Demonologist (42 page)

His body held an infinite number of scars from the transforming changes it had undergone: skin ripped to shreds, bleeding profusely, meaty strips dangling like ribbons; hair, disintegrated into a
weblike
matter; muscles torn and emaciated; bones, jutting crookedly as though the consequence of improper healing.

He stared at the priest. Grinned. “Care to sprinkle your holy piss on me again, Father?”

Danto cowered, a hand on each of the women lying prone to
Allieb’s
potential wrath; Kristin was still motionless. Rebecca writhed as though in seizure. “May the lord, Jesus Christ strike—”

“Fuck you and your Lord!” he howled. “My brother Belial is with me…he chooses not to return to the Devil’s domain!”

Danto trembled, perceiving a slight movement behind Allieb.

Allieb grinned, moving forward, feral breath hot and stinking in Danto’s face. “Why don’t you cop a feel on the ladies while you’ve got your hands on them? You know you want to—you’ve whacked off in the privacy of your holy rectory more than a few times, thinking of those hot bitches and the lapping tongues they display for you during communion. You know you have, Father.”

Suddenly, Satan appeared behind Allieb. The demonologist sensed his presence, darted around, but all too late to defend himself from the Prince of Darkness.

Satan, now towering over
Allieb’s
human form, seethed, “Give me back my demon.”

~ * ~

“Or what?” Bev pleaded with the boy.

“Death.”

“Which would mean that you would have to die too?”

The boy nodded, then said, “I’ve been dead for a long time already.”

Suddenly, the Hell around them quaked. The walls of the towering edifice crumbled down and vanished into blue dust, revealing the demon Belial, who, like Bev and the boy, seemed just as stunned to have had the world disintegrate into nothingness.

The skies turned from red to gray. The clouds of the churning storm split open, revealing a chasm like a gaping wound. From within, a giant clawed fist emerged, reaching down and snatching the demon Belial from its place in
Allieb’s
concept of Hell. The claw twisted and turned while holding the howling demon, then pulled back into the void that had become of the environment, and disappeared, taking the demon with it.

~ * ~

With no forewarning, Satan’s fist burst out of
Allieb’s
back. It remained there, finalizing its deadly intention, gouts of gore and splinters of spine rupturing as it twisted and turned. Allieb choked, coughed, strings of blood spewing from his mouth. Satan pulled His fist back, red spouts arcing onto the floor.

Allieb collapsed into a trembling heap.

Kristin had come to, crying, looking at the fire which was spreading throughout the room. She sat up in a panic. Danto grasped her arm, then looked down at Rebecca, whose eyes were still open. Her ashen face was still that of…

“Mom?” Kristin said. “Oh…my God…” She loomed over Rebecca, who was barely conscious, blood pouring from the wound in her chest, drenching her midsection. “Mom…Mom!” Tears exploded from her eyes. She shook uncontrollably, blue veins of sorrow and disbelief swelling in her neck. “It’s my mother!” she yelled, swollen eyes pinning the priest whom she never met.

“The fire…” Danto replied, pulling frantically on her arm. “We must go!”

She jerked away. “I recognize her from the photographs!” she sobbed.

“It’s not your mother!” Danto yelled, eyes now burning from the smoke wafting his face.

“She’s alive…we have to get her out of here!”

Danto reluctantly agreed, despite knowing their efforts would be in vain: Rebecca’s fate had already been sealed, her purpose to carry Julianne’s soul to the drawing and guide Bev through fulfilled.

Danto heard an odd voice, like amplified words on a backwards running tape. He turned.

Kristin looked up at the priest, then past the twitching body of the demonologist, toward Satan. The Devil was kneeling before Allieb, palms turned upwards in prayer. From
Allieb’s
eyes came thick funnel-shaped shadows, coalescing into a single swirling ball floating ghostlike in front of His face. It began to whirl like a tiny tornado, then shot forcefully into the gulping mouth of Satan. The Devil fell back in His first outward display of instability.

And then, something mind-boggling happened. The burning house began to shake, as though caught at the epicenter of a massive earthquake. The ceiling splintered, threatening a full collapse upon those still in the room: Danto, Rebecca, Kristin, Allieb, and Satan. The murderous pounding produced huge holes in the walls, wood splinters exploding outwardly toward the cooking massacre at the center of the cathedral. All this while, the entity that had been Satan regressed into Bev
Mathers
. His body
spasmed
crazily, the great horns shrinking back into his skull, the tail thinning, transforming into segmented bone and vanishing into his spinal column like a retracting tape measure. His bones creaked noisily, muscles stretching with the ghastly sound of tearing cloth. His countenance reverted from Satan’s grotesquery to Bev’s familiar persona, the bones of his skull shifting
pliably
beneath his paling skin. And the groans: emanating from his throat, they started as deep growls but eventually tapered down into those of a man in bitter agony. In a matter of a minute, Bev
Mathers
had rematerialized, laying naked and shivering on the wooden floor of In Domo.

Danto and Kristin hurried to him. His eyes fluttered, then peered up at them. “Where am I?” he managed.

“In a burning house,” Danto yelled over the crackling flames that were approaching them. “Can you walk? We’ve got to get out of here.”

Bev stretched out his limbs—they were swathed in clear goo. He winced. “I think so.”

“C’mon,” Danto said, helping him to rise. Kristin supported him from the other side, an arm wrapped tightly around his waist. She grimaced, in a great deal of pain herself. Bev looked at her curiously. “Kristin?”

“I’ll explain later,” she said.

“Let’s go,” Danto shouted.

“Wait…what about Mom?” Kristin held back.

Mom?

They all turned. Saw Allieb.

He was still alive.

Despite his wounds, he had risen to his knees. He was peering down at the gaping hole in his chest, hands trembling, trying to shove back in the stew of organs sliding out of him. When he brought his gaze back up, they could see tears soaking his eyes.

His human eyes.

He began to whimper, not in the strident voice of a demon, nor even that of a man’s.

He wept in the high-pitched intonation of a young boy, one perhaps six or seven years of age.

Recovering some strength in his body, Bev broke away from his easing support and tottered unsteadily toward Allieb.

“Bev…don’t,” Danto pleaded. “It’s a trick!”

Bev replied confidently, “No, it’s not.” He approached Allieb, took his bloody hand, and locked his gaze. Recognition filled his tortured eyes.

“Thank you,” Bev said. “I am forever grateful for your sacrifice.”

Allieb sobbed, then blurted through his distorted lips, “I don’t want to die. I’m too young...I want another chance…”

“What is your name?” Bev asked.

“Ah…Ahmed,” he sputtered, blood squirting from his mouth. He
tremored
once, then collapsed to the floor in a sudden lifeless heap, guts unfurling from his injuries.

Danto hurried over and grabbed Bev by the bicep, tugged.

Bev did not move.

His eyes were suddenly pinned on the female body six feet away. He pulled away from Danto, stumbled anxiously to her. He kneeled down beside her.

“Oh my God,” he said.

Julianne
.

Danto and Kristin rushed forward and stood alongside him, also staring down at her.

Her eyes were open, shuddering in slits. A steady flow of blood pooled from her mouth. She shivered uncontrollably, the words dispersing unevenly from her blue lips. “Bev…it’s over…”

He ran his hands through her matted hair, then along her cold, wet face. He grasped her flaccid hand. “Julianne…”

“You must go now,” she said. “Live the rest of your life in peace. It is over…I have redeemed myself.”

“You have,” he blurted, sobs filling his throat. “Thank you, thank you, my love.”

And then she stopped shivering, eyes staring lifelessly into the void. Bev turned and looked up at Danto. “My wife,” he said. “She was in there with me. She helped me find the boy. She too has made the ultimate sacrifice.”

The priest, eyes heedfully aimed toward the flames and billowing smoke, motioned with his head that it was time to leave.

When Bev looked back down, it was Rebecca
Haviland
that lay dead on the floor.

Danto added, “And so has Rebecca.”

With no time for introspection, Bev stood up on weakened legs. He gazed momentarily at Rebecca, and thanked her as well.

Then, along with Father Thomas Danto, and Kristin, he hurriedly fled the burning walls of
In Domo
.

Someone had taken the limo. No surprise.

Danto spotted a black robe at the edge of the fountain. He retrieved it and handed it to Bev, who shrouded his nakedness despite it being soaking wet. The robe looked familiar to him.
There was one in the trunk in Kristin’s office
.

The front gates were open, thankfully, although they still had to pass by the detective’s riddled corpse, which had been rained on and pecked at by crows for a good part of the night.
I know this man
, Bev thought, seeing pieces of recognition in his battered face.

They exited the gates. From the road, they could see the flames quickly spreading throughout the house, the windows filling with a glimmering orange glow.

As quickly as possible, they fled
In Domo
, making it only three blocks before sirens could be heard in the distance. They hunkered down behind a row of hedges as fire engines and police cruisers passed them by on their way to what would undoubtedly be coined in the papers as a “mass cult suicide,” or something along those lines.

“How are you doing?” Danto asked Bev, his voice an expended, raspy whisper.

“In pain. My joints.”

“We should get you to a hospital.”

He shook his head. “Just need some rest.”

A moment of uncertain silence passed. Then, Danto said, “About a mile from here is the Hollywood Hills Motor Inn. Can you make it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Danto shook his head. “I don’t think so. Kristin, can you make it?”

“I’m okay,” she said calmly, gazing warily at her father.

“Let’s go, then.”

~ * ~

As inconspicuously as their exhausted pace would allow, they gradually passed through the dark and quiet streets of Hollywood Hills. The journey seemed endless, their gaits slowed by pains and injuries. They kept mostly to the sidewalks, crouching down and hiding behind trees and bushes when fire trucks, ambulances, and police cruisers sped by. Danto led the way, continuing in a downhill direction, passing fenced-in homes on either sides of them whose mostly dark, silent windows were a welcome relief to the night’s overwhelming events. Danto kept glancing over at Bev, whose face sat in grim expression, the pain evident in his features. Danto delved for something intelligent or comforting to say, but elected on silence instead, unable to formulate an idea as to how Bev was actually feeling.