The Demon Side Read online

  As Etta made it to the top stair, I flashed up and into her. Quick images of rape, molestation, beating, suicide attempts, and pain filled me. Strange enough, usually I could see a person’s attacker or abuser in their thoughts, but there was no one in Etta. No face, no hand, nothing but emptiness. Quickly, Etta turned her thoughts to the Potomac River. I had photos of the river in newspapers, but now I observed the water move through Etta’s eyes.

  “Get out! Get out!” Etta screamed as she hit herself in the chest with her fists.

  Her father came running out of one of the rooms with the speed of a bullet. Her mother simply lollygagged her way to Etta. The woman scowled and rolled her eyes. I popped back out to watch the interaction between the three. I found it odd that they were uncomfortable around each other earlier, but now Etta wanted her father’s arms. Family dynamics always confused me. The whole love/hate relationship made no sense. Like I said, the only thing I have ever felt was boredom and a little irritation.

  “Baby, are you okay?” Mr. Divad tried desperately to catch his breath and composure.

  “Yeah, is the baby okay?” her mother said with disgust in her voice, as she turned back toward the bedroom.

  “I’m fine. Sorry.” Etta spoke sheepishly.

  “Did you take your meds today?” her father asked.

  “No, sorry, Dad. With the excitement of the move, I must have forgotten.”

  “I’ll go get them. Want a Pepsi to take them with?”

  “Pepsi would be great.” Etta gave her father a weak smile as he walked down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?” Etta turned back to me, picked up her guitar case, and stormed off to our room.

  So, I now knew my new roommate took medication. Probably from the suicide attempt I witnessed, which was caused by the abuse she endured. The girl was damaged from the inside out. But none of that information proved useful to me right now. She knew too much about me, or at least my kind. Her knowledge of what I could do, what I would do, was unexpected. Etta also knew how to block her thoughts, which is frustrating for any Demon. These aren’t skills you just pick up on or learn online. I needed to learn more. I came to be truly excited.

  Chapter Three

  I flashed to our room. It felt so strange thinking of it as “our” room, as if we were college buddies. Etta emptied the box she’d been carrying earlier. Inside were nine thick books. She carefully removed each one and placed them on the white wicker vanity that the previous girl had picked out for her sweet sixteen. Ugh—there’d been nothing sweet about that girl. More guys snuck through her window than people served at a McDonald’s drive-thru. Etta would be a welcome change from the walking STD that was the previous occupant. After carefully resting her guitar against the side of the desk, Etta plopped down on her twin size, white wicker bed and stared off into space.

  I walked over to the desk to see just what a damaged girl would read. I half expected to find a copy of Thorin’s Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing. She could be a Goth girl, like the last few emotionally damaged kids that lived here. I didn’t find Thorin’s work or any other emo-oriented items on her desk. But I had seen her books before. A lot of the psychics I’d met through the years used them for their babble. Demonology for Dummies, Spiritual Cleansing, Exorcising Demons, theHoly Bible, Dante’s Inferno, The Complete Book of Devils and Demons, Angels and Demons, Dispelling Poltergeists, and my personal favorite, So Your House is Haunted. None of those books ever worked against me. Hell, I’ve even used the books against the tarts, who believed in their false practices. What are the chances that a girl who reads this garbage moves into a house with an actual Demon?

  “Here you go, baby.” Mr. Divad’s voice cracked as he handed Etta two yellow pills and a Pepsi. Etta’s episode seemed to have shaken him up. Surprising, considering he seemed to be a hardcore Marine who had probably seen and done as many horrible things as I have. Maybe I didn’t do a good enough walkthrough on him. I’d have to dig deeper into him.

  “Dad? Can I ask you something?”

  “Fire away, baby,” Mr. Divad said.

  “You remember what I said about happy thoughts?” Etta’s tone was low and sheepish. Whatever she was talking about, she appeared embarrassed mentioning it.

  “Yes?” Mr. Divad looked puzzled. I became intrigued by their awkward body language. Maybe this conversation would give a little bit of dirt that I could use later.

  “Can we do that here, too? Just for a little bit until we settle down?”

  “Sure thing, baby, but we really need to work past all of that. Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll bring the rest of the stuff in.” Mr. Divad kissed Etta on her forehead and exited the room.

  Happy thoughts! She wanted to block me from gathering more information. I thought I felt a hint of anger, but I wasn’t going to lose the upper hand in my own house. I couldn’t give her a chance to block me out. With any luck, her father wouldn’t honor Etta’s request.

  “Don’t you dare,” Etta said, but before she could get up. I had already caught up to her dad. Flashes of Etta screaming, blood, hospital rooms, and pain filled Mr. Divad. Of everything a forty-something-year-old Marine could have possibly gone through, all he saw was his daughter’s pain? Oh, there must have been something else going on. Viewing the flashes, I stopped at one that I had seen before. I watched the scene play out.

  Etta lay in a crimson red bath water. Her tears fell on her bleeding wrists. Etta’s mom screamed “John!” over and over again. Then Mr. Divad, John Divad, in a white tank top and light blue boxer shorts, barreled into the poorly lit stale beige bathroom. I paused John’s thoughts to better examine the details. Over the toilet was a small window. On the other side of the window blazed my Hell. Darkness streaked by flames, but in that Hell, a face stared in through the glass, smiling. I didn’t need to see any more.

  Popping out of John, I met Etta’s angry glare. She didn’t need to say a word. I walked to our room and took my spot in the attic just above the closet, where I enjoyed watching rats burrow and build little homes for themselves. One of my favorite pastimes was to put a couple of them in an empty box, let them starve for a bit, and then throw a scrap of food in and watch as they tore each other apart. They were my little minions, always great for a scare. One of my favorite tricks involved dropping one on the dining room table during a dinner party. But there would be no playing with the rodents tonight.

  The face in window bothered me. If the Divads had already experienced a Demon, it could pose a serious problem for me. That would also explain not seeing any attacker in Etta’s thoughts. Demons aren’t the same as ghosts. First off, ghosts aren’t real. Second, Demons are bound to an item, person, or property. Demons have the option of following a family or person if we choose, moving from one house to another, continually torturing a person. It’s a rare occurrence, but if one is lucky enough to find a person or place that either generates enough fear or is so despicably horrible to fuel the power needed to exist on Earth, then you can bet he wouldn’t just let them waltz out of his life. Another problem is that no two Demons can occupy the same place or own the same person. If the Divads had in fact lived with a Demon before, I might be getting a very unwelcome guest.

  Although he would own whichever family member he attached to, I would rightfully own this property. Should the unwelcome guest appear, we would have to fight for both. I had no interest in a turf war, but I wouldn’t give up my home so some other jerk could move right in. My only hope was that, like me, he’d decided to stay at Etta’s last home and torment the next family. To be safe, I had to get rid of the Divads, and soon.

  I waited for a few hours until I could be sure everyone was asleep before climbing down the attic access. I stood at the edge of the bed and watched Etta sleep. I was no longer worried about how to get Dad out, after seeing how he reacted to Etta when she was screaming for me to get out of her. He would do whatever it took to keep his daughter safe and sane, even if it meant
leaving a fifty thousand dollar investment in the middle of the night.

  Etta would be a slight challenge. I would probably have to physically hurt her or threaten her life, which is against the celestial laws of staying on Earth among the living. I could drive a person crazy enough to kill themselves or their families as long as no part of me ever physically touches them in a way that could permanently harm or taint them. The penalty was steep: your soul being banished to an eternity in Purgatory. I wouldn’t take the risk. As long as I kept my distance, there would be nothing anyone could do.

  The only way I could get complete access to everything this girl feared was to do a walkthrough while she slept. So many walkthroughs in one day was tiring. The deeper you go, the more exhausting it is. Demons don’t sleep, but we still need downtime, the same as everything else in the world, to regain our energy. If I became fatigued while inside her, I could get trapped there, which would obviously be dangerous for the both of us.

  That’s where the idea of possession comes from. A Demon pushes too hard and traps himself in a body. The whole puking up split pea soup while a person’s head rotates three-hundred-sixty degrees is all a crock. Yes, we can make people do things they normally wouldn’t, but we can’t defy human capabilities. As for the convulsions you see in movies, those are real. That’s a good sign the Demon is dying. Except we don’t die the way a living person does. If we get deprived of energy long enough, our physical form disintegrates and our souls go straight to Purgatory. The human body at its fullest potential can only feed us for about a week, and it can never give us enough strength to exit the body. It doesn’t matter how much fear you try to generate in the person or how many priests their families call; the end result is always the same. Our disintegration slowly burns our victims from the inside out, which explains the mystery of human spontaneous combustion. The Demon dies, taking the human with it.

  The buzzing of the alarm down the hall was annoying, but even more annoying was the rock n’ roll station of Etta’s radio. Why did she torture her ears? Even with the racket going on between alarm clocks, Etta didn’t budge until her father came in the room.

  “Time to get ready,” John said, using a typical drill instructor roar.

  Etta moaned as she pulled the covers over her head.

  “Up and at ’em. You have school today and I have to get to work. Maybe we should talk to Medical about changing your Seroquel dosage. You seem to be sleeping through everything now.”

  Etta sat up in bed, rubbing her face. She hadn’t realized I was standing there. From the bright light beaming on Etta’s face, I knew John had opened the drapes to let the morning sun brighten the room. Briefly, I thought she looked angelic in her long white T-shirt. The moment was quickly shattered by a strange tingling in my stomach, like a million maggots crawling inside of me. I was weakening. Grabbing my stomach, I turned toward the closet to access the attic, but walked inside of Etta.

  Her thoughts were happy ones, of an average looking guy six-feet-tall, with shaggy blond hair and large green eyes. His complexion held an olive tint, but his black clothing made him look almost spectral. Whoever this guy was, she obviously had a crush on him. Hopefully, it would be a boyfriend at school who would come to the house. I would use him against her. As useful as this new information would be, I could not dig any deeper. My energy seemed to be draining quickly.

  Then in a blink, Etta was in front of me. She must have walked through me when I turned my back. But why would she do that? Every other time she’d avoided a possible walkthrough and now she just offered one up on a silver platter?

  Popping up in front of her as she scavenged through her closet, I waited for her to demand I leave her alone. Her eyes never shifted my way. I was left puzzled as she went to the bathroom with her clothing. In a few short moments, she returned fully dressed to the room. I had missed a great opportunity for a peepshow.

  As she sat on her bed putting on her shoes, I blew my freezing cold breath on her cheek. No reaction? No shiver? Etta must have decided to ignore me. I hoped so, because sometimes annoying someone is better than scaring them. Eventually, she would no longer be able to ignore me. Her frustration would boil over until she either gave up or mentally imploded. Either way, I would win.

  Chapter Four

  Months passed. Etta still ignored every effort on my part to scare her out of my home. John stayed at work and René, Etta’s mother, wouldn’t get out of the liquor cabinet long enough to notice anything other than an empty bottle. Every now and then, Etta would slip up and ask me to move or she’d double check the bathroom before undressing. If I was in the bathroom, she’d avoid it and go days without showering until she felt comfortable enough to try again. If no one else occupied the house, she might yell at me to get out. I used the time to study her bad habits and quirks. Every time she readied herself to yell at me, she would bite her fingernails. I was breaking her down.

  One evening, she tried on a hideous sequined blue hand-me-down gown. It looked like the 70’s had thrown up blue Kool-Aid on her. But Etta twirled in front of the vanity mirror that hung on her closet door as if she were Cinderella. I grew bored with the topic of Etta’s graduation and party after listening to the whole Divad family talk about it for weeks. Tired of being ignored and tired of watching her suck in and push out her stomach over and over, I decided it the time had come to up the ante.

  I cut the straps around her neck that held the dress up and exposed her bra. Etta quickly grabbed the straps and ran to the bathroom as I followed. I’d been watching her day in and day out, waiting for a chance to see what she desperately tried to hide under her baggy clothes.

  “Get out!”

  I cracked up as she hid behind a towel, laughing so hard that I let Etta go right past me as she ran back to her bedroom. Still chuckling, I flashed back to the bedroom, but she’d already dressed, and I’d missed another great opportunity to see her naked.

  I was still laughing when John came in the room. “Everything okay?”

  “No, Daddy. A Demon tried looking at my boobies.” I used my best little girl voice.

  Etta glared at me.

  “I’m fine. Mom’s dress snapped.” Etta held out the dress to show John where I’d cut it. That explained a lot. René had horrible taste in clothes.

  “Oh, that’s an easy fix, baby. Why don’t you get your shoes on and we’ll drop it off at the tailor, then I’ll go ahead and take you to school?”

  Etta raced to her shoes, had them on in an instant, and ran out of the room. Before I could taunt her any more, Etta and John disappeared through the black fiery fog of the front door. I finally had her where I wanted her. Once I had my energy back, I could think of the best way to rid the house of the Marine and Etta, the Demon Magnet. The running water in the upstairs bathroom reminded me of the third person in this family. I plopped down on the couch and waited for her to appear in the family room.

  After one restful hour, Mrs. Divad appeared in a bright pink pantsuit and the biggest matching necklace I’d ever seen. The woman looked as if she were walking around with castrated testicles on her neck and earlobes. They bounced like them, too, as she walked to the bar in the dining room. Only nine in the morning, and she already opened the vodka, just as she had every morning for the past four months. I watched for hours as she finished glass after glass. When the bottle dried, Mrs. Divad stumbled to the hutch, grabbed her purse and keys, and stepped out the door.

  With the way that woman drinks, I might not have to worry about getting rid of her. She was more likely to kill herself going to buy another bottle than to become a nuisance for me. I could simply drive her to drink herself into alcohol poisoning. I don’t make it a habit of trying to kill my tenants, but she was a woman who obviously wasn’t grateful for her life.

  As happy as planning possible antics made me, I needed time alone. When there were no distractions in the house, it was much easier for me to regain my energy. As I approached the attic, I heard the front door open. I w
as surprised to find Etta back home. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon and even though I’d never gone to school, I knew it wouldn’t end until three-thirty.

  “Come down here!” Etta yelled, slamming the door behind her.

  I knew she could only be talking to me since no one else was home, but her body language told me she couldn’t see me. She searched her surroundings. This would be a good opportunity to start laying some groundwork. Mustering up what little energy I had left, I blew a cold wind at her, pushing her toward the door.

  “Oh, a funny guy, huh? Is that all you have? C’mon!” Etta’s face furrowed in anger.

  She was egging me on, and I didn’t like it one bit. Maybe she had forgotten exactly who I am, what I am capable of. I’d allowed her get too comfortable during the past few months. With proper rest, I would have shown her exactly what I could do, and it would send her screaming out of the house. Etta scowled again, trying desperately to look fierce. The way her bangs fell into her squinted eyes was cute, in a pathetic sort of way.

  I screamed as the twitching returned to my stomach. It wasn’t painful. Pain isn’t something I feel, but the strange sensation was intolerable.

  “Ah ha! I know you’re on the stairs. I heard you. Quit being a coward and come down here right now!”

  That made me ignore the tingling in my gut. As much as I wanted to slam her through a wall, part of me was curious what she wanted. She couldn’t see where I settled, but she could hear me just fine, so I crept down the stairs to hide my exact location. I stood close enough to see one single hair ruining the otherwise perfect part in her hair. The oils from her scalp sparkled and glistened like dew in the sun that beamed from the decorated front window. It reminded me of a sunrise I watched on television once.