After I loaded the suitcases in the trunk, I got in the front and turned on the air conditioning. It was roasting. I was not going to miss the Arizona heat.
The car still smelled like burnt sage. It was a smell I was starting to like. It meant safety after a fashion. And I liked not having to worry about soul suckers killing me in my sleep, thank you very much.
Tabby came along not much later. Lucy drifted through the door of the car. Tabby got in the front seat.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“Books and a puzzle,” Lucy said.
Tabby held up the bag. “I figured when we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, I could unwrap the puzzle for Lucy.
Isaac mrowred from his cat carrier.
“You’ll have more room to roam around soon, buddy. We just need to get something to eat and find our next place to stay,” I said to him. I looked at Tabby and Lucy. “We ready?”
“As far as I know,” Tabby said.
There was silence from Isaac in reply. I drove to the diner, parked the car, and waited while Tabby fixed Lucy’s toys in the backseat. She then poured out some water from a bottle into Isaac’s travel drink thing. I made sure all the windows were down a good bit and I had parked in the shade. It wasn’t quite seventy degrees in the shade, so if we didn’t dawdle, Isaac should be comfortable.
When Tabby and I walked into the restaurant, we spied Vespa sitting at the table in the back. I waved off the hostess, and Tabby and I headed toward the table.
“You are late,” he said.
I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the time. We were five minutes late. Shit. “I’m sorry. It took us a little longer than expected.”
He grunted and picked up the menu. While my feeling was “fuck him,” I didn’t really give a shit. I was tired and really didn’t feel like kissing anyone’s ass today. Not to mention the fact that I was doing him a favor. He wasn’t paying me to be his exorcist for God’s sake.
I could tell Tabby was getting annoyed. Her eyes were just starting to take on that blaze I knew so well.
I picked up my menu. Tabby followed suit.
After we gave our order, I turned to Vespa. “One thing I want to talk about.”
“All right,” he said.
“You need my help. I am not your employee.” I was trying to say this as politely as possible.
“Yes.”
“So, this means you need to really pay attention to what it is we are doing and what your business relationship is.”
He just stared.
“Think of me as your spiritual doctor. I have rules I must follow. You don’t have to follow my advice. But you have no claim on me, and I can drop you as a ‘patient’ at any time.” And, if his pompous ass blew too much more, I would drop it.
“Just as I can fire you.”
I shrugged. Like I gave a shit. Go ahead, doofus. Fire me. See if I care. “Difference is, if you fire me, it doesn’t affect Tabby and I at all. We’ll just go home. You, however, will still have a pesky demon.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Vespa said. His whole demeanor had changed. I wasn’t talking to a man anymore, we were back to the scared teenager. His pride had become a deflated balloon.
“Just keep all of this in mind the next time you cop an attitude. I apologized for being late. We were trying to be on time.” I forced myself to hold back. There was a hell of a lot more I could say, but they weren’t things to be said in public.
Vespa nodded. Little did he know, had I been paying attention to the time, I would have been freaking out. Lateness was one of my own pet peeves, so me being late was not exactly something I dealt with well. I always had this phobia about what would happen if I were late for things. It was bad enough that I was stressed from the hotel mess. Now this? I was really close to just going back home. If it hadn’t been for Lucy, I probably would have.
“I want to say something,” Tabby said.
I looked up. Then, I looked at Vespa. His eyes seemed to be captivated by Tabby. I wondered if she realized he was crushing on her.
“This isn’t an optimum situation. None of us are happy to be here, and we might as well stop pretending. I don’t trust you. Your deceiving makes me not like you. But this will not stop me from helping you.”
Vespa sighed. “Have I hurt you that badly?”
“Hurt? No. Pissed me off? Yes.” Her eyes were starting to turn red. “I don’t care if you’re possessed or not, there’s no excuse for being a jackass.”
Vespa’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to be a jackass. I just wanted you guys to believe me.”
“That’s where you sold us short,” I said and stared into Vespa’s eyes. It was a good thing his eyes were green or the elongated pupils might have shown up more prominently. “Our last case was a six-year-old kid. If we believed her, why wouldn’t we believe you?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’m just so used to being looked at as a suspect by my family that I just assumed you’d be the same way.”
“The bad part is, we look at you more closely since you deceived us,” I said. To us, you’re capable of anything.”
“Which, of course, we knew the minute we found out that you invited the demon into your body,” Tabby said.
I nodded to Tabby. “Yeah. People who do that are kind of divided into two categories: the evil and the stupid. Maybe ‘stupid’ is too harsh a word. Naive, maybe. But still, since we can’t take your word for what you are, you’ll be suspect.”
“Just so you know,” Tabby said, “it partly has to do with you being possessed. You can never trust a demon. They lie.”
Vespa sighed. “Yeah. I found that out… So, if you are able to get this thing out of me, will my eyes go back to normal?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Just probably?” Vespa asked.
He was getting a little anxious. I could see he was starting to shake. He should be scared.
“I wouldn’t want to say ‘yes’ when I don’t know for sure. There is nothing absolute about the paranormal.” I took a deep breath. “Chances are, yes, you’ll go back to normal, but there’s always that one percent, ya know?”
Vespa calmed down a little. He’d stopped shaking. “Yeah, I know.”
###
Vespa’s house reminded me of the Brady Bunch house. It was this split-level thing. The outside was partially a slightly muted yellow, and the rest was red brick. He motioned for us to pull in and park in the driveway first. The driveway was to the left side of the house. It was connected to a single car garage. That meant him pulling behind me would have me blocked in.
I complied though because I didn’t want to piss him off, and, well, the ground was flat. If I had to, I’d just drive on the grass and get out of there.
He pulled in behind me, but not right up on the bumper or anything. None of this seemed like Vespa to me. Part of me imagined him hanging around an old Victorian mansion somewhere, not nineteen-sixty’s contemporary. His car was most surprising of all, I think. With his age, I expected him to have some old clunker. Instead, he was driving an Infinity SUV. Guess the demon had helped him—some.
Tabby and I got out of the car. There was some plant that was making my nose itch. After sneezing a few times, I closed the car door.
“I’ll get Isaac,” Tabby said.
She walked around the car, opened the back driver’s side door, and grabbed Isaac. Upon grabbing the cage, water spilled everywhere.
“Shit,” she said.
“It’s okay. Water can’t hurt anything.” It wasn’t like Isaac had taken a dump or something.
“Unless you like mold,” Nicholas said. I’d started thinking of him as Nicholas again after he stopped acting like a fuck-wad. It was almost like he had two separate personalities, demonic possession notwithstanding.
“I’ll go get you a towel,” he said and ran off toward the house.
Tabby set Isaac on the driveway. Too bad she didn’t have a leash or she could have gotten
him out of the now water-logged crate. Poor thing. He was sputtering and glaring at Tabby.
“I can’t believe I did that,” Tabby said.
I walked over and hugged her shoulders. “It’s okay. Like I said, it’s just water.”
“You don’t think Vespa was a little eccentric about it, do you?”
I shrugged. “Who knows. This is his part of the country, not ours.”
“True.”
Vespa ran back out of the house with a few white towels. He handed Tabby one, and then went to dab out the car. That was when the trouble began.
I could see through the window that Lucy was looking at him wide-eyed. He tried to just get the towel in the car, but the invisible barrier of Tabby’s wards kept him out. I wanted to cheer. At least those still worked. I had visual proof of it now.
“Let me take that,” I said. He handed over the towel, but he kept looking back and forth between me and the car.
I leaned inside and was able to wipe up the car without a problem.
“You guys are weird,” Nicholas said.
There was more to it than that. I kind of wanted to laugh. He was the one who masqueraded as I don’t know how many greats grandfather. Were we the ones who pulled off our latex make-up in the middle of a busy restaurant? But he thought we were weird. Okay. Guess it was all in the way you looked at it.
I handed him back his soggy towel.
“Let’s get everyone settled,” he said. He plastered this smile on his face that seemed too big. Too clown-like.
Poor kid was trying too hard. Or maybe his fucked up family made him think he had to turn into the famous Vespa. That would make all of this not just about an exorcism, but a personality crisis issue. I wasn’t a shrink. He’d have to find therapy on his own.
We followed him into his house. The front entry led to a sunken living room. It had kind of an open floor plan with the living room in front with a big dining room table toward the back. Off to the right of the living room area, there was this big staircase. He led us through the living room and upstairs. I swear to God if this place could look any more like the Brady Bunch house, I’d pinch myself. All that was missing was the crazy sixties colors. He took us to a bedroom. In the TV house, we would be staying in Mike and Carol’s bedroom. Funky.
“You can put your things in here. There is a bathroom across the hall. Will the cat be okay with his litter box in there?” Nicholas asked.
I blinked. “I guess so. At least when we show him where it is.”
“All right.” He walked out of the room. Just like that. I didn’t know if we should follow him or what.
I looked at Tabby. She shrugged.
“I guess we go get the rest of our shit,” I said. Boy, the welcome mat had sure been put out for us.
“Yeah, guess so,” she said.
###
Later, after we had all our stuff in the house and when Isaac was hiding under the bed in the room we’d been given, Tabby and I were seated in the living room with Nicholas. He was trying to seem relaxed, but his posture was too rigid. At least he was just as uncomfortable as we were.
“Okay,” Tabby began. “Where were you when you made the pact with the demon?”
Nick raised his hand and pointed at the floor. “In here. Move all the furniture out of the way and pull back the rug. I have a circle etched into the floor.”
There were two sofas in the living room. They were a muted sage green color and kind of modern in design. They reminded me of baby poop. The rug had these swirly designs in it, and some of the thingies were the same green as the sofas.
“Was there anyone here with you?” I asked. I knew enough about the black arts to know that practitioners didn’t necessarily have to have a coven, but with what Vespa had done, it probably would have helped. If he’d been smart, that is. I was still holding out for some evidence that he even had a brain.
“No, just me,” he said.
It wasn’t easy asking someone questions like this when we didn’t even know him. If we knew him, we might have had a clue what would trigger his memory. Right now, it was a crap shoot.
“What did you eat before doing the ritual?” Tabby asked.
“Nothing. You never work with a demon on a full stomach.”
I knew that part was probably true. Tabby had said as much before, and even the official rite of exorcism recommended fasts and prayer before beginning. After seeing what Lucy’s demon did before and during her exorcism, I was glad for my empty stomach.
“Before you did this, how often did you call a demon?” Hey, I had to ask. No one in their right mind would wake up one day out of the blue and say, “I think I’ll give my soul to a demon today.” Yeah, not going to happen.
“It took awhile for me to know the process well enough to get them to answer.”
That made sense, sort of. I bet the demons even wanted to see if he was worth their time and bother.
“If you had to guess,” Tabby said. “How long?”
“A year. Maybe more.”
Yeah. He’d been serious. And stupid. And a pain in the ass, but that was beside the point. I needed to stop dwelling on the stuff I hated about him. If I was actually going to manage to see this through, I needed to find something about him I liked. I knew that. Otherwise, there was no way I could work for days trying to drive out the demon. It was just too hard, and when the final push came, I would need something to keep me going.
“Did you sign the contract in blood?” I figured I would ask. Hell, that’s what they do in movies.
He blinked. “No, I just agreed to it.”
“A verbal contract then.” I still couldn’t believe that there wasn’t some sort of demonic file reporting in Hell for all the contracts and such, but I wasn’t going to go to Hell to ask either.
“In our world, a verbal contract is hard to prove in court,” Tabby said.
I leaned back on the sofa. “Why do I have a feeling that Hell has scribes copying down everything a demon needs recorded?”
Nicholas started laughing. “You are a funny man.”
I was lost on what was funny. Tabby wasn’t laughing either. Social grace was not one of Nick’s strong points.
“Okay. Mind explaining how this works?” I asked him.
“All I know is that when I agreed to the demon’s demands, he entered my body.”
That was really helpful. About as helpful as saying you needed meat to make a hamburger. I really wanted to roll my eyes.
“Do you remember how?” Tabby asked.
“Not really. Everything went black, and I was out for a few hours.”
Great. Crap going black told me nothing. If it were me, I’d be trying to figure out anything, as far-fetched as it may sound, that might be helpful. Nick, however, seemed either not too bright, or just simple. Of course, there was the possibility that he called us out here, but he wasn’t ready for the help—almost like an addict. If that were the case, I was going to be pissed. Being an exorcist was going to drive me to drink.
“Well, we’ll try again later,” Tabby said.
Vespa nodded.
He was starting to remind me of a bobble-head. No wonder the demon could take residence so easily.
“So, now what?” I asked. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. If I had more research to do, that would be different, but I couldn’t research shit until I got more information out of him. And since he was information incompetent, I was screwed.
I missed Doc. Part of me understood why he wasn’t showing himself, but it was still kind of hard. I’d gotten used to his wit. And it had just about broke my heart that Lucy was stuck out in the car, but what else could I do? It wasn’t like we could trust Vespa’s demon. I really wasn’t looking forward to this exorcism.
###
Later that night, after Tabby and I retired to the bedroom for the evening, Tabby set about warding the room. I was glad she was doing it. We needed one safe place to retire. And I needed a place where I could think without
having to worry about everything else that could happen while we were asleep.
“So, when you do the exorcism, where are you going to do it?” Tabby asked.
I paused. That was a damn good question. With Lucy, I’d tried doing it in her bedroom. That didn’t work. What worked was doing the exorcism in the area where she’d found the mirror the demon had been trapped in. Well, “worked” was one way to put it. More like something was accomplished. I didn’t view it as a successful exorcism. If it had been successful, Lucy wouldn’t be with me now. No, I just saved her soul. For some priests, that would have been enough. But it wasn’t enough for me.
But Vespa hadn’t been fooled by a trapped demon in an object. That made everything different. Well, that and the fact that he called the demon to come to him. This house wasn’t having quasi-haunted phenomena, so I wasn’t sure if there really was a heart in this house. That meant the best option was wherever Vespa was comfortable. “I guess we’ll do it in the living room. That’s where Vespa allowed the demon in.”
“But a living room?”
I shrugged. I knew it sounded doofy, but I hadn’t picked Vespa’s demon-working room either. “I’m not sure we have a choice.”
“How are you going to secure him in there?”
She was right. The living room was one of the most open rooms in the house. This was going to be so much fun. I steeled myself. “I’ll just have to be creative,” I said. “Too bad I doubt he has a big industrial-sized freezer.”
“Might be a good idea to actually plan it out, ya know? Instead of arranging it on the day you need it.”
She had a point. We’d done what we did with Lucy because it was a spur of the moment thing. This time, I pretty much knew where we were going to do the exorcism. I just needed to know how I was going to restrain Vespa, how I was going to prepare the room, and what to do if it didn’t work. I needed an escape plan for Tabby and I that was better than driving away over the lawn. I needed a planner.
Still, that didn’t help me now. I needed to come up with something that would work. Maybe Tabby could make a charm that would automatically ward the front door—maybe all the doors for that matter. It could keep Vespa in, but let me, Tabby, and Isaac out. That had possibilities.