Familiar Spirit

He screamed and shoved her away, his eyes wide open now. “Get away, don’t touch me, you’re not real; I won’t believe in you, I won’t be one of you, get away!” He panted the words out in ragged gasps, staring directly at Sarah. Then, as if unable to bear the sight any longer, he clamped his eyes shut and cried out three words that Sarah did not understand.

And then there was peace.

As Sarah watched, Pete cautiously opened his eyes again, looking dazed and frightened. His gaze fell on her, and Sarah tensed for another outburst. But instead relief flooded his face and the terror began to recede.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “Sarah, is it really you? I’m back? It’s over now?”

She nodded tentatively and stepped forward to embrace him, but he made a sudden, frantic gesture and a long shudder rocked him. He turned his head to one side and was sick on the floor.

Feeling slightly sick herself, but relieved by the obvious return to reality, Sarah hurried away to fetch a towel and a bowl of water. But when she returned, Pete pushed her aside and cleaned up after himself. Afraid to argue, still shaken by the violence and hatred he had turned on her earlier, Sarah leaned against the wall and watched without speaking. She had never seen Pete look so ill and exhausted; he suddenly seemed very old and frail.

“Shall I make you some tea?” she asked, watching his unsteady progress to the kitchen sink. He shook his head.

Sarah bit her lip. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around him and comfort him, but she did not dare. He would probably push her away again, or worse . . . She touched her throat.

But that wasn’t Pete, she thought. At least—it wasn’t Pete seeing me.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said sharply. “All right? I just want to get out of here.”

“I’ll take you home.”

He looked at her with pained, exhausted eyes, and slowly nodded. “Please.” Then, as they were leaving the house, he stopped her. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”

“That’s all right,” she said quickly.

“No. I’m sorry I doubted you. I just didn’t know. I thought of it as a kind of game, or as something you were overreacting to. I’m sorry, now, that I didn’t believe you. You tried to protect me, and I still walked right into it.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Sarah said. “I’m not so sure I would have believed it, if anyone had told me.”

“I wish to God I’d never gone in there.”

“Well, it’s over now,” Sarah said briskly, helping him into her car. “You never have to go in there again.”

“Of course I will,” Pete said dully.

Sarah looked at him but started the car without speaking.

“I have to go back for the same reason that you do,” he said. “We can’t leave that—thing—in there, alive. Somehow, we have to destroy it. Otherwise the next person who goes in there may not come out the same.”

“You were the one who told me I wasn’t responsible,” Sarah pointed out.

“That was before I knew.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “I wish to God I didn’t. But knowing, I can’t pretend I don’t, any more than you can. That thing is too dangerous, too horrible. We have to stop it, somehow. We have to find out how to get rid of it. If we don’t, who will?”

Sarah was silent, feeling a sense of relief so powerful it made her eyes sting. She wasn’t alone anymore. She wasn’t crazy. Pete knew. He had been through it, just as she had, and he understood, and he was united with her in a common fight. And together they would win. They would conquer the demon.

“One thing,” said Pete. “One thing that gives me hope—it isn’t much, but it is something—is those words.”

“Words?”

“Arabic words of protection against evil. I’d seen them in a reference book and copied them down. I didn’t really expect to remember them off the top of my head, but suddenly, when I couldn’t think of any way out, I saw those words, just as if they were on a page in front of my face. And I said them aloud and then . . . it was all over. I was out of hell and back in the house with you. So it must have been the words. They must have worked.”

Sarah said nothing, but she wondered. Were words that powerful? Had they really had an effect? Or had Jade simply come to the end of his repertoire of tricks for the moment? Had Pete simply been stronger than Jade anticipated, as Sarah had been herself? Could words really be enough to fend off, and ultimately destroy, the demon?

“Did you see anything?” Pete asked.

Sarah glanced at him and saw that he was staring away from her, out the window. She cleared her throat. “Only you.”

“So none of it was real. It was all just hallucination.” His tone was bitter. “But it didn’t do me any good to tell myself that.”

“Believe me, it was real enough,” Sarah said. “I went through it myself, or something like it.”