Part 3:
There was moment where the tree house fell silent. The wind stopped, the creatures of the night stopped their calls, and neither Darian nor Jude dare to take a breathe. The silence was heavy with something ominous. Something dark.
The air seemed to explode around them all at once. Heat and smoke, dried leaves and disintegrating cobwebs, night air, the screaming of insects, and the scent of incense rushed passed the boys and inside Jude there rose another wave of fear.
Darian was screaming something but his words mixed with the incessant howling of the wind. It was all too fast.
It wasn’t in front of them one second, and then it was.
It was crouched where the fire pit and cauldron had once sat, huddled in on itself like a child. Its skin was a pale blue, and its ears pointed. Horns were positioned on his skull, and were a dark, sinister teal with tips sharper than a needles head. He wore something that clung to his skin and shone dimly in the pale light of the moon that now filtered through the broken tree house.
As it’s form slowly stood, he understood is garments to be leather.
The leather clung to every inch of its body and he could see the pull of it as the creature brought itself into an animalistic crouch. Its eyes were glazed over with a hellish red and a snarl, so loud and low it made the boards under Jude’s hands quake, emitted itself from deep within its throat.
And then his thoughts were filled with shot-lived excitement.
He’d summoned a demon. He’d never tried to summon life before, but he’d done it. Darian was right; all the of the stuff he’d been trying to get Jude to believe in. The ley lines, ghosts, demons, haunting, it was real. It was real.
“Mighty Christ,” Darian whispered, leaning forward on his hands and knees to get a look at it. “Fuck, Jude. Look!” He moved a hand, and, as if forgetting it was there, smudged the chalked seal.
And then everything went to hell.
The creature launched itself across the small space and grabbed Darian by the face and hair. Black colored claws tore into the soft flesh like a knife into hot butter and blood poured. Darian screamed, kicked, thrashed on the ground, trying to fight the monster off. In the struggle between the two, the monster’s claw hooked itself into Darian’s left eye. The boy screeched in agony.
Jude screamed in shock and then he was moving. Moving before he could think.
He hurled himself at the beast, trying to dislodge the…thing from Darian before it could do any real damage.
It’s body was hard, like a brick wall, and Jude ached as soon as he hit it. He tried to shove the demon away from his friend, grabbed its neck, clawed its skin. It did little to the demon before him, and the beast moved only slightly to dislodge the boy from his side. Jude sprawled on the ground, head throbbing breathing hard, his form shaking from shock and strain. He turned to attack the beast again, only finding it had continued to hold his friend down. It was then that the others screams had reached his ears again. His muscles, however, wouldn’t move this time. His eyes were wide, his breath catching, stunned in place by the scene before him.
Jude could only watch in shock and terror as the demons fangs elongated out of his mouth and shredded the exposed skin. Veins snapped and blood squirted out in an almost fake way. Muscles were torn as the creature bit and drank the warm liquid.
It was a sick sound, much like a cross between someone slurping tea and someone eating with their mouth open.
Darian’s screams were piercing and long. His voice broke into loud pleading sobs more than once. He kicked his legs uselessly, and pulled and pushed the head of the beast that was making a meal out of him. The only effect it had was digging the fangs deeper into his neck, causing more screams.
The boy had stopped moving after awhile, his scream dying to small cries, then to whimpers, then to whispered pleas, then to nothing at all.
Blood stopped gushing and pieces of skin and veins plopped to the floor with a wet, slapping noise that made Jude’s stomach turn. Darian’s uninjured eye was glazed over and slightly rolled back, the bloody one dripping a slow trail of crimson from cheek to chin, his face still pinched in agony. The hole in his neck was gaping and deep. Nothing moved on his body. More still than he’d ever seen his friend act. Darian’s fingers didn’t twitch, his chest no longer rose and fell. Covered in his own blood, Darian had perished.
Jude’s head was many places at once, in every working corner of his mind.
It worked. It worked. It worked. Dear god.
There’s blood on your shoes, blood one your hands too, isn’t there.
Darian was right.
Does that matter now? What do you do now that it’s happened? Where do you go?
Darian is dead.
Darian won the bet.
But Darian is dead. Is it still winning even when you’re dead?
His head whirled. He was watching the demon, but he wasn’t seeing it. He was looking directly at the broken body of his best friend was the thing tore at his neck, but nothing was registering.
Was he going into shock? He’d seen something like that on a television program once, a ling time ago, where a child had gotten so scared that he’d been institutionalized. Al he could do was stare and drool, stuck in his head because he couldn’t handle what he’d seen.
Had to be shock.
You’ve got to move, he thought. His fingers twitched, and he was able to swallow, but his eyes were still locked in front of him. He tried to get his foot to tuck under his leg so he could launch himself away from the creature, from the tree house, but it slipped in what had to be blood, and made a wet, skidding noise.
The beast looked up sharply. A low, feral growl emanated from its throat.
His eyes locked with hungry black orbs, and flicked to the way its lips were pulled back over its fangs. He could feel the world still under him. Jude held his breath.
He counted to three.
He leapt. It was to his left and it was so, so dangerous, but he leapt just as the beast had and landed on the step just outside the entryway to the tree house. Far to fucking lucky he hadn’t missed it.
He only had half of second before the force of his body combined with the age of the wood caught up to the rest of his word, and then he was falling, the sound of splintering wood under his foot dulled by the rather loud bellowed roar of the beast that was still above him.
His landing rattle his brain and took his breath away, and for a moment he lay there gasping and coughing, trying so hard to see passed the dizzy world in front of him. Where did he go now? Not, home, certainly. He obviously couldn’t go to Darian’s, and there wasn’t another place to duck into.
He’d have to make a run for it.
It was decided when he scrabbled for purchase on the ground, trying to right himself; above him there was a scrabbling noise as the beast struggled against something. Perhaps Jude’s fall had disoriented him from the hunt.
He fled.
Jude ran up the worn path, the bloodied shoes squelching, the grass whispering against them. The lefts stung as he ripped them out of the way, and branches caught and tore his hair. The chill of the night was in his bones, the sickness from the fall was in his gut.
He was out of those woods too fast, faster than humanly possible. The part of his brain that was trying to remain logical—though he wasn’t sure why he was bothering with logic, given the situation—told him that, when under stress, the human body can take on the most amazing of strain and pressure.
He rounded onto the darkened street of his neighborhood, and kept going. He did not look behind him. He did not dare listen for anything other than the pounding of blood in his ears, and the ringing, lingering screams from only minutes ago that would not go away.
Passing under streetlights was hell, every stretch of his shadow another demon, another fear.
Jude pushed on until he found himself at a very familiar intersection near his school, and though he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten there, there was only one was to go from there.
He veered left, nearly choking on the air trying to get into his lungs. His legs burned, his eyes stung. He passed a turn into a neighborhood, noticed the stoplight up ahead that indicated the halfway point, and suddenly his world toppled ass-over-elbow as he tripped, face first, into the concrete.
Everything burned now, and he could feel the bruises and scrapes as they screamed in protest when he moved to get up. He could feel something warm dripping from his nose and into his gasping mouth. It tasted like salted copper. He stood for a few moments, gasping and hurting.
He made the mistake of looking behind him.
It was there, a football field and a half away but moving with an inhuman quickness. The eyes he’ once seen as black where now pinpricks of red-yellow that glowed so harshly they could have been headlights.
Jude wanted to scream, but what came out instead was a dry, desperate sob, and he turned again to flee.
It wasn’t any use, now that he’d seen the creature. It was bearing down on him, and by the time he’d gotten to the area he needed to be in, he’d be dead, he was certain of it.
His knee’s protested every jarring bound, and he felt the angered cuts stretch and burn as he moved passed the shops. He saw the dimmed sign of Old Blues Cuts, saw the flickering capital “N” from Nickels and Dimes. It was a beacon of hope in the middle of hell.
A terrible scream ripped it way through the air, and Jude looked behind him.
About thirty-five feet back was he demon, and he was running.
Jude screamed in fear, and turned toward Black Market Books, yanking hard on the locked handle. Please please please. He rattled the door, and looked at the creature, twenty five feet now. He was cornered, and the demon knew it; it was taking it’s time.
“Alan! Riggy! Riggy! Please!” he screamed, nearly yanking the door off of its hinges. He pounded on it with his other hand, pressing his body close to it, trying so hard to be on the other side instead of there, exposed.
Fifteen feet.
God, he was going to die, he was going to die right here in this spot. God.
“Open the door!” he screamed, and with the last of his borrowed strength from the adrenalin, he punctuated each syllable with his fist against the door.
It was there. It was behind him, and Jude froze, the darker shadow casting over him in the sulfur colored lamplight. It backed Jude up into the small dip between doorway and outer walls, leaned in. It smelled like blood and damp earth and fried electrical wires, and his front was stained in what was once Darian.
Jude pressed himself into the door. The creature howled, not unlike when an animal that had found its prey would. It made Jude’s ears ring, and his eyes brimmed with tears from the volume.
Then the world went out from under him—or, more accurately, from behind him. Warm light and the smell of incense wafted over him, and at the crown of his head stood a raven-like man with mussed hair and a terrified expression, holding something wooden in his left hand and showing it to the demon.
With his right hand, he ushered Jude to back up into the store. The demon crouched and snarled something.
With horror, Jude realized belatedly that the thing was…speaking. He opened his mouth to scream something, to tell Riggy to run, to shout for him to kill the thing, if he could.
What came out however, was a choked, half-sobbed, “Holy fuck.”
Riggy nodded, still rolling his wrist, beckoning Jude backward. His eyes did not leave the demon when he spoke. “Get in. Move very slowly, Jude, but move.”
Jude didn’t listen; he scrambled backward, finding his feet and crab-walking. The creature roared, and Riggy slammed the door with such force that the rafters trembled. He hung the thing he’d been holding on the hook of the OPEN/CLOSED sign on the door. It was round and wooden, carved with letters and symbols.
A seal.
Riggy was in front of Jude, his hand pressing into the boy’s shoulders, his face contorted in rage. “What did you do?”
“I-I don’t. I can’t. I—”
“Jude, what the hell have you done? Do you know what that is?” Riggy ground out, digging his bony fingered further into Jude. “What happened? What did you do? Where…where is Darian?”
Jude’s lower lip trembled, and he bit it to keep from crying. He’d held on this long, mostly.
“Jude,” the man said again, this time softer, and much more worried. “Where is Darian? Did he follow you? Where is he?”
Jude shook his head, and a wetness that wasn’t blood from his nose dripped from his chin. He sniffed pathetically. “Dead.”
“Dead,” repeated Riggy, and then he let go, and leaned back onto his legs, kneeling now.
“T-the thing,” Jude whimpered pathetically, pointing at the door. “Seal broke. H-he leaned on it, Darian b-broke it, Riggy, god.” The door was now very blurry, and the ground under him was shaking. Or he was. It was hard to tell. “It drank his blood, and h-h-he was screaming and-and god, there was so much blood…”
The door shook on it hinges, and Jude flinched back. But Riggy’s face showed no emotion when Jude could bring himself to look. His eyes were empty and his posture gave away nothing. He wasn’t even trembling. His silence was enough.
The dam broke behind his eyes, and a high-pitched whimper tore out of Jude’s throat as he finally let himself cry. He was aware of his fingers digging into the wooden floor, desperate to find purchase to hold himself in place as each sob rocked him in place. His ribs hurt from the sheer force of them. The taste of tears an blood mixed in his open mouth, and a new wave of tears took him.
His entire body ached, a different ache that wasn’t just from falling. Deeper than bone, somehow, fuller, ingrained into his very soul, into his being.
Jude heard Riggy move from the floor, but only looked up when he saw the man standing by the door. The erratic pounding on the door had subsided foe the moment, but Jude could still clearly hear the beast’s breathing.
“What are we going to do?” Jude whispered when he could breathe again.
Riggy’s eyes were emotionless as he watched Jude. “You’ve summoned a demon, Jude. You’ve led him to my home.”
Jude shook his head quickly. “Riggy, I didn’t mean to.”
Riggy raised an eyebrow at him. “Then if followed you per chance? I don’t think so.”
Jude felt a lump of fear and tears form once again in the middle of his throat, and he tried to speak around it. “My family, Riggy, I couldn’t—“ with abject horror, he saw Riggy reach for the door’s knob. “ It would have killed them too, please, I’m sorry. It was the only place I could think to go.” It sounded like begging. It was begging.
“Do you understand what you’ve done?” Riggy asked. “Any of it?”
Jude nodded, his head spinning at the ferocity of it. “Yes, god, yes, I do. I killed my friend, I got Darian killed. I put you in danger. I…I don’t know. I don’t know, Riggy please, don’t open the door.”
Riggy shook his head slowly. “You knew nothing about that book,” he said slowly, reaching with his opposite hand to remove the wooden seal from where it hung. “You went along with it, not bothering to read it. Not bothering to research what it could mean. Darian did give you the book, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Jude sobbed out. “Riggy,” he begged again, not bothering to scrub away the fresh tears on his face. “I’m begging you, Riggy, please. Don’t open the door, please.”
Riggy shut his eyes. “You knew nothing, Jude. You know nothing of what you’ve done.”“I do,” he gasped. “Please, Riggy, anything else. Don’t open it, I’m begging you.” A deranged laugh bubbled past his lips, as he continued to speak. “Call the police, have someone lock me away. Just don’t open that door.”
He only shook his head. “If I don’t, you’ll still be blind to everything.” He turned the handle down.
“Don’t do this,” Jude whispered, his eyes on the door now. It was useless to pled now, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I’ll do anything Riggy, please. I promise, anything. Don’t let it in here.”
“Will you understand the enormity of what you’ve summoned? The sacrifice every being involved will have to make? The damage you’ve done?”
Jude could only nod.
“Good.” Riggy nodded and turned toward the door. “Then consider this your first lesson. “
The door was ripped open and the shadow crouching outside of it stood slowly. It’s eyes were still glowing, still focused on Jude.
Like in the tree house, Jude was frozen on the ground, staring at the beast that was covered in his friend’s blood.
Jude whimpered, looking up and meeting its eyes. In them, a soulless kind of loathing, a never ending hunger, a need to consume the world. He was starting at something that would tear him apart while Riggy watched as he learned his “lesson.”
What was the phrase? There was never an atheist in a foxhole?
Well, this was one hell of a foxhole.
Jude had never a religion child. His family had taught him his prayers, and left it at that. He wasn’t even sure how to pray, but if there was anything that could help him now, it was blind faith.
“Christ.”
It was all he could get out.
The beast lunged for his neck, and Jude’s short prayer erupted into a terrified scream. The beast pinned him to the ground, and the weight of knocked the air out of Jude’s lungs, his terrified screams becoming withered and dry and useless.
He screwed his eyes tightly shut.
He could feel the beast’s teeth snapping a hairs breath above his jugular, its coppery breath filling his senses.
He waited for the backs of his eyelids to turn from deep gray to a permanent, eternal black.
He waited for the agony, for the blood, for his screams.
For his death.
It was the howl that had alerted him that something was wrong. The demon did not pull back, did not spare him as it screamed, saliva and blood speckling Jude’s cheek. It howled and gripped his arms, and he could feel the nail barely pressing into his skin. It shook him once; hard enough so that when his head slammed against the floor his ears rang.
That did little to drown out the enraged howling that filled the shop. The plants hanging above seemed to quiver at the volume.
He looked dizzily toward Riggy. He was standing closer to Jude, having closed and locked the door once again. Around his neck hung the same wooden seal he’d taken from the door. His arms were crossed, but his mouth was eased into a dark smile.
The beast quieted now snarling at both of them now.
“What—“ Jude tried, but Riggy shook his head.
Without looking away from the demon, Riggy spoke. “As I thought. As long as you summon it, no matter how strong, a Demon of Olde is still a Demon of Olde.”
“Riggy,” Jude slurred, eyes flicking from the beast to the man. “Wh-what the hell just happened? H-how did you make it stop attacking me?”
The man took a deep breath. “I did nothing, Jude. I let it attack you, and I watched.”
“Then how—“
“Lesson number one, Jude Bane; summoning without knowledge.” Finally, he looked down and met his eyes. “You summoned it from its realm. You stopped it from attacking you, because your souls are one now, Jude. You’re its master.”