Touched - Part Four

Wednesday, October 25

Amber sat back in her seat and glanced around the campus library. Though there were plenty of people working or reading near the computers, she still felt a compulsive need to check and make sure every few minutes.

She looked back to the Gopher article on daemonic possession and sighed. Most of the information online was theories on which kind of mental illness possession had been mischaracterized as, but she’d found a reference to another article which listed the full known symptoms of possession. It was in that article which she had noticed the shift from the term demon to daemon, and with each reference to a new document, she moved further into a body of work that felt more like speculative fiction than actual fact.

Among the symptoms she read, only the change in voice seemed common, and there was no mention of the irises being dilated. The detective’s description of the captured killers’ behavior also seemed to fit with many symptoms, but not all of them. Part of her mind could concede that the people writing the articles were going off of secondhand accounts, and she needed something more definitive.

She decided to start a new search using the term, defense from daemons, and she sighed when it only pulled up two articles. The first was an anime fan-fiction that she’d actually read a few months before, and the reference to a daemon was a software module. The second article listed various methods of protecting a person from curses or attacks by what the author called the “daemons of misfortune.”

Most of the article still seemed ridiculous to her until she ran across an item called a Black Spot Blessing:

Though the untrained eye will see only a tiny black dot, this tattoo is actually a series of letters written over each other. Most commonly, it is an inscription of the name Helen (page 7) or Diana, (page 24) and represents the divine blessing of the goddess. (page 2) When properly inscribed by a mystic, the bearer is protected from all harm by both daemons and by the influence of human curses such as the evil eye. (page 96)

This is not to be confused with the curse of the black spot, a malady placed upon sailors in fictional tales such as...

She skipped over the rest of the description and moved down to the next definition in the list,  reading with more interest. But while many of the methods claimed to protect a person from possession, nothing seemed useful to her to defend against a person who had become possessed.

She knew that she didn’t need to worry about finding a blessing. For whatever reason, she was already blessed, and the daemon attacking her was angry that he couldn’t possess her.

Her line of thinking was halted abruptly when she suddenly thought of Marcus. If the daemon was mad at her, then it might also become angry with Marcus for helping her.

She looked down at her watch and glanced around the library before she got up. As she walked to the exit, she became aware of how many people were staring at her.

She knew it was for the bruises and bandages on her neck, but she still felt self-conscious. Sure, now everyone is looking. I can try putting on a neon outfit and no one would notice, but if I get just one little bruise, then the whole world is watching.

She walked outside and let go of a shaky breath before she slipped the straps of her bag up over her shoulder. A man walked past her to open the door, and her skin broke out in goosebumps when he coughed. He walked inside without looking back, and she gave a tiny nervous laugh before turning around.

The hand that slammed into the middle of her chest knocked the air from her lungs and sent her sprawling onto the pavement, but she ignored the pain of her landing to begin crawling back away from the bulky jock that towered over her.

He shouted in a rasping voice, “You think you can get away from me?”

Amber rolled over and got to her feet, taking off at a full run. In front of her, a woman stiffened and spun around to grin at her. “I can be anyone, freak.”

Amber cut a wide path around the woman, but even before she’d passed, she saw the woman’s expression change to a look of confusion. Another few yards away, a heavyset professor turned around to grin at her.

Wait, stop running, she thought. It’s trying to make you panic so you’ll wind up somewhere alone. Amber stopped several feet away from the professor, her whole body tensed and ready to run if the daemon decided to attack her in broad daylight. “What are you?”

“Come closer,” the professor said and cackled. “I can whisper it in your ear before I tear it off.” His smile fell, and his face became instantly baffled.

Amber nodded and looked around. “Right, you’re playing games with me because you can’t get inside my head. That’s why you keep calling me a freak, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me, Miss,” the professor said quietly. “Are you talking to me?”

Amber took a step back from him as he tried to reach out for her arm. “No, I’m talking to the prick that lives in thin air.”

***

Amber glanced around anxiously, finally heaving a relieved sigh when she saw Marcus crossing the campus quad. He waved to her as he got closer, and then he asked, “Did you find out anything?”

“I found out what that black dot on your hand does, but nothing useful. Then the daemon started messing with me again.”

“What?” Marcus listened to Amber describe her encounter with a widening frown, and he shook his head as she finished. “Maybe I can get a hold of my ex and see if she’s got something.”

“After I finished reading this one article, I started thinking about you being blessed. It might be possible that the daemon could come after you too.”

“I wonder why it would bother. I mean, this city has thousands of people who it can possess, so why keep pestering you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just an ego thing. If the daemon can’t get inside me, it will want to find some way to break me instead. I think it gets off on pain, so—”

Amber heard the sound of an engine growling as a car sped up, and she turned to see a Camaro hop the curb to angle toward her and Marcus. She leaned into his side and leapt, feeling the bumper of the car smack the heel of her shoe. Her ankle twisted with the force, but she couldn’t stop to think of it or of her scraped arms as she landed on the paved parking lot.

She set her weight awkwardly on her ankle before bending over to help Marcus up. Tires screeched behind her, and she knew without looking that the car was backing up to try again.

Marcus stepped away from her and let the car angle toward him. He spun around the edge of the bumper and kept pivoting to slam his backpack through the driver’s side window.

Amber doubted it had any effect, and she grabbed his arm to pull him along behind her. “Come on,” she said and started limping toward a light post in the parking lot. “You win cool points for the move, but I think you just pissed it—”

“Left!” Marcus shouted as he shoved her aside. The car shot past them and slammed into the side of a truck before it started to back up. Exasperated, Marcus shouted, “Oh, come on!”

Amber looked back at the street and pulled Marcus with her. “New plan.”

“If it involves anything similar to Frogger, you can—” He stopped himself and shoved Amber away from the car. “Lead the way,” he said and instinctively winced when the Camaro crashed into another parked vehicle.

Amber went between two parked cars to stand by the curb. “Right, he’ll switch cars...” She pointed as a truck began to veer toward them. “Now. Move!”

The truck tried to follow them, and it collided into the car  in the left lane. Amber looked the opposite way then leaned back, barely avoiding having her face imbedded in the windshield of the minivan that had sped into the turn lane. She leapt forward without thinking, and her weight settled onto her twisted ankle, nearly toppling her in front of a cab.

Marcus sank low to slip his head under her arm before he jogged to the other side of the street. He continued to run until he had gotten to his car, and he looked back around at the street with a newfound sense of fear.

“Oh, hell no. We can’t go out there and play demolition derby, Amber.” Marcus pointed to his tiny, ancient car, and his slender face drew tight into a fearful scowl. “This is a Pinto, for pete’s sake. We’d be squished in seconds.”

“There’s only one thing to do.” Amber panted and set her palms down on the hood of the car. “We’ll have to bless the car and see what happens.”

“Um...no, that sounds like a stupid idea,” Marcus said.

“Well, we can always try walking or taking a cab. Stop and think about either option for more than two seconds.”

Marcus opened his mouth, then closed it before he made an irritated groan. “Fine. Between the two of us, you seem like the one who should be able to make a blessing. So if this fails and we die, it’s because your plan sucks.”

“You know, your phone message said you were a fourteenth level mage,” Amber commented. “Shouldn’t you know at least one blessing?”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Amber, all of my spells require rolling twenty-sided dice.” His attention wandered as a tow truck pulled into the lot. “All right, just hurry up already.”

Amber glanced over her shoulder at the truck and then looked down at her indistinct reflection in the hood of the car while she tried to think of something that sounded like a magical blessing. This is a lousy time to draw a blank, she thought.

After another moment of shooting down ideas for being too vague, she said, “Helen, bless this car and protect it from harm...uh, amen.”

She limped around to the passenger door and dropped in just as the tow truck pulled around the corner. Marcus looked from the truck back at her with a doubtful expression. “Amber, you can’t be serious. I’m supposed to get out in front of a half ton truck in the vehicular equivalent of tin foil, and the best you can do is, ‘Uh, amen?’”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert on what makes a good blessing?” Amber quipped and gestured at the truck. “Look, they stopped. Let’s just get out of here.”

Marcus started the car and backed out of the slot, his face tightening in an angry grimace when the truck peeled its tires and shot forward. “Fucking knew it!”

“Drive!”

Marcus huffed as he slammed the car into gear. “No shit!” He didn’t bother with the brakes when he got to the end of the lane, and instead, he let the car slide into the turn.

Amber’s body clenched as the truck loomed closer, and all the while the Pinto’s wheels spun without gaining traction. At last the tiny grey car shot forward, and the truck barely missed the rear bumper before plowing through a new red convertible.

She sighed and slumped into her seat. “Oh thank...um, goddess, I guess.”

“Hold off on the thanks until we get home,” Marcus said as he drove to the side exit of the parking lot. “We’ve still got a lot of miles between us and my apartment complex.”

***

Amber sat staring blankly ahead of her until Marcus tapped her arm. “Hmmm?”

“I said we’re parked,” Marcus said.

“Oh, good...good. I think I’d like to vomit now.” And then she did.

Marcus groaned and covered his face. “You could have opened the door first.”

“It’s all on the mat, so it should be easy to clean,” Amber said, opening the door to step gingerly out of the car. “I’d complain about your driving, but you were the only thing that kept us alive.”

“Yeah, well even an idiot could figure out that blessing the car won’t work. The daemon isn’t the thing that’s going to be tearing the car or our soft bodies apart, is it?”

Amber nodded. “Yeah, I can admit that I was wrong. Next time, we’ll just walk home.” She nodded at his silence. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Yes, I said shut up already.”

***

Amber heard the door to the roommate’s room creak open with a dreadfully slow and unnerving pace. The room beyond was pitch black, and out of the darkness, there emerged a huge woman.

Vicky was not only tall enough to need to dip under the doorframe to avoid hitting the top of her head, but she was thick as well, and not from fat. Polite company would have referred to her as being big boned, but there were also quite a few large muscles around her big bones.

It was neither her size nor her milk white skin that caused Amber to sit up stiffly on the couch. Instead it was the way Vicky’s pale blue lips parted in a wide grin to reveal a set of very sharp looking fangs. “Marcus?” Amber whimpered.

Vicky’s eyes were blue, but they were dark, and surrounded by halos of black on the outer rims of her irises. Her hair looked jet black at first, but the lights in the living and dining rooms revealed glimmering highlights of blue.

Amber tried to think logically then. Vicky’s hair was obviously dyed blue-black, and she was wearing makeup and contact lenses. Nobody really looked the way Vicky did. Not naturally, anyway.

But Amber’s logic ran to hide in a far corner of her mind when Vicky said, “Hello, cutie. You look delicious.”

Amber could recognize that it wasn’t the voice of the daemon, but the reassurance did little to stop her heart from speeding up to a frenzied beat. Raising her voice, she almost screeched, “Marcus?”

He emerged from the bathroom dressed in a pink terry cloth robe, and he glanced over at his roommate before giving a relieved sigh. “I thought it was something bad.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a new girlfriend,” Vicky said. She stepped over to the couch to offer her hand. “Hello, I’m Vicky.”

Amber nodded and extended her hand. “Yeah, Marcus told—” Her throat locked when Vicky leaned over to lick the back of her hand.

Vicky smiled at Amber in a way that made her think of a snake watching a mouse just before it struck. “Oh, she’s tasty all right. You don’t normally bring virgins home.”

Sighing, Marcus rolled his eyes. “Vicky, behave. We’ve had to play dodge the daemon all afternoon, so I don’t think Amber wants to deal with any vampire antics tonight either.”

“A real daemon, or something from your monster manual?” Vicky asked as she straightened back up.

“You aren’t even a little bit skeptical?” Amber saw Vicky turn to regard her with  an incredulous look and she gave a short nod after thinking it over. “No, I guess not.”

***

Amber finished her story and sat watching Vicky dunk a teabag into a cup of hot water. At least, she tried to convince herself it was a teabag, even though it appeared to be a roll of used gauze with a string tied around the middle. Amber had watched Vicky remove the roll of red gauze from the freezer, and she guessed from Marcus’ expression that it wasn’t a novelty item.

When Vicky raised her cup to sip from it and nod her approval, Amber felt perilously close to throwing up again.

“Right, well you’ll be needing a witch or a real mage of some kind,” Vicky said and shrugged. “Those are in short supply these days. Most of the witches I know are just airheads with delusions of grandeur.”

“What about Marcus’ ex?”

“No, Kathy was the real deal, but the last I heard, she’d moved to join some coven in Frisco.”

“So what do you know about magic?”

Vicky shook her head and took another sip from her cup. “Not much. I know it exists, but that’s about it. Vampires don’t have any magical abilities.”

Amber opened her mouth to say something flippant, but she noticed Marcus shaking his head at her, his expression saying loud and clear, Don’t go there.

She thought about it before deciding that she could get her ass handed to her by Vicky even without the help of daemonic strength. “So what should I do?”

Vicky said, “We should go out to look for a few friends of mine. They aren’t skilled in magics, but they do travel in the same social circles with people who do.”

Marcus shook his head quickly. “That seems like a really bad idea.”

“Yeah, I know Marcus can’t be possessed, but if the daemon entered you...” Amber frowned thoughtfully, trying to think of a way to be tactful. She gave up and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re built like a linebacker, and you could rip both of us apart.”

Vicky smiled serenely, seeming to take great pleasure from the comment. “Thank you, but I seriously doubt that a daemon would want to possess me.”

“How do you figure?” Amber asked.

“Part of the joy of possession is to corrupt something good. What point would there be to entering me?”

Looking skeptical Amber said, “Killing us, maybe?”

Vicky shrugged and drained her cup before she sat back in her seat. “Then you can always stay inside for the rest of your lives.”

“Even if we didn’t have to worry about you, there’s the potential of another car trying to crash into us.”

“Nah, we’ll take my ride. Nobody would be dumb enough to crash into me, not even a daemon,” Vicky said and got up. “Either way, I’m heading out. I’m famished, and tea only keeps me happy for so long before I need something more substantial.”

Amber ignored her comment about the tea. “What do you drive?”

Vicky’s grin was positively devious. “A monster truck, of course.”