The light the flashlight provided was seductive. I could feel the demon’s presence here. No connection I could make out, nothing obvious or apparent enough for me to put my finger on it. When the light was cast on more distant objects, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the demon was just behind me, or to the side of me. So close it could caress my cheek. When the light was closer, it was out there. Watching.
My eye wanted to follow the light. Human nature, common sense, a desire for security. Knowing had a way of making things better.
Distant or close, there was no sign of my demon quarry. I kept scanning my surroundings.
The plants had grown into the structure in patches, in much the same way weeds grew up from cracks or slats the sidewalk, but they were stunted, meager, and blighted. Places where the elements had been able to enter the building were littered with debris, the other places so clean and clear that the factory might have been open days ago. The room just inside the entrance was broad and empty of any fixtures. Stairs on the far side led to a catwalk that overlooked the bigger room beyond.
The ceiling had collapsed at one corner. More debris, more snow, and a fairly large barrier to progress.
Something moved at the edge of my field of vision. Not the demon. Evan, flying by and looking in.
Here and there, there were holes on the floor. Cracks, deep enough for me to lose a foot in them.
I knelt on the cold floor, and put the can of gasoline down. I drew the torch out, and removed the plastic bag that kept the gasoline within from soaking into my clothes.
I painted a circle on the floor with the torch, soaked it again, and continued painting. A more complex diagram, very similar to the one I’d seen used against Barbatorem in the house’s attic, but with a wide enough space to spare the wreath within.
I wasn’t even done when the light subtly changed. Rose doing her thing at the window at the far end. Covering things up on her side of the window, leaving space uncovered to let faint light through. It was… it was feeble and weak, I had to admit. It had seemed clearer in my head. But I had a dim oval of moonlight surrounding me.
Something moved in my peripheral vision. Not Evan. Not Rose. A stirring.
“Hurry,” Rose said. Faint and far away.
There was nothing to do but press on.
It took only a second to get the diagram burning. All of my surroundings were dimly illuminated, now, cast in faint yellow and orange. The shapes on the walls seemed to move back and forth as the flame did.
I saw it to my left. It was barely visible in the shadow before it retreated to further darkness, vague and nebulous when I looked at it without really looking. It moved like a hand without an accompanying body, of its own volition, using fingers to drag itself along the floor, perhaps. A bulky, multi-limbed, asymmetrical body, with limbs that moved so quickly they might have been flickering. Matte black. It might have been a spider gone wrong ten times over with some full-body cancer, or a giant hunchbacked man with a dozen arms that were stretched long enough to reach over and under one another. But it wasn’t. It was a demon of the choir of darkness. Something that had been given life in counterpoint to creation. It was aged limbs, withered ones, from every species and no species in particular.
It was nearly silent. There was only a shuffling, the faintest scrape of body against floor.
The front of the body disappeared, and some form of lower body or tail dragged behind it, like entrails trailing behind a man that had been bisected, a spine without the accompanying stomach, or a naked tail. The trailing flesh was bent in places, as if it had been broken badly and bones had reset improperly. A kind of detail that teased, invited me to look, as if it were a clue I could use. But looking was a trap.
The thing didn’t stop moving. I could make out the larger body shuffling forward to my right, and the ‘tail’ was still being dragged along the floor to my left.
Staring into the fire made my view of the darkness less clear when I moved my eyes to stare at a different section of floor. Afterimages danced in their wake, spots in my vision, and imagination filled in the gaps to tell me that I was looking at was a part of the demon.
There was no end to it. It thinned out, leading me to think its tail would pass me by, but then the tail turned out to be dragging something like a fleshy version of an ant’s abdomen, teardrop shaped, moist enough to leave a wet, slick on the ground. It smelled like bile tasted. More tissues dragged behind it.
There were now three places around me where the tissue was dragging along in a continuous, snake-like mass. There were features on parts to my right that didn’t match what I’d seen on my left earlier.
The shuffling could be heard from every direction. Something was knocked over and the collapse prompted more collapses.
“Demon,” Rose’s voice echoed throughout the space. “I am Rose Thorburn of the Thorburn line. All of the choirs know who we are. We are not to be trifled with.”
I heard spattering behind me.
I couldn’t see without taking my eyes off the ground within my circles, but I could infer from the black spatter that was falling down onto the floor.
Some landed just beside my flaming circle, spatter sizzling in the flame itself. The flame’s intensity dropped.
If he was close enough to do that, the circle of moonlight wasn’t doing enough. Couldn’t say whether that was because moonlight didn’t work or it wasn’t clear enough as diagrams went.
“Demon, I compel you to tell me your name! Tell me, or I will claim the right to name you! I will repeat myself thrice times thrice. Prove your weakness by refusing to provide an answer, and I will prove my strength by giving it!”
She hadn’t gone into any detail on this trick.
The demon stopped. All of the coils and cordons, the segments and limbs, they froze.
The only movement was the distortion in my field of vision, where my eyes had gotten used to movement. The darkness kept moving, even as the demon remained still.
There was silence, still enough that I could hear my own heartbeat, the creak of the open front door being moved by wind, and the periodic drip of fluids falling from the demon’s body overhead.
It moved. Faster than before, from zero to fifty in a heartbeat. It took me a half second to realize why. Even if I had realized, even if I had been in perfect shape, I might not have been able to move fast enough to dodge.
It lunged.
Maybe it was a small grace that I couldn’t. I remained where I was, within the circle, not falling into fire or passing beyond any little protection it afforded, and I froze in stark terror rather than look at the massive shape that was now airborne, leaping my way.
It had doubled back, perching above the front door. It landed a matter of feet from me. Inches from the circle. The impact of the landing dashed pitch fluids from its body, a lopsided mouth yawned open, then snapped shut. The blade of a guillotine.
Blood poured forth, and the demon shook its head like a dog might with caught prey, the movement distorting its features further.
The gore that flowed forth dashed out the flames of half of my circle, giving me only a fleeting glimpse before the darkness made it impossible to see, and the demon’s clutching limbs snatched at morsels. Where the light touched it, flesh sloughed away, showing muscle and bone, ill-fit together.
It reared back, to draw much of the main body away from the remaining flame, but the periodic spatter was now a downpour. Flesh falling away in pounds and gallons. Wet and smelling so violent that I doubted I’d be able to breathe, if I hadn’t already been holding my breath.