Dangerous Illusions

Chapter 10

Leila’s POV

The house was welcoming from the open door to the wide hallway. Upon the walls were the photographs of children, so obviously so loved. The floor was an old-fashioned parquet with a blend of deep homely browns and the walls were the greens of summer gardens meeting a bold white baseboard. The banister was a twirl of a branch, tamed by the carpenter's hand, it's grain flowing as water might, in waves of comforting woodland hues. Under the lamp-shine it was nature's art, something that soothed right to the soul.

It looked like this was an old home and that too a family home. But how was it possible for something so dark and sinister to take root here I still could not understand.

“Where are your parents, Bethany?” I asked her and she nodded her head looking away. It was clear from her expression that it was a raw subject for her and she did not want to talk about it.

“They passed away four months back in a car accident when they were returning from visiting my aunt’s house,” said Bethany and I could see that she was trying to wipe away her tears. This was an unfortunate incident because I could feel nothing at all from this place. There was nothing in this building…no energy…neither positive nor negative and that was really weird because every land and every house had their own unique energy signature which we witches were trained to study.

It might sound really odd to all of you but witches were different from other human beings on an essential level. Why they did not know, but they were more attuned to the energy that was exuded by earth. For some they could see the energies of people, which is called aura. For some, like me, we could see the monsters and the visions that made us different from others. For some they were linked to death which in common terms were called Necromancers. But we are all normal, like all the human beings, still the persecution never stopped.

And I knew that something was seriously off with this entire house but I could not tell that Bethany before knowing a little more about her boyfriend Albert. It looks like that since the time the demon had accessed him all the problems in this house had started.

“When your parents were here was Albert staying here as well with you guys?” I asked her and she looked at me and said no.

“He shifted when the news of the crash came in. I mean, I was so torn at that point of time and he was staying overnight for almost every day that I asked him to shift here. After all he was staying most of the time here only,” she replied.

“Did he visit your parents before they left to visit your aunt? Like a family dinner sort of thing?” I asked as an idea was taking root in my mind.

“Yeah…he did that every single week. He came to dinner at weekend…it was the last family dinner we had in this house. I mean my parents really did like him. It is not every day that you get to meet a good man with a good soul, so I was lucky and my parents loved Albert,” said Bethany.

“Where is Albert now? I mean, there is no noise at all in the house and that does not seem like a good thing at all,” I said and immediately Bethany was on her guard and her eyes were alert. We gradually moved upstairs where Bethany said that she had escaped through the window and had locked the front door from outside so that he could not escape.

And what we both saw made us stand at the top of the stairs for a short while and then Bethany screamed at the top of her lungs.

I felt glad at that moment that I had not eaten anything for breakfast except coffee, because the body that lay there sprawled in front of us would have induced me to hurl my guts almost immediately. Bethany was still screaming but she was rooted to her spot and her voice was so shrill that I felt that the glass panes would crack.

In this job I've seen it over and over, a corpse is a corpse unless someone who loved them enters the room. That's when the atmosphere changes, when the clean up crew starts to feel the trauma. Mostly they deal with it later in macabre humour - the hit and run victim is "roadkill" and the stabbing victim is a "pin cushion." It isn't that they don't care, more that they have to find a way to do their job and still function as spouses and parents...

And Bethany was in shock..

The corpse was almost devoid of skin and pitted by burrowing insects. I turned away as my stomach heaved, nostrils filled with the smell of rotting meat. Without eyelids the milky blue eyes stared into the frozen sky while the lip-less mouth hung open. This did not look like a man who had been alive last night. The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of the door, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room a sickly-sweet butcher shop odor.

Finally I touched Bethany on her shoulder and said,” I take it that this is Albert?”

She nodded in silence. Her mouth was still open and her hands were clenched tightly and I knew that her nails would be digging in her skin.

“I know that this is tough Bethany but we need to call 911…or else you will be in trouble…” I said and she burst into tears as soon as the shock of what had happened hit her and it hit her hard. But this was not the time to take things in a way that she had the luxury of grieving. There was a demon loose in the house and we needed to get the hell out of here or only God knew what was going to happen.

“He is gone Bethany. We need to move out of here fast,” I said and urged her as softly it was possible but my panic was rising steadily leaving a bitter and acrid taste in my mouth.

“I cannot leave him. Look what I did. I left him fearing my own life and now he is gone…look at him….how can someone become like this in a night?” she shrieked as she tried to get closer to the body but I held her back.

“You cannot go close to him, Bethany…I know you don’t want to hear this but we need to leave this place. It is not your Albert any longer. Has not been for a long time. He died probably on the same night that your parents did and the demon was using his body as a meat suit. And it is now roaming open in the house. Come on…we need to get out,” I urged her and she looked at me with horror and she shrieked again at the thought but this time she did not say anything more and followed me downstairs but as soon as we were close to the door the shut with a huge bang and the lock turned by itself.

This was what I had feared. Getting trapped with a demon inside with a corpse and a scared girl was not my idea of starting a perfect morning!

And above we heard a creak on the floorboards and Bethany jumped in fear and caught hold of my upper arm in a vise like grip. She had become while like sheet.

“There is something wrong Bethany. It is not the others who died who have been targeted. It is you. You are the one that the demon wants….tell me that did you do something in order to achieve things in your life?” I asked. And she frantically nodded her head. I opened my cell and checked, there was no network. Damn!! This was bad. If it was interfering with cell phone network then it was at least a third level demon.

“What is happening? What is it?” she asked as she looked at me with fear and we saw something that should never be seen by anyone in this life.

The zombie was blind. It's eyes had been gouged by the demon, one last desperate attempt to stay alive as it's jaws ripped out his throat. It's snake-like brown-grey intestines dragged in the dirt as it staggered toward me using only it's ears and nose for guidance. I picked up a vase that was kept on the table and threw it to the far side of the room, away from the door and my only means of escape. It halted and I could hear the bones in it's stiffened neck creak as it turned it's monstrous head. Then with a snapping of it's jaws it lurched in the other direction. I needed no other cue, I dived for the door and bolted out into the other room pulling Bethany along with me, drinking in the cool night air as if each gulp could be my last. Then from behind me came a moan, and then again a scream.

I knew that this was Bethany’s voice. The demon had taken back control of the meat suit and it was trying to get it’s claws into Bethany. It was a disgusting and grotesque sight.

“What is that thing? What is that?” she screamed but I told her to be silent.

“It is a demon that is using Albert’s corpse. It is not a good sign, Bethany. I need you to remember what you might have done to cause this. If this demon is after you ad is killing the people you love then it can only mean one thing. You are the one that it wants. And it is not going to let us contact anyone and neither let us leave the house. I knew that this was the work of a demon but I did not know that things could be this far gone,” I said her.

Then I hissed in her direction,” You have been living with a dead body all these months and you are telling me that you have not been able to understand in the slightest that??? What kind of doctor are you?”

She whimpered looking at me while the door that I had closed was being banged furiously by the demon. I knew that this was the time to pull out the big guns. I did not know what Bethany had done to make a demon hound her like this, in the manner of a mad dog but I knew this that no living human being was supposed to be tolerating this.

“I only knew that he felt a lot warmer than normal. I thought that he had fever but there was nothing. They did not find anything. But that thing out there…it is rotting…and it is stinking badly…but how is that even possible?” she said as she was crying.

“You have seen only one plane of this world and encountered only human beings till now. This is a third level demon we are talking about. Is there an attached bath in this room?” I asked as I hastily turned to find it. She nodded and ran in that direction. I asked her to fill the bathtub with water while I unhooked my gold cross around my neck and then bent down to utter the prayer in Latin to bless the water.

That was going to be my first line of defence.