The Edward King Series Books 1-3 Page 16

  She attempted lifting her text book to do some studying. She had an assignment due in a week, but her heart wasn’t in it. It was on ‘theories of conditioning in advanced therapy,’ but she was both tired and sceptical. She had been there; these people setting the assignments evidently hadn’t. She’d had people try and treat her through conditioning, attempting to create an engrained feeling on her through repetition. If anything, it had just made her angrier at those imposing the treatment on her.

  Every time she tried reading books about these techniques, her mind drifted off to bad places, unforgiving recollections and distressing images. Ultimately, the treatment had backfired, as it conditioned her to feel worse and worse the more she thought about it.

  But still, if she ever planned to help people in her way, she needed to get the qualification to do it. Even if it meant playing along with the bullshit they preached to her.

  They’d never had mental health issues, they had only studied it. That was the problem. They had no idea what it was like.

  “Hey, Kelly,” Mindy greeted her as she sauntered into the room and clicked on the kettle. She had a huge smile on her face as always; Kelly wasn’t sure how she did it, but she was always happy.

  “Hey, Mind’, how’s things?”

  “Wonderful. And you? No Doug tonight?”

  She grinned at the mention of his name. She couldn’t help it.

  “No, we’re having a rest day today. I think we have gotten to the point of exhaustion.”

  “You’re telling me. I’m in the next room, remember.”

  Mindy smirked at Kelly, who rolled her eyes playfully and smiled back. Mindy took her cup of tea and ambled over to the sitting area, curling up in the sofa and cupping her mug.

  “I don’t even care,” Kelly joked, giggling at her. “We are having such a great time.”

  “That’s awesome. He seems like a really nice guy.”

  “So what about you? I saw a guy leaving your room the other day.”

  Mindy practically snorted into her cup of tea and shook her head.

  “No, no, just a bit of fun. We can’t all commit ourselves so young as you have.”

  Kelly raised her eyebrows and turned her head away. A fair point; she was a one-man woman, no doubt about it, a pure monogamist. Mindy was not, and she had no problem with that. She was young and she was enjoying herself.

  “So I heard you knocking on my wall last night by the way, sorry I ignored you.”

  “What?” Mindy looked puzzled as she sipped on her tea.

  “Last night. You were knocking on my wall at, like, eleven. I assumed you wanted to watch a movie or go for a drink or something, but I just fancied an early night.”

  “I didn’t knock on your wall, Kelly.”

  How odd, Kelly thought. She could swear she had heard four audible knocks against her wall, clear as day. Maybe it was Mindy knocking her bed against the wall, or dropping something.

  “Besides,” Mindy added. “I wasn’t even here last night, I was with that guy. Adam, I think his name was.”

  *

  Kelly lay asleep in her bed, snuggly curled up with the duvet wrapped around her. Her room was cold, as she couldn’t figure out the radiator, but beneath her duvet she was toasty warm.

  She spread herself out as she turned over. Having shared a bed every day for the past few weeks, it was liberating to have the whole space to herself, allowing her to spread her body out and soak up the space. As nice as it was, she would still have preferred to have had Doug beside her.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  Her eyes opened without hesitation. Four clear knocks on her door awoke her from her sleep. She glanced at the clock. 3.01 a.m. Who was banging on her door at this time?

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  She slowly pressed her duvet down and twisted herself out of bed. She wrapped her arms around herself. Despite wearing two layers of pyjamas, she still felt the icy cold in her room.

  She rotated the lock and lifted the door handle, withdrawing the door backwards to plant her eyes upon…

  Nothing.

  No one.

  An empty doorway.

  She leant her head out of the doorway and peered back and forth. The lights of the hallway came on; they were motion sensor lights and they lit up the corridor, to reveal no one, and a row of shut doors beside hers.

  If someone was knocking on my door, then how were the lights off?

  She shook her head to herself, thought nothing of it, and closed the door. She locked it and walked swiftly back to her bed. No sooner had she started to climb back into bed did she hear it again.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  She soared back out of bed and swiftly stormed toward the door, turning the lock and opening it hastily.

  Nothing. No one.

  She left her room and knocked on the door next to hers.

  “Mindy? Mindy, that you?”

  No answer. She knocked again, but heard no movement inside. She assumed she wasn’t in, shacked up with some other guy again. Either that, or she was fast asleep in her bed, oblivious to the world.

  She returned to her room and shut the door behind her, locking it. She hesitated. Cautiously dithered. Keeping her ear against the wall. Listening out for… well, she wasn’t sure. But she knew what she had heard.

  This was how it had started before. Sounds like this. Knocking on the door. Someone whispering her name. She had sworn it was real, without a second thought to what it could be.

  But this time it was different. This time she was aware that she was hearing things. She could tell it wasn’t real, it was just in her mind. She wasn’t going back to how she was. Back then, she had no idea it was all in her head, but she did now.

  Or was it?

  Because she had heard four clear knocks against her door. She knew she had.

  Deciding that standing beside her door wasn’t going to provoke any more knocks, she edged back to her bed. Whoever – or whatever – it was, had clearly left. Or her imagination had ended its elaborate hallucinating. One or the other. Either way, it was late, and she wanted to get enough sleep to be able to stay awake in her morning lecture.

  She returned to bed and drew the duvet tightly around her. She curled into a ball and enjoyed the comfort of the bed. In her cocoon, she was warm, relaxed, protected.

  She closed her eyes and drifted off. Her mind relaxed and she let go of all the things that had happened to her in the past year. She was over it now.

  It was done.

  She was resting.

  “Kelly.”

  She sat up with a start. Her arm blasted out and switched on the lamp beside her. She spun herself in a full rotation, scrutinising every part of the room; every angle, every corner, every crevasse. Someone had said her name. She had heard it, clear as she had heard the knocks.

  But no one was there. It was just her.

  “Hello?” she offered, not entirely sure what she was expecting.

  No one answered. No one responded.

  Of course no one responded. There was no one there. She was completely alone.

  She laid back down and brought the duvet back around her. It was her mind, all in her head. A tired brain playing tricks on her. A slight relapse to how she had spent the last year of her life. Bad feelings resurfacing, that was all. Nothing more.

  She felt suddenly cold. She lifted her head and looked down. Her duvet was halfway down her, settling on her waist. She was sure she had wrapped it around her. She knew she had.

  It must have slipped down.

  She reached out to pull it back and in one swift movement the duvet dragged itself away from her to her feet.

  She was paralysed to the spot. Her eyes as wide as they could go, frozen in a stare at her bare feet beside the duvet. Had she just seen that?

  The duvet just slid down of its own accord.

  She wasn’t going back. She couldn’t. Not now. Not after she had done so well; she had a best friend, she
had assignments, an amazing boyfriend – she could not slip back to old ways. She wasn’t going back. She was not returning to a mental health unit. Not again. Not ever.

  It was her mind, same as it always had been. She was seeing things.

  Or maybe it was a breeze that took it away?

  Her bare ankles grew goosepimply, her hair sticking up on end. She couldn’t tell if it was coldness or terror, but she could feel a frozen brush of wind against them.

  Where is that wind coming from?

  She double checked; her window was securely shut. The door was locked. There was no way wind could get in.

  She opened the desk drawer an arm’s reach away and withdrew a packet of medication. She rifled through it, the packet shaking in her trembling hands.

  She popped a few pills and shoved them into her mouth. She swallowed them dryly; she had taken enough pills that she didn’t need water to wash them down anymore.

  That medication was there for emergencies; that’s what the doctors had told her. It was there if old feelings resurfaced. They would calm her down, knock her out.

  She laid down, leaving the duvet where it was. She would go cold tonight. She was not prepared to let the duvet be dragged away by her own imagination again.

  Within minutes her medication had taken effect and she was unconscious. The next morning, she made a deal to not speak of this to anyone.

  She would not go back.

  9

  2 January 2000

  Two days after millennium night

  Eddie sipped on his coffee, feeling it lightly tinge his dry mouth.

  He felt wrong. Something had severely disturbed him, and he could not explain why.

  “We are so, so grateful,” assured Beatrice, her arm around her daughter, Adeline. Eddie had spent his New Millennium night battling the three-headed demon Balam from her body.

  There were so many questions. For starters, what was a demon of the stature of Balam doing possessing a regular, insignificant girl? This was not some everyday demon, some servant of the devil, like the demons that normally attacked the victims Eddie was used to helping. This was a great and powerful king of hell, commanding over forty legions of demons.

  Why would a ruler of demons possess a girl? Why would he lower himself to something that was so far beneath him that it surely couldn’t give him any pleasure?

  More pertinently, why had this demon taken his own sister hostage? His sister, who had died when she was a child, had spent years and years suffering in hell at Balam’s hand. Sure, Eddie had freed this girl, had freed his sister, had removed Balam from this world. But he wanted more. He wanted Balam, this despicable prince of hell, to suffer.

  “It’s quite all right,” Eddie spoke distantly, distracted by his thoughts.

  “I wish there was something we could give you,” Beatrice whimpered. “We just don’t have much in the way of money or possessions…”

  “It’s honestly okay. I do this because it is my duty, not because I am after some kind of reward.”

  And the demon, the way it had responded to him… He had let it take his body so he could battle it remotely, but it had seemed shocked to see him. Like it knew him.

  “It is you,” Balam had spoken. “Commander of hell, he who attempts to take his throne.”

  Attempts to take his throne? Who exactly is ‘his’? Whose throne is Eddie trying to take?

  Eddie was a good, honest person, who took it upon himself to use the power he had been bestowed with to fight hell’s demons.

  He had no choice in having this ‘gift,’ as Derek constantly referred to it.

  “You have no choice in having this gift,” he heard Derek’s words echo in his mind. “But you do have a choice what you do with it.”

  “If there is ever anything we can do for you,” Beatrice continued, “please know that I will forever be in your debt.”

  “That honestly will not be necessary,” Eddie answered and finished his coffee. “I must be leaving now.”

  With a nod, he walked to the door. He was stopped by Adeline, the young, innocent girl he had battled to save, rushing up to him and grabbing his hand.

  She reached her hand out and opened it. In it was some sort of craft, something she had evidently made herself.

  “This is a friendship bracelet,” she told him, her voice so innocent compared to the foul, carnivorous bastard that had been speaking out of her mouth the night before. “I made it for you.”

  He smiled sweetly. His thoughts were elsewhere, and he wasn’t used to receiving gifts, but he took it gratefully. He ruffled her hair and gave her a faint nod in appreciation.

  As he left the house, he closed the door behind him and walked to the end of the street where Derek stood waiting. Eddie kept the friendship bracelet in his hand, staring down at it.

  “Where’s your car?” Eddie asked, wondering how Derek had gotten there.

  “Remember Levi?” Derek replied. How could Eddie not? Levi had assisted Derek on his own exorcism. He had gone off and done his own thing now, but Eddie was still in gratitude.

  “Of course, why?”

  “Well,” Derek smirked. “He’s gotten a gig on a ghost hunting show, and they have given him his own helicopter.”

  “No way!” Eddie exclaimed, both astounded and a little jealous. Good for him.

  Derek pointed beyond a few sets of trees in the distance and, sure enough, Eddie could see the rotor blades of a helicopter.

  They both walked toward the rotor blades and, as they contemplated, their thoughts returned to the exorcism Eddie had just performed.

  “How did it go?” Derek enquired.

  “I… don’t know. I got rid of it,” Eddie answered absentmindedly, still completely distracted. He pocketed the sweet gift the girl had given him and turned to his mentor.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for this one.”

  “Ah, it’s okay. Though the demon was more big-time than we are used to. Ever heard of Balam?”

  Derek’s eyes grew in utter shock.

  “Surely not!” he exclaimed. “It must have been lying. It was claiming to be what it was not, you can’t be sure.”

  “I can. I saw it in its true form. Three heads, one of a human, one of a bull, one of a ram.”

  Derek took a moment to let the news sink in. Balam? Possessing a girl? Why?

  “He said some things as well. Things that I don’t understand. Derek, who am I? Why do I have these powers?”

  “I told you –”

  “It said I was the commander of hell. It said I attempted to take ‘his’ throne. It said it will return with armies and take me down.”

  Derek nodded, stroking his goatee, staring into the distance, deep in thought. Eddie knew him well enough to know he was struggling for an answer or explanation. He would always attempt to help, but maybe this time, this was beyond even his understanding.

  They walked beyond the clearing and approached the helicopter. Levi leant against it, in his tattered jeans and scruffy goatee. Eddie and Levi exchanged a nod of recognition. Eddie wished he could say more, but his mind was dwelling too much on the situation at hand.

  “Derek, is there any way these powers aren’t powers of good? That these haven’t been given to me by heaven, but by hell?”

  “Nonsense, how could that be? You have done so much good with them.”

  “But there must be a reason these powers make demons scared. Seriously, what am I? Why am I really here?”

  Derek opened his mouth and found that nothing came out. These were very good questions, ones that Derek couldn’t get beyond hypothesizing with. There were theories, yes, but they weren’t panning out.

  Maybe Eddie was right. Maybe it was time to start entertaining the idea that this gift may not in fact be a gift, but a curse. Maybe it was time to consider whether Eddie was sent here as a force for good.

  “I think we need to come up with some possibilities,” he offered.

  “You’ve come up with so many, De
rek, and none of them –”

  “No, I’ve been hiding from the obvious. I’ve just been looking at the good options. You’re right. Maybe it’s time we start looking at possible reasons that aren’t as favourable. Maybe we should look at ways that your powers could be used for reasons less than honest.”

  He had pushed Derek to this point, Eddie knew that. He had prodded him to look at this possibility. But he had never actually heard Derek admit it, never mind say it aloud. Coming from his mouth, it felt a lot worse.

  They were going to have to hypothesize that maybe Eddie wasn’t here for the right reasons.

  “And he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.”

  (Revelation 20:3)

  10

  15 November 2001

  One year, eleven months after millennium

  Kelly caught a glance at the photograph propped upon her bedside table. In it was herself, her mother, and her father. Except this was from before. Before she had been sectioned, before they had coerced her into admitting she was ‘unhinged’ as they called it.

  She tried to ignore it. Doug was beneath her, gazing up at her body, wide-eyed.

  He always seemed to look so amazed every time he saw her naked. His eyebrows would go up, his eyes would alight and his mouth would start flickering.

  It made her feel special, the fact that he found her so attractive, when she considered him to be so out of her league.

  She closed her eyes and forced all bad thoughts out of her mind and enjoyed the moment. She was moving her hips back and forth in a way Doug had shown her to. It didn’t bother her too much that he was vastly more sexually experienced than her, as he knew what they needed to do to have great sex. And it was great sex, she could not deny it.