Eventually, our service ends and Saul starts the car with a roar. We pull back onto the road, heading home through the shadowy forest as the sun makes its move from afternoon to evening.
I’ve courageously stared down Pachid before, but what we’re about to do is a frightening leap beyond. I have no idea how this demon is going to react to the scenario we have in store, but I can only imagine she’s not gonna be happy about it.
I reach over with one hand and hold my previously broken finger, remembering the last time I dared defy her. The fracture was a warning, and her next one will likely be less generous.
Fortunately, as we fly down the road I’m strangely energized. It’s a familiar sensation, but one I didn’t expect to revisit anytime soon. This is the way I used to feel right after church service, bounding out the door with a fire in my belly and feeling ready to take on the world.
It’s an unmistakable mindset, but this time there was no real performance to accompany it, no submission to a higher power or prayer for forgiveness.
I just took a moment to rest and be thankful, and now I’m ready for anything with the power of a thousand suns behind me. The complicated, magical, deeply focused power of Rose Darling.
I’m ready to exorcise my demons.
9
HELL FREEZES OVER
“You look nervous,” Saul says through a single wireless headphone in my right ear. “Don’t worry. It’s just a demon from the depths of hell here to keep you from being too gay.”
I can’t help laughing. “Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I could loosen up a bit.”
I glance at the camera above me, peering down from one of the metal structures within Saul’s enormous garage.
“I’m more worried about being posted in the middle of all these gasoline barrels,” I continue. “Please don’t pull the trigger early.”
“I won’t pull the trigger early,” Saul assures me. “I also won’t pull it too late, but just in case, you’ve got eyes on the RID?”
I glance over my shoulder at his homemade weapon, an ominous tank and nozzle that hangs quietly in the darkness. It’s a little over-the-top, but Saul’s engineering brain couldn’t help itself upon learning the mortal weakness of our enemy.
Ranged Incendiary Device. Also known as a flamethrower.
“I can’t believe you expect me to use that thing,” I reply. “I admire your skills, but it looks like it’d just blow my hands off.”
“Well, it’s a last resort,” my friend continues through my earbud, the faintest hint of defensiveness in his voice.
“How’s everything looking up there?” I ask, hoping to catch a glimpse of Saul’s crow’s nest perched high atop one of these enormous metal shelves.
“Just wonderful,” he confirms. “Cameras are rolling, the trigger is ready … now it’s your call.”
I take a deep breath and sit up in my chair, mentally preparing for what’s about to unfold.
The newfound confidence I’ve gained has carried me far, but as Saul waits for my signal I find the wave of conviction finally breaking within me. Discovering my voice in the face of a toxic family life and an oppressive faith is one thing, but the worst they could’ve done was excommunicate me from a community I was already at odds with.
It’s a painful, difficult journey, but the methods of Pachid are significantly more visceral.
A vision of Martina’s broken body spilling from the closet fills my mind, her twisted head staring up at me with huge, bulging eyes.
My whole life I’ve heard stories about doing battle with demonic forces, but those dark energies were abstract and metaphorical, not a literal encounter with some undiscovered species.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Saul asks, his voice filled with concern.
Correlation is not causation, and I know this. Just because flames trapped a demon within my vehicle, it doesn’t mean this technique will work a second time. Our current data set is a single point in the middle of endless nothing.
Still, what other options do we have? We could test our theory and summon Pachid in a low-stakes situation, poking and prodding her with hot objects then cataloging her reaction, but would that really be any safer?
Or would that just give the creature time to adapt and plan?
I’d typically find confidence in prayer at a moment like this. Now, however, I find confidence in myself; mining strength from the simple fact that pushing onward is the only option we’ve got.
Rose 7:8. And upon the wicked she shall rain a mighty tempest of fire, smiting those who dared steal away her thoughts, but forgot to quell her vengeance.
“I’m ready,” I finally announce.
“You’re up, Darling,” Saul affirms.
Huge metal shelving units loom on either side of me, big enough to hold car parts or even whole vehicles, but rigged with enormous, heat-conducting copper sheets. The rectangles are hanging high above each one of the four hallways that extend into various corners of the hangar.
It’s a cartoonishly basic trap constructed at an extra-large scale, but as I gaze off into space these technicalities fall away. My eyes are wide open, but what I’m witnessing has nothing to do with the physical realm.
I’m gazing into the past.
Slowly, Willow’s face appears through the haze. Typically, I’ll get a flash of her smiling and laughing before I push these thoughts away, but this time her expression is something different. She’s upset with me, disappointed after a misunderstanding.
It’s not a big fight, just a little disagreement about some trivial thing, but the emotions it floods me with are breathtakingly potent.
As a potential reunion with Willow draws closer, my memories of our past life are starting to change. These dreams used to be marked with nothing but smiles and laughter, sunny days at the park or cozy nights indoors. It was perfect, but real relationships are never perfect.
In these visions, my bedroom still has a door. I hold my breath as I open it, slipping out with the care of a life-or-death prison break.
I can’t believe I actually snuck out of the house.
I see a car parked down the street, Willow waiting for me to crawl out under the cracked garage door and sprint toward her through the darkness. We drive through the night and laugh and cry and buy terrible fast food, and Willow sings along because she knows all the words to these songs I’ve never heard. Sometimes she raps, and her lips are moving so fast I’m reminded of Baptists speaking in tongues. I tell her this, and she seems both confused and deeply moved by the compliment.
Other times, we sit at some late-night diner stuffed full of grizzled truckers and good ol’ boys, but for some reason I’m not frightened by this scene. With Willow, it all feels like an adventure.
I see us sitting at a park in the light of day—the same place we accidently crossed paths in that chaotic reunion—and it suddenly dawns on me that this location was never quite erased from my mind. Willow and I were drawn here, unable to shake the habit of our meeting spot on the edge of town.
We lay out on a blanket and read, not saying a word to each other as we bask in the mere presence of someone we truly, unflinchingly trust. I remember deep conversations on this blanket about faith and love and the size of the universe.