He turned to me. "So, what else you want to know?"
It took me a minute. I probably should have made a list. "Is there anything I can do to keep Asmodeus away from Lucy?"
He adjusted himself and balanced his foot on the opposite knee. "Near as I can tell, you already did that. I stopped and saw Miss Lucy before I came in here. Kid was right as rain."
"Really?" Finally, something I did was right. It would be forgotten when I screwed something else up, but at least I’d helped Lucy again.
"Yup," Doc said.
So, the demon talk worked, but at what cost? It wasn't like any of them could be trusted, and I still trusted Vespa's demon least of all. He was a sneaky bastard. And the big guy, well, who knew what he would do. "So, what if Satan decides to come investigate?"
"You better hope that doesn't happen,” Doc said. “I have no advice for that."
Of course he didn't. He was a ghost, not a paranormal specialist or anything. I was asking a lot of him. It was probably time to stop. Let him do his thing for a change instead of jumping around to my whims.
"Thanks, Doc, for all your help," I said.
"Any time. I think I'll go see what Miss Lucy's up to." He stood up and nodded.
"You do that," Tabby said and smiled.
Doc disappeared.
"So, I guess we can gear up for the exorcism?" I asked. I didn’t feel comfortable, but I wasn’t sure if anything would make me feel better now. Things had gotten too crazy.
"That's what it looks like." She looked at me. Her eyes seemed to be assessing whether I was about to fall apart.
"I hate this part," I said.
Tabby patted me on the shoulder.
I wasn't lying. Some people might think that having permission from God to fight demons would be really cool. It wasn't. Especially when you did everything you could, fought as hard as you could, and the kid still died because the demon was that evil. I needed a vacation from my problems and anything that was stressful.
Doc had given me a few things to think about though. No, I hadn't tried to mark a live person, and I never would. I remembered how it all went down at Lucy’s exorcism. The power that flowed through me trying to fight the demon, and then, when she was felled, instinct took me to her. The magic only worked when Lucy died, and I'd been lucky enough that I marked her in time. It seemed a small thing that her body started breathing again after her mark took. The longer this took, though, the more it seemed like Lucy never would go back to her real body. That pissed me off. She was a sweet kid, dammit. She didn't deserve to lose her life this young.
"Why don't you try to get some sleep?" Tabby asked.
She fluffed my pillow and patted it. I laid down beside her. The warmth of her body pressed close to mine felt so good. I'd missed having her next to me.
###
Part of preparing for an exorcism was getting in the mindset to even be able to do it. Everything else was secondary. You had to cut off some of the emotion, force everything that could go wrong from your mind, and try to imagine that your faith was your armor.
It wasn't like you could march into the room of the possessed person with a boomstick like the guy in those movies with Bruce Campbell. I wish it were that easy.
A lot of an exorcism isn't even physical. You had to keep your wits about you. The demon will lie and take everything it can dig up about your life and turn it on its head. Even the good things could be distorted.
You had to be strong enough to take having your past shoved in your face and made ugly. You had to be bull headed enough to keep after it until it was finished, no matter what happened. And, above all else, you had to somehow keep your faith in God when you're handed a shit sandwich. I guess that's what made me an exorcist.
Part of me wanted to laugh at the people who read books about hot demons. Demons are foul things that stink. And they were never nice. Or rather, they would pretend to be your friend so you'd get close enough so that they could really fuck you up.
"Are you okay?" Tabby asked.
I looked over at her. Trying to sleep was pointless. I wasn’t going to make it. I’d been up half the night. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Moping about everything?"
I snorted. "Yeah."
"Try to get your head out of the low lying clouds. Nobody said you had to do the exorcism today, you know?"
She was right. I had no specific time frame. That was probably a good thing. "Yeah. True."
"Besides, we have to figure out how to outfit the house. Ward that large living room so Mr. Demon can't bring in furniture to hurt us."
That was going to take awhile. I wasn’t a mathematical kind of guy, and all of this was making my brain hurt. "Why not just make a really big circle around us and Vespa chained to the floor?"
She blinked. "Or that too."
Maybe my simple brain came in handy after all. "We'll have to get rid of his fucking circle."
I wasn’t looking forward to that. With the silver implanted into the floor, it was going to require manual labor.
She leaned back against the pillows. "I forgot about that."
I knew it was going to take more than ripping up the circle. There had to be some anti-magic stuff that had to be done to it too. "How would we do that? I mean, I'm sure it's going to take a hell of a lot more than a belt sander."
She shrugged. "Really, all you need is a chisel and some holy water. We damage the circle and bless it, and it will be just a floor again."
There I went again, making things harder than they needed to be. "I have a feeling we'll need to figure out how to do that under Vespa's nose. I can't see the demon lying aside while we destroy the circle."
"Okay. Relax. We still have a list of stuff to do to prepare," she said.
I could tell I was driving her up the wall. My nervousness was translating into not being able to do anything, and since she shared the bedroom with me, if I wasn’t getting any sleep, she wasn’t either. The least I could do was be nice to her. I had Vespa to take my frustration out on. "I'm glad."
"I know you are."
###
We got dressed, gave Isaac some water, and went downstairs. There was no sense in putting off the inevitable. Vespa was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.
"Are you okay?" Tabby asked.
He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. "No, I didn't sleep."
At least I wasn’t the only one, but what kept him up? "At all?"
"No. He wouldn't let me." He leaned back on the sofa. His skin had a kind of pasty look to it.
Uh huh. I wasn't surprised. The whole thing was amping up. I knew it. I'd known it all along. I'd just been a little too much of a chicken to admit it. If the demon was starting to mess with Vespa’s health, that meant he wanted another host. Tormenting Vespa would be enough to get under my skin.
"Let me guess, he's telling you to kill us," I said.
He looked up and stared at me in shock. "How did you know?"
"It's what they do." Asmodeus had threatened my life multiple times during my stay at Blackmoor. I kind of knew about this stuff.
"Oh, Jesus, " he said.
I had a feeling that killing me wasn't what was keeping him up. I was only on his radar because I could do something for him. Really, he was so upset because Mr. Demon was talking about him killing Tabby. His love for her might actually be helpful. If he could just keep his backbone, he might even be able to help us fight the demon. But I wasn't holding my breath.
"I don't know how much longer I can do this," he said.
Whine, whine whine whine whine! Shit. I hated to think how he’d react if he suddenly got a serious illness. I walked over and sat down beside him. "Listen, you know we are coming up with a game plan. Don't think we're here doing nothing. Everything you tell us, we catalogue and use to figure out what direction everything is going to take."
"Really?" He eyes were pleading with me.
"Yup. We aren't all this way from home for nothing, you know?" Though,
at times, I felt like that, but I wasn’t about to tell him about it.
He nodded.
Looked like I had more work to do. The exorcism was going forward. Yeah, I didn't have to do it today, but the timeframe had just been amped up. I needed to stop thinking about me and get this done. I'd pussyfooted long enough.
"You have that look," Tabby said.
"I know."
She smiled. "I like it."
Truth was, I did too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW YOU REMIND ME
“Why don’t we just do breakfast here today?” Tabby asked. Maybe her charm would make him change his mind about the outside dining issue.
Nick looked at her. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Oh, good God. This was fucking ridiculous. “Okay. I’ll bite. Why don’t you want food cooked in the house?”
He took a deep breath. “Because ever since the demon has been in me, any food cooked in this house turns into bugs or rats.”
Okay. That made sense. Now, why couldn’t he have just come out and said it? Oy vey.
“Have you tried someone else cooking it?” Tabby asked.
Vespa nodded. “Yeah. My sister was over here before you came. She tried. You don’t even want to know what happened to that food.”
It was interesting. I had to wonder what it was about food that the demon didn’t like. It wasn’t keeping Nick from eating, or else it wouldn’t let him eat out. And, because he wanted use of Nick’s body, it made sense for the demon to keep him healthy. At least until I came along, that is. Strange is what it was.
“Okay, let me get my purse, and we’ll go get some breakfast,” Tabby said.
I swear, when we got home, I wasn’t eating out for a month.
After she left, Nick turned to me. “I don’t think I have a chance with her, do I?”
“Probably not. I mean, she and I, well, we’re practically engaged.” It’s about time he asked.
“You are so lucky,” he said.
“To have her, sure. But, I wouldn’t call myself lucky. Not with the job I have.” That and my penchant for bad luck, but who was counting?
“What’s it like?” he asked. “Being an exorcist?”
I closed my eyes for a minute, trying to figure out what I was going to say. “It’s hard. It’s emotionally draining.” I didn’t want to get into specifics. Last thing I needed to do was give his demon something to use during the course of the exorcism.
“How do you do it?” Vespa leaned toward me. He was almost a little too interested.
“Perform exorcisms? Or be an exorcist?” They weren’t the same thing. You could technically be an exorcist without even having to perform an exorcism, especially if you were with the Church.
“Be an exorcist,” he said.
Damn. I hoped I hadn’t just given him a bright idea what to do with his life after I got him unpossessed. He was used to faking people by being a spiritualist. Taking on the guise of an exorcist wouldn’t be far out of his comfort zone. “I just do it. I’m kind of stubborn, so that helps.”
Tabby came back downstairs. “We ready?” she asked.
I stood up. “When you are.”
I looked at Nick. “Lead on.”
###
When we got into the car, Lucy and Doc were playing a game in the backseat. It was kind of sweet really, Doc finally having a kid he could call his own. I wasn’t sure if he had kids while he was alive, but back in those days, he wasn’t exactly sticking around home. He’d been out traveling the West, gambling and participating in gunfights.
“What is the plan, boy?” Doc asked me.
I turned around in the seat a little. “We’re grabbing some breakfast. Then, I have to figure out how to prepare the house for an exorcism.” I turned back and started the car.
Doc was quiet for a minute. “Don’t forget to check out the basement.”
I heard a pop and looked in the rear-view mirror. Doc was gone, and Lucy was frowning.
“You messed up our game,” she said. She sounded so dejected.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m sure he’ll be back,” I said. I hadn’t meant to mess up her morning, but Doc, I’m sure, had needed to do what he went off to do.
She nodded, then started coloring in a coloring book Tabby had bought her. It was kind of strange to see a crayon move by itself, but I was really used to strange by now.
“So, now we have to check out a basement,” Tabby said.
“Why do I have a feeling Vespa lied again?” If it hadn’t been for Doc, I would have been so screwed. Another lie? I wasn’t surprised. Lying seemed to be one of the things that Nick did best.
“But about what?” Tabby was staring out the window.
“The floor.” It was all so simple. Slowly, ideas were forming in my brain.
“What floor? You aren’t making any sense.”
I pulled into the parking spot at the diner in Tombstone. It was weird to be coming back here, but it wasn’t like I didn’t miss it either. “What if the living room isn’t where he does the demon stuff? I mean, wouldn’t the whole house feel like the attic room at Blackmoor?”
In fact, I never felt any creepiness at all in Vespa’s house. One would think that the mere presence of the demon would make the whole house have a different feel, but I didn’t feel a thing unless I was standing next to Nick. Very weird.
“I never thought about it, but yeah.”
“Now, I don’t know what that circle on the floor in the living room is for, but it sure isn’t the heart of the house.” I knew our time in the car was growing short. We had to get out there and deal with Nick.
“So, that’s what Doc meant about the basement?”
I opened the car door. “Probably.”
###
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go down to the basement right away. I needed to know the layout of the place and get all the crap out of that room before we could even think about an exorcism, but that meant confronting Nick. I wasn’t sure if now was the time to do that. I mean, yeah, I needed to get all of this over and done with, but I’d rather not pick a fight either.
We were on the way back to the house after breakfast when suddenly the car froze. Literally. Nothing moved, not the scenery, not the clock. Tabby was stuck in mid-motion of tucking her hair behind her ear. Lucy was frozen, looking vacant toward the back of my head. I looked around. I didn’t feel dead.
I looked outside the car. Vespa’s car was frozen in front of me. The scenery was almost as if it were in a high-quality photograph. Even the leaves on the trees were frozen mid-sway. My stomach felt like it was being pulled in on itself. It wasn’t exactly painful. It was just a strange sort of pressure.
“So, I understand that one of my… wards has been naughty.”
I jumped and looked in the backseat. The car felt warm all of a sudden. A man was seated next to Lucy. He looked to be around thirty with black hair long enough to brush his shoulders. His skin had an olive cast to it. He smiled at me. That’s when I saw the fangs.
Oh crap. I’d just landed in a whopping pile of shit. I couldn’t not answer him. “If you’re talking about Asmodeus, then yes.”
He sat there for a minute, not saying anything to me. He opened the car door and motioned for me to follow. I didn’t want to, but my body did what he wanted anyway. My arm left the steering wheel and opened the door while my feet brushed the pedals. My body got out of the car on its own. I felt like a puppet.
“I have problems with that one,” he said and walked over to a tree in someone’s yard. He snapped off a smaller sized branch. “Thank you for alerting me.”
I nodded. This was so many levels of uncool. Getting to meet the Devil was never one of my great plans in life. And there was no doubt that this was the real thing. He felt completely wrong, and yet, he was being so very polite. No wonder he was considered the great charmer.
“Now, what is it you want in return?” he asked.
I k
new better than to make any requests, any agreements. If I hadn’t been a stronger man, I’d have asked him to put Lucy to rights, but that was up to God, not me. “Nothing. I am just protecting my ward. I know that you and he,” I pointed to the sky, “have a lot of negotiations to complete concerning her. Asmodeus interfering wasn’t supposed to happen.”
He smiled at me again. “Not all of us are quite so bad.”
Oh, he was a charmer all right. The Father of Lies was a very good name for him. I had to be so careful.
“But Asmodeus is getting a bit ahead of himself. I will deal with him—permanently.”
Shivers ran down my spine. Being dealt with by the Devil personally was a whole other level of bad I dared not think about. Good thing I didn’t have any intentions of doing something that would put me in that type of situation. Then again, I doubted anyone actually planned to be in that kind of position.
Suddenly, he wrapped his hands around the little branch and fire whisked over it. Instead of a pile of ash, as I’d been expecting, there was what looked like a wand. Intricate swirls were charred into the wood. He handed it toward me.
“Give this to your lady friend. She may find it useful.”
It was almost pretty. The charring seemed to grapevine around the wand. “No strings attached? This is not a contract of any sort?” I wanted to make sure. No way was I going to take this thing if it meant something else.
He started to laugh. It was a deep laugh, just as charming as the rest of him. “No. God has his own special plans for you and your lady friend. This is a useful gift. I cannot have an outstanding debt.”
Ah, because I hadn’t requested anything, he had to even up the score. Asmodeus must have had his fingers in too many cookie jars. Kind of interesting, getting a tool from the Devil.
I took the wand from him. It was a lot heavier than it looked.
“I like you, Jimmy Holiday,” he said. “Be careful.”
He just started walking away. The further he got from me, the harder it was to see him. I got back in the car and put the wand in Tabby’s lap.
Suddenly, time sped up to normal. I found myself having to step on the gas so that the car could continue moving forward.