The Sword of Michael - eARC (17 page)

Chapter 21

“Jolene?” I whispered. “Oh, my love…Jolene?”

Her lips skinned back. Wolfish. Her canines gleamed. She leaned forward, her perfect breasts barely moving, her hands still limp in her lap.

“Oh, my love,” it hissed, mockingly. “Oh, Jolene…”

The most evil laughter.

Dillon choked back a sound. Like a sob, or a cry. Swallowed.

It looked at him. “Like the tits, Dillon? You know you do. Always have. Want a little taste? Here.”

It cupped Jolene’s breasts, offered them to him.

Rage. Sorrow. Revulsion. Disgust. Heart break.

All at the same time.

A huge wave, cresting over me…

…remember that Wave, Marius? So long ago, and it carried you to your Doom. Remember this wave, and choose, choose differently if you will…Tigre was there, seated on her rear haunches, alert, poised; First in Front and Burt on his shoulder, watching…

“Marius?” Dillon said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Marius?” it said. “What are you going to have to do?”

I took a deep breath, calmed and centered myself, let my anger and my rage settle down through me, down into my center, down my legs, down into the ground, into the depths of Mother Earth, connecting to the great power at the core of the world, and I called out for the help that is always there for me:

“Father, Mother, Creator God…”

“SILENCE!” it screamed. “Or I will make her twist in pain you cannot imagine, shaman…”

“…Holy Spirit, Great Spirit, Goddess, I call on you…”

More laughter. “Oh, she’s screaming now, Marius…you should see her…” it said.

“…I call on Jesus, the Christ, Light of the Creator made Flesh, and Mother Mary, Queen of the Angels, First Among Healers, Mother of us All, and I call upon MIII-KAII-ELLL…”

And a ripple went through Jolene, like a ripple across a body of water made flesh, and I saw her face, her true face of her True Self, for just a moment, in horrible pain and fear, something I had never seen, and I was shaken…

BOOM!

The whole house shook. Literally rattled on the foundation.

BOOM!

Again.

Evil laughter.

“Will you exercise Power Over Me, shaman?” it said. “Will you…force me?”

I extended one hand. “I call upon the mighty Archangels…”

The sheets flew off the bed.

Jolene turned in the bed, set her feet on the floor, stood up. And something Fallen gleamed out of her eyes at me. She took her finger and inserted it into herself, slowly withdrew it, held it under her nose, put it in her mouth.

“Yum,” it said. “No wonder you keep her for yourself, shaman. So tasty.”

“I…”

“You cannot, shaman,” it said. “She has given herself over. Willingly. She’s mine. Now and forever. All for love.”

Naked. She began to move in a slow, jerky parody of a soft shoe dance routine.

“She gave it all up…” it sang. “…for love. She gave it *all* up…for love. She gave it all up, for love…of you, of you, of you.”

A jerky pirouette, and then a slow obscene writhing, an undulation that began in her hips and flowed through her whole body, a filthy parody of the way she’d moved beneath me or atop me when we were wrapped in love. It grabbed one of the corner poles of the bedframe and turned her buttocks towards us, arching in simulated sex.

“Like what you see, Dillon?” it said. “Your dick is getting hard. I can see it. Want a little taste? She always liked you, Dillon. Loved you, actually. The warrior, the fighter. So pure in your anger. Sometimes when she fucked the shaman, she thought about you.”

It came at Dillon, reached out to cup his crotch. “Oh, look, it’s all hard. Is that for me, sweetheart?”

“Don’t touch me!” Dillon shouted, stepping back.

“Michael and Uriel, I call on you, beloved Archangels.…”

“Oh, to do what? Enclose me in the Light? She chose me for you, Marius. Gave herself to me for you. They cannot bind me.” It flounced away. “Okay, so I can’t touch you now, Dillon.” It looked back over her shoulder, wiggled her ass. “But you can touch me. If you want. You can do anything you want to me. If you want.…”

“Marius…help her. Do something…” Dillon whispered.

“I…”

“…can do, well.…nothing, sweetheart. Not without my consent. And I’m not consenting. Well, maybe I will…but only to Dillon. I’ll do *whatever* Dillon wants me to do…”

“I don’t want anything you have,” Dillon said.

“Oh yes, you do,” it said. “You want her. The Jolene. Your little redheaded goddess. You want her back. And you *want* her. Don’t you, D? I can call you D, right?”

It stood and looked back and forth between the two of us, fists on naked hips, right in the swell of the hip above the sharp jut of her hipbones.

“Oh, you two are such pussies. Guess I’ll just have to get dressed and go out. Find me a *real* man. One who will fuck me inside out and upside down. If you’re both really good, I’ll let you watch. Maybe I’ll *make* you watch, yes?”

It pulled out a pair of black leather trousers. One of Jolene’s favorites. Lay on the bed and pulled it on over the legs and hips I knew so well.

“Getting an eye full, Marius? What you don’t know about the little secret recesses of your pretty little Jolene’s head…sometimes she despises you, you know that? You’re so politically correct, such a Servant of the Divine Feminine,” it laughed it’s nasty laugh. “Sometimes she just wants to be fucked bad and hard and dirty, Marius. It’s always some kind of sacred act with you. She doesn’t like that…”

“You lie, demon. Are you afraid?” I said.

It continued to dress. A silk camisole over naked flesh, her nipples erect. Part of me ached for her and I knew the demon was working that second chakra energy on both Dillon and I. I could feel his shame morphing into anger, feeling as though he’d betrayed us both, though it was just biology, his body reacting to the pheromones she was releasing in a great epic spasm.

It laughed at us as it slipped on a pair of her black Jimmy Choos.

“Of you?” it said. “Of course not, Marius. You can’t do anything to me. Unless I let you. She gave herself to me for you.” It sang it’s obscene parody: “She gave it all up…for love…of you…”

“In Jesus’s name, I compel you,” I said.

It shook for a moment, then looked at me. “Why, Marius. You are forcing me against her will. Are you going to use your power to over ride her choice? Are you going to force me, shaman? Please do. Just like you did before…”

“She did not choose.”

“Actually, she did, shaman. When she what was coming for you. Gave herself up. And she’s a tough one. Seriously tough. Or she was. You should see her in the little antechamber we have just for her. We’re all lining up for a taste of Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Want to come watch? You know where to find us. But in the mean time, oh, did I say that? It’s going to get *really* mean, shaman. From here on out…”

“What do you want?” I said.

It laughed. “Oh, now you want to bargain, Marius? Let me guess. You for her? How quaint. How romantic. How utterly
fucking
silly. Seriously. Where’s the fun in that?”

“It’s always been me you want,” I said.

“Oh, but not quite yet,” it said. “Her body is so sweet and strong. Supple. Tastyyyyy.…”

“SHUT UP!” I screamed.

“Take me,” Dillon said.

It turned and regarded him, her head tilted to one side. “Oh, Dillon, do be careful about what you say. And what you wish for. You are very tasty, oh so tasty, the pure white knight, our little knight errant…”

Dillon stepped forward. “Take me. Now. I…”

“Dillon, no!” I took his arm. “That’s what it wants to do, to turn us all around. That’s not Jolene. It’s just her body. The flesh. We have to find her another way, I can’t force her…”

“You can make her!” Dillon shouted. “You can drive it out, make it go away! That’s what she wants! She didn’t give herself to that thing!”

“It wants the contest, Dillon,” I said, as gently as I could. “It wants me to use power over, to force my way in…that’s the point. It wants you confused and hurt, it wants me enraged and slashing my way in…because it wins when we do that. So we can’t do it that way…”

“How self-justifying, Marius,” it said matter-of-factly. “Actually, Dillon, it’s because he’s a coward. He always has been. He’s afraid. That’s why he has you, right? You’re the warrior, always have been. Always will be. He’s nothing without you. Never has been. He needs you, you don’t need him. Do you? Of course not. I…”

“Shut up,” Dillon said.

“Oh, baby,” it whispered. “I so won’t shut up. And soon…you’ll beg me not to shut up. So I think I’m dolled up enough, don’t you think, boys?”

She turned on her heels, smacked the ass she pointed at us. “I think I’ll go out and let some sleazy dirt bag fuck me in the ass. You two can come along…or you can come find me later. If you can.”

She turned and brushed past us as though we weren’t there. “Oh, and boys…you might *not* want to find me…or her body…if you know what I mean. Later.…”

BOOM!

The whole house shook.

I heard the back door slam shut.

Silence.

And the sick slick oily feeling of the Dark.

“Marius…” Dillon said.

From outside, a bellow tinged in German, “Marius!”

It was time to go. We were going to have to go to fetch Jolene’s spirit…and find her body before the demon damaged it beyond repair.

“Marius?” Dillon said. His voice was heavy and broken. “I…I don’t think I can do this.”

“It’s not her,” I said. My own voice sounded foreign in my ears. “It’s the demon. It will say whatever it knows will hurt or distract you. That’s what they do.”

“Marius, drive it out of her!”

I had to pause and gather myself. Turn and look at him. “Look at me, Dillon.”

He did.

“Do you think I don’t want to?”

“You can! Do it! I’ve seen you…”

“That’s what it wants,” I said. “That’s why it came for her, that’s why it says what it says.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain. Later.”

“Now!”

His anger was up, driven by shame and guilt. Great tools for the undoing of a good man—which was why the demon chose that. Of course he would have felt attracted to Jolene—any man with a pulse was. And of course he would have felt guilty about it. And of course at some level, with his unspoken loneliness and need for a woman like Jolene, he had wondered…

That was the point of entry. That’s how it got to him.

We all have those. It’s part and parcel of being human. That’s why depossessionists—those that live through the Tests without going insane or otherwise broken—learn to be and stay humble. It’s not us—we’re flawed, but that which moves through us is not. That which moves through us is the Light of the Creator and that is perfect. Our job, to borrow the phrase from the Lakota, is to be the “hollow bone”; to be a conduit and to do the best we can to move our crap out of the way so as not to hinder the passage of the Light. It’s a daily process, and one that can never be taken for granted.

“They’ve mounted a full scale attack on me,” I said. “On every level. Physical, mental, spiritual, Middle World, Other Realms. That’s why they came after all of you. You’re my family: Jolene, Sabrina…you.”

“I get that,” Dillon said. “But I’ve seen what you can do, Marius. You can drive it out. You can make it go away.”

“They want me to exert Power Over, Dillon. They want me to use force.”

“You always do that!”

“Only with permission. The permission of the possessed, or the family member closest who can give that permission.”

“Oh, bullshit, Marius! It’s Jolene! You can do that!”

“I have to journey. If she did…”

I couldn’t say the words. Choked back what was coming up in me.

“You think she gave permission to the demon? She…why…WHY?”

“I don’t know. I have to journey and find out.”

“You can’t wait!”

“I have to.”

Power Over. Force. If shamanism is about alliance with spirits and powers, all of them facets of the Great Power of the Creator, the One, then how power is used, or how one is used by power, is the moral fulcrum that a practitioner constantly balances on. The definition of a sorcerer, or sorcery, is to use power to work one’s will, especially against the will of another; ethical practice, practice in alignment with the Will of the Creator and the Divine Plan, is to act as a healing conduit only with explicit permission of the person requesting the healing.

Doesn’t mean the ability, power and techniques to do sorcery don’t exist within the ethical practitioner; it means that discrimination and right choice are exercised. The techniques and tools, practices and procedures, the METT of shamanic practice—they are essentially without ethos. How they are utilized and the choice exercised by the practitioner defines the ethos.

Did I have the ability and the tools to force the possession demon out of Jolene’s body?

Yes.

So why not?

A battle like that, inside of a body where permission may (or may not) have been given to the possessing entity, can destroy or kill the body. The spirit of the possessed, if driven out of the flesh, may be wandering in the Other Realms…or lost or consumed in some way. And more to the point, in this instance, having me exert force and having my emotional energy attached to the actions, would give the Dark Forces the big entry into my otherwise heavily shielded life; they’d be able to occupy the fulcrum, stand astride and unbalance me.

Tip me into the Abyss.

Which seems like exactly what they had showed up to do.

We left.

Outside, Otto scanned the sky and the street. Sabrina stood close beside him. They turned to us. Saw what was written on our face.

“Oh, Mother Earth and Father Sky,” Sabrina said.

Otto just nodded once, sharply. “So what now, Marius?”

I looked up at the stars. The night sky.

“God only knows, Otto. I don’t.”

“Where is she?” Otto said.

“They have her,” I said.

“Who?” Otto said.

“The same ones we were up against.”

Otto pursed his lips. “Ah.”

“They took her?” Sabrina said. “Do you know…”