The Demon Senders (28 page)

“I do my best method acting when under stress. Thanks for noticing.” He then whispered, “Just in case anyone was listening, didn’t want to give anything away.”

“Obviously,” Jen quipped. “And only a fool would have bought your performance hook, line and sinker.” Jen’s comment was dripping with sarcasm.
 

“So, what’s your question?”

Jen sat up, brushed off the dirt from her pants then sat on the tree stump which had served as her seat most of the evening. “You said when you were fighting your first demon…”

“Battling my first demon. Battling sounds better, more heroic than fighting.”

“Whatever. When you were ‘battling’ your first demon, you said you smacked it hard with a rock, right into his forehead, right?”

“Yes. Hit him pretty square and damn hard.”

“But you said it didn’t seem to faze him much, right?”

“Only for a second.” Mac furrowed his brow. “I think I know what you’re going to ask.”

“If a rock being pounded into his head didn’t cause any damage, then these demons must have some protection.”

“Yet a bullet killed two of them and scared another off into a pond. Doesn’t make sense.”

“And you told me that the demons need to be in water, practically live underwater, but…”

“But we send them back by drowning them. I asked Rachel about that. I’m not saying she was the most trustworthy person, I mean, ‘demon’ in the world, but what she said made sense. Demons can stay underwater forever if they want to. Like O’Keefe. He’s probably still hiding out in that pond. But when a sender holds them underwater, they drown. It’s like when we touch them, they become human. At least, they can get hurt or even killed like humans can. Maybe when we hold them it removes their protection. Makes them as fragile as you and I.”

“Doesn’t explain why the rock didn’t kill the first demon you ‘battled.’ ”

Mac said, “No, it doesn’t. Think we should ask Henry when he shows up?”

“Very funny,” Jen said. “Let’s just send him back as quickly as we can. We’ll figure out the rock and drowning mystery thing some other time.”

“It is pretty important, though,” Mac said. “The whole rock thing.”

“That’s kind of why I brought it up.”

<<<<>>>>

He stared at the family of five, all of them bound and gagged, laying on the floor of the hunting cabin. Being without food or water for nearly three days was taking its toll on them, especially the youngest one. The child’s cries had abated the day before and now he laid still. Occasionally, a spasm would erupt and the child’s body would react in a manner quite disturbing to the child’s parents. To Henry, the spastic gyrations were entertaining. He considered giving water and some small bits of food to the three-year-old, in hopes he could watch the child recover then slip towards death again.

The father, seeing how still his youngest had become, struggled against the piano wire binding his wrists and legs, drawing blood and carving deep cuts into his skin.
 

“You’re hurting yourself,” Henry said to the father.
 

The father mumbled, unable to pronounce his pleas in an understandable fashion.

“Do you want to ask me for a favor?” Henry asked.

The father nodded his head.

Henry removed the gag around the father’s mouth. The father tried to talk but his throat was burning with dryness.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said as he crouched in front of the father. “I am having a challenge understanding you.”

“Waah turrr,” the father managed.

“Is that the favor you wanted to ask for? How horribly selfish.”

The father shook his head. “Pweeese. Muh fahmahly.”

“I know several languages, but yours is, as they say, Greek to me. Maybe a sip of water would help you get your favor asked?” Henry retrieved a small, plastic cup from the kitchen area, filled it half with water, then helped the father drink. “Is that better?”

The father coughed and vomited the small sips of water he was given. “Please, my children. Please, let them go. They didn’t do anything to you. Let my family go and keep me. I’ll do anything.”

“Magical water,” Henry remarked. “A few small sips and your ability to speak is instantly restored. But the favor you ask is a bit more than I am able to accommodate. Ask another, smaller one. Small steps.”

The father took another sip of water then, one at a time, looked into the eyes of his children and his wife, winking to let them know he had an idea. He was going to do something to save them all. When he had enough water to quell the burning in his throat, he asked, “Please, can my wife and kids have some water?”

“Is that the favor you want to ask?” Henry said.

The father nodded agreement.

Henry removed the gag from the mother, held the cup of water to her lips, and gently poured half of the cup of water into her mouth. Then, after filling the cup with fresh water, he repeated the process, giving two of the kids a chance to take a draw from the cup. “I am afraid,” Henry said, “that your youngest seems unable to be roused enough to drink.”

“Please,” the mother said, “let us go. We promise we won’t say anything. We don’t even know why you’ve taken us.”

“I’ve already told your husband,” Henry said as he moved his face within inches of the mother, “that favor is too much to ask.” Henry stood, walked to the chair where he had been sitting, and said, “I noticed you gave a wink to each member of your family. That wink was intended to comfort them, right?”

The father said, “Yes. I wanted them to know that…”

“You wanted them to know that you were going to get them out of here. Get them away from me. Is that what your wink meant? That you were going to get them to safety?”

“Please, just let my family go. You can keep me here. I’ll do whatever it is you need. Please.”

Henry considered the father, intently looking into his eyes. “Tit for tat,” Henry said. “Favor for a favor. Agreed?”

The father, confused, agreed.

Henry pulled out a six-inch blade from a sheath that was clipped out of sight in the small of his back. He held the blade in front of his face, admiring the length of razor sharp carbon composite. “Tit for tat. You have three wonderful, beautiful children, which is a bit unfair since I don’t have any. You tell me which child I can take and I’ll release the other two.”

“You’re fucking insane,” the father barked.

“I will give you five-seconds to tell me which one I can keep before I randomly choose one to kill right in front of you and your lovely wife. Five…”

“Just kill me.”

“Four…”

“You can’t make me decide between my kids.”

“Three…”

“Stop, please,” the mother screamed.

“Two…”

“David, do something,” the father’s wife yelled.

“One…”

“Kill me,” the father pleaded. “Kill me, please.”

Henry stood, walked behind the middle child and ran the full blade into the back of his neck, not stopping until the blade emerged from the front of the eight-year old’s neck. “You were not an option,” Henry said calmly to the father.

The parents screamed in horror.
 

“You son of a bitch. I will kill you. I will fucking kill you.”

“That is an unrealistic threat,” Henry said. “Now, you still have two kids. Tell me which one I can keep and which one you want to save. If you don’t tell me which one, I will kill them both. And after I kill them both, I will kill your wife. You have five-seconds.”

The oldest child, named Natalie, turned eleven two months ago. She loved playing the viola and was asked by her orchestra teacher to participate in the “All County Orchestra.” Natalie had been busy with practicing for her upcoming concert, scheduled for March 22. Though Natalie and her mother often had disagreements, she knew her parents loved her and they knew, despite her rapid advance towards becoming a teenager, that she loved them.

The youngest child, Matthew, was three. He was their surprise baby, the result of a drunken night while the father’s parents took Natalie and Robert (the recently deceased middle child) to their house for an overnight stay. Matthew was always a needy kid, spending several days in hospital rooms when his asthma closed down his airway.

The parents loved their children and, like any good, caring, devoted parent, would do anything for them.

“Five….”

“Oh my God, please stop,” the mother cried.

“Four…”

“Matty, look at me,” the father yelled.

“Three…”

“Matty, can you hear me? Matty, look at me.”

“Two…”

“I am so sorry.”

“One….”

“Natalie,” the father was sobbing, making his words muffled and nearly unintelligible. “I choose Natalie.”
 

“You deserve to know why you are here with me,” Henry said, sitting back down in the chair, showing no emotion befitting the scene he was directing. “Your sister, Stacy Flannigan, the Congresswoman. She was unwilling to provide assistance to me until I found the perfect amount of leverage. But now I no longer need you as leverage. I need to get a few things done but I do feel I owe you at least a glimpse into what I will be doing next.

“I have to pay a visit to your sister, though considering the position she is in, I may not succeed in visiting with her. If I am unable to visit with her face to face or after I am able to spend some quality time with her, (I am comfortable with either possibility) there are two others that fucked up a plan I had working that I will turn my attention to. Actually, they didn’t fuck it up all that bad, just caused my plan to take an altered course. I expect to leave in an hour, maybe two. I need to map my route and figure out travel time, which I plan to do right after I kill what remains of your family.
 

“Outside, there’s a trail that loops around the pond. Once I leave, you’ll need to gather your strength, get up and walk that trail. On the opposite side of this cabin, you’ll find another trail branching off deep into the woods. Take that trail and keep on that trail for, oh, I don’t know, maybe a mile, mile and a quarter. The trail ends at a cliff. Not very high, maybe forty feet. Just high enough that your momentum will kill you when you slam into the rocks at the bottom of that cliff.”

“What are you talking about, you sick fuck? Just, just, please, just let my family go.”

“You’ll never find a way to live with all this. Losing your three kids and your wife right before your eyes? That’s impossible for any man to live with. And I want you to kill yourself. Doing so means that I will own something of yours, something that, since you killed yourself, doesn’t mean much to you. However, if you choose not to kill yourself and instead decide that you are going to tough it out, then I still win, though not in the same way. If you don’t kill yourself, I win because every day you stay alive, you will see the faces of your three kids and your wife as they died horrible deaths. And each time you see their faces, you’ll see my face. You’ll hate me more and more every fucking day you stay alive. Your staying alive makes me immortal. Immortal, at least, as far as you are concerned.”
 

The father screamed.

<<<<>>>>

“And so you arrive.”

The light coming from no more than forty feet above where he stood, though filtered and muted, was more brilliant than what Phillip had had to deal with since his arrival. The water was much clearer here, the murkiness was now a distant and remorseful memory.
 

He was not what Phillip expected. He was too thin, much too frail and lacked any visible vitality or strength. It seemed to be a tremendous effort for him to prop himself up onto one elbow. Holding himself in that position seemed to be as much of a struggle as establishing it. His legs were twisted disasters and his arms, one much longer than the other, appeared to have been the victims of centuries of distorting torture. His eyes, however, we sharp and focused. Around those eyes was slack skin, wrinkled and pruned, grayish almost blue in pallor. His lips had been bleached to an even paler shade of death and stood out, both in their fullness and their look of ancient death.

“Not on your own bidding, I can see.”

Phillip couldn’t decide what was the root cause of his shock. Was it the completely unexpected condition that he found him in or was it his calm, knowing demeanor? Phillip strengthened his grip on the package Henry had given him to deliver.

“You’ve brought me a gift, I see. Are you waiting for something before giving it to me, or are you frozen with doubts and find yourself unable to toss it my way? I can see your grip has increased its hold so I am prone to believe you are waiting for the former and not the latter. Very well then, tell me what you are waiting for me to do and I will do my best to deliver on your expectations.”

Phillip was frozen with doubts, fears and found himself unable to either respond or to present the package.
 

“You were expecting something else? I suppose I can’t fault you for your ignorance. You haven’t been here long enough to understand where exactly you are.”

“I know I’m in the ocean,” Phillip blurted.

”You can speak. Excellent,” the twisted, ancient one said. “And you are correct, this is the ocean but far from the ocean you remember when you were of a different form. This ocean never kisses any land. There are no islands, no tropical paradises and this ocean is much deeper than it is wide. More like a salty well, narrowly carving its way through nothingness.”

“You are the one cast down to rule this world.”

“That is what I’ve been told,” the ancient one said. “And since I am closer to the surface than any others, present company excluded of course, it seems that I am at the top of this world which indicates a certain dominance. But ruler? That demands a liberal definition of the title.”

Henry paused a beat, then said, “How did you know someone sent me? How did you know I was coming?”

“You are very new, aren’t you? Tell me, how did your initiation go? Was it very painful? Did it take more of what the others call ‘rounds?’ ”

“It was horrible.” Phillip caught himself, then closed his mouth. He didn’t want to engage the ancient one in conversation, for he suspected the ancient one would twist his mind and send him to a place of horrible pain much worse than what he had already experienced.