Or something worse?
Unbidden, Mordechai’s words flowed back to me.First, it will try to frighten you. Then it will try to seduce you.
My heart thudded with something that wasn’t quite fear…then anger erupted inside me, a punch of fiery pain.
My eyes widened, and I drew in a deep breath, steadying myself. “Is that what you’re trying to do?” I gritted out as I stared at the wall, my voice sounding scratchy and broken to my own ears. “You lying sack of split-personality bullshit, is this some new game you’re playing, to get me to fuckingwantyou creeping around inside me?”
But there was no response. There’d been no response all weekend to my half-formed questions, my stunted blurts. It was as if Mordechai had dropped a caul of protection over me to keep me from doing something idiotic until I shook off the effects of my first solo exorcism, and…well, now I was finally understanding that he was right.
I was being played by my own sick fantasies.
Worse…I didn’t know if I minded it so much.
Without moving, without breathing, I stared at the image on the wall for a long while, knowing what I needed to do but notwanting to do it yet. I stared until I had burned the demon’s portrait into my very bones. I stared until I could make fun of myself for staring. This wasn’t real, I knew. This was bullshit.
Evil was, ever and always, evil.
And through it all, no murmur of argument surfaced from the depths, which was the clearest indication of all that I had made it through; I had passed the test. My inner voice was taking a dirt nap.
I blew out a long breath.
First things first.
Calmly, I walked to my bed, fishing between the mattresses for the notebook I kept tucked there. Sitting on my bed like some sort of deranged tween with her secret diary, I opened the notebook to a fresh page and began to write.
Ignoring the pitch and roll of my stomach, I wrote out theLord’s Prayerthree times. Then theMemorare. Neither of those was part of the rabbi’s canon of prayers, but I figured I should at least give a nod to all the earnest training I’d received at St. Catherine’s High School and All Souls Elementary before that. Mom had trusted in Jesus almost as much as she had the bottle, and Mordechai had helped with tuition to those schools, too, I was pretty sure. Although we didn’t talk about that, either.
The prayers finished, I wrote out my baptismal vows, vows which I assumed had been made on my behalf when I’d been a baby, but were just as true now, dammit. Once again, not really copasetic with Rabbi Mordechai’s current spin on the Almighty, but two thousand years of Jesus-believers couldn’t be completely wrong.
With every line, I felt more in control. Not better, really. The words hurt too much for that. But sharper. Focused. I murmured the words aloud as I wrote them.
“I reject Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth…”
As I wrote, I paid attention to my body. Was I writing the words correctly?Yes.Was I emitting any sort of foul smells or fluids?No. Other than the nausea, did I have any physical complaints?No.
Was there anything lurking behind my eyeballs, trying to talk to me?
I waited. No.
I. Was not. Possessed.
I was just me.
Fucked up, sure. Given to seriously dark and twisted thoughts that sometimes seemed like they took on a life of their own, oh yeah. But me.
Slowly, gradually, relief washed through me. I wasn’t corrupted. I wasn’t evil. I wasn’t harboring something dark and sinister inside me against my will.
I was suffering from bad dreams, anxiety, disgusting thoughts and daydreams, and even a fucked-up kind of literary somnambulism brought on by my part-time job as a ninja warrior demon slayer, that was all. Everyone had to have a way to let off steam. Nighttime auto-writing seemed to be mine.
Ready at last, I set aside the notebook, then worked methodically to clean my room, pulling out new bedsheets to hang on the walls, bundling away the ones too ripped to hide much of anything. I’d sew them up later. I couldn’t cover this mess with fabric alone, though. Instead, I pulled out an industrial-sized tub of KILZ, then the smaller cans of plain white paint I kept under my bed. I painted over the walls as quickly as I could, trying not to pass out in the process. By the time the walls were a uniform white again, I was reeling despite the fans. I stumbled to the door and pulled it open.
And jerked back just as quickly.
“Steve!”
“Yo…fuckkkk, what the hell.” Still wrapped in Mom’s afghan, he blearily peered past me at the now stark white room, blinking at the smell. His heavily fringed dark eyes swiveled around, not quite tracking. “You could kill yourself in here with all these fumes.”
