Page 30 of Demon's Desire
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Exorcists remove demons from people. I don’t even know if this is a demon, but if it is, it doesn’t have any trouble leaving whoever it’s possessing. In fact, it seems to have a problem staying in one body.”
Kelly kept scrolling. There were a few articles on the psychology behind ‘possession’ and some scientific explanations for it. There were a few religious sources, but I wasn’t sure that was what this was.
“I don’t think this is a Biblical demon,” I muttered. “Those are all about temptation and ruining your life by making you do things. This… Whatever it is, it just possesses people to flirt with me.”
We kept scrolling. There were more and more articles from either a Christian perspective or a psychological perspective. I didn’t need any of that. After a few minutes of seeing the same unhelpful things over and over again, I was starting to lose hope.
At one point, Kelly was scrolling and stopped on a book listing. “What’s this?”
It was titled Demons On Earth and How to Combat Them, written by a woman named Catherine Roberson. Kelly clicked on it, and it took us to a summary.
“‘From the beginning of time, demons have roamed the Earth,’” Kelly read aloud. “‘While the vast majority live their lives apart from humans, there are the increasingly common cases of demons that wreak havoc on our everyday lives. Something as small as a power outage or a broken… broken window…’” She paused for a moment, and I knew what she was thinking. That sounded familiar. “Um… ‘small as a power outage or a broken window, or as large as full-blown possession, everything you think you know about demons and our world is incorrect. With this book, you will learn to combat demons in your day-to-day life and how to avoid them altogether.’”
“Do you think this is legit?” Torie frowned.
“I have literally never read something that sounded more like a scam.” I shook my head. “But we don’t have much of a choice. Add it to the cart, Kelly. I’ll buy it. Do the e-book so we can read it now.”
She did what I asked, and I put my card information in the website. When I clicked ‘complete purchase,’ a button popped up inviting us to download our electronic copy of Demons on Earth and How to Combat Them. I didn’t know what else to do but click ‘confirm.’
After all, did I really have a choice?
8
“All right…” I muttered as I scrolled through the table of contents. “Background and History, Real Life Encounters, Geography, How to Confirm You’re Dealing With a Demon, Trap Spell– Wait, what?” I frowned and clicked on the last chapter. It automatically took me to that page.
“What is it?” Kelly asked.
“Um… Trap Spell…” I read aloud. “In severe and dangerous circumstances, it is possible to bind a demon to a specific object to keep them from causing anymore harm. Holy shit, do you think we can do this?”
“What does it say?” Mica asked.
Kelly looked closer. “It says that you need quartz, a candle, and an object that the demon has touched… What do we have that it’s touched?”
Torie gasped. “You didn’t empty out the vacuum yet, right?”
“No. Why?” Kelly blinked for a second before it came to her and she paused. “Oh. Oh! If it was the demon that broke the glass, we can use a shard from the window!”
“That should be perfect.” Mica nodded. “What else does it say?”
“Um…” Kelly tilted the screen back. “Whatever the demon has touched is the thing you’ll bind it to. So we’ll bind it to the piece of the window. The candle helps us to be sure the demon is in the room. Then the quartz will help us stay safe from its possession during the ritual. It needs to be done at night, but it doesn’t have to be on a specific day of the moon cycle or anything, so we could do it tonight. This is perfect!”
“Oh my gosh, this is such a relief,” Torie sighed. “Does this make you feel better, Mia?”
“Um… Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does.”
No… it didn’t. Honestly, the more we read about this ritual, the more worried I got. There was a part of me that still wanted to believe this was all some weird coincidence or that someone was trying to play a prank on me. But… somehow, the more logical side of my brain seemed to know the most likely answer was the straight up impossible one. But even if I put that aside and assumed this was all real, what would happen if the ritual didn’t work? Would we make it angry? Would it try to hurt me? Would it try to hurt someone else? There were so many things that could go wrong here, I wasn’t sure it was even worth the risk.
“I can get some quartz,” Mica offered. “I know a store that sells some. Torie and I can go back to our apartment, and we’ll pick it up on the way. You guys have the glass, and you have candles, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kelly nodded. “Mia has a ton.”
“Perfect.” He looked over at me. “This all sound good to you?”
“Um… I’m not sure.” I frowned slightly. “We don’t even know how reputable this book is. It could be something else. Some kind of curse. Or it could make… whatever it is… angry… I’m just worried that it might be more dangerous than we think it will be.”
“Hey.” Torie took my hand. “This has to be your decision. We’re not the ones that this thing is messing with. But we want you safe, and I know I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
“I’d really like to not get possessed again,” Mica added. “So I vote to do the ritual.”