Familiar Spirit

It wasn’t Brian. It was Pete. Had been, all along. Pete crouching on the floor, drawing a rather wavering freehand circle.

Sarah sighed, relieved but saddened, and joined him on the floor, squatting nearby, within the parameter of the circle. “I thought you were Brian,” she said. “I saw him, I even heard his voice. That’s Jade’s doing. He’s already working against us, fighting back. He’s trying to distract us.” She put her hand on Pete’s arm. “Be careful.”

He pulled away as if her touch had scalded him. “You don’t have to tell me to be careful!”

The hostility in his voice shocked her. Nerves, she thought, trying not to be hurt. She watched him complete the circle by writing Latin words around the rim, and she said nothing. Let it be his show. She wouldn’t interfere.

Pete rose and gestured for Sarah to do the same. The circle was not large, and of necessity they stood very close together. They were not touching, but Sarah could feel Pete’s tension, his body giving off excitement like heat.

He began to read from his notebook: a formula for consecration of the circle, he had told her. She recognized it as a translation from an Assyrian tablet, said to be the oldest known formula for such consecration. Most of the formulae Sarah had found called repeatedly upon the Christian God. Pete’s attitude towards the religion he had been raised in was so antagonistic that Sarah had wondered how he could read an invocation praising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit with anything like the proper reverence and conviction. He had side-stepped that difficulty by looking to the older gods—beings he could believe in with the same unresentful interest he had for ghosts and demons and familiar spirits.

“Ban! Ban! Barrier that none may pass,

Barrier of the Gods that none may break,

Barrier of heaven and earth that none can change,

Which no God may annul,

Nor God nor man can loose,

A snare without escape, set for evil,

A net whence none can issue forth, spread for evil,

Whether it be Evil Spirit or Evil Demon or Evil Ghost,

Or Evil Devil or Evil God or Evil Fiend,

Or Hag-Demon, or Ghoul, or Robber-Sprite,

Or Phantom, or Night-Wraith, or Handmaid of the Phantom . . .”

Pete’s voice, instead of growing stronger as he threw himself into the mood of the exorcism, was growing more uncertain. Sarah watched him, puzzled, wondering what was wrong. Suddenly he broke off his recitation and half-turned to face her. On his face was a strange mixture of pain and longing which Sarah did not understand, but which made her uneasy.

“Pete? Is it Jade?”

He made a sound low in his throat.

“Pete—” She reached out and suddenly she was in his arms. He clung to her tightly, trembling.

“It’s all right,” she murmured. “Fight him, Pete. I’m here; I’ll help you.”

He gripped her more tightly. “Pete,” she said. “Let me read the rest of the formula, if you can’t. We can’t let him stop us. Maybe if we consecrate the circle he won’t be able to touch us.”

His arms loosened somewhat, and Sarah was able to draw back far enough to see his face. And suddenly she knew the name for the expression on his face. Desire. Her stomach lurched. Not Pete. Not for her.

And then he was kissing her, or trying to. She writhed in his grasp, eluding his mouth. “Pete! For heaven’s sake!”

He still pressed her close. Denied her mouth, he was kissing her hair, sniffing it, murmuring her name. She could feel his erection.

“Pete, stop it.” She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to hit him. “Let me go,” she said, trying to make her voice calm and reasonable. She pulled away and this time, although he did not let go of her, he did not pull her back.

“Pete, this is crazy,” she said gently.

“I don’t care,” he said. He looked drunk, dazed. She had never seen him like this. “I want you, Sarah. I can’t stand it any more. I can’t fight it any more. Don’t you feel it too? I know you do—you must.”

Suddenly it wasn’t Pete but Brian who was talking, Brian who had his arms around her, Brian who begged her to love him. Reality slipped and shifted and Sarah felt that she had fallen into a dream. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Brian was a bigger man, more solidly built, than Pete. She knew the feel of him in her arms so well, too well to be fooled; too well to be mistaken. She pressed her face against his chest and closed her eyes. If this was a dream, she would go on dreaming. This man in her arms was real, and the only thing that mattered.

She felt him moving, trying to disengage himself and gently push her away. She looked up at his face, her heart pounding, afraid that she would see that weak-willed apology, that pained look that said he was thinking of Melanie and feeling sorry for himself. But instead Brian was smiling at her, and there was love in his eyes. She felt weak, and turned her face up as if to the sun, closing her eyes and straining to kiss him.