“You heard right the first time.”
I still wanted her to repeat it.
She huffed at me, a sharp burst of sound.
“A demon. What do you know?”
“Uh. Demon as in the opposite of an angel? The ones that come from hell. That demon?”
I’d always assumed those were myth. Kind of like angels. Or if not myths, something I would never ever encounter.
If she said it was a demon causing this, I was out. Out of the city. Out of the state. Possibly out of the country. I wasn’t dealing with a demon. No how, no way. Especially if said demon could make off with my not so mortal soul.
“Those are human concepts meant to reflect their concept of good and evil.”
Oh good. I’ve seen a lot of weird things in this world. I don’t think I wanted to see a human’s concept of a demon. Some things are just not meant to be experienced or seen.
“Angels are just as vicious as demons,” Miriam inserted.
Ah ha. That cleared things up.
“So you’re saying a demon like what’s in the bible has come to Columbus to paralyze people with fear?” I said, not sure I could say that without bursting into laughter.
“Of course not,” Sarah said in a crisp voice. “That would be nearly impossible. A demon hasn’t walked the earth in nearly one thousand years. If one did, it would make its presence felt with more than a few victims here and there.”
Oh that sounded much better. Not.
“Then it’s not a demon?” I wasn’t sure what they were trying to tell me.
“Demons need to be summoned, but even then they’re mostly non-corporeal. In history, only a handful have been recorded as taking a physical body on this plane of existence. That’s much harder for them.”
Despite my initial disbelief, I found myself interested in the conversation. This was the kind of stuff I’d been hoping the book could teach me.
“If they can’t take form, then why are there so many stories in human religion?” I asked.
Sarah’s bony shoulder moved up and down in a shrug. “Humans fear many things and tend to embellish the smallest things, creating monsters where shadows exist.”
I conceded the point. We tended to vilify that which we didn’t understand. We also had a habit of seeing fire where it didn’t exist.
“Ok, so how does this relate to what’s happening now?”
“Demons can’t take form here, but they can still make deals.”
The penny dropped.
“You think whoever’s doing this made a deal with a demon.”
Then why was it just causing fear and paralyzing its victims then leaving them there only to return once they’d reawakened. It didn’t make sense.
Unless some of those affected weren’t the intended victims. Maybe they just got too close to this demon and got caught in the magical crossfire. It would explain why some were left where they stood.
Still didn’t explain why whatever this is then summoned the affected to it once they came unstuck.
The two watched me as I puzzled this out.
Sarah leaned back. “You’ll have to give up a favor if you want anything more.”
Oh no. I wasn’t getting sucked back into that. The last favor I’d given Miriam had resulted in Angela escaping the consequences of using the draugr as a weapon of mass destruction. Any favor I gave either of these two would just come back to bite me on the ass.
