Fear No Evil (37 page)

We had company.

Dan didn’t pause, his grip on my hand staying firm even as my fingers began to tremble.

‘By the divine power of God, cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits who roam throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls…’

A crash. A sloshing sound as the water spilled from the cooler, spreading to reach our legs. I jumped as it soaked into my jeans, ice cold on my skin. The sound of small feet splashing towards us.

‘Amen,’ said Justin and Betty, followed hastily by me and Will.

‘In the name of Jesus, say your name. In the name of Jesus, if you are present, show yourself.’

Childish giggling. Like Satan’s nursery, demonic toddlers chortling as they pull the wings off flies. The slamming of doors all over the building, an orchestra of bangs floating from all around us.

Dan leaped to his feet and we all followed. Justin and Betty held firm to their crosses. I held even firmer to my water pistol.

‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Demon, show yourself!’ Dan shouted, his teeth chattering slightly in the sub-zero climate.

The banging stopped. The laughing ceased abruptly, like someone had turned the radio off.

Will suddenly slumped to the floor, knocking his head as he went down. Dan ignored him and carried on reciting words in a language I couldn’t understand but knew was Latin. I dashed to Will’s side, kneeling down next to him with Betty.

She cradled his head in her lap, her voice calm and soothing as she called his name. His eyes flickered open.

‘I’m okay,’ he said, embarrassed, ‘I think I… I just fainted…’

On the final word, his head jerked back and his whole body went rigid and started to shake. Vibrating like he was lying on a super-size washing machine. His fingers flapped, banging onto the wooden floors, making an unhealthy crunching noise as bone slammed against solid ground. I may be a novice when it comes to exorcisms, but that didn’t look good.

Betty pulled his eyelids back – nothing but shining white orbs. She laid him down gently, and stood up, backing away. If she was doing that, I knew it was a good idea, and did the same. Justin stood nearby, his face grim and… greedy. Like Will had something he wanted.

Will’s body was still shaking, and started to rise from the floor, levitating inches into the air, water from the cooler dripping from his clothes and splashing onto the ground. His lips were blue with the cold, twisted into a sneer. Holy fuck. I realised we’d found our demon.

‘Your name, Demon!’ Dan yelled, getting close enough to touch him, skimming a hand over his torso.

Will crumpled to the floor, then straightened up and stood tall. Taller than he usually was. Tall enough to tower over Dan and Betty and possibly Michael Jordan.

‘I have many names, priest. And this body is mine.’

He sprinted for the stairs, so fast he was a blur of movement, leaving a trail of water behind him. It froze into ice-crystals, a kind of Demonic slug trail heading towards the steps. Dan headed the chase, me and Justin right behind, Betty following. I rubbed my hands together against the cold, losing sensation in my fingers.

Chanting bounced off the walls as we dashed behind him. ‘Chase! Chase! Chase! He’s it, you’re it, we’re it…
run!’

Demon Will was too quick for us. He was superhuman, and not at all the man I’d seen in a pinny baking cookies a few days earlier. All we could do was follow, air gasping from our frozen lips, cold breath chilling our lungs as our legs pumped up the endless flights of stairs. Past Geneva’s room. Past Joy’s. Right to the top of the building.

He slammed through a service door, and we tumbled behind him. I was exhausted, my brain screaming for more oxygen, my chilled muscles shrieking with pain.

The roof. Desolate, dark and windswept. The red brick turrets and fake castle walls surrounded us. There was debris – discarded bricks, plastic containers, a shattered umbrella, litter howling around our feet in the wind. I glanced down at the street below. The treetops were still. The weather up here was just for us. My eye was snagged by a flash of white; I whirled to follow it, but found nothing. Just an impression, a visual memory: ragged, dirty clothes, flapping in the breeze.

The singing again. ‘A-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down.’ I could see the traffic down below, orange headlights glowing in the dark. Should have been able to hear it too, but couldn’t. Silence, apart from those ghoulish giggles and a song about the bubonic plague.

I felt something hit my ankles, sharp and hard, like a wrap of wet rope.

‘Skip, silly!’ said a little voice, prodding me in the back. I ignored it, and the non-existent rope kept slapping into my leg, harder each time.

Will stopped at the very edge of the low-slung castle walls, throwing his arms into the air as we approached.

‘Stop, or I’ll kill him!’ he said. The voice was Will’s own, but laced with the echo of dozens of others, like it was reaching us through a distortion chamber, layer upon layer of childish vocal chords on top of Will’s bass note. We all stopped dead. This wasn’t Will. But the bastard still had Will’s body, and he was going to want it back at some point.

‘Or maybe…’ said the voice. Voices. ‘Maybe you don’t care about him… I can see right inside him, and he’s not very nice, you know, this current Deerborne? Not very nice at all. He has secrets. Dirty ones. I wouldn’t play with him if I were you.’

I tiptoed forward in baby steps, ignoring the constant whack of the rope and the laughing children’s voices around me. A rotting plank of wood lay lengthways on an oil can, bouncing back and forth as two unseen kids shouted the words to see-saw, Margery daw, litter swirling around in a mini typhoon. Christ. If ever I’d been tempted by motherhood, this was enough to put me off.

‘You!’ he growled, pointing one finger at me. ‘Come no closer, whore!’

I froze. It stared in my direction, blind eyes glaring in the darkness. I felt a warmth creeping over me, fingers of heat probing my mind like a mental massage.

Will threw his head back and laughed.

‘Oh, poor little girl. Poor little Tish. I remember her well – pretty thing with her camera? Gone now. All gone.’

A gust of wind swirled up, blowing a broken deckchair at Justin’s ankles. He kicked it away. Dan continued to chant, holding his Bible before him like a shield.

‘Jayne! Help me!’ said Tish’s voice. Coming from Will’s lips. A beat later, dozens of other voices echoed it: boys, girls, all mimicking the sound of Tish begging me for help. My heart contracted, skipped a beat at the sound. I knew it wasn’t really her but… God, it was so much like her.

‘Please help me!’ it said; Tish said. ‘It hurts so much! Why aren’t you here, Jayne? Help me!’

I knew it wasn’t Will doing this. He’d never purposely hurt me. But it stung so much harder to hear those words coming out of a friend’s mouth.

The chorus followed, and even the skipping rope went still as they repeated it over and over – Tish’s pleas in a dozen different voices. I gulped, clenched my eyes so tears didn’t come. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt, all my guilt and fears about the way she’d died engulfing me. But I was also… angry. Very angry.

The voices around me launched as one into a version of ‘Oranges and Lemons’, the youthful sound of their singing so innocent, so carefree. So dead.

They reached the last line, yelling the final word: ‘And we’ll chop off her
head
!’

Will clutched at his throat, blood pouring between his fingertips, streaming down his chest and legs, pumping out like a burst pipe. For a second I saw Tish’s fine golden features stretched across Will’s face, blue eyes piercing my heart as she stared out into the darkness and filth of her last few moments on earth. My knees started to buckle, and Betty held me from behind.

‘Demon – you will leave! In the name of our Redeemer, I command you to leave!’ said Dan, striding closer to Will’s body.

The blood had gone. Maybe it was never there.

‘God doesn’t listen to you, Priest – not any more! With your pathetic prayers and your false piety… he has no love for you! Your God has no time for killers. For murderers. For those who take the lives of the innocent.’

Dan paled, and I knew he was thinking of Emily, lying in her hospital bed. Oh please God, I prayed, keep Dan strong. Keep Dan whole. Keep us all safe. Kick this nasty Demon ass on our behalf, oh Lord, and I’ll go to Mass every week for the rest of my bloody life…

‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to leave!’ he said, thrusting the good book forward.

It burst into flames, sparks whooshing into the dark night air, and Dan dropped it, rubbing his singed fingers against his legs. A pile of ash on the floor, little footmarks running in and out of it. Again, the thing in the corner of my eye: the swirling of torn fabric, the tails of old coats, the trailing ribbon of a bonnet, all there but impossible to see face on.

Will laughed, teetering closer to the edge of the brickwork.

‘You have no dominion, Priest,’ he said, climbing up onto the wall and wavering backwards as the gale howled around him. Shit. This was it. Now or never, or Will Deerborne, the poor floppy-haired fool, was going to take a crash landing. He smiled and leaned back, dropping from sight. I dashed forward, flung myself as hard as I could to reach him. Except he hadn’t gone anywhere.

There was a small ledge on the other side, and Will was crouched down on it, eyes still white, inches from mine. He made a ‘shhhh!’ gesture with his fingers, like we were playing hide-and-seek, then grabbed my outstretched arm and tugged me over. I started to fall, feeling the cold kiss of gravity as my legs tumbled over my head. I reached up, hooked the edge of the ledge with my fingertips. Demon Will watched, smiling, and I closed my eyes, expected the sharp stamp of his boots on my hands.

Instead, he vaulted back over the ledge and onto the roof. My arms were trembling with the fatigue of holding my own body weight, and I felt my grip loosening, nails tearing from my fingertips as I tried to get a better grip. I prayed. Like I’d never prayed before. For me, for Tish, for everyone on that rooftop, for my family… for a quick death, even if I knew I couldn’t have a painless one. For all the things I’d done wrong. For all the things I’d never done at all. Most of all, for a place in heaven. Because now? I believed. I really believed.

Hands reached over, getting a firm grip of my aching wrists, and pulled. I snapped myself out of my self-delivered last rites, and tried to help, throwing my leg up and over until I was able to hoist myself higher. Another tug, and I flopped over the wall and back onto the windswept roof. I tumbled to a heap on the litter-strewn floor. An old Coke can digging into my backside, but it was a huge improvement on dangling off the edge. I looked up. Dan, staring at me like I was back from the dead. Almost, I thought, almost. I scrambled back to my feet, wobbling as the blood flowed back through my veins, my eyes locked onto his.

Will was lying in a crumpled heap, as though all the bones had been taken from his body. While I’d been cringing on the ledge, the demon had exited his body. I started towards him but was interrupted by Betty’s cry.

‘Justin!’ she yelled, and we whirled around. He’d been standing by the door, blocking anyone’s exit, a wall of bulk against a world of evil. His eyes rolled, and his teeth clamped together so hard he must have bit his own tongue, blood seeping through his lips. I was no expert, but even I could tell the demon had moved on to Justin.

Dan strode towards him, eyes blazing, rosary wrapped around his fingers. He was having to strain to move, like he was leaning into a blizzard, and I noticed his jacket stretching out behind him, held by hands I couldn’t see.

‘In the name of Jesus, I say your names,’ he boomed. ‘Sarah Elizabeth Loudon. Thomas George McNally. Benjamin Hayes. Zachariah William Strong. Liam Joseph Doran. Margaret Bridget Finnegan. Eleanor Mitchell. Charlie Piggott. In the name of Jesus, I exorcise you! Leave this place – go to your Maker, and be at peace!’

Justin’s body snapped straight, started to flap like a fish on a riverbank, arms flailing and knees jerking up and down. His face twisted and contorted, a small trickle of blood dribbling down his chin and to his neck. Flickers across his face: tiny mouths ghosting over his, gaps where baby teeth had fallen out; eyes of blue, green, brown; soft, fair skin and childish chins, smooth and round and crying out for the touch of a mother. One after the other, their anguished features superimposed on Justin’s, made of light and shadow and something so insubstantial I knew you could never touch it. Their spirit.

The bandage on Justin’s head bloomed red as his wound started to bleed again. The skin on his hands began to bubble, rippling and popping like there were tiny insects beneath it trying to escape. He took a couple of steps towards Dan, his face murderous, and I squirted my water pistol at him. He shrieked and jumped back, like I’d drenched him with acid.

‘In nomino Iesu, exorciso te!’ said Dan, switching back to the now-familiar Latin.

Justin dropped to his knees, an anguished howl streaming from his lips to the moon, in his own voice, and that of the children.

I could see and feel the anguish and the pain, in the straining of the tendons in his neck, the twisted grimace of his lips, the pulsing veins in his forehead.

Dan had said he was a ‘blocker’. What that hadn’t quite portrayed was the sheer physicality of what he was doing – of the strength of both body and will it was taking him to keep that demon trapped in his body while Dan repeated the Latin, over and over again.

It seemed to last for hours, hours of poor Justin scraping his nails against the concrete and slamming his booted feet so hard on the ground you could feel the vibrations. Hours of him biting his own tongue so hard blood streamed from his lips, as he fought to contain it long enough for Dan to take control.

Eventually, it ended. Abruptly, he fell flat, face-planting the floor with a thud. Betty jumped in, murmuring and stroking the back of his head. He mumbled, sat up straight. His eyes were back. His body was still. His skin was his own, even if it was marred by blood and burst vessels. The background noise stopped. No wind. No giggles. No nursery rhymes. We all froze and stared at him.