Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(32)
Everything seemed great, fun, awesome, until the night he and Annie were offered their initiations into the inner circle.
The description of what happened that night provided almost no detail. Indeed, the vagueness of it initially made her frown. Kylie’s first question was whether he chose not to describe the event, or whether he could not, because he’d never actually been there. Within a few more sentences, though, she came to an entirely separate conclusion—Ott could not describe the event because what had happened scarred his psyche so deeply, his mind fractured and sealed off the truth in order to preserve the man’s sanity.
During his initiation, the secret ceremonies he had previously watched with a cynic’s amusement took on a new and terrifying seriousness. The demonic faces Dennis Ott thought of as products of a drug-induced hallucination became frighteningly real as the cult’s inner circle summoned a being they called Master to emerge from the depths and feed upon their offerings.
To the young man this now seemed less an initiation and more a human sacrifice, and he realized that tonight’s ritual chalice—the one he and Annie alone had shared—contained a paralytic agent, rendering him unable to move as a creature from a psychopath’s nightmares had appeared in a swirling mist above their heads. Its form had not been the scary part. It manifested as a humanoid shape on top, thick mist below, like a cartoon genie. Of course, Disney rarely made the smoke below one of their characters writhe like tentacles or doomed, tortured souls.
Animators also tended not to give their creations eyes that shone with malevolence and hunger, slick like fresh blood, black like old engine oil, and deep like the abyss of hell. If they had, the cartoon industry would have folded like cheap patio furniture.
The creature struck Annie first, lifting her into the nauseating parody of an embrace. It hovered with her high above the ground, opened a mouth full of multiple rows of sharp, blackened teeth, and let out a shrieking cry that seemed to rend the very fabric of reality. As the noise continued, a strange glow began to form over Annie’s limp body and slowly spiraled into the Demon’s gaping maw. The nocturnis continued to chant as the thing fed until the glow abruptly blinked out and Annie fell bonelessly to the ground.
That would have been enough trauma for anyone, but Ott’s nightmare was far from over. If Annie had died in that moment, he would have raged and grieved and gone to his death cursing the Order for all he was worth, but things got even worse. Annie did not die. In fact, after a moment of still silence, she gathered herself together and rose calmly to her feet. She slapped at her clothes to remove the dust and debris, then turned and thanked the nocturnis for their services.
“Our Master will take the second now,” she had said.
Kylie blinked and looked away from the text to meet Dag’s gaze. “How is that possible? Can a human being survive having their soul fed to a Demon? Or did it possess her somehow?”
The Guardian’s brow furrowed deeply. “It does not appear to be possession, as the author makes no indication that the Demon disappeared from view. If it had entered the girl’s body, it would no longer appear to the others in its vaporous form. I am guessing that the Demon took her soul, but left her animus in order that she continue to serve the Order.”
“Um, okay. What does that mean?”
“Think of a human as a nut,” Dag suggested, which Kylie let slide because now did not seem to be the time for cracking jokes. And look, there went her subconscious anyway. “The shell is the body, the soul is the kernel, and the animus is the husk or bran that surrounds it. When a Demon consumes a human soul, it can devour the insides completely and feed off the animus as well, or it can leave the animus behind and eat only the meat of the soul. With an animus remaining in its body, the human becomes a tsineh. It walks and talks and functions much as it did previously, but with no soul it is entirely devoted to the needs and wishes of the Demon who devoured it.”
“Oh, ick.”
Dag made a noise of agreement. “The question, then, is how did this Dennis Ott avoid the same fate?”
“You’re right. I’m guessing ‘clean living’ is not going to cut it as an answer.”
They returned to the text. The answer quickly emerged as one of two options: either Ott’s guardian angel deserved combat pay, a Medal of Honor, and an immediate seat at God’s weekly poker game; or dumb luck really did favor the mentally challenged. The cops had busted up their party.
“Folg mik a gang,” Kylie breathed. “You’ve got to be shitting me. How does anyone not made entirely of rabbits’ feet and lucky pennies get that kind of break?”
Dag pointed at the screen. “Apparently, it happens when they brag to jealous acquaintances about the ‘good shit’ their private club provides them. And when they deliberately punch a police officer in order to be arrested and removed from the scene.”
“Yowza. I suppose that’s one way to get out of a sticky situation. Why were none of the others arrested?”
“I suspect that none of the substances found were illegal, either because they used more esoteric ingredients, or because they used magic to eliminate any traces of banned substances.”
“Wow. Don’t let that strategy get out to the world of professional sports.” Kylie scrolled down the page, her gaze skimming over more text. “Oy vey, does that really say the guy had himself exorcised? As in, ‘I need an old priest and a young priest’?”