RECRUITED: A Mike Humber Novella (Demon Series Book One) (13 page)

Elizabeth leans in towards him. ‘How do you know these things?’

‘Same way I know about you.’ His eyelids seem heavy and slow to blink. ‘About how you took power back into your life by fucking men. You saw it as a way of control, of controlling your emotions but then every night you would cry and sob and wash that filthy spunk out from your dirty used cunt,’ He blinks heavily, ‘I’m tired…it’s time for me to leave.’

‘I will find you,’ I gasp and he gives me a withering look of utter contempt.

‘Find who?’ He asks. ‘John Williams? Go ahead, find him…kill him…torture and kill him for all I care, I’m sure it’ll be an entertaining event.’

Elizabeth and I exchange a glance. The way he speaks, so tired and drained, so weary but like a man waiting for a train he can’t relax. ‘Oh dear,’ He shakes his head at the looks on our faces, ‘I,’ He says clearly, ‘am going…John Williams will be here…’ He yawns and seems to go unfocussed for a second. He looks sick, drawn and getting worse by the second. The grinning man of just a few minutes ago transforms to sickly looking and tired to the bone. He blinks heavily as though he’s about to pass out then falls silent. I glance round the café to see we’re alone now, everyone else having run to the massed crowds staring at the suicides.

The suicides
. The mass suicides. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Not murder but suicide. Who could force six people off a high tower at such regular intervals? The first would generate panic and screams that would be heard from here. My eyes look to the tower at the far side of the square and the people clustered round the base. I glance at Elizabeth who locks eyes then she turns to see Williams and the shock that crosses her face has my head snapping round to see him grinning like a wolf. Terror roots me to the spot. Held in place and unable to move by something the like I have never seen before. John Williams but not. John Williams with a dark shadow spreading across his face. John Williams with dark eyes in place of the light brown eyes he had before. Sunken, deep and hidden. His mouth snarls and contorts into that of a beast. His image flickers in front of my eyes. A man to a beast and back to a man. Something primeval and terrible, so terrible. The air becomes static and cold and I suppress a shiver.

His eyelids twitch, his lips curl and the muscles in his face seem to spasm uncontrollably. I can’t breathe can’t move can’t speak can’t cry or scream and I want to do all of those things. I want to run and get away for this is not human, not of this place. This is a dream, a fucked up bad dream caused by the influx of alcohol in my system. I’m in bed with Tessa in the shitty hotel. Not Tessa. The other woman. Shit, I can’t remember her name. Where are we? Why am I here? Did I kill two men? Why did I kill them?

Utter confusion grips me and swirls my mind round in a maelstrom of fear and terror and all the while the beast watches me with a growing hunger. An explosion of force and Williams is out of his chair and ramming into the table that it sends me reeling back to sprawl out on the hard ground of the café. A solid metal table and he casts it aside like it’s made of paper as he surges forward and drops down to pin me in place. I’d fight. I’d rage and punch, bite and gouge. I’d kill him within seconds but that face bears down on me with such a thirst and hunger for vengeance that I’m unable to do anything except whimper.

‘Mike?’ Elizabeth screams right next to me but faraway and distant.

‘Feeling sleepy?’ I glance up to a now exuberantly grinning Williams, ‘you look tired,’ He adds with a wry smile.

A rush spreads through me, a sense of tiredness that hits me like a hammer. A yawn escapes my mouth and it’s like every ounce of energy I have expended in the last two days is suddenly being robbed from my body. My mind fugs over and my vision blurs as tears prickle my eyes from the heavy yawning. I shake my head trying to rouse myself.

I struggle to focus and watch as the colour fills his face again. He grows stronger by the second and grins wolfishly at me. ‘My god,’ Elizabeth screams in a voice full of terror, ‘stop…stop now…’ She pleads, ‘John…stop it…’

Stop what? I don’t know what she means. I can’t think straight. Poison. I’m being poisoned but…but I haven’t drunk the coffee or…did we order coffee? Did I drink it? Christ I can’t remember anything. All I want to do is sleep, close my eyes and sleep forever. Why is this man holding me down? Did I do something bad? Did I hurt someone again?

‘Please,’ Tessa is begging someone. Not Tessa, the other woman. Elizabeth, she’s begging someone to stop doing something, ‘Mike, he’s draining you…’

That doesn't make any sense.

John Williams speaks in a voice that is rich and full of life, ‘do you understand now, Elizabeth?’ So much commanding power in his voice that it fills my head.

‘Yes!’ She sobs, ‘my god…please…’

‘Don’t beg,’ He snaps, ‘you did that before and it never suited you…except you didn’t beg for yourself did you, Elizabeth. You begged for Alison. Dear Alison. She was never as strong as you and look at poor Mike now, he’s fading quickly.’

‘Stop,’ Her voice rushes out in a whisper, ‘just stop…I….’

‘I need energy,’ He explains matter of fact, ‘do you understand the drain it has to make six people commit suicide and this feeble body doesn't give me what I need anymore. So,’ He adds slowly, ‘it’s time to go.’

‘Go…go…go where?’ I slur the words as though drunk, ‘find you…’ I try and sound convincing but I feel weak.

‘For the love of God,’ Elizabeth begs, ‘stop…you’re killing him…’

‘Killing him?’ William’s booms with laughter, ‘Why on earth would I want to kill him? Oh no…not Mike…I’ve got a whole new set of plans for Mike and as for your God? God ain’t here my dear. Just me. I am here. I am waiting…’ The grin spreads across a flushed a ruddy face.

The room spins as I chuckle drunkenly. ‘The devil is waiting…’ Where did I hear that? Someone said it recently.

‘Oh the devil waits,’ Williams chuckles, ‘but no…I’m not the devil…we have different rules you see,’ He explains calmly but his voice rolls around the inside of my brain, bouncing off the sides of my skull and I can feel the resonant bass in my bones, ‘the church says the good one doesn't like His name being taken in vain…which is a lot of tosh,’ He sneers, ‘however my lord doesn’t give a shit how many times you say his name…the more the better…’

‘Wotsthat?’ I force energy into my voice.

‘Yes,’ William’s says slowly in a deeply satisfied voice, ‘watching a good man fall is better than any mortal sin I could ever force this body to perpetrate and watching you, Mike. That was the best one by far. You tried so hard to resist me didn’t you? You clenched your fists and begged me to stop. Do you remember that day?’ He asks gently, ‘that day in the car park, do you remember it?’

I do remember it. I remember leading from the house I found him in and waiting for the prisoner transport to arrive. I remember he was handcuffed and…

‘…yes I was handcuffed,’ He says as though reading my thoughts, ‘but you took some goading. My word you took some goading…do you remember it?’ He asks again with a hunger that seems to overshadow the actual words he uses, ‘do you remember beating me?’

He did goad me. He kept on goading me. He told me how much he enjoyed it, how much fun it was. He told me details of what he did…

‘Oh your face,’ He speaks deep and quiet, hushed almost, ‘your emotions played out on your face so clearly I didn’t need to feel what was inside you.’

I told him to shut up…

‘But I didn’t shut up, did I, Mike?’

I threatened him to be quiet…

‘But that didn’t work either did it.’

I begged him. I fucking begged him to stop and be quiet as the rage started to build.

‘Oh you did. You begged and pleaded but that rage was evident. It radiated from you. It consumed you and I knew, I knew, Mike. I knew I had you.

I hit him.

‘That first punch was beautiful,’ He reminisces, ‘strong and hard.’

I hit him again and kept on hitting him.

‘But I didn’t stop did I, Mike? I didn’t stop telling you how much I enjoyed it. How much you would enjoy it.’

I beat him to the ground but he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop telling me what he’d done and how those children had screamed in pain and torture.

‘And there you fell,’ He murmurs inside my head. ‘A great man taken down. You beat this body unconscious and you had no idea that the thing inside could never be touched.’

Inside. The thing inside.

‘And Johnny boy recovered and your society, your
Christian
society fell upon you like a pack of wolves, didn’t they, Mike?’

The thing inside. There was a ghost in Huntington House. I saw it. It was real. A ghost. A spirit of a man that lived and died.

‘You are draining so quickly now,’ He whispers to me, ‘and I just get stronger. I’m taking your energy, Mike. Taking it and do you know what I’m going to do with it? I shall use your energy to hurt more children.’

A man dies yet his spirit remains. Spirit. The thing inside. The spirit inside. The soul.

‘It’ll be your face they see next time,’ His voice is edged with a harsh gravel, ‘not Williams but Mike Humber. Williams is old and failing but your body is hard and strong. All that exercise has given you great strength but you have no goodness left to fight me.’

I’m not good, I was never good but I had will. I
have
will. I deny myself the things my body craves. The thing inside. Williams is…he’s coming inside me. Not Williams. The thing inside Williams.
That
thing is draining me, taking my energy. He expended energy and now he takes mine and he’s creeping towards me. Insidious and dirty with tainted breath.

‘Oh you are perfect,’ No longer Williams’s voice but another. Deeper. Harsher and inhuman, ‘you will serve me well.’

Serve. Servitude. Thing inside me. The devil is waiting. I am waiting. Spirits and ghosts and no will power.

‘Almost,’ The ragged voice says, ‘almost mine…mine to enjoy…you’ll like the little children, Mike. They scream and make such noise…’

I have will power. I have the power of denial. I deny myself the things my body craves. I deny alcohol. I deny medication I became addicted to.
I have to
 
hold on
. I deny sleep and refuge from the raging torment of my mind. 
It hurts but I have to wait
. Every day for months I felt pain more than I knew existed and I added to that pain. I ran until I puked then ran some more. I pushed and pulled until my hands bled and my muscles cramped with excruciating agony, then I did it again. That gave me power.

‘Almost…’

Denial.
I will deny you but not yet.
A new voice speaks but one that is deeper within me. A secret voice that he cannot hear. The voice of my conscience and will power. The thing that pushes me on every day and never lets me turn away from a bad deed done.

‘Almost…’

I will deny you….
almost there, hold on Humber…for every bad you’ve done just fucking hold on.

My eyes snap open and I see it. I see it leaving Williams and passing that short distance to me. A darkness of shadow and twisting features that flow from him to writhe in pain from being outside of a host. A thing that wilts from the pureness of the sun but seeps hungrily inside me. An icy repulsion tenses every muscle in my body but I wait and let it happen. The beast…the demon is slow to leave the one it has held for so long but it wants me and I have to let it keep coming. I want to scream and fight but not yet, it must keep coming.

Mine…you are mine.

The voice echoes through my head to roll around my skull with a pain that sears and burns. Images start racing through my mind’s eye. Images and memories, feelings and emotions. The life of John Williams played out in a split second as the transient memories of one host are taken into the new one. I see Williams as a child being held by his mother. I see Williams being beaten by his father. I feel the bitterness swelling inside him that grows with every passing year of his life. The essence of the man without the demon driving him on and that essence is as filthy and corrupt as it is now. I see Williams through his own eyes as he hurts children and those weaker. I see them cry and scream in pain. I feel his glory of power at the destruction he causes. I see Elizabeth refusing to cry until he starts on her little sister then she begs and pleads and demands him to leave her alone. I see Elizabeth begging Williams to take her instead, sacrificing herself to save Alison. Victims countless and many one after the other. An altar of black candles. Somewhere dark and a pleasure passes through Williams as he draws a circle on the ground and a five pointed inverted star within the circle. He speaks words that summon a darkness and offers his own mortal flesh as the vehicle. He chants and wails and coaxes it from the realm it inhabits and then power floods into his body as the demon doesn't come by invite but takes what it wants. The emotions now are dark and twisted. Ancient beyond comprehension of a thing that was held in the blackness of eternity until summoned and now unleashed upon the world. I see murders of immigrant men, women and children. I see the demon and Williams take those that won’t be missed. I see deception and guile, cunning and a hunger for destruction that will never be satisfied.