Copyright JC Wallace
2014
Welcome to another installment of Diventando: Becoming. Each
week a group of authors participate weekly in Wednesday Briefs Flash Fiction.
Each installment is 500-1000 words long and is posted to our blogs each week.
After you read the latest in my story, click on the link at the end to visit
other flashers.
If you are new to Diventando: Becoming and haven’t read the
previous chapters, click on Wednesday Briefs in the left hand column and start with
#1. Enjoy and leave a comment to let me know what you think.
Owen’s mind blanked and he went with the first thing that
came to mind. Humor was good, right? “So you’re coming up on the big 3-0, huh?”
Turk’s furrowed his brow, an endearing, puzzled look on
his face. “Wha—oh, yeah.”
Well, that had flopped. The comfort Owen had felt with
Turk when they’d first met, the easy laughter, quiet comfort, instant
attraction, hadn’t returned. A Hunter and the demon he wanted dead together in
the same room weren’t conducive to any of those feelings. At least Owen was no
longer in the restraints, he thought, trying to find anything positive about
the situation.
Owen shook his head as the thoughts returned to beat
about in his brain...an Incubus inside of him, Turk a hunter who was one
hundred and twenty-nine years old, people chasing after them to take Owen back,
and do what? Yeah, freaky, but what was more important was getting the Incubus
out of his damned body.
“Can you really the demon out without cutting off my
head?” Owen braced for the inevitable no, but it didn’t come.
Turk looked Owen dead on. “There may be a way. It’s been
a rumor for years but none of the pieces ever added up. Frankly,” he rubbed his
hands together nervously, “I hadn’t tried to find out more about it.”
Owen stared back indignantly. “You never thought to try
and exorcise a demon? You just slice their
heads off and who gives a fuck that they are a person?” Owen stood, towering
over a seated Turk. He pointed a finger into his chest while Turk stared back,
mouth gaping. “I may have a demon inside of me. I may not be able to control it
without this!” Owen shoved the IV bag into Turk’s face. “But I’m a person. A person who doesn’t want to
hurt anyone. A person who wants to live my life and be happy and write code and
create virtual worlds and date and love and buy a house and, who knows, get
fucking married someday! But I can’t because some demon decided to impregnate
my mother with his fucking evil seed. So, what? That makes me evil too? Not
worth saving? Well, fuck you Hunter! And screw you, too, while I’m at it!”
Owen’s chest heaved and he struggled to stop the tremors in
his hands and legs, struggled to keep the nausea at bay, struggled to avoid
collapsing and cancelling out the bravado he’d managed.
Turk ducked his head. “I haven’t…because I’ve never come
across a person where the demon hadn’t already taken over completely.”
He barely uttered the words with enough force to be heard,
but Owen had heard every single one. They sunk in, crashing into his gut with a
resounding thud.
“Oh,” Owen said, sitting hard onto the bed. “So once that
happens then...”
Turk nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing to do then but kill
the host to exorcise the demon.”
“Exorcise the demon,” Owen muttered, images flashing
through his head of Turk wielding a sword and taking off the demon’s head. He
groaned knowing all of this was only going to get worse. “But you’ve killed
this demon before. He’s shown me memories of you with a sword and swinging dead
on.”
The muscle ticked in Turk’s jaw. Owen swore he could hear
his teeth grind together. “I have killed it once before.”
Silence. God, who dropped something so significant
without adding something else?
“And?” Owen prodded.
“And, Incubi are a race of demons whose true form is
transcendent of humans. They exist in a universe parallel to ours. The incubi on
this plane were released from that universe by a sorcerer over five hundred
years ago and placed inside of humans. They can’t survive outside of their host
for long. This sorcerer was trying to make an army of super humans to please
his King and assist him in conquering neighboring kingdoms. Well, never trust a
demon because they turned on the sorcerer and the King and killed them along
with the rest of the kingdom.”
An entire kingdom. Damn. And, oh shit.
“My ancestors in Scotland have been fighting these demons
ever since, trying to eradicate them from the earth. I am from a long line of
hunters assisted by practitioners of magic and sorcery.”
Something about the way Turk had said trying caused the hair on Owen’s body to
stand on end. The cold shiver of foreboding stretched his last nerve to the
breaking point.
“Trying? Are
you saying they can’t be killed?” Owen’s last nerve was ready to snap.
Turk stood and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “At
first, it was thought that killing the host killed the demon, but over time
that was found to be untrue. Due to the transcendent nature of the Incubi, they
can move onto other living things and survive until finding a suitable host.”
“You mean like animals?”
“Animals, bugs, rodents. Anything close by when the host
expires, until they can move onto a human host. Generally that just takes a
bite or ingestion. It doesn’t do much good to have an animal host. It limits
the Incubi’s access to the power they need to gain strength. The Incubi need
humans, require access to the power created during sexual arousal. Not just intercourse,
although mutual orgasm complete with swapping of fluids generates the most
power.”
“So this is why I was able to see you kill this
demon...well, kill his host, because he wasn’t contained when his host died?”
Fuck, Owen hated the word “host” because that’s what he was, only useful for a
parasite sucking energy and killing.
Turk sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, sadness
overtaking the harshness of his eyes. “About twelve hours without the energy of
the host, an Incubus doesn’t have the energy to maintain its life force and
dies. The demon killed my father...” Turk’s voice broke momentarily and he
turned his head as he swallowed hard. Owen waited, curbing his desire to wrap a
comforting arm around Turk. Once he’d squashed his sorrow Turk said, “My father
was the only one left standing who could perform the ritual to trap the demon. I
was in training and accompanying my father on the hunt with one other
practitioner who was wounded and unconscious. I had to kill the demon to save
our lives.”
“That was very brave of you,” Owen said. ‘Brave’ wasn’t
the word for Turk. Owen couldn’t even hope to be half as fearless as a man who
hunted such dangerous creatures.
Turk clenched his fists at his side. “It took every ounce
of willpower I had not to end that creature when I’d been told we’d found him.”
Turk turned to him, hard eyes softening. “Until I saw that it was you.”
# #
YAY I got my weekly fix lol. I love this story and all the twists and turns it's taken. I'm surprised almost every week lol (there was a lot of WTF's and OMG's at the ending of some chapters lol) but that's what makes it fun :-)
ReplyDeleteHappy Writing and Happy Spring!
Thanks Yael! I love seeing comments from you about my flash fiction! Love that you are enjoying it. See you soon and Happy Spring to you too!
DeleteI am glad to finally get back to Owen & Turk. I had missed them. I am surprised by this story. Still exciting but taking a different turn.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are enjoying it Betty!
Delete