Passion made his face a stranger’s. “Is it fair to me?” he asked. “Are you being fair to me?” He caught her hand and pressed it against the bulge in his pants.
She jerked her hand away, angry for the first time. “We didn’t come here for this! Use your head, Pete! You wanted to come here to say the License to Depart. Let’s do that, then, and—”
“Later,” he said, reaching for her. “Later, we can do anything you like.”
“Not later! Now, before it’s too late!” She pushed him away, and bent to pick up the book he had dropped. When she came up, he caught her to him and kissed her hair and the back of her neck. Sarah squirmed, trying to avoid his caresses, and paged through the book, looking for the marked page.
“Sarah,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re driving me crazy. If you only knew how much I want you . . .”
She found the page with the License to Depart. She prayed that it would work, without the consecrated circle and without both their minds concentrated on it. She shifted and twisted away from Pete’s lips and hands and hoped that she, at least, would be safe from Jade. He can only fight us one at a time, she thought. In a trembling voice she began to read.
“O Spirit . . . Jade, because thou hast diligently answered me—answered Valerie’s—demands, I do hereby license and command thee to depart, without injury to man or beast. Depart, I say, and be thou very willing and ready”—she slapped at Pete’s hands—“to come, whensoever duly exorcised and conjured—”
Pete grabbed her head and held it still, kissing her mouth, silencing her. Sarah brought the book up in both hands into his stomach, but it was a weak and ineffective blow. Still, she managed to break away from him, and moved backwards hastily out of his reach.
“Depart, I say,” she resumed breathlessly. She looked for her place on the page. “And . . . be thou very willing and ready to come, whensoever duly exorcised and conjured by the sacred rites of magic. I conjure thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and may the peace of God continue for ever and ever, between me and thee. Amen.”
She looked up and saw Brian standing in the center of the chalked circle. Looking at the floor, she saw that she was outside the circle, and that her footsteps had smeared and broken the line. She bit her lip. She would not give up. Not yet. Perhaps it wasn’t spoiled. It might not be too late. Quickly she found the second marked page in the book—an exhortation if the spirit be reluctant to leave—and began to read it aloud. She was painfully aware of the man standing only a few feet away.
“I command you by all the holy names, by Adonay, Amay, Horta, Vegadoro, Ysion, Ysey, by the Holy Name by which Solomon did bind up the devils and lock them up, Ethrack, Evener, Agla, Goth, Joth, Othie, Veneck, Nabrack, by all the holy names and powers that be, Beroald, Berald, Balbin, Gab, Gabor, Agaba, by the grace and power of God, depart and leave us in peace.”
She looked up. She still saw Brian. Tears filled her eyes. She dropped the book on the floor, raised her arms above her head and shouted at the top of her lungs, hopelessly yet still hoping, “BAST!”
She opened her eyes and saw Pete. Relief flooded her. Tentatively she smiled at him.
He smiled back, but it was the wrong smile. He was looking at her still with desire, still controlled by Jade, tricked into seeing some other Sarah. Sarah felt cold and very much alone. She backed away from him when he held out his arms to her.
“I’m leaving,” she said. She turned away.
“Sarah.”
It was Brian’s voice.
She trembled but did not look back.
“Sarah, sweetheart, I love you. Come here and let me kiss you.”
She made herself walk away. She could not look back. If she looked back, she knew she would be lost. If she saw Brian she would go to him, even knowing that he was really Pete, even knowing that he was an illusion. She would make love to him gladly, greedily, accepting the illusion since that was all she had.
“Sarah, please. Come back to me. I need you.”
She broke into a run, then, through the kitchen and onto the porch and outside, down the three wooden steps. She was crying.
Outside, she slumped against the side of her car and wept. When the worst of it passed, she looked up and saw that Pete was sitting on the top step, head buried in his hands. She wiped her face with a tissue, watching him, but he did not move or speak.
“Pete,” she said at last.
He looked up, cautiously, giving her a hunted look. His face was haggard, and the expression on it might have been guilt or it might have been fear. He did not speak.
Sarah sighed, pushing herself away from the car. She felt like an empty shell, and it was an effort to move. “Come on,” she said wearily. “Let’s get out of here.”
Pete rose, moving like an invalid, and walked towards her. He stopped short while there was still quite a distance between them and said in a whisper, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault.” She hated the stricken look on Pete’s face. She wanted to forget what had happened—and what had not happened—but there was still this problem to be worked out between them. She sighed. “Let’s go,” she said.
They got into Pete’s car, Sarah again taking the wheel. She didn’t quite trust Pete to drive; she didn’t trust what his guilt and exhaustion might make him do.
“It was Jade,” she said again. “You don’t have to feel guilty.” She looked at him. “It was just another kind of attack. He was playing with us. I kept seeing you as Brian, and I wanted . . . all I wanted to do . . . Jade made me feel that, just as he made you feel . . .”
“But you saw Brian,” Pete said dully. “That’s why . . .” He drew a deep breath and rubbed his face fiercely with the palm of one hand. Not looking at her, he said, “I didn’t see anyone but you. I didn’t imagine that you were Bev, or anyone else. I knew what I was doing the whole time; I knew it was you. I don’t have an excuse, you see. I’ve always been attracted to you, Sarah. I love Bev. I would never do anything to hurt her. And there I was . . . acting out my fantasies about you. I don’t know what came over me—”
“Of course you do,” Sarah said sharply. “We both know that it was Jade. You wouldn’t have done that on your own. You don’t have to be ashamed of your fantasies—you would never have thought of trying to act them out except for Jade.”
Pete went on as if she had said nothing. “It was as if nothing else mattered, as if there was nothing else in the world except the two of us. And all I wanted was to make love to you. I didn’t want to think about what I was doing—hell, I didn’t even try to fight it! I can’t justify what I did.”
“You don’t have to. Pete, you’re talking as if you were alone in there—I was there, too, and I—”
“You thought I was Brian. Jade tricked you into seeing Brian,” Pete said. “He didn’t trick me.”
“Of course he did! Will you stop pitying yourself and be logical? I knew Brian wasn’t there—I knew it had to be you—but I didn’t want to argue against my own senses, and it was Brian I saw and Brian I felt in my arms,” Sarah said. “You could tell yourself you loved Beverly, but how could you argue against the lust Jade was making you feel? Jade was speeding up your pulse, muddying your thoughts, feeding your fantasies—how could you be expected to fight against that? He was playing on you physically and mentally—you didn’t have a chance. It wasn’t you, Pete!”
“The classic excuse,” he said dryly.
The hint of humor in his voice cheered her. “And it’s over now,” she said. “We’re out of the house, and out of that whole fantasy. Jade can’t touch us here. It’s over. Let’s forget it and go on, O.K.?”
He sighed, not looking at her. “I can’t shrug it off like that.”