Free The Devil You Know by Richard Levesque

ground
again, but continued speaking. “Myself included. It was like there was someone
there, physically doing things to arouse us, but there was no one there. Just
ten men standing in the room, no one touching anyone.”
    He
looked up again at Marie, and she saw real fear in his eyes. “It was the most
intense physical feeling I’ve ever felt, and…well, that’s as far as I’ll go.
And then Julian gave the command to stop, and it did.” He snapped his fingers.
“Just like that.”
    “And
you think these were demons?”
    “It
was awfully convincing.”
    “So
how does this explain what happened to my friend? I saw men at that party, not
spirits.”
    Colin
took a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his coat. He offered one to
Marie, but she declined. She had smoked one on the way from the church, but
even if she hadn’t, she felt reluctant to accept anything from him. He lit one
and took a long drag before continuing. “Julian had the book out again, the
book of spells. He told me to read the name of every single spell—and
this time, to be damn sure of my translation. Most of them were silly sounding,
frivolous. But the ones that came before and after the first spell we used…those
were all of a sexual nature. There was one for calling a succubus, the female
version of the same demon. That’s the one I should have read the first night.
There was also a spell for giving the demons physical form. That’s the one
Julian wanted.”
    “Why?”
    “Because
even though he had some power over those things, they were still tormenting
him. What they had done to five of us there that afternoon, they had apparently
been doing to Julian since they were conjured. They’re insatiable.” He smiled,
apparently taking some joy from recounting Julian’s torment. “If they’d been
female, it would be one thing, but they’re male. And you can tell. Julian
couldn’t stand it. They had communicated with him somehow, got into his head,
and told him to get bodies for them. So that’s what we did.”
    A
white Packard convertible pulled up to the curb in front of the theater. Its
wide white wall tires and gleaming chrome immediately drew the attention of
almost everyone in the courtyard, and a collective murmur rose up among the
tourists as they got their cameras ready. Colin stopped speaking and watched
the tourists for a moment. Marie turned in time to see a short, balding man in
an expensive suit climb out of the car with a briefcase in one hand. He was not
famous—-maybe an executive or someone connected with the theater, Marie
surmised. She watched as the tourists’ excitement immediately dissipated, the
disappointment on their faces verging on anger at having been cheated out of a
celebrity sighting.
    She
turned back to Colin, who had been watching the car along with everyone else.
“Were you worried it was Piedmont?” she asked.
    He
nodded. “Or someone who might know me. I’m taking an awful risk talking to you
here.”
    Marie
raised an eyebrow. “It’s here or nowhere, Colin. You can head back to your car
anytime you want.” When Colin did not move, she said, “So you’re saying those
men at the party…the good-looking ones with Piedmont. You conjured their
bodies?” She thought about the electrifying touch of the James Cagney
look-alike as well as the sweaty brow and engorged penis of the one who had met
her at the bedroom door she’d opened. “They certainly looked real to me,” she
added.
    “They’re
created.” Colin dropped his cigarette to the concrete and snuffed it out under
his heel. “The spell called for blood. So we each made a sacrifice.” He held up
his arm. The bandage he had worn on Friday was gone, and Marie saw a freshly
healed wound, a long scab that cut across the fleshy part of his forearm just
above the wrist. “Julian had a knife that we consecrated, and then we cut
ourselves, all of us except Julian. He just watched and collected the blood in
a bowl.” His voice