It stung to high heaven, but the pain came second to the realization that the crazed, mutilated Homalus had travelled back with me. It grunted, clambering over me; it sounded hurt, maybe confused. I heard shouts of caution; other people were in the room, male voices.

  “Lord have mercy!,”

  “The gun, get the gun!”

  “Cait!” That was Archie’s voice! A sweeter sound I’ve never heard, but it was quickly muffled by the enormous bulk rolling over my bruised and broken body. A rib cracked under the pressure of a huge knee in my back. Hurling an empty gurney to the floor, the monster crawled over me and stumbled to the corner of the room, shielding its eyes from the blinding light; who knows how long it’d been trapped in the darkness. I felt another pair of hands on my back; these ones strong, but soft.

  “Can you move?” Archie’s touch melted my heart. I nodded ‘yes’, but it wasn’t quite as easy as that; the horn jutting out of my leg left it partially disabled.

  “Get back lad,” said a familiar voice. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Deacon; Bible in one hand, crucifix in the other. Locke was there too, furiously loading a dart into his tranquilizer gun. With Archie’s help, I stumbled towards the very two men I’d desperately been trying to escape.

  “Not there!” Archie directed me around a large pentagram drawn in white paint on the floor; sigil markings decorated its interior. That’s when I noticed the décor had changed. The two comatose patients were still hooked up to their dream drug, that hadn’t changed, but both were blissfully unaware of their room’s makeover; holy relics, candles, and a thurible from which spicy incense smoked. It looked like someone had been planning a séance or something.

  My legs went from under me and Archie, not expecting the extra weight, couldn’t hold me and we both crashed to the floor. The monster Homalus stopped whimpering and blinked its watering eyes, finally getting used to the light. It took in its new surroundings, or was that its old surroundings? He stared at the bodies being slowly drugged to death. Had one of the gurneys been his I wondered? And then he turned to stare at three priests, armed and ready to strike. Had a man of the cloth injected him full of Brimstone? Had that been the last thing he’d seen before slipping away? I felt sorry for him in that moment. Hell, I feel sorry for him now. He was just another victim of abuse, same as me. Damned from the very beginning, what chance did we ever have?

  His lip curled and he gave a low, rumbling growl. Locke didn’t let it go any further and shot him in the chest with a feathered dart. Everyone in the room held their collective breath, but just like the sedative hadn’t taken any real effect on me in my demon state, it did bugger all on this brute too. Locke didn’t bother to reload and the mass of cancerous muscle didn’t bother to pull the dart out. It was pissed off now. This was a glorious opportunity for revenge. It’s just a pity me and Archie were stuck in the middle of it.

  The enraged hulk lunged at Locke, and surprisingly, Locke met it head on. He’d quickly drawn a small blade hidden in his boot, and rammed it up and into the belly of the beast. Again, no damage was done. After a lifetime of living in Hell, a small cut to the torso was probably as insignificant as a paper cut. The Homalus grabbed Locke by the face, gouging deep scratches into his skin with its shattered claws before slamming him backwards to the ground. Ouch, that had to hurt. Locke was no spring chicken. The impact made even me wince. He lay there stunned. The Homalus roared, eyeing up his next target, me and Archie on the floor just inches away. About to attack, I was surprised again, as this time it was the Deacon who sprang into action.

  “Nolite in nomine domini,” he stepped towards the monster, Bible clutched to his chest, crucifix outstretched. “Non nocere,” he spoke softly with quiet conviction. “Non nocere,” and that time his words had an effect. The Homalus stopped and stepped back, mouth open, breathing heavily. The Deacon was drawing the monsters attention to the crucifix, and his slow rhythmic chant was hypnotizing the beast, much like a snake charmer might do to a poisonous snake. I’d never seen the Deacon in action. I always thought he was a complete desk jockey, someone who had no experience in the field. His tactic to baffle and confuse what he probably thought was a dumb animal by babbling Latin and waving a shiny object about in front of it seemed to be working though. It gave an unsteady Locke time to cautiously drag himself out of danger.

  The transfixed Homalus dropped its arms to its side and stood with a vapid look on its face; drool bubbled at the corner of its mouth. Holding its gaze, the Deacon, still chanting, slowly moved around the edge of the room and the creature obediently followed him. Locke began muttering an incantation of his own; a familiar one. I looked more closely at the pentagram design; it was a depicula, a demon trap. The Deacon was lulling the beast into the center of the trap where Locke would initiate its activation.

  I knew that trap had been laid for me. As soon as they had that poor bastard in a holding cell, ready to send him back to an everlasting nightmare, they’d do the same to me. I tried to get up, but it was hopeless. Weak and feeble, my injured leg was starting to cause problems and the severed horn was still wedged in there; it stung like fuck, but at least it was stemming the blood flow. Archie swung his arms around me and hauled me up onto one leg. The Deacon, now on the other side of the pentagon, saw Archie put my arm round his shoulder for added support.

  “She stays, Archie,” he whispered in between verses of Latin scripture, drawing Locke’s attention to the situation too.

  “Not if she’s going to end up like that, she isn’t,” Archie recognized the monster as being half-Homalus too. He also read the looks going back and forth between the Deacon and Locke; the latter was slowly reaching for the tranquilizer gun on the floor. Archie kicked it away. It spun across the floor, but the clatter snapped the mutated Homalus out of the Deacon’s spell. It spun round on its feet, realizing where it was again, the look of stunned bewilderment on its face turned to an awful look of sadness. It let out a sorrowful howl of anguish.

  “Activate the trap, goddammit,” the Deacon ordered Locke, as the beast turned towards him. There was no calming it this time; it wanted cold-blooded revenge, and I didn’t blame it. The Deacon backed off, but he was heading into a corner. Locke tri
ed to distract the thing by clanging metal trays together, while racing through the words of the incantation. Archie hauled me towards the open door, where we were faced by a steep, spiral, stone staircase. Archie scooped me into his arms and bolted up the stairs. The sounds of a physical struggle and of the Deacon screaming followed us up, but I didn’t look back.

  Stumbling out through a security door at the top of the stairs, I couldn’t believe my eyes. We were in the Met! The Pit had been right underneath me the whole time I had worked here, and I hadn’t a Scooby. I hobbled on one leg, with Archie taking some of my weight, but each step shot a crippling, stabbing pain right up my thigh, meaning I could barely use it. Archie ended up carrying me down the hallway. More security doors were up ahead and the coast looked clear. But halfway down Archie stopped.

  “Wait here a minute,” he said peeling my arm from around his neck. I didn’t get it. We were outside Simon’s old office; he dashed inside and started raiding through cupboards and drawers.

  “Whatever it is, it can wait,” I protested, trying to steady myself against the wall. “Archie, c’mon!” At that point I didn’t know whether the mutilated Homalus had killed the exorcists, or whether they’d managed to trap the beast in the depicula, but I was damn sure, whichever one it was, they’d soon be heading up those stairs and straight after me. Archie reappeared holding a massive, gray, woolen pullover that used to belong to Simon. His big, thick winter one.

  “Put this on,” he said unraveling the bundle and pulling it over my head, causing a flurry of tiny static shocks. With everything going on, I hadn’t realized that I was butt-naked and bare-footed, with only a grotty hospital gown to hide my modesty. I’m only embarrassed thinking about it now; back then, there wasn’t time to be mortified. The fact that I hadn’t shaved my legs for well over six months must’ve been pretty obvious. I only hope Archie was just as preoccupied with escaping as I was to notice. “Sorry, there aren’t any shoes,” he added.