Familiar Spirit

She rummaged one-handed and with difficulty inside her purse, fingers trembling until they closed upon the solid handle of the knife. Terror and triumph rose in her like a sickness, and she withdrew the knife and looked down at the cat. At that moment it went limp in her grasp. But although it was not struggling physically, fury blazed out of the golden eyes, and Valerie felt his power like a hand which grabbed her heart and squeezed. But she would not give in; she would die first. This time, her will would be done.

It was shockingly easy. Valerie had expected a queasy struggle of hacking and sawing, but the knife bit easily into the cat’s furred throat. Fur and skin parted before the sharp blade as if they were water. Warm blood ran over her hands and spattered everywhere. The cat jerked once and was still.

Valerie stared at the dead animal, hardly daring to believe. The golden eyes were blank and empty now. The demon was gone. A silvery-grey line moved through the fur, and Valerie realized she was watching the fleas abandon the body. Already they knew their host was dead.

Her voice trembling, Valerie recited the prayers and exhortations she had memorized for this moment, the formulae designed to lay evil spirits. Now he would show himself, she thought, and her body was tensed anticipating an attack. Now he would make a mockery of her attempt to escape.

But nothing happened. The cat stayed dead in her hand and the room was empty and still, filling gradually with the thin, grey light of early morning.

Valerie dropped the knife back into her purse, careless of the blood. Her arms and hands were sticky with it—some of it the cat’s, some her own—and her wounded arm throbbed with pain, but she did not care. She had won. The demon had needed a body to live, and she had killed that body. She was free.

As she stepped out of the circle, he struck.

She felt his return as a body-blow which knocked the breath out of her. She fell forward onto the floor, unable to cry out, or even to try to break her fall. The limp, warm body of the cat was crushed beneath her. Her body vibrated with agony. For a moment she knew she was dying, and she was grateful.

Then the pain subsided, and she knew he would not let her go so easily. Tears started to her eyes, and she gasped for air. The hated, familiar voice was in her ear.

“When will you learn it is useless to fight me? When will you learn that you are mine, to use as I will?”

She could not speak. If she could have made a sound it would have been an anguished scream. She would never have another chance. She had failed.

“You will obey me. You will bring me what I require.”

With one blow, he had knocked all the hope, all the will to fight out of her. Now she wished only to avoid his presence and to wait for oblivion. Of course she would obey him. She had no choice, no resistance left. Perhaps, if she served him well, he would let her die before too much longer.

The crushing weight lifted, and Valerie sat up, feeling like a mechanical doll. She didn’t mind the feeling. She would do what she was told. Nothing mattered.

“You learn slowly, but you learn,” said the voice. “You will bring someone to the house, someone young and physically healthy, but someone pliant. A woman, I think. An attractive young woman who is alone and unhappy. Someone who will be more receptive to me than you. After you have found her and brought her to me, I will let you go. Oh, and I will give you what you need for your new life. I will give you what you wanted. You will have the money, and the car, and the drugs . . . and there will be someone to look after you, to make sure you don’t take too many of those drugs, until I have done with you.”

She felt a pain as if a knife were cutting through her brain, but that didn’t matter. The dead cat, her painful, bleeding arm, her failure, the numbness inside—none of it mattered. Valerie nodded her acceptance.

“And to help you in your search—”

An invisible hand seemed to push her head to one side. Valerie looked towards the doorway that led into the kitchen and saw something out of place on the mottled pink and brown linoleum. Something about the size of her fist, something like a clod of earth—but it moved.

It hopped forward, over the threshold into the bedroom, and Valerie saw that it was a toad, grey-brown and hideous, glistening slightly as if it were wet.

At one time Valerie would have recoiled, scrambled to her feet and backed away, face twisted in disgust. Snakes, lizards, toads—whether harmless or not they were all the same, all horrible. The idea of touching one would make her skin crawl. But she didn’t move now as the toad came towards her. She felt as if she were very far away, watching this happen to someone utterly unimportant. And so she did not flinch when the toad came closer still and hopped onto her leg. She bent down to take a closer look. They stared at each other, eye to eye. The toad’s eyes were yellow. She knew them well.

Chapter One