Blood Ties First Blood; Chapter 7;
Vicky sipped at the lukewarm coffee, watching it swirl in the glass as she listened to Coreen slip into the office again. She'd snuck out sometime when Vicky had fallen asleep….because when Vicky had awoken to the lingering remembrance of strong fingers sliding over her knees she'd been alone in the office.
She debated about calling out, about asking Coreen where she had gone and why, but then reconsidered. If Coreen needed an escape from all of this then who was she to deny her that? And if she wanted to tell her where she'd been, she would. If she didn't…well, Vicky doubted that Coreen could foul up this whole situation any more then Vicky had managed to do on her own.
Almost a whole night's work and they hadn't found anything more conclusive about demon possession then they'd already known. It was amazing what information personal experience yielded. Too bad wikipedia didn't seem to have a 'everything you ever wanted to know about demons' page to fill in the gaps.
"Vicky?" Coreen called tentatively from the other room, probably believing her still asleep after so little the night before.
"Here," she answered, trying to decide whether to preserve the illusion of sleep or not and giving it up as too much effort. "Come up with anything?"
"Maybe," she came in, dragging over a chair and dropping what was possibly the thickest book that Vicky had ever seen on the desk between them. "I thought that Dr. Sagara might have something in her collection that could help."
"And you came up with.." she titled her head, squinting to read the title: "Demonology"?"
"Just listen," Coreen said, opening the cover and flipping past pages of illustrations. "Almost every culture in the world believes in demons of some kind or another. Fallen angels, evil spirits, devils...whatever name you want to call them by."
"Great," Vicky sighed, "that really narrows it down."
"But," Coreen interrupted triumphantly, "There's some overlap, some commonality in many cultures about certain aspects….like here." She pointed to one page that was covered with swirls of water and seaweed. "Almost every culture has some sort of demon linked to the sea or water…see, Nicor—known for causing drownings, tempests, and deaths of sailors. Or look," she flipped through the pages again, pausing on a page of figures writhing in flames; "A dramelech—his name is literally supposed to mean 'King of fire' and he's found in almost every society."
Vicky sat forwards, the possibility of what Coreen was saying dawning on her. "So then we might be able to find out which demons we're dealing with. Who is siding with Asteroth and a little on what they can do…"
"Exactly," Coreen said sitting back and folding her arms. "But…"
"What?"
"Well it's not exactly like a phone book or something. We can't just look them up and know everything about them….a lot of these demons might not even really exist, or if they do it might be related to something completely different then what the book says. It's myth and superstition over hundreds of years we're talking about here, aside from the few commonalities, they could have gotten anything mixed up or wrong…"
"The telephone game all over again," Vicky said, thinking of that game that children played whispering a sentence in someone's ear and then passing it on, over and over again, until it came out completely mangled on the other end.
Refusing to give in to her growing self-pity, Vicky forced an optimistic note into her voice, "This is good, I mean we can work with this and at least it will give us a clue as to what we might be up against."
"And we can be prepared," Coreen agreed. "I'll know whether to pack bug spray or Aztec gold!"
Vicky couldn't help but smile at that and Coreen was happy that she was able to bring a little lightness and perspective; sometimes when the battle seemed so impossible Vicky needed to be reminded of how much they'd faced and survived before. If they could do it then, they could do it now.
"Oh darn," Coreen caught sight of the clock, the hands ticking close to noon already. "I've got to work this afternoon at the café…" Coreen looked back and forth between the clock and the book on the table, knowing that she probably couldn't afford to pass up the shift but not wanting to leave when they had just gotten so close.
"Go on," Vicky said, reaching out and pulling the book across the desk towards her. "I'll see how much of this I can get through this afternoon and give you a call if I come up with something."
"Are you sure?" Coreen asked, eyeing Vicky and the book with open skepticism. Vicky was smart, but she wasn't exactly what anyone would call academically minded.
"I think I can handle it," Vicky replied, rich with sarcasm as she noticed Coreen hesitating.
"Okay, okay" Coreen held up her hands in defeat, grabbing her jacket and purse and heading out the door.
"Just switch on the lights on your way out, would you?" Vicky called. "It's kind of dark in here."
Coreen paused in the doorway, hand on the switch and looking up. "The light is on," she said, concern shading her voice as she looked at the brightly glowing yellow ceiling light.
Vicky looked up briefly, betraying herself as her hand quickly moved to the desk lamp at the corner and pulling the string: "I meant this one" she lied as the green tinged light spread over the desk.
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Vicky leaned forwards, eyes squinting and trying to make the smudges on the page rearrange themselves into the familiar shapes of letters and words….but they refused to emerge from the gloom. She'd been at this for hours and her neck aches with the strain of bending over the pages. But no matter how hard she tried the pictures of people with dark holes for eyes swirled into oblivion of the mostly blackened page.
She sat back, defeated and pulled of her glasses in frustration, throwing them onto the desk only to hear them skim over pages and fall to the floor.
Her hands rubbed at her eyes, brain refusing to believe that no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she rested her eyes, or got new optometrist prescriptions for her glasses it wouldn't make a difference. Sometimes when she sat in the dark with her eyes closed she would still think that when she opened her eyes she'd be able to see again, that whatever irritant that had been obscuring her vision would be gone and bright colours and sharp edges would greet her. But it was all a delusion and she'd wake to muted grays and blurred images.
It had been getting worse lately. She wasn't going to admit it to anyone, weakness was something that you dealt with, not something you talked about. She hated it when Mike would make it sound like things could still be normal, that if she only made a few adjustments she could still live a perfectly normal life. How was she supposed to adjust to watching the darkness that was increasingly taking over her personal and professional life, steal her sight as well.
Her hands raked back through her hair, pulling it back and capturing its gold strands into an elastic band. She forced a deep breath, thinking back to those stress-relieving classes that a former Captain on the force had made everyone undergo under the guise of a team building exercise. At the time she'd consider them new-age nonsense, but the whole "three cleansing deep breaths in…three stress filled breaths out" seemed relaxing too…probably just the massive saturation of oxygen so suddenly.
She pushed herself up, walking carefully around the corner of the desk before dropping to her knees and picking up scattered pages, feeling for the defined shape of her glasses. She really needed to get a pair that didn't blend into the floorboards so well…Ah, there—half hidden by the desk leg. She slipped them back on, feeling the familiar weight settle on her nose even as she wished that she never had to feel it again.
Vicky stood up, leaning over the desk to drop the papers on the other side and caught sight of the page she had been trying to read, suddenly clearly defined it stood in stark relief off the page.
Shalbriri…..demon of blindness….
And everything went dark.