The Roach fished the key out of his pocket while Eloise beamed and Nancy fretted. Wayne and the rest of SSI would notice his absence, but they were aware of his calling. You could argue religion, you could argue paranormal evidence, you could argue science, but you couldn’t argue faith.
And The Roach’s faith was strong. Here was proof of God’s blessing. God had provided bait.
“Are you ready to meet him?” he said, with appropriate gravity.
“Him?” Eloise said to Nancy. “See, I told you it wasn’t Margaret Percival.”
God, keep me strong in thy service.
The basement door opened to the expected musty, earthen smell, but The Roach detected an underlying whiff of coal ash. Lucifer had no problem gathering around the campfire and swapping war stories. But The Roach sensed that Belial was the shaper here, the one treating the inn as his personal dollhouse. Belial, as the demon of lies and deceit, had a special power to corrupt, as humans were all too willing to believe what they wanted to believe.
“Shall we, ladies?” he said, bowing and ushering them forward with his arm.
“It’s dark,” Nancy said.
“Better that way,” Eloise said, though she no longer seemed so eager to enter the basement.
“Don’t worry,” The Roach said, fingering his crucifix so they couldn’t miss the gesture. “I’ll take care of you.”
He tried the light switch just inside the basement door, though he knew it was dead. He switched on the miner’s-style mag light strapped to his toboggan and descended the stairs. “Follow me.”
The two women must have been avid watchers of the popular paranormal shows, for both had flashlights recommended by the “experts.” Eloise came first, her yellowish flashlight beam mixing with the mag-light’s blue beam to cast the basement floor in a sickly green glow. Nancy had enough presence of mind to switch on her audio recorder and whisper, “Entering the basement. 11:56 p.m. Three people present.”
Four minutes until midnight. In many occult systems, midnight marked the thinnest point between the physical and spiritual realms. In locations of high energy or turbulence, invisible doors opened and realms overlapped. The lost and the weak from both sides wandered where they shouldn’t, and some never made it back to their side of the border.
The trio reached the concrete pad at the foot of the stairs, the crumbling gray platform giving way to a sea of dirt. The Roach surveyed the battlefield and decided it was as suitable as any. Higher ground was easier to defend, but frontal assaults were best made on level terrain.
“What was that?” Eloise said, her flashlight cutting frantic swathes along the support timbers and slick stone walls.
“Something moved over there,” Nancy said, drawing nearer to The Roach.
He pulled the tiny flask of holy water from his belt. His Latin was rusty. The Catholic Church got all the credit for holding back the tide of demons, but in truth it just had the best publicity department. With their coy denial of exorcisms and their pretense at secrecy, the church leaders held a monopoly on awe. They were no more immune to pride than any of God’s servants.
The beauty of a dead language was that the average person had no idea what you were saying. Demons spoke in tongues and cared more about intention than literal interpretation. But words conveyed magic and gave force to beliefs and desires. Spoken aloud, they were the difference between mere thought and true will.
“Repeat after me,” The Roach whispered.
The two women would assume he was casting a protective spell, though cloaked in the church instead of witchcraft. From the shadows, Belial pulsed with pleasure at the trickery. But he would not make a full appearance until the hosts were ripe and willing, and in its greed and lust the demon would become vulnerable. The best time to slay a pig was when its nose was buried in the trough.
“Beati possidentes, et di minores abyssum invocat.”
The women echoed a jumbled, half-hearted imitation.
The invocation was swallowed by the dead, heavy air of the basement. The Roach waded a few more feet into the murk, luring his sacrifices closer to the portal. As he swiveled his head, the mag-light bounced along the walls, illuminating chinks and crevices in the stone. A low suspiration wended through the maze of beams and pipes, a noise that could have been mistaken for flowing water or the hum of the ventilation system.
“What did he say?” Nancy whispered, but Eloise shushed her.
Belial was dangerous because he had a chip on his shoulder. Whereas most of the demons in the pantheon were happy to commit evil for its own sake, Belial had once been celebrated as the main fallen angel, and early texts even called him the father of Lucifer and the one who inspired the revolt against God. Yet somewhere between the butchering of the Old Testament and the giddy pop presentation of the EZ Read Bible, Belial had slipped down the ladder and Lucifer now lorded over the lesser gods.
While Lucifer was content lapping up the cream God so generously dished out, growing fat and contented, Belial was working overtime. The Roach had crossed paths with it before, but that was years ago and The Roach had made many mistakes, most of them born of overconfidence. Belial had no doubt grown stronger, for the world was ripe with the fruit of sin, but The Roach was wiser, too. He’d learned to play the game on their terms and turn their own arrogance against them.
“What’s that sound?” Nancy said.
The breath of your worst nightmare.
“It’s a discarnate spirit,” Eloise said, her sureness waning as they moved deeper into the basement.
“11:59,” Nancy whispered into her recorder. “Apparent audio evidence noted.”
“Belial, master of this world,” The Roach intoned. “I offer you these gifts and hope you find them worthy.”
At the edge of the mag-light’s reach, swirls of darkness struggled to coalesce. The beam dimmed and The Roach’s skin puckered despite the surge of warmth. Even the rectangle of light from the doorway above went a shade toward orange, as if Belial were draining the hotel’s electrical system to power up and drag himself into the material world. Belial could manifest in any form it chose, though most demons went with the old standby of horns, fangs, and reptilian eyes, at least until they found a suitable subject to possess.
“I see it,” Eloise whispered.
“Margaret Percival?” Nancy said.
“Yes,” came the response, though the sibilant word was lost in the distant thrum of the elevator.
“Taking a flash photograph,” Nancy duly noted for the benefit of the recording. The Roach wondered which image the demon would allow to be captured. The flash illuminated half the basement, and Eloise gave a choked squeal.
Belial decided to give the full Monty.
Though it was only for a split-second as the flash died away to a beeping that indicated dead batteries, the image burned itself into The Roach’s retinas. At least eight feet tall, three horns brushing against the floor joists, a wrinkled, trollish face, narrow eyes with yellowed, elliptical pupils, grotesque green musculature of the torso set atop scrawny legs that ended in cloven hooves, and between its thighs dangled—
The door slammed as their flashlights died.
“God help us,” Eloise shouted in the utter darkness.
Must be midnight. Let’s party.
The Roach held up the crucifix, confident that he’d be able to sear Belial’s form back to ash and sulfur. A hot wind rushed by him in the dark.
There was a thump and a heavy, sodden sound as one of the women moaned.Forgive me, Lord, for I have been mistaken.
Belial grunted and smacked drenched lips. The Roach slid his night-vision goggles into place, crouching into a defensive posture. He wielded the crucifix like a knife, shocked to see the demon bent over Nancy, slavering away at her throat.
Sucking her soul…
Belial dropped Nancy’s corpse and roared, dark liquid dripping from its serrated fangs. It snarled at The Roach, no trace of cunning in its beady eyes.