Daughter to Demons

by Jeffrey M. Mahr and Levanah

Chapter Eight:
Fuel for the Fire

These are the times that try men’s souls.
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, (1776)

“Would you like something with your tea?” Frank’s Aunt Sarah was an unfailingly friendly, matronly woman, with the puffy hair so common to those of her generation. Only the faint stress lines at the corners of her lips and the small ripples on the surface of the proffered teacup revealed her shaky hands and underlying illness.

“Now, Sarah, you know Jackie’s not here for tea and cookies,” Sergeant Ahtram rumbled from his cushioned chair.

“Yes, dear. You’ll talk in a moment.” Turning back to Jackie, she continued, “Would you prefer cream, sugar, or lemon?”

“Just one lump of sugar is fine. Thank you, Mrs. Ahtram.” Jackie could not help it. This woman was a throwback to a time long past, a gentler time, when courtesy and manners were important. Without thinking, she found herself sitting straighter; knees primly locked together, thoughts of slang forgotten. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Jackie could not help but like the older woman.

“Call me Sarah, dear,” Mrs. Athram suggested as she added sugar to the tea and placed it on a lace doily on the coffee table in front of them. Sitting back, Mrs. Athram folded her hands on her lap to prevent them from trembling and nodded to her husband.

“Okay. First, here’s some money.” Hank glanced surreptitiously toward Sarah and then down at the coffee table as his face reddened. “It’s not much, only five hundred dollars, but it may help.”

“Hank, Sarah, you know I can’t accept this.” She pushed the wad of money back across the table toward the embarrassed man. “And we don’t have time to argue if we’re going to help Frank.”

The ritualistic give and take continued until Jackie had almost decided that the next time he offered the money she’d have to use her mind control powers to force them to stop. They needed their money to pay for Sarah’s medical treatments, she knew from talking to Frank, because their insurance didn’t cover a lot of the experimental drugs and procedures being tried. She didn’t want to force the issue because she’d already leaned on him once, so further efforts to influence him ran the danger of arousing him sexually, which lust might well attach itself to her instead of his wife. Luckily, Sarah intervened before Jackie felt forced to act.

“Hank, dear, the girl doesn’t want the money. Put it away and help her to save Frank.”

Calaca E. was dead — both the bar and some of the people in it — but Jackie was usually there on weekends rather than on a Tuesday night. There were only two couples on the dance floor and another half dozen people at the bar. Music with an alternating Latin or rock beat blared through the tinny speakers instead of the live music to which she was accustomed. Regardless, Lilith was still on stage, gyrating to the music in the most amazing and erotic ways.

Jackie was at the same table by the stage where she’d been sitting on the night her life had changed, the night she’d first met Lilith. She was waiting for her to finish her last set of the night. If it weren’t for Lilith, Jackie would have still been male and alive, but she wouldn’t have the intense and wonderful relationship she had with Frank, nor would she have found her calling as a “cupid,” a bringer of love and creative desire. In that sense Lilith was her mother, more of a mother than her natural mother, who had died along with her father when Jackie was less than two years old. Of course, Jackie thought to herself, if Lilith were her mother, Jackie must be something of a disappointment to her for not following in her footsteps as a demon who thrived by absorbing the sexual energy of humans.

“Why do you enter my domain, timid minion of the Light?” Lilith scowled as she sat opposite Jackie.

“For information, Mommy dearest.”

“What information would I have for you? I neither know, nor care to know, anything of the path you’ve chosen.” The succubus smiled lasciviously and licked her lips in sexual enticement. “Now if you were to come join me, hunt with me, and wallow in the lust and depravity that humans do so well, I might be of more use.”

“Tempting offer, but no, thank you very much.” Jackie could not help but smile at the audacity of the woman. “I’d like information about someone who hangs out here a lot, a tall man, about six-foot even, one-hundred-eighty pounds, wavy black hair with grey streaks. His name is….”

“His name is Sylvester DeBauck and he is beyond the reach of your kind.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s dead, or so they say, and given his behavior, I feel quite certain he is now a plaything for some of my other children.”

“Oh?” Despite having met a succubus and an angel, despite being a supernatural being herself; Jackie was still a bit shaken at the implication that anything like Hell really existed. She shook herself as if to brush off the unpleasant thought and continued. “Anyway, what can you tell me about him?”

“I believe the question is, ‘Why should I tell you anything?’” Lilith slid back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, challenging her to give an acceptable answer.

“My boyfriend has been accused of his murder.”

“So?”

“You could help me prove him innocent.”

“You bore me, child. Given the typical sexist makeup of the judiciary in this state, the number of men sure to be empaneled on any probable jury, not to mention the upper echelons of the police department and the District Attorney’s Office, You yourself are capable of influencing any possible combination of judge, prosecuting attorney, or jury to do whatever you want them to do; stand on their heads and sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ if you’d like them to. This is a non-issue and you’re just being silly. Go away.” Lilith turned and gestured to one of the unattached men at the bar and within seconds he was seated next to her, staring raptly into the demon’s eyes.

“I don’t think I will,” she said, and played a little chord on the man’s heartstrings.

“What?” the man asked, interrupting their conversation.

“Hush, boy. Dream of me while I speak to my wayward daughter.” A sappy smile formed on the boy’s face at the same time as his eyes glazed over. Moments later there was a slight dribble of spittle on his chin.

“I don’t think I’ll leave. If you won’t help me, I might as well stick around and see what I can scare up, since I know he was a customer.”

“You would hunt in my domain?” Hackles raised and suddenly Lilith wasn’t a beautiful creature, but a thing of razor-sharp teeth and claws, — a thing of hell.

“No, of course not; I don’t ‘hunt’ at all, as you yourself so clearly pointed out. But won’t I cramp your style a bit? Isn’t it going to be hard to get your particular sort of ‘nourishment’ from these poor souls if I’m around turning their perfectly natural sexual arousal and lust into perfectly natural loving concern and individual respect? Your little hideaway could become known as the wedding capital of up-state New York. There’ll be tour buses bringing in happy couples asking for your blessing.”

“You think you can challenge my power?” The beauty was back, except for glowering red eyes. “Try me, little one.”

She looked into the man’s heart, and gave him another little nudge. “Be my guest, Mom. You have a victim. Feed. Isn’t it a nice change when your victim really loves you?” Jackie’s voice quavered but she sat back and tried to present more of an air of confidence then she actually felt.

Several seconds passed while Lilith examined her conquest, and then she laughed, surprisingly enough. “Go, boy. Back to your friends with wild tales of love and lust.” Turning back to Jackie she continued, “What do you want to know, Daughter?”

Jackie’s ploy had worked, but she really didn’t want to get into a contest with her mother that she’d almost certainly lose. “Tell me about DeBauck.”

“He was an egocentric pig, always trying to pick up women here at my club as if they were whores and then ‘stiff’ them in every possible way. He must have had some familiarity with our kind, as he was always smart enough to steer clear of me, and of my other daughters.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You call me a liar?” The demon was plainly visible in the glowing red embers that had replaced her eyes.

Jackie flinched, but held her ground.

Suddenly, Lilith was laughing uproariously. “There may yet be hope for you, daughter. Consider this small bit of information to be a professional courtesy. Besides, sometimes the truth can be better than a lie. DeBauck, or Debauched as we liked to call him, was more animal than human, or, to be more precise, a satyr.”

“You mean like horns, hooves, and a hyperactive libido?”

“Yes, daughter mine, exactly that, but a libido so uncouth and raw that it made one gag, as you’d know if you’d met him.”

Lilith liked to remind her that she’d been responsible for creating her as a succubus and how easily she could slip back into that mode of existence if she wasn’t careful, but she had to admit — at least to herself — that she’d started the quarrel. And to be perfectly fair, it wasn’t as if Lilith had raped her, back when she was a man. She’d coöperated in her own ruination with pleasure, enthusiasm even, and had bragged about the pleasure she’d had in what she’d thought were ‘just dreams’. Debauchery only seems bad after you regret your acts, and even now she could see that her mother had a point. Who would she rather hear, if she were honest with herself, when she wanted to ‘kick back’ and listen to any of the discs in her extensive music collection? Janis Joplin, hard-driving drug addict, drunkard, and promiscuous ‘sinner,’ or Doris Day? Grace Slick, everybody’s ‘Bad Girl,’ or Josie and the Pussycats, who were certainly ‘family-friendly,’ but weren’t even a real band?

There was an old saying, ‘The Devil has all the best tunes,’ and even she had to admit that her mother’s biggest ‘sin,’ in many eyes, was that she wanted to live ‘like a man.’ She always had, and as far as Jackie could see, always would, and Jackie couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Mother mine, I find myself liking you, for all your faults, and I admire the stand you took for women. It must have been very difficult for you, back in those days, and I sympathize. There may be hope for us both, and I promise you here and now that I’ll try — in my fashion — to be a daughter you can be proud of, and will do my very best to love you.”

Clearly, Lilith was surprised, and more than a little suspicious.

“Go ahead, Mother. I have nothing to hide.” She sat still while she felt her mother rifle through her thoughts, which tickled, so she had to restrain her impulse to giggle.

When she was done, she was still suspicious, but who wouldn’t be after a million years of persecution? What she did, though, might have been a tiny crack in a long-standing wall. “I’ll grant you this, Daughter. I think you’re right to be suspicious of DeBauck. I don’t keep track of the movements of lesser beings, but the brutal death of a Satyr of his power, as it was described, should have raised a slight ‘ripple’ in the Æther, and I didn’t feel it. By itself, that means scarcely anything, because I might easily have failed to notice, if I were otherwise engaged at the time, but I didn’t notice that ripple, and that may be a clue. Do with it what you will.”

Looking at her, Jackie was torn. She’d resolved never to allow herself to be drawn back to the darkness that was the obverse of the coin of her own putative goodness. Jackie hated being reminded of how little difference there really was between a cupid and a succubus and how easily just a slight change in perspective could result in her feeding off lust rather than love, but the other side was true as well. She wondered if Lilith had ever loved Adam, and then supposed she must have, if she’d consented to bear his child, and then Sam, her angel, had actually told her that he had high hopes for her mother. Jackie decided then and there that she owed it to her to maintain her own hope, and to care for her as best she could.

Lilith had waited, almost as if she could follow Jackie’s thought process, but now continued. “Sylvester was a satyr, and satyrs tend toward a peculiarly masculine stupidity and complacence. Even amongst satyrs, Sylvester wouldn’t take home any prizes for intellect, so he’s not nearly as smart as you, daughter. Most of his so-called accomplishments were the result of rifling the thoughts, and sometimes the papers, of those around him, passing off their work as his own. Most importantly, he couldn’t seem to learn to avoid seeking to use my pond as his private fishing hole, so to speak, and liked to brag to the girls in the bar about all his imaginary accomplishments and friends. He even dropped hints that he knew a Phœnix, which is ludicrous, since there hasn’t been a single instance of a Phœnix for almost a thousand years, although they used to be much more common in medieval times. The day before he died, I’d warned him that I would send him straight to Hell if he didn’t discontinue his unwelcome forays here at Calaca E. It was terribly convenient of someone to relieve me of the nuisance of his unwanted presence. If you do find his killer, please let me know. I would so love to thank him, or her, personally for their service to me.”

Jackie looked at the self-satisfied smile on Lilith’s face and asked — jolted right back into suspicion of her mother’s motives by something in her voice — “Why should I believe you? Why should I believe that you didn’t kill him?”

She smiled, and then laughed, not nearly as unpleasantly as she might have. “You shouldn’t. After all, I am the primal demonic figure, of sorts, and haunt men’s nightmares as well as their dreams, although I can’t say that I’ve ever done anyone any real harm — unless the man deserved it, of course — and I would have gladly destroyed him without the slightest bit of the ‘remorse’ of which these foolish humans speak, since he richly deserved the true death for many reasons. But I’m also a lover,” her sardonic smile belied her words, “not a fighter, and it would have taken some preparation and effort — effort that I was pleased not to expend.”

Jackie stared at Lilith trying to decide if what she had said was true, or if her disreputable spiritual mother even knew what the truth was. After going around in circles while Lilith’s self-satisfied smile slowly grew into a satisfied grin, Jackie finally gave up. If this was going to work, she had to take her at face value. “Fine. If you didn’t kill him, do you have any idea who might have done it?”

“Certainly, but will you believe me if I tell you?” Lilith asked, and then added, “ ‘Family values,’ after all, begin at home, Daughter dear, and you show a remarkable lack of filial respect for an upholder of ‘virtue.’ How does it go…? ‘Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land….’ You might consider mending your own ways before throwing up your hands over mine. In the long run, you’re flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, and ‘blood’ will always tell.” Then she laughed uproariously at her own wit.

Jackie growled in frustration and stalked off. Who ever said families were easy?

Jackie wondered if DeBauck had ordered the fog and drizzle in order to assure an appropriately dismal atmosphere for his funeral. She also wondered if he was somewhere in hell, laughing about the Christian rites of burial his remains were being given … or maybe it was painful for a demon. That cheery thought made the slick muddy hillside more bearable until she realized how uncharitable it was.

Chiding herself, she turned to Dr. Long and whispered, trying not to be sarcastic, “Nice service.”

When her mentor nodded, she continued, “Did you hear how he died?”

“No,” he whispered back.

“He was immolated.”

“That’s nice.”

“You didn’t like him much did you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Do you know who might have done it?”

“The list is quite long. I don’t think this is the time or place.”

Jackie actually agreed with him, but wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to find a possible alternative to Frank as number one candidate for murderer. “Let’s move to the entrance to that crypt. It will be drier and we can still watch the ceremony.”

“Actually, we could go back to my car and still watch, since there’s no one else here but the priest and the grave diggers. All of them would happily get about their jobs and leave more quickly in our absence.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Jackie appeared to be wet and uncomfortable, although she was actually untouched by the foul weather, but remained that way rather than use her magic to change her image to one that was dry. Dr. Long was a bit absent-minded and distractible, but he was the smartest man she had ever met, as well as one of the most knowledgeable human beings in the world when it came to things supernatural. She always wondered how someone who knew so much about the occult could have so little ability to perceive it. It boggled her mind to imagine what he might have been able to accomplish with even a little bit of mystical power to complement his encyclopædic store of arcane knowledge.

“I think the priest was glad we left,” Dr. Long said. “See how quickly he finished once he didn’t feel any obligation to provide for our spiritual needs. He did the man a favor, you know, in providing even a graveside service, since there was no body to serve as a testimony to the promise of the Last Days, which is a requirement of Church doctrine.”

Jackie looked over at the grave site and saw that the man had indeed finished his service and was even now half-running across the graveyard toward the doorway that led to the sacristy. “I hope he doesn’t slip on the muddy grass,” Jackie commented absently as she unconsciously bit her lip in thought and tried to decide how best to proceed. “Look how quickly he’s leaving.” Finally, deciding to just ask away, she spoke. “Doctor Long?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“What was Doctor DeBauck like?”

“Let’s not speak ill of the dead. How’s your thesis research coming?”

“Fine, Doctor, but please. I’d really like to know.”

Professor Long sighed and brushed at his scruff of grey-white hair. “Must we?”

“Please, Doctor. It’s important to me.”

When he still hesitated, Jackie tried another tactic. “A few among the police officers investigating the case think that there was a supernatural aspect to his death. I’m working with a Sergeant at the thirteenth precinct, but I’d appreciate your help.”

“Why didn’t you say so, my dear. Congratulations. Is this your first consulting fee?”

Jackie nodded, a little uneasy at the implied lie, but then reasoned that saving money by being her own investigator was a sort of ‘payment.’

“May there be many, many more.”

“That’s why I need to know about him. Please tell me everything you can think of. You never know what can help.”

“Well, if you insist.” He brushed at his sparsely-covered pate again as he thought. “Well, as much as I disliked his political positions, his life style, and his cavalier attitude towards others, he seemed take particular pleasure in telling me about his exploits, as if I ought to admire or envy him, but he was yang to my yin, as it were, and embodied the worst of the so-called ‘masculine’ qualities without the slightest notion of any sense of complementarity nor realization that every full flower of yang contains within it the inevitability of its transformation into its opposite. He was the perpetual ‘bad boy,’ the ‘spoiled brat’ who goes through life lopping the heads off flowers and kicking random dogs. I can best describe him in those terms.”

Jackie nodded and smiled encouragement as the older man took a deep breath before continuing.

“He was an unrepentant reprobate, always chasing skirts and mercilessly teasing anyone who wasn’t as ‘lucky in love’ as him. For example, I would always know whenever he’d had sex the night before. Instead of calling me Ben, as usual, he would greet me with ‘Ben Long, now short,’ as puerile a bit of faux ‘wit’ as any schoolyard taunt.

Jackie tsked appropriately and he continued, totally oblivious, or totally unconcerned, of how much he was revealing of his personal life.

“He was vehemently opposed to the recently proposed expansion of the Department of Humanities and was quite vociferous, albeit surprisingly eloquent, in his opposition before the University Senate. As Department Chairman I’ve had my work cut out for me since, smoothing the ruffled feathers of some of the other members of the Humanities Department who were counting on a bit more room in their offices and a bigger library with access to better research facilities.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, you know about the house he was building by the lake, the one that blocked my view of it? I had always thought I was safe from such construction because the land between my house and the lake had been designated as wetlands and as such could never be built upon.

Jackie nodded helpfully.

“As usual for Sylvester, it wasn’t enough to build that monstrosity, he also had to gloat about how he had convinced the zoning board to ignore my objections and accept another, and larger, parcel of land he happened to own, and could be designated as wetlands, and how it served me right for not purchasing the land to insure it would not available for construction.

Jackie shook her head in resigned commiseration.

“Did you know that last night he even came by my house? He said he wanted to see exactly how poor the view would be once it was finished.”

“Wow!” Jackie could not help interrupting in surprise. “I knew he was a pain from some of the comments Frank had made, but I didn’t know he was that bad.”

“Have I ever met your boyfriend? If so, I don’t remember. How is he doing?”

“He’s in jail. The police arrested him for DeBauck’s death.”

“Oh my. Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, Doctor Long, but I wouldn’t volunteer much if I were you. If you tell the police what you just told me, they might consider you a suspect too.”

“Oh my. Really?” He sounded almost excited to Jackie.

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

Copyright © 2011 by Levanah