The Demon Catchers of Milan (23 page)

“Not if I can help it,” said Giuliano, his voice perfectly even, just as if he’d never lost a brother and a son to this monster. “You know.”

He touched my arm, and I rang the bell again. The demon snarled and chattered his teeth. The sound carried to the corners of the quiet room.

Giuliano motioned to Uncle Matteo, who began to read in an archaic form of Italian. I could mostly understand it, but I kept my eyes on the body, animating itself on the floor. I realized I was standing close enough for him to grab my ankle and jumped back just as he reached for me.

He cackled like a hyperactive kid when he missed and grinned again. Uncle Matteo droned on.

“We will not wait, we will come, we will reach for you, we will bind you with chains of oaths and exhortations. Render
up the body you have infested, the spirit you afflict, release them unharmed, and we will not confine your spirit in the close places, the dusty dark of the ancient underworld, but rather return you to your home.…”

“My home? My home?” the demon roared, sounding affronted. “What do you know of my home?” But Uncle Matteo went on.

“We shall neither return you to the Left-Hand Land, but to the place of roaring fires from whence your kind are born, the place of freezing summits, the place of silence and thunder.”

Uncle Matteo stopped for breath, and then pointed straight at the girl on the floor. He roared, “Return her to us! Return her unharmed! You shall do as I command!”

The demon rolled his borrowed head upward and chuckled.

“
,” he said.

Uncle Matteo didn’t even skip a beat.

“
,” he replied, and Giuliano touched my arm again. I rang the bell.

It’s hard to explain what followed. So much happened all at the same time, but not in the same place, if that makes any sense. I could tell that we weren’t just in the room, but also in that open space that Giuliano had something to do with, and inside the girl, and a bunch of other places at once. I could feel movement in the air of each place, too. I think Giuliano must have felt it, known about it all. But I could only see a small part of the picture.

In front of me on the floor, there was the demon, shredding the girl’s vocal cords with his roars and laughter. I started to
like ringing the bell: every time I did, he jerked and shook like a character in a video game. I loved having the power to piss him off. Giuliano had to keep putting his hand on my arm to stop me; I tried to hold back so he wouldn’t make me give it up, but I had a hard time.

I started to get a feel for the rhythm of it. The bell worked like a leash, pulling him back to us each time he jerked away, refusing Uncle Matteo’s demands. When Uncle Matteo got hoarse after an hour or two, Anna Maria took over. Francesco spelled Emilio at the candle; I couldn’t see exactly what they did because I had to stay on the bell.

That’s the thing about fighting evil. There are a lot of boring parts. You have to just keep going and going, keeping your eye on the task in front of you but alert at the same time for sneak attacks. You can’t let your mind wander or freak out at the suffering of an innocent person. You have to remember you’re there to end their suffering.

That’s one of the hardest parts. You’ve got to keep your head, no matter how much he terrifies you, how many tactics he uses to fill you with fear and horror.

He picked her up at one point, just as he had done with me, and started to throw her at the wall. Francesco and Emilio pulled her back and placed her on the floor again.

At another point, I heard a ripping sound that started softly and got louder and louder; when I looked, making sure I was well back from him, I saw that the fabric of all the seat cushions was ripping as if gashed by invisible claws. He couldn’t seem
to do that to us, though I noticed that both priests kept out of the way.

As the shock wore off and I got used to the business of the bell, I found I had a lot of questions for the demon. He was right under my hand, so to speak, and I thought now would be a great time to ask them. I whispered this to Giuliano. He did not answer me right away, instead standing so still beside me that I could almost hear him thinking. Presently he answered, “Perhaps now is indeed a good time,” and, lifting his head, said during a pause in the chanting, “Matteo. Mia has some questions for the demon. Let us have her ask them.”

They all looked at me. I looked down at the writhing figure on the floor, the girl’s face misshapen by the peculiar, putty-like nature of possessive control.

I took a deep breath. I shut my eyes for a minute, seeing again the starry blue of the Virgin’s mantle, and her calm face. I opened my eyes.

“First of all,” I said, “what is your name?”

I heard a snort in the background and saw Francesco and Emilio shrug at each other. The demon laughed. It felt like he was sandpapering my soul.

“My name? Dig for it. Dig for it, and so you will, when you are so desperate to defeat me, you will bloody your fingers digging for it,” he replied.

Don’t let him get to you
, I told myself.

“Okay, fine. Next question,” I said, feeling him begin to withdraw again, to roost in whatever distant place he could
occupy while still under the girl’s skin. I rang the bell before Giuliano even touched my arm.

“Next question,” I repeated more firmly. “Why me?”

“Why you? ‘Why you’ what? Why any one of you puling humans? You all think the world’s poles are fixed in your particular ass, don’t you? Why don’t you all perish, rotting, falling down in your rotten fields!”

Right, so be specific. I tried again.

“Why did you choose me to possess, before? Here are all these powerful people, right around me. Here’s Giuliano Della Torre, for goodness’ sake. Why an ignorant American teenager an ocean away?”

This got his attention. He rolled his borrowed head toward me, fixing me with a reptilian stare that seemed to go on forever. It came to me that, just like an enraged human, he was working out the meanest, most damaging, most foul words to say.

“Before you start telling me a pile of crap just to freak me out,” I said in very fast Italian just as he opened the girl’s mouth, “let me say, don’t bother. If you’re not going to give me the truth, don’t bother. If you’re going to act like a low-level devil from some second-rate hell, it won’t make a difference. We’ll just get rid of you, stick you in some candle on the dustiest shelf in our shop. Or if you somehow manage to get away from us this time, we’ll watch and we’ll wait and, oh, yeah, I’ll work out your name. You can talk all the bullshit you want, but you’d be better off telling me the truth. Your truth.”

He blew up. He roared until our ears rang.

“My truth?! My truth! You dare ask for my truth, you lying serpent? You wretched excuse for a Della Torre, you widow slut? My truth?! You dare!”

Lying serpent? Widow slut?
I had no idea what he was talking about—or who he was talking to. Even so, whether I admitted it or not, his words got under my skin. It’s odd. I don’t think anyone had ever actually called me names before, except maybe a bully or two at school. I wondered where I’d gotten the wounds they touched, because they felt like old wounds. Maybe it just always sucks the first time someone says words like that to you.

Bad as they felt, my anger felt stronger. Yet I remembered the calm voice of Giuliano at Signora Galeazzo’s, and took another deep breath before I answered. I looked at Anna Maria, standing by her father, at Emilio and Francesco by the candle, at Giuliano beside me, all holding still, waiting.

“How dare you, indeed?” I asked calmly. “Do you know, it doesn’t matter if you answer my question or not. I’ll ask it until I receive an answer. I’ll ring the bell until I get what I want. The next time you choose to trouble some poor, innocent person, like this girl, I’ll be here.”

“Innocent? Innocent?
You
are not innocent! You are guilty, descended from a guilty family! Justice,” he shouted as he had in the church. “Justice! Justice!”

His voice dissolved into a thunderous roaring. I thought we would all go deaf. This time, when the girl’s body floated
upward, Emilio and one of the assistant priests rushed to throw cushions underneath on the floor. Uncle Matteo and Giuliano stepped forward, their expressions identical.

“Switch to Great-Grandfather’s Way,” called out Giuliano, and Uncle Matteo nodded.
“Le Sue ossa rimarranno!”
they cried out together.

For a moment, I was back in my dark room at home in Center Plains. I remembered those words all too clearly, but this time I needed no rough-voiced translator. The words entered my head cleanly:
Your bones shall remain!
I shivered, feeling the pull of the command. So did the demon—and his victim. When he roared, I heard her scream also. She was back with us, conscious, and imprisoned in the same body with this creature. I thought I would faint. Nonno touched my arm and, when I hesitated, listening to her cries, he gripped it so hard I cried out myself and rang the bell.

“
La Sua carne rimarrà!
—Your flesh shall remain!” chanted Uncle Matteo.

The girl cried out louder, her screams reaching high above the demon’s roars. I could feel some of what Nonno must be seeing so clearly. First we had brought the demon to the surface, slowly increasing our hold and our connection with him. Now we had to bring her back. It was appalling. I rang the bell again.

“
Il Suo spirito rimarrà!
—Your spirit shall remain!”

She screamed, and I could remember fighting, fighting.

“Lisetta!” I found myself crying out. “It’s okay! You’ve got to come back! They can save you! Trust me!”

I didn’t know if anyone heard me in the midst of all the noise, but I hoped she did.

With a final convulsion and one last, ear-bursting roar, she fell back on the cushions, and the demon raced up out of her throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emilio and Francesco by the candle again.

I took a deep breath, then stopped.

“Do you smell that, Nonno?” I whispered.

“Smell what?”

“It’s like … cinnamon?”

“Your nose is much younger than mine,” he said. “I don’t smell it. Wait. No, there it is.”

He turned to me in the dark that was now only the dark of the room, the candle burning low, and the lights in his eyes flickered.

“Like last time,” I whispered.

“You remember?”

“Not much. But that, yes.”

“Hmm. We must consider this.”

He spoke with one eye on the girl, watching her slow breathing. I wondered if she would wake up soon.

He lifted his head, looking a question at Emilio and Francesco. They shook their heads.

“I don’t think we’ve yet made the candle that can hold him,” said Giuliano gently. “But we must always try.”

TWENTY-ONE

On Guard

A
fterward I had time to be creeped out by how much I enjoyed the demon’s suffering. I tried to talk myself out of it, telling myself he had tormented me and my family so much that he deserved it, which was almost certainly true, but I still didn’t like the way I felt.

I spent the early hours of Christmas morning watching over a girl I didn’t even know, in a hospital on the far side of town. At least I didn’t have to do it alone. I think everybody figured that wouldn’t be safe. What I didn’t expect was that everyone would want to stay. The nurses drew the line at more than three people camping out overnight, though, so everybody but Giuliano, Emilio, and me had to leave. Uncle Matteo and Nonna came back to bring us a thermos of coffee and another small feast in a basket.

As we settled down in the hospital room, I looked at Lisetta. She had started to breathe easily again, and when the doctors checked her eyes, they had rolled back into their proper places, but she just wouldn’t wake up. I looked at the bruises where she had hit the pew, and thought about what I must have looked like, how my face must have rippled like Lisetta’s had.

I guess that was when the shaking started.

Emilio leaned around his grandfather and asked, “Are you all right?” Before I could answer, he said, “But of course, you wouldn’t be.”