Chapter 14

Frank led the way down the ramp to the exclusive Long Spar Club's boat slips on the Marina del Rey. It was a hot, sunshiny Sunday afternoon. The huge marina was full of moving sails and power boats.

Donnathia followed a few paces behind. She wore a bright blue mini-bikini under an orange and blue playsuit. Her long, wavy blonde hair broke at her shoulders and trailed down her back and to her breasts. She wore large mirror-lensed sunglasses.

Frank said, "Slip number ten-B ... there it is." He pointed to a large tri-level power yacht at the end of the moorage. It was at least sixty feet long. Frank limped forward and was gut-scared. He had lied to Donnathia. Grant Ten-Eyk had called and given the name of his club, the slip number, and directions to Tonga Way on the teeming, newly developed south side of the vast marina.

But this was a different club, on Easter Island Way, and the yacht belonged to a dealer. Frank had rented it. Inside the main cabin waited Professor Carew with his book, with his knowledge. The yacht was decked out with flags and colorful pads on the bow and in the fantail cockpit. Frank didn't know if what they planned would work. It was a deadly risk.

They reached the yacht. Frank turned to help Donnathia up the portable steps to the railing. The boat dipped and sloshed against the moorage from waves created by other large boats on their way to the sea.

She said, "Where is everybody?"

"Probably down in the lounge getting drunk." Frank urged her down into the cockpit. "Or maybe we're early." He followed her onto the boat. This was a critical moment.

Donnathia was suspicious. She moved slowly toward the closed main cabin door. Frank got into position behind her. She scowled. "This isn't right. It reeks of—"

The cabin door opened suddenly before her. Short, thick-bodied, bearded Professor Carew stood within. "Come in, Donnathia."

Frank lunged forward and shoved her down into the cabin. She fell, off balance, and sprawled against a built-in cabinet. Her head struck the sharp edge of the wall cabinet directly above. She staggered and fell to the carpeted deck, dazed. It was a stroke of good luck. Carew sprang upon her with a pair of handcuffs. "Now, Kaiser! The hood!"

Frank scrambled into the cabin and snatched a heavy velvet draw-stringed hood from a shelf beside the door. He saw that Carew had the cuffs on Donnathia's wrists, behind her back. He was chanting, eyes closed, face intent. Frank recognized the chant; it was the shield spell the professor had spoken in Vonda Hartford's patio at the party. Frank obeyed Carew's previously given instructions. He closed his eyes and fumbled the hood over Donnathia's head.

She was becoming aware of what was happening. She kicked blindly, savagely at the two men. "You'll pay in Hell for this! You'll die in mortal agony as I cut out your liver and eat it before your eyes. Frank, you first, my loyal daddy! I'll chew off your balls and stuff your prick into your ass! I'll string your guts over your body and send your soul to Satanathia for special treatment!"

She caught Carew on the knee with a lucky kick. He cried out with pain. Her shoes were soled with hardened rope. Carew had some nylon cord. They had to tie her feet. But he signaled to Frank, pointing to his mouth.

Frank had forgotten an incantation Carew had had him memorize and repeat aloud the past few days, as often as possible. Especially, he was supposed to recite it now. He did not feel foolish as he fervently recited the words. "Great Jehovam Sabaoth, our Lord, harken to my prayer. Free me from my bewitchment. Loosen my sin. Let there be turned aside whatever evil may come to end my life." Frank made the sign of the cross and of the fish in the air as he spoke.

Carew signaled and the two men wrestled with Donnathia, to bind her feet. They took heavy kicks. She was terribly powerful, in an insane rage. She writhed and twisted like a python. She kept trying to work the hood off her head. The drawstring was knotted tight under her chin. The cloth billowed with her frantic, heavy breathing. Air slots had been cut into the velvet.

Her voice deepened to a masculine bellow. "XILKA, XIOKA, BESA! I CALL! I CALL!"

The yacht began to rock heavily in its slip. It creaked and groaned. Her muscles became like steel. Her skin dripped sweat. Her pulse hit an impossible speed.

Yet Frank and Carew managed to loop the high-strength nylon cord around her lower legs and ankles and draw it tight. They knotted it again and again.

She roared, "BAGAHI LACA BACHABE! COME! COME! COME!"

Carew gasped, "Her arms!" He grabbed for more cord.

Donnathia's hands were running blood. The handcuffs had been closed tight around her wrists, but she was intent on pulling her hands free even if it meant dislocating her thumbs and shredding skin and muscle from bone. She whipped and convulsed her body to frustrate them. "NO! NO! I SAY NO! YOU WILL DIE! O PRUSLAS! O BAEL! I CALL! I CALL! I CALL!"

The carpeted deck shook, suddenly, to a great blow from beneath, in the hull. The big cruiser trembled. Again the blow reverberated. Again! Carew was not used to such extreme physical exertion. He panted and blew. He cursed and fought to loop her arms and wrists once more ... once more ... The struggle had disarranged her playsuit. One of her bikini top straps had ripped loose. Her left breast—full, white, trembling with the pounding of her heart—was completely exposed, its nipple a hard pink button.

It was done. The two men let themselves be thrown away from her powerfully flexing body. The terrifying hammer blows continued to shake the yacht. Carew gasped, "Cast off. That thing is stronger than I thought possible."

Frank refused to let himself think. He lurched out of the cabin to the sunlight. He limped to the heaving rail, climbed down to the slip, cast off the stern line and ran as quickly as he could to the bow lines. The yacht seemed alive, in agony, as it yawed and pitched and groaned in counterpoint to the massive internal blows. Professor Carew had climbed to the canopied pilot house. Huge twin diesel's coughed to life and muttered to themselves. Frank got aboard again. He climbed up to the bridge. Carew sat in the plush Captain's chair and awkwardly backed the cruiser free of its berth. Frank asked, "How far out to sea do we have to go?"

"Free of this clutter." The professor waved at the thick traffic of small craft in the marina.

"Shall I go down and keep an eye on her?"

"No! If those bonds can't hold it we can't prevail. Don't get near it. Pray it doesn't find a way to use those psi powers in different, more effective ways."

Frank shivered. 'It!' He had never really accepted the demon as an alien, a monster from somewhere else. No—he had, but ... He lowered his head. "Oh, God. Donna ... "

It took forty minutes to creep along the traffic lanes in the marina to the sea channel and then cruise slowly among the crowds of waterbug-like catamarans endlessly tacking toward the outer breakwater, among the other powered boats, always yielding to the criss-crossing sailboats, large and small. The yacht lurched continually to the endless, smashing blows from an invisible force. But the impacts seemed lighter, feebler, than at the beginning. Finally, they were cutting through the endless swells, the great city only an ugly smear of smog on the eastern horizon. And the erratic, weakened blows against the hull and decks ended.

Carew studied the automatic pilot and set the cruiser on a long, slow circling turn. He smiled at Frank. "I've never exorcised a demon before, but I'm happy that it's tired."

"Demon for real? Or malignant, dominant, schizoid persona?"

"We'll find out. I'm not sure I want final answers, but I've committed myself to this madness." Carew rubbed his full beard. "Whatever that is down there, it should be dispossessed ... or killed."

Frank was scared, more than ever before. "I'm afraid to go down there."

"Yes. I am, too. But we must do God's work." Carew led the way down the ladder.

When they entered the cabin, Donnathia lay quiet on the deck, a small, tightly trussed young woman. She stirred and whimpered with discomfort. She called in a pathetic, frightened voice, "Daddy? What's happened? My arms hurt. I can't see! I can hardly breathe!"

Frank went to her. "Donna! Oh, baby, I'll—" Carew seized Frank's arm and pulled him back. "Don't undo that hood! What kind of fool are you?"

"The demon's gone!"

"It's a trick! Can't you think?"

"Daddy? Who's that? I'm suffocating." She began to cry.

Frank pulled free of Carew's grip ... but didn't undo the hood drawstring. He knelt beside Donnathia. "Honey, the demon is still in you. It's hiding, playing games. We have to try to exorcise it—drive it out of you. Do you understand?"

"No. Please, Daddy. I'm scared. I can't breathe! Please, please, please take it off!"

"You can get air, honey. The slits on the hood give you enough air." He clenched his fists. "It'll only be a little while, then you'll be really free, and it won't come back. It won't make you do awful things."

"But my arms ... and my legs hurt!"

Frank could see the blood-smeared cords and handcuffs, the puffed, purplish hands, the torn skin and raw muscle. "I'm sorry, baby. Hold on. Hold on. It'll all be over in a little while."

She shivered visibly—and lay still and quiet.

"Donna?"

She laughed evilly, confidently. "Exorcism! You trivial fools! I'll make you two eat each other's shit for this!"

Frank began to weep. Carew drew Frank away. "Let's begin."

They drew a double pentagram, one six inches within the other, on the carpeting around Donnathia, using white chalk. They lit white candles and positioned them in small white dishes at the points of the outer pentagram. They poured pure, non-homogenized goat's milk into small bowls and placed them at the points of the inner pentagram. Carew placed small wooden crucifixes in the recessed angles of the outer pentagram, the top of the cross outward. All the while he chanted in Latin, over and over, "Lofaham, Solomon, Iyouel, Iyosenaoui."

And Donnathia laughed.

Carew took an old, yellowed sheaf of pages from a clear plastic folder. He handled them carefully. He began to read aloud in a strong voice. "O Spirit, because thou hast diligently answered my demands, I do hereby license thee to depart without injury to man or beast. Depart, I say, and never return to this vessel. Be thou exorcised by the Sacred Rites of Magic. I conjure thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and may the peace of God—"

Donnathia's peals of mocking laughter overrode his voice for a few seconds.

"—May the peace of God continue forever between thee and me. Amen."

"If Webster had read that weak little thing, maybe it might have had a small effect. You poor ASS!" Donnathia howled with mirth.

Frank watched and knew that Carew was wasting his time. If a true exorcism was possible, it was beyond his knowledge and skills. Frank sensed that vital elements were missing. Some part of the ritual had not been done, some invocation probably known only to Webster. Or in that burned volume of ancient lore. But Fran kept silent as Carew repeated the spell three times.

Through it all Donnathia chuckled and made obscene remarks, or told of particularly horrible tortures in store for "Daddy" and Carew.

As he finished the third chanting, Carew's eyes met Frank's. He shook his head slightly. He carefully turned one of the manuscript pages. He took a deep breath and began reading another spell against evil:

"Ofano, Oblamo, Opergo. Hola Noa Massa. Light, Beff, Cletamati, Adonai—"

Donnathia chortled. "I could save you a lot of time, Carew, by telling you that Albertus Magnus was an old, gravel-brained idiot. Quoting his addle-pated incantations to harm me is so ludicrous as to be beyond credence. If you want me out of this well-used cunt you'll have to do far, far better than that."

Carew doggedly continued. He repeated it three times. And he said, "I oppose you in all things in all ways, demon. Your words do not sway me. Nor will they, sway the father of the girl you hold in thrall."

"Frank'll get tired of this game sooner or later. He'll make a deal. We'll bargain. Won't we, Frank? How about thinking about this: once I get my incubus planted in Jack Dixon, I'll let you have Donna back for ... oh, six months out of the year, for the first year or two."

Frank shouted, "NO! GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER!"

"Sure you want me out, Daddy? I'll let you fuck her all you want. Will she let you? I'll bet you'd like to suck this nice naked titty right now, wouldn't you?"

"SHUT UP!"

Carew said, "We must continue until every ritual and exorcism is exhausted."

It was twilight. The big cruiser plowed on through the ocean swells, circling, circling, circling ... Frank went up to shut off the diesel's to insure fuel to return. He turned on the lights. Hours later, as the yacht drifted and rolled easily, Carew began the twelfth chant. His voice was raspy.

Frank sat tiredly in a chair in the candlelit cabin and dispiritedly watched and listened. He noted that he would have to replace the candles again. They were guttering low in the dishes.

Donnathia said, "Neither one of you really believe in God. You don't believe in anything beyond bricks and books."

Carew began, "I abjure you, ancient serpent, by the Judge of the living and the dead, by the Creator of the universe, who has power to send you to Gehenna, that you depart forthwith from this child. He orders you cursed—"

"And that one is so pathetic! It's a Seventeenth Century exorcism to drive out a poltergeist, not a full-fledged demon, with powers. Anything left, Carew?"

The professor slumped. He stared down at the hooded, bound girl in disarrayed orange and blue playsuit and bikini. He watched the exposed breast rise and fall with her breathing. Carew put the old manuscript back into its plastic folder. He motioned for Frank to follow him. He went out into the fantail cockpit. He sat in the luxurious, curved lounge seat at the stern. Frank sat beside him.

Carew looked at the ocean, at the glow of light on the eastern horizon. He finally said, "Nothing I can do will drive that thing out of her."

"I wish I had a drink." Frank stood up and limped around the cockpit. A slow anger was growing in him.

Carew said, "I've done everything I know. Maybe if we really did believe in God ... "

"Oh, shit! I believe there's a real demon in her. She couldn't have done all that by herself! I believe in that demon, and I believe in Satan and all that stinking, evil nest of things in Hell ... and I believe in God! This business has made a believer out of me. I'm convinced."

Carew sighed. "I think I am, too. But the exorcisms haven't worked."

"Why not? You said they would. 'One of them is sure to work,' you said."

"The knowledge required died with Webster and burned with that precious book. The fool! He should have shared it ... put it in a vault ... in a university."

"That doesn't help us now, does it? What do we do—keep her tied up, with that hood on her head till she dies? We have to go back to the Marina with this boat in the morning at the latest. You've got your work to get back to! I've got a business. WHAT DO WE DO?"

"If you believe in God and Hell and Satan and that demon, Frank, you have to believe its threats and promises. We can't let it loose again."

Frank stared at him. He scowled. "So we're sitting on the horns."

"Very sharp horns. It is almost kill or be killed."

"I can't kill my own daughter ... and I can't let you do it." Frank ran his fingers through his hair. "Jesus!"

"I said almost. There's one last way of driving a demon from a loved one. It's very risky, and only you can do it."

"Well, you son of a bitch, tell me what it is!"

"It's ancient lore that a demon cannot live in a dead body. If it is caught in a dying person it must leave or die with that person."

"What are we supposed to do—dunk her over the side till she almost drowns and hope the demon is scared enough to leave her?"

"That's one way, but it lacks fine control. The thing in her won't leave until absolutely convinced its host body is beyond saving or is already so far gone that life cannot return."

"God damn you, Carew! Say what you're getting at!"

The professor hesitated. "This is madness. I don't want this to be happening." He rubbed his hands continually. "I want out. This whole venture—"

"Tell me, or by God, I'll throw you overboard!"

"All right. You have to strangle her. You have to convince it that your only out, to save yourself and me and ... the world ... is to kill her and it in the process. And you have to do it! You have to mean it! You have to be willing to kill her, Frank. If it works it will work because you are utterly convinced that her death is necessary and worth the sacrifice. You have to face the probability that if the demon leaves it will still be too late to revive Donna."

Frank sat heavily on the seat. "What happens to the thing once it leaves her body?"

"It cannot survive without a host. Only an invocation of a special kind with a special host waiting, under special circumstances will permit it to enter another person. It will be sucked back into the black universe. It cannot stay in our universe. It has no choice."

Frank put his face in his hands. After a long time he asked, "What do we do if she dies?"

Carew sounded sick. "We confess to murder and go to prison. Or we weight the body, dump it, and we report your daughter missing at sea. We hope we get away with it."

Frank began to weep.

Carew sat and watched the ocean and the glow in the sky to the east. After a few minutes he went to the side rail and vomited. When he had finished he went forward, into the cabin, and on into the bathroom. He returned five minutes later and sat in the same place. He said, "She's calling for you."

Frank said, "I'm so scared I'm about to shit in my pants." His voice shook.

Carew said, "I just did."

They both laughed hysterically.

When their laughter subsided, Frank slumped low and stared up at the sky. "We're all monsters. God bless us, every one." He took a deep, shuddering breath and stood up. He entered the main cabin. Carew followed.