Daughter to Demons

by Jeffrey M. Mahr and Levanah

We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as through the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul’s judgment, to be reborn into the highest forms, which are divine.

— Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)

 

And so Adam, in that his speech to Eve
uttered his faith in the promise made to her
of her seed, so in that respect Adam himself
came in under her covenant.
— Thomas Goodwin

 

PART ONE: DEMONIC CONCEPTION

 

Chapter One:
A Night on the Town

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary;
men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
― Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 1911

“And so my brethren, I leave you this day with a quote from Ephesians: ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God.’”

Jack Renfrew politely applauded with the rest of the congregation and rose from his seat on the heavy wood bench along with the thirty or so other parishioners at the morning’s service, but rather than complete the experience with the usual greetings and milling about in front of the church, he struggled against the flow of humanity about him to exit through one of the side doors, leaving his roommate Frank to document his other roommate George’s next failure to convince Julie to date him. Blonde, beautiful, and in pre-med like George, she never seemed to have time for anything but classes and studying. Jack ran his fingers through his dark brown hair while positioning his arm so as to prevent George from seeing him snicker.

It was a matter of seconds for Jack to reach his car and — after a brief prayer for a fast start — turn the key. It wasn’t his normal behavior, but it just seemed right after attending services. This time the engine caught the first try and he headed out of the parking lot to the blaring sounds of John Kay and Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild on the golden oldies station. Just because it was Sunday didn’t mean it was necessarily a day of rest, and Jack had a major paper to complete before Friday morning. For the next five days he was going to have to eat, sleep, and breathe demonology if he was going to complete his paper entitled “An Examination of the Myths and Misunderstandings that Resulted in Devil Worship.”

“Jack, it’s the day after ‘over-the-hump-day’ and it’s time to unwind.” George Dombrowski and Frank Ahtram were at the door to Jack’s small bedroom in the apartment-style dormitory they shared. Frank expanded on George’s comment saying, “Come on and join us at the Arlington. There’ll be female-type creatures there.”

“Yeah, and at least a few of them won’t be Julie Oliver,” Frank chimed in with an evil grin.

George was still down from his latest failure with Julie and took time to glare at his friend.

“Sorry guys,” Jack rubbed his sore eyes and blinked several times. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got a major paper due tomorrow for Professor Long and I haven’t finished the footnotes and bibliography yet.”

George and Frank glanced at each other. It wouldn’t be the same without Jack but, being serious students themselves, they respected his needs. “Okay,” Frank answered as he gestured toward the door to get George moving. “We’ll let you slide this once, but you owe us some quality party time tomorrow night. No excuses.”

“You got it. I’ll even try to come up with something special for our TGIF celebration,” Jack called after them as they closed the door to his bedroom. Deciding it was time for a break; he stretched and stood to work the kinks out of his back. The stretch was not enough and Jack realized that it was time for a “level-two” work break — he paced. Three paces brought him to the unmade bed and three more to the far wall and the “Playmate Collage” poster on the back of the door. Finally, after about five minutes of pacing, he headed back to his desk. It was even harder to get back to work with thoughts of missing out on party-time flitting through his head, but Jack was a serious student. He planned to go into teaching, and good grades and glowing recommendations from his professors was a key part of his strategy.

With the paper done and handed in, it was truly time to celebrate. Jack had promised something extra-special and he was driving, so they ended up cruising toward the south side of town. It was the opposite end of town from the University, so they rarely went there, but he had gotten a recommendation from one of the folks in his class on Mythology. The area was, well, not seedy — exactly … there were no street people urinating on the dumpsters, or cars slowly cruising past overly made up and underdressed women standing by the street corners — but it wasn’t exactly pristine either. Every building seemed to have at least one boarded up window and the signs were worn and barely legible. Functional street lighting was spotty. The place Jack was looking for wasn’t much better, with a fairly shabby and worn-out front façade and broken second floor windows. It was called “Calaca E.” and, from the sounds emanating from its dark interior, the “joint was jumpin’ ” as Professor Long, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mythology would have said.

Inside, there was the expected bar and dance floor, but surprisingly this place had a stage also, so evidently they did live shows sometimes. The other surprise was the motif; a mixture of Aztec and Mayan art and statuary lined the walls of the club, along with that of at least one other early American civilization that none of the boys could name just off-hand, but many of the pictures were of happy skeletons, dancing, feasting at tables stuffed with food, and one huge mural of what seemed to be a dead woman with a huge flowered hat, but she was grinning … well, she had no lips, but she seemed happy. Jack hadn’t mentioned anything about the place, as he had wanted to surprise his friends, and it worked for all of them. His informant hadn’t mentioned the weird interior, although he had warned him about the neighborhood. Even he was a bit surprised by the extent to which the club had been transformed to look like it was some kind of strange cross between an ancient temple and a frat-house Halloween party.

Once they gave him a moment, Jack explained that Pedro, a guy from his Mythology class, had said that it was a great place to go, but had warned us not to try to pick up any of the girls there. Apparently, there was a large group of locals who frequented the place and they were a bit on the possessive side about their women.

After that warning, he told them what the name meant. “ ‘Calaca E.’ stands for ‘Calaca Extraordinario,’ which means ‘Strange Skeleton,’ or even ‘Wonderful Death,’ or other things, depending upon how you translate it.” Frank and George almost decided to leave after hearing that, but Jack convinced them to stay.

The bar was as crowded as the dance floor. Frank grumbled about it, but finally agreed to get drinks while the other two found someplace to settle in. They ended up right next to the stage since it was the only area not overflowing with people.

Three rounds and they were all loose enough to try to find someone and get out on the dance floor, all of them forgetting — or deciding to ignore — Pedro’s advice. Frank had been searching out unattached girls since they had first arrived, taking care to seek out dark haired beauties for himself and blondes for George and Jack. He had found several trios meeting their esthetic requirements who’d seemed to be awaiting their attentions but every time the boys approached a likely group of girls, some of the locals would get there before them. Each time they would head back to their table and have yet another beer. The beer buzz was getting noticeable and they were getting annoyed with being shut out by the locals. It was quickly becoming clear that Pedro had not been joking about his warning. George was sufficiently fed up to suggest heading back to one of their regular haunts when the lights dimmed and a hidden loudspeaker announced the start of the stage show.

“Did you know there was a stage show tonight?” Frank asked Jack as he settled back into his seat.

“Nope.”

“Let’s get out of here,” George said, rolling his eyes toward the latest girls he’d struck out with when their ‘novios’ showed up. He still stood by the table waiting for the others to join him. “We can’t even talk to the women here without the locals getting their noses bent out of joint.”

“Let’s at least see what kind of show they’ve got here. If we still want to leave after the first act, we can.” Jack was actually proud of himself for being so logical after more than a half a dozen beers.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the speakers blared, “the Calaca E. is proud to present the dance stylings of la bailarina sin igual, la mujer mas bella del mundo, la estimable … Lilith!”

“Oh great,” George grumbled and rolled his eyes. “‘Dance stylings.’ I can’t wait.”

Music replaced the announcer’s voice, slow, sensuous, erotic music. None of them recognized it, but it was so blatantly sexual that it made Ravel’s “Bolero” sound like a nursery rhyme. George and his complaints were forgotten as they all stared at the stunning raven-haired beauty who flowed onto the stage with indescribable grace. They’d all read stories about people exuding sexuality, but this was the first time they’d ever encountered it. The boys were mesmerized. They had no idea what she actually did on the stage. It was all a blur, except for one vague memory of her permitting Jack to place a dollar bill in what might have been a gee-string if it were larger.

They slowly came out of their trance as the sounds of applause faded away. A bit shaky and confused, they finished off the last dregs of their beers and headed back to the dorm. No one seemed to want to extend the evening and they all went directly to bed upon their return. Usually, they’d have sat around talking for a while, talking about the girls they seen, or even what a dump the place was, but they were all bone-tired by the time they left, which Jack at least attributed the the long hours he’d spent sweating bullets over his paper.

Jack dreamed of “her” that night, the woman called Lilith, vivid dreams, erotic dreams, impossible dreams. She came to him dressed in the sheerest of gauzy negligees, floating in the air above his bed with her hair flowing gloriously about her. An alabaster hand gently reached out and she touched his cheek. Like a faint breeze, her hand slowly slid down Jack’s neck to his hirsute chest, pausing briefly to lightly graze each nipple before sliding downward, following the contour of his stomach hair down to his navel and below.

Her touch was the most erotic thing Jack had ever felt. His nipples were rock hard in the wake of her hand’s gentle, teasing passage. He was painfully erect before she reached his navel and exploded at the first touch of her hand to his genitals. The orgasm was incredible, both in how it felt and in its duration. It went on and on — filling him with exquisite sensations of pressure in his loins as he spilled himself into her hand. It was like the all the fluids were slowly being milked from his body by this incredibly luscious vision of femininity, her touch so delicate it felt like a feather on his loins, like a breath of air, yet so powerful that it conjured a series of multiple orgasms like he’d never experienced before, like those he’d heard that some women had, where the trailing edge of one convulsion led immediately to the build-up to the next, which was even more powerful than the last, building and building until he was finally exhausted, and her touch, so gentle at the beginning of their dreaming enconter, became gradually imperceptible, until there was nothing left. When it finally ended, Jack was so exhausted that he lay in a stupor, and never saw her slowly fade away.

The next thing Jack remembered, George was shaking him. “Jack. Wake up. Are you all right? It’s nearly dusk. You’ve been asleep the entire day.”

“Wha? Go ‘way. Lemme sleep.” The words were barely intelligible.

“Your choice, guy. Get up now or live with a cold dinner.”

“All right, all right.” The words were only a bit louder or more coherent. “I’m coming. Give me five minutes to clean up.”

“Hey, George. Really great hot meal.” Jack looked at the hot dogs with a side of macaroni and cheese on the paper plate in front of him with distaste. Frank ignored the others and kept shoveling in macaroni.

“Hey, if you don’t like it now, wait an hour and then try eating it cold, congealed, and rubbery,” George suggested. They all shivered a bit at that thought. They lived in the one dormitory that had kitchenettes because they had pledged never to eat in the school cafeteria again.

“That’s okay. I’m not really hungry anyway.” Jack weakly pushed the plate away and struggled to rise. “Actually, what I really want is to go back to sleep. I’m bushed.” George and Frank glanced at each other.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Sure. I feel fine. I just didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night, although I’ve got to admit it was an interesting night. Wow, what a dream.”

“Huh?”

“I dreamt that stripper from the Calaca E. came floating into my bedroom and gave me some of the best sex I’ve ever had.” The grin on Jack’s face kept growing as he thought about it.

“That’s funny,” Frank spoke around the food in his mouth. “I dreamt about her too, but I guess she didn’t like me as much as you. She just floated through my room and left, but what a fox.”

“Me too.” The three stared at each other before laughing.

“That’s cool. We all had the same dream.”

“No, I had the same dream as Frank, but she passed through my room without stopping too. I got the feeling she was looking for something or someone.”

The other two returned to their food, but Jack slid his chair back and carefully stood. “I’m going back to my bedroom and rack out. See ya, guys.”

“Say hello to the floating babe if she comes back,” Frank called after him, grinning lasciviously along with George as Jack turned to leave.

“Hey Jack. Did you spill something in chem lab yesterday afternoon?”

“Nope,” Jack responded, turning back with a puzzled expression. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve got a huge light spot on the hair on the back of your head.”

“I do?” Jack reached back and stroked his hair as he tried to get a better view of the back of his head in the darkened window over the kitchenette’s sink. He couldn’t see anything, but noticed that his hair was much shaggier than he remembered.

“I better check it out,” he said and headed for the bathroom. “And I guess I’d also better get a hair cut tomorrow.”

He stopped for a huge yawn. “But right now I need some serious rack time. I’m dead on my feet.” With that, he changed direction and went back to bed.

“But he doesn’t want to go anywhere.”

“Damn it George, I don’t care what he wants. He’s not eating, he’s slept most of the last two days, and he looks … different.”

“So what do we do?”

“We call the university health clinic. We make an appointment. Then we get him to the clinic even if it means knocking him out and carrying him there.”

“I don’t know if I want to carry him. Maybe he’s contagious.”

“Yeah, and maybe he’s really a voodoo zombie waiting to steal our hearts for his … his … oh hell, I can’t even remember what they call someone who makes and controls a zombie.”

“You mean a witch doctor?”

“Nope.”

“A shaman?”

“Nah.”

“Then I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Jack.”

“Yeah, if he ever wakes up. I’m calling the clinic. You try to wake him up.”

“Wha? Ooh, what’s that smell?” Jack blinked himself awake, his eyes were burning and the lining of his nose was on fire.

“Good, Mr. Renfrew, you’re awake. The aroma is what’s left of the ammonia ampoule we used to wake you. We need to talk.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re at the University Health Center. How are you feeling now?”

“Fine. I’m feeling fine, just tired. Who are you?”

“I’m Doctor Brannigan. Your friends are worried about you. They say you’ve been losing weight, not eating, and sleeping most of the last week. I also looked at a picture of the three of you taken last month at one of the Greek parties.” You’ve developed a variety of unusual symptoms including: hypersomnia, selective forms of both hypertrichosis and hypotrichosis, gynecomastia, hypogonadism, hypotension, and hypocalcemia. Have you been taking any unusual drugs or herbs?”

“No. I don’t do drugs.” The Doctor’s expression was clearly skeptical, which annoyed Jack. “And what were all those hyper/hypo things you listed?”

“They mean you’re losing hair on some parts of your body and gaining it on others, your blood pressure is dropping to unusually low levels and you are developing what appear to be female secondary sex characteristics.”

Jack just lay on the hospital bed in shock.

“I’d like to do some tests on you; nothing fancy, just a urine sample, some blood work and a small tissue sample. Then, I’d like you to see some people I know at the university hospital.”

“Why? What’s wrong with me?”

“I,” he paused to consider his words, “I don’t have the equipment here to do a through diagnostic work-up. This is just a clinic and I’m only a general practitioner. You’ll need to see some experts for a definitive answer.”

“Fine. I’d rather just go back to my dorm and go to sleep, but I’m too tired to argue with you.”

“Good. Please sign here.”

“We’d like to see Jack Renfrew please.”

It had been more than two weeks since Jack’s hospitalization and Frank and George had been phoning every day since, trying — still unsuccessfully — to talk to their roommate, or even get someone to talk to them about him.

“Are you family?”

“Yes.” George kicked Frank under the desk before he was corrected. “I’m George Renfrew and this is my brother Frank.”

“Very well. He’s in room 1514. Let me get you passes. Take the elevator to the fifteenth floor and turn left.”

The receptionist turned away and — seeing Frank sucking air into his lungs to object — George again signaled his friend to be quiet with a kick. The receptionist turned back with the passes and the boys silently accepted them and headed off to the elevators.

Once the elevator doors closed Frank railed at George, “Why did you kick me, and why did you lie? If they checked our IDs we could have been in big trouble.”

“I kicked you to stop you from giving us away and I lied because I’m tired of being given the run-around.”

“Well,” Frank was obviously still angry, “all right. But next time tell me before doing something like that.”

They made it to their friend’s floor without further incident and no one was at the nursing station so that wasn’t a problem either. Finding the room took a bit longer, but that’s mostly because they were too intent on other things to watch the room numbers. Frank was still angry about being kicked and George was too busy trying to keep from being kicked in return as they good-naturedly scuffled while walking down the hall. As it was, they only had to double back two rooms.

“Are you sure this is the right room?”

“The lady said fifteen fourteen, didn’t she?”

“That’s what I heard and that’s what’s written on this pass,” Frank replied after glancing at the piece of paper on George’s chest rather than try to read his upside down.

“So come on. Let’s go in already,” George hissed, practically dragging the larger man into the darkened hospital room.

“Hey. Cut it out.” It seemed funny listening to the large man whine. “And why is it so dark in here.”

“You mean besides the fact that the lights are off and the curtains are closed?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, smart ass.” The whine was now a growl. “That’s what I meant.”

“I don’t know, but I think I can work some magic to solve that problem.” With a flourish, Frank flicked on the light switch and they were briefly blinded by the sudden light.

“Hey Jack,” George whispered when his eyes had adjusted enough to see again.

Whoever was in the bed gave a muffled groan and rolled over pulling the covers more tightly up over their head.

“Shut up George,” Frank hissed. “Can’t you see he’s sleeping?”

“Sure, but now that we’re here it’s time to wake him up.”

They moved over to the bed. Frank examined the covered form with a confused look on his face while the other man grabbed the chart at the end of the bed and began reading it.

“Just because you’re pre-med I suppose you’re going to tell me you can read that stuff?”

“Sure. It’s English,” George replied, grinning wolfishly as he paused for effect before continuing. “I just don’t necessarily understand it.”

“So why are you bothering?”

Frank was still staring at the body under the covers. Something was bothering him, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Because I am pre-med,” he answered without looking up from the chart. “What I don’t know I’ll look up when we get back to the dorm.”

Frank was done examining the body. “George?”

“Umm.”

“George!”

“What?” He looked up from the chart.

“Are you sure we’re in the right room?” Frank asked.

“I thought we went through that already. It’s the right room already.”

“Then why does it look like that’s a blonde woman in the bed?”

“What?!” George jerked his eyes away from the chart and carefully examined the sheet-covered body. He stared at it carefully for almost a minute before intently flipping through the numerous pages of the chart. “It says Jack Renfrew on each page and there’s no one else in the room. Lift the cover and we’ll check it out.”

“No way, George. I’m not getting accused of rape or sexual harassment or anything. Let’s get out of here and ask the nurse.”

“Lift the damn cover. Then we’ll be sure.”

“I’m sure enough. If I can’t tell when I’m looking at a female body at my age, I may as well join a monastery. You lift the cover if you think it’s so important. I’m leaving.”

“An excellent idea,” said a woman’s voice behind them.

They turned as one to the door where a nurse was standing; hands on hips, and her jaw set in anger.

“What are you, ah, gentlemen doing here?” she asked in a tone of voice that made it clear that the intruders were in big trouble.

 

Copyright © 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

Copyright © 2011 by Levanah