Chapter 11
Two nights later, at three-twelve a.m., Frank was awakened by a cry and a body falling on his bed. "Daddy! Wake up!" He jerked up on his elbows in the darkness. Beside him, Holly stirred uneasily in her heavy, Seconal sleep.
Donna had jumped onto his side of the king-size bed. She was crying, sobbing, seeking him with a child's need for security and reassurance. She was stark naked. He knew instantly it was the old Donna, his true daughter, and not the demonic monster who had possessed her for over a week. He took her into his arms. The feel of her soft, warm flesh brought memories. He stroked her long, loose blonde hair. "I'm here, honey. I love you. I love you."
She sobbed, "It's gone. I'm free."
"That's good, Donna. That's good." He wondered for how long? When would The Other take over again?"
"I woke up and I was ... I was in my whole body again. It's so wonderful to be able to control what I do and say. We've got to get away! We've got to go, now! Before it comes back!"
"Donna, I don't think running will help."
"Yes, it will! I know if I can get far enough from this house it'll lose me. It won't be able to find me again."
"Baby, if it's from Hell, really, then there's no place on this planet you could hide. And if it isn't from Hell ..." He left it unstated. If the demon wasn't from another universe, from another plane of existence—then she was psychotic, and the demon was in her mind, a complex, powerful second personality, and she was in reality a far advanced case of paranoid schizophrenia.
"You think I'm crazy."
He held her and didn't know, still, what to think. There was no ultimate proof immediately available. Only the appearance of a demon, a visible fiend from Hell, so horrible and real, so utterly loathsome and solid, that he couldn't deny it. Yet even then he would suspect his own sanity and wonder about a total hallucination. Or the take-over of the world by the forces of Hell ... and his living beyond a natural span of years, without aging. But now it was all on faith. And he had always been a skeptic.
"Please, Daddy, please! Let's all three of us get away! I know it'll work!"
In her agitation, Donna rubbed her lovely breasts against his bare chest. He was naked in the bed. Frank experienced lust. Triggered lust for her body, for her cunning mouth, for her honeyed, hot vagina ... He felt his large penis begin to harden. He pushed Donna away, insisting "Either way, it wouldn't do any good!"
"It will! I KNOW IT WILL! OH, PLEASE, DADDY! You don't know how horrible it is to be shut away in your own head and know what an alien thing is doing with your body!" She wept convulsively. She huddled and crept again into his unresisting arms. She whispered brokenly, "I ... know you couldn't help what it made my body do ... and what it forced you to do ... and Holly ... and the others. It's so strong!"
He nodded and held her. "Go to sleep, baby."
"Daddy, we've got to leave!"
"Donna, Holly is zonked out on sleeping pills. We couldn't get her conscious. We couldn't get—"
"WHY DON'T YOU WANT ME TO GET AWAY? DO YOU WANT THAT THING TO GET INTO ME AGAIN? DO YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ME AGAIN?" Donna scrambled out of the bed. She was shaking with rage and grief, with fear and dread and a terrible suspicion.
"No, God, no, honey! It's just—Okay. Okay. We'll give it a try. Get dressed. We'll leave Holly here. I'll leave a note. We'll go right now."
"Oh, Daddy!" Donna raced from the bedroom.
Frank swung his legs out of bed. He switched on a bedside lamp. He rubbed his face, stood, and limped to the bathroom. As he emptied his bladder he wondered if Donna's urgent need to get away might not be a symptom of her "good" side mounting an attack on her "bad" side—a sign of recovery, of sanity. Maybe—if the demon was in her mind!—the act of running away would serve as a "solution" and the demon would be unable to "find" her again. The subconscious was a place of twisted paths and strange lands.
He re-entered the bedroom to find Donna already returned, dressed in a pair of jeans and heavy wool long-sleeved sweater. She turned away. He wondered why, and then realized it was because he was naked. He said, "Sorry, Donna." He climbed into underwear, slacks, a shirt, and a wind breaker.
He limped to a small desk and scribbled a note for Holly, who lay sleeping, oblivious to what had happened.
He wrote: "Dearest,
Donna and I are off on a trip. If
not back in a few days will contact
you. Stay in house for a while. Can't explain.
Love, Frank"
Frank knew he was hedging. He was afraid of the demon—real or psychosis. He didn't want to commit himself on paper, one way or another.
The instant he finished writing, Donna tugged at him. "Let's go. Quick!"
Five minutes later they were on the San Diego freeway, heading south. It was three-forty a.m. Traffic was light. The air was cool.
Frank watched Donna. She sat tense, not speaking, with fists clenched, as if dreading an attack, a return of the demon. As the moments passed and the miles thrummed under the tires of the powerful Mercedes, she slowly relaxed. She asked, "Do you think it'll work?"
"I don't know, honey. We'll just have to wait and see."
"I wish you hadn't come into my room that night! I wish I'd never seen that man!"
Frank said nothing. If the demon returned—or surfaced—his words would be on record in Donna's mind. The demon would punish him for disloyalty. He despised himself and kept silent. He knew he had passed the point of no return. When he had kept silent and shielded her—or it—when the police had come ... that had been the decision time, the commitment. He was a fool. He was evil. He was selling his soul.
He drove on at 85 m.p.h. and wondered about life and death. And he waited. When they neared San Diego, Frank asked, "Want to go on?"
"Yes, please, Daddy. Farther than this. Can we go to ... Texas or somewhere really far?"
"Yes, but I have to get some rest, Donna. Let's stop at a motel for a few hours."
"But—"
"We have to stop sometime. If over a hundred miles isn't far enough, then ..."
Donna gave in. Her fists clenched again.
Frank checked them into one of a large, nationally advertised motel chain. He registered using his real name, with daughter, and requested a two-bed room. He had to practically croon Donna to sleep. He held her, rocked her in his arms ... lied to her ... and found her a stranger. What had happened to his natural love as father for his child? Something was wrong with him. He wanted the demon to return so that ... so that there could be lust and orgy again! So that he could serve the Master again! Donna finally fell asleep. He stretched out and closed his eyes. He thought about everything. Once you rip open the mind and let the unleashed evil spread ... He drifted ...
"WHY DID YOU TAKE HER AWAY?"
Frank jerked awake. It was dawn. Donna—no, Donnathia! crouched furiously on his bed, naked, eyes blazing! Fear congealed in his gut. "I didn't! She came to me and begged me to get her away. She would have gone alone if I hadn't agreed."
"I left this body exhausted, asleep! It could not have awakened!"
"It—she did. Can't you tell? Can't you see into her memory?"
"If I must. It takes too much energy to peel the resistances. The tighter I control that willful, childish essence, the more I squeeze it and lick it away, the harder it is to penetrate. She still has her soul. It like's steel when under pressure. I need all my powers for the Plan."
Donnathia glared. "Why didn't you lock her up until I returned?"
Frank licked his lips. "I—I wasn't sure you'd be back. And there's no place in the house where I could keep her locked up—"
"The coven room!"
"She might have destroyed everything." She drilled her eyes into his mind. The fiery blue pupils filled the universe. He was aware of a ... slimy probing ... Then he was left shaken, and Donnathia was smiling. "Yes ... your decision has been made. There is that cold, selfish core in you, the power-seeker, the pleasure-seeker. You do want immortality. Death haunts you—since Korea."
"That's about it." He tasted sourness. It was true. He felt a sinking sensation. A fear. A black despair. He still knew guilt and shame. He wished he could cut that out of his mind and be purely evil, as was the demon. He hated being ambivalent, even partially. It tainted his virtues and vices ... always. He envied the demon.
Donnathia reached for Frank's genitals. She played with them idly. "I prefer inhabiting a male body. But ... this will do. I find a beautiful young female body has many advantages in the manipulation of men. In this world men are the power-holders. They are vulnerable to the skillful and beautiful young woman." She smiled as Frank's penis erected. "I was away ... reporting to my superiors. I have full instructions. I am promised great powers. There are plans ... " She lay back on the bed. "Eat your sweet Donna's cunt, Daddy, while I tell you what is going to happen." She giggled contentedly. Her knees rose and fell wide. She fondled her lovely breasts.
Frank more than willingly crept into the familiar, soft gorge. He embraced her raised thighs and kissed the hot, moist center of her body. His eyes closed. He lovingly drifted his tongue along the acid-tangy lips of her plump, pink vulva.
Donnathia moaned gently. "You perform so well. Oh, yes ... " She sighed luxuriously and was silent for a moment as he delved and licked with passionate skill.
She said quietly, "I've learned that Jonathon Dean is a good friend of an aging, very rich movie actress, Vonda Hartford. Jonathon, like the obedient slave to Satan that he is, will take me and you along as friends to a very special party Vonda Hartford is giving this week."
Frank settled into a quick, gentle tonguing of Donnathia's clitoris. He felt her body respond. She writhed sinuously as she said, "It's a political fund-raising party for Jack Dixon."
Frank heard. What was going to happen? Jack Dixon was a handsome young California Congressman who was being groomed for the governorship.
Donnathia continued, "Jack Dixon has been chosen by our masters to be the prime tool in this world. I will meet him and seduce him. When he fucks this lovely body a part of me—an incubus—will enter his body and reside in his mind. He will come very soon to be ours!"
Donnathia began to moan more frequently. "Ahhh ... Frank ... so nice ... nice ... Now more tongue ... a little higher on the clit ... ohhh, YES!" She went into a series of rippling spasms. Her loins bucked against Frank's clinging mouth and darting tongue. When she had passed through the overwhelming pleasure, Donnathia said, "It will take the incubus about three years to mature, to be a full-grown demon. My child! A part of me will rule this country and eventually the entire world as absolute dictator. And I'll be at his side. We will marry when this body is eighteen years old. We must abide by the current social regulations until we are powerful enough to rule as we wish. When God is defeated, when God is dead there will be portals created to the black universe, and Satan will rule this sevagram as well."
Frank kept on licking into her flushed, slippery inner vulva. The swollen pink button that was her clitoris vibrated anew under his slithering tongue. He listened to the grand plans for demonic conquest of the world and he wasn't happy, as he should have been.
"Jack Dixon will be elected Governor of California. He and I will marry near the end of his first term. We will be heralded as a golden couple, a sure-bet for greater things ... We'll make him President. With that power, with a tremendous spread of covens and wealth, with our Satan-given Powers, we'll spread a vast evil upon the planet. Wars. Genocide. Famine. Chaos."
Frank didn't understand. Wanting power over the world he understood. But power for the sake of causing death, pain, and suffering? Was that all—to reduce all mankind to groaning misery and anguish? The whole point of the Plan? Then he finally understood. Evil was anti-freedom, anti-happiness, anti-pleasure in the final result, anti-progress of any kind ... in fact, anti-life in general.
The only pleasure in the Plan involved inflicting pain, humiliation, death, destruction, ruin ... The demon in Donna enjoyed physical pleasure and used physical pleasure to gain its ends. Once in full control ... all pleasure for others would end.
Frank doubted there would be immortality for himself, or for any other "unoccupied" mortal. The first tool of evil was the lie. How joyous and happy it must make a demon to lie and be believed! To promise and know the promises would be broken! How could he fight Evil? He smiled against Donnathia's hot flesh. By using the tools of Evil against its servants.
He felt Donnathia's hands on his head, guiding, as her hips ground her vulva against his open mouth and fluttering tongue. She was panting, going into another climax.
Finally, an hour later, she pushed him away. She yawned. "We will sleep now. When I wake we'll drive back home. I have many things to do."
Frank rolled gratefully away. His jaws and tongue were aching. His physical desire had not been drained, but he was too tired and dispirited. He shifted to the other bed and slipped under the covers. He sank into a deep sleep within two minutes.