He raised up the bowl and started yelling in his native tongue, short and sharp words that seemed to sink into you like rain, tangible and real.
Perry immediately reacted. She began writhing back and forth underneath the straps, panting hard like a wild beast. Motherfucking steam rose from her body, giving me the chills. What the shit was happening?
Roman was relentless. He was fueled by the beast’s misery, by Perry’s agonizing reaction. It was hard to watch but I couldn’t look away, no matter how hard I tried. The floor, Ada’s tortured face, Bird’s steady drumming; I kept being drawn back to Perry, like she wanted me to watch. Like it helped in some way.
Roman paused and dipped his thumbs into the wooden bowl until they were blackened with soot, then approached her. She flung her head back and forth, trying to escape his hands but he succeeded in getting one swipe down her cheek.
Then she bit him on the hand.
I cried out as the blood ran down her chin. I couldn’t help it. To say I was horrified was an understatement
But I wasn’t the one doing the exorcist. Roman didn’t seem to feel any terror. He jabbed an ink-black thumb straight into Perry’s forehead and her head flew back from the force, letting go of his hand, which he calmly took back.
The monster smiled, bloody teeth, bloody lips, bloody gums. Perry was completely gone. And as if it needed to hammer that point right on home, it spoke through her, in a voice that I’d never forget. A voice straight out of the earth, omnipresent and overpowering.
“Think she’ll be so lucky this time? After what you did to little Jim?”
It was loud and malevolent. I was sure the ground was going to open up beneath us and we would fall into the fiery pits of hell. This couldn’t be real. After everything I had seen so far, even in the last twenty-four hours, it still couldn’t be real.
But it was.
And Roman, bless his crazy ass soul, he was not phased. He kept repeating his words, his voice becoming stronger, clearer. She started screaming and banging the back of her head against the mattress, making Linda Blair’s performance in The Exorcist look like a mere temper tantrum.
Everything got louder, so damn intense. Perry was covered in sweat and started to slide out from under the straps.
“Dex, Ada!” Roman yelled. “Get a hold of her legs.”
We both rushed forward ready to hold her down but the moment our hands touched her skin, it was like we were grabbing a hot iron.
We quickly let go, my hand inflamed and red. She was a hundred degrees.
“She’s burning hot!” I cried out. “You’re killing her!”
“Do it!” Roman yelled. And maybe the power of Christ compelled me or something, but I went back. I grabbed her leg, holding her down, wincing through the pain as my skin singed from the contact.
“United front, Dex,” Roman said through gritted teeth. “You can’t let your feelings get in the way. We must do this. You too, Ada.”
Ada sniffled in response, obeying him through her tears. It was killing her inside to do this to Perry, as much as it was killing any of us.
And the monster inside Perry wasn’t done with us yet.
“You killed him. The mother killed herself shortly after. You ruined a town,” the monster seethed out through Perry. “You’ll ruin her. I will ruin her. You are powerless, foolish and weak.”
She burst into haunting laughter that tore through me, seeming to come from the walls, the floor, the air. She was everywhere.
“You can do what you want to her,” Roman said forcefully, “but I am stronger and I will win this battle. I will get you out and send you back to where you came from.”
Oh shit, I hoped Roman was confident enough in his abilities, because it felt like my fingers were melding in with Perry’s skin. I felt like time wasn’t on our side anymore and this was only going to get worse.
Suddenly the area around the bed erupted in flames that rose from the floor in a thick line, nearly engulfing us. Ada and I stumbled back, running from the fire. Even Bird stopped drumming, stunned by what was happening.
“Keep going!” Roman screamed at Bird over the roar of the flames.
Bird snapped to it and continued, his hands slapping steadily on the drum.
The flames grew higher until they provided a barricade between us and Perry. I held Ada tight to my side as she trembled, both of us now a captive audience.
In one swift, violent motion, Perry sat straight up, breaking the straps around her arms. She grinned at Roman and in a most disturbing voice of a little boy, “Why did you have to be so rough? You hurt me. You broke my bones.”
“No!” Roman yelled, and then bellowed a string of harsh-sounding native words.
“Yes, you did,” the voice continued, teasingly, like a child on the playground. “You broke me in a million pieces. You told me you had to hurt me to free me.”
Roman kept reciting his mantra over and over again, watching Perry like his eyes were glued to her, never breaking, never faltering.
“And you,” she said, turning her head to look at me.
“Let’s not forget what you did, Declan.”
But it wasn’t her who spoke. It was my mother’s voice.
She was here.
My arm came off of Ada and I was afraid I was going to die of fright right there.
Perry—my mother—laughed, so familiar, so terrible. “Your little secret. You don’t want anyone to know about what happened to your dear old mother. I’m in here now. In here with your little tramp. And I will do to her what you did to me.”
No.
She would not expose my secret. She would not take my Perry.
Suddenly the rest of the straps broke in two and she went flying backward as if booted by an invisible force, her head smacking the wall with a sickening crack.
Next thing I knew there I was screaming and burning alive. I’d tried to run through the fire, to get to her, to save her from my mother but I couldn’t make it. The flames engulfed me, swallowing me from head to toe. I was sure I was a goner but someone pulled me back and shoved me to the ground where I rolled. Through all of this I could hear Perry’s head being thrown against the wall.
“Dex!” Roman yelled above the noise. “It’s testing you, don’t listen to it. It wants your fear, it feeds on it!”
Then it must have been having the feast of a lifetime. I shrugged off my jacket, which was somehow only lightly singed, and Ada helped me to my feet. Her attention was elsewhere though. Everyone’s was.
Perry was now floating right above us, her back on the ceiling, staring down at us as the flames roared around the bed. She laughed and laughed and laughed and we were at her mercy.
“I will do to her what you did to me,” and this time, it was Abby’s voice that came out.
She was back. She was going to take Perry somewhere far away. Somewhere to feast on her soul. Perry’s beautiful, precious soul. And she’d kill her body in the process. She’d leave behind no trace of the girl I knew and loved. Oh god, I loved her.
This wasn’t what I came here to do. I came here to save her. And if it wasn’t Roman who could do it, it had to be me. The world was better for having her soul in it.
I looked Roman in the eyes and yelled at him, “Take me! Let it take me. It needs a soul, it can have mine!”
But the bastard ignored me and shook his head. “I can win this battle.”
“No, you can’t,” the monster replied through Perry’s lips. “You can’t win. I’ll kill her before you even get a chance. Then I’ll take him.”
It smiled sweetly at me.
And then she fell.