Part Eleven: Malice aforethought - possessed by evil.
The Van Meer Estate is a study of cliché and stereotype. The stone pile even has a freaking tower! Pitched roofs with red tile shingle and honey stone walls choked in creeping ivy. All it needs is Rapunzel to drop her long golden hair and we'd be set for Disney.
The CCTV and electric fence around the perimeter of the estate are barely worth the mention. The topiary carved dragons lining the long driveway would be a better deterrent.
The portico covered front door beckons as I streak across the gravel drive not making a sound.
Lights, camera, action; it's show time boys and girls!
'Open the door - open the damn door!'
Van Meer has a brass door knocker shaped to look like a rams head; real subtle, that. I pound my bleeding fists against the glossy black wood door and cultivate my shivering.
It's raining which helps my disguise some. I'm wearing a green t-shirt, torn artfully and liberally splashed with my own blood and ripped, mud splattered jeans. The fact that I still look like a famine victim will help my act.
The large doors are swung open and a dark haired pixish looking girl, somewhere between fifteen and eighteen stands framed in warm, yellow light. A large and spacious marble hallway with Gone with the Wind inspired staircase is visible beyond her.
'What is the meaning of this? Who are you? Wha- '
I do a slow collapse to my knees on her front stoop. I'd fall into her arms except I'd probably knock her flat and that would be bad. She's tiny, maybe even under five feet tall and cute as bugs ear.
'Oh, my god; are you alright?'
She watches me fall. I make it slow, graceful. My hair, just long enough to brush my forehead is carefully mussed. I let my eyes slip shut, mostly because I don't want my eyes to ruin the whole act before I'm through the door.
'Dad; Dad? Get out here. Lu-ann? Call 911!'
Ooooops; don't want that do I?
'No –please – mus' speak with ---Van Meer. Need to warn him -----Nikolai.' And fade to black.
The girl is kneeling down trying to hold me upright. I slide sideways to slump, gracefully unconscious, on my side.
'Nikolai?'
I hear the girl's breath hitch at the name. Unless I'm very much mistaken this is Delilah Van Meer; the daughter of Ivor Van Meer. Nikolai Rasmussen is Van Meer's arch-nemesis or whatever these black arts weirdo's call their enemies. The trap is baited.
'Let's bring him into the house. Lu-ann, get some warm water and the first aid kit.' Delilah gives instructions like somebody who's used to getting her own way.
Though I keep my eyes closed and my body limp I can feel it when hands grab me and haul across the threshold. I keep my smile on the inside.
Hallelujah. The magical Wards that protect the Van Meer estate are now useless. Not only has a member of the household given permission for me to enter, but has dragged me in bodily. There goes security measure numero uno.
'Delilah? What're you doing? Who is this man?' A male voice, slight accent: Dutch. Hello, Ivor Van Meer.
'Daddy, this man turned up on the doorstep. He said he needed to speak to you then he collapsed.'
'And you brought him in here?' Ivor demands. I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing.
'Daddy - look at him, he needs help.' Oh, Delilah, sweetheart, you got no idea.
Time for act two; better get that Oscar ready.
'Nooooooooo!'
I surge upwards with a pretty good tortured scream, even if I do say so myself. I raise my hands to my face, before anyone can get more than a glimpse of my eyes. I'm not ready for my big reveal yet.
Then, although I don't enjoy this part of the act, I start to claw at my face with my fingers, glad that I purposely cut my nails before starting out tonight. Spitting guttural curses in pseudo-Latin I writhe on the black marble stone like a man possessed. Least that's the look I'm going for.
'Beelzebub's cajones what's wrong with him?' Delilah demands and I turn a laugh into a choking scream. Beelzebub's cajones? Who are these wannabe's?
I feel the change in atmosphere as Ivor and Delilah lean over me and I flop onto my back and snap my eyes wide open. Get a load of the devil eyes, mes amis.
'Mary and Joseph,' Ivor hisses through his teeth reeling backwards as he see's my red on black eyes. 'He's possessed. A demon is in him.'
'Are you sure?' Delilah whispers, taking two big steps backwards. Don't want to get too close to the demonically possessed. Who knows what diseases hell-spawn have, right?
Okay; time to put this thing to bed. Surging upright I grab hold of Ivor by his brown, silk shirt. Ivor is a slim built man with short salt and pepper hair and bright blue eyes. He looks scared when I push my face into his and growl in my best Exorcist impression.
'IVOR VON SACHENBURG' It wasn't hard to find the man's real name once I started looking. Van Meer, huh? The man has pretensions coming out of his ass.
'IVOR VON SACHENBURG I HAVE A WARNING FOR YOU.'
Now most self respecting Vaudun practitioners back home in the Bayou would have kicked my over-acting ass out of the door by now. But this wasn't some Voodooienne or Bokor from the Bayou; this was a Dutch con man faking a living as an exorcist and 'paranormal consultant'. Ivor Van Meer was eating this stuff up.
I decide to go straight for the coup de grace. It's risky. I'm relying on Sinister telling me the truth about my powers now; that I can't charge living tissue anymore.
Ivor Van Meer better hope Sinister wasn't lying or his brains are about to be painting the walls.
I grab the sides of his head and charge up my hands. The glow starts immediately and I hear the yelping squawk Delilah emits when she sees my hands. Ivor can see my glowing hands, can probably feel the tingles but just as Sinister promised his head isn't exploding.
'…………..help me……….please……….' I whisper, trying out a different voice from my emissary from hell booming voice; got to get the pitch right. How would a possessed human sound?
I let go of Ivor's head and sink back down to the marble floor. Nice quality, there must be money in the exorcism racket.
'Daddy; Daddy what do we do? Look at his eyes, they're red! And his hands…'
'Quickly, let's take him to the basement. We must secure him and decide what to do.'
Score! The basement; the most fortified part of the house, the place Ivor keeps his magical collectables.
The guy is a sham in most of the mystical stuff he does but he does still have some real tricks up his sleeve. And some highly prized collectables.
There's a lot of running about as the help build up the courage to pick me up and carry me down to the basement. On the way down I check out the layout of the main house.
Entranceway has three doorways leading off it; living room, some nice gold brocade upholstery, a Van Meer portrait. Hein? I'm sensing a theme here, most likely a reproduction.
Back hallway, probably leads to the kitchen; a closed door, maybe leading to a study or private living room. Take the back corridor passed the kitchen, utility room and domestic staff break room, make a left, then a right.
Thirteen concrete steps down to the basement. Basement is laid out like a private museum.
Recognise some of the stuff behind the display cases – I was raised in Voodoo country after all, some of the other stuff looks like it might even be valuable.
There!
There lying on a cushion of red velvet, fringed with gold thread is the prize. The old choker with its worn and scuffed gold face and threadbare velvet chain looks cheap and tacky on the cushion. Malice; that's what Sinister called it.
The choker is merely the physical vessel containing a neuro-bandwidth non-corporeal consciousness. It is a parasitical entity that attaches itself to a physical host, co-opting the function of said body.
Quelle?
Really, Lebeau, it is not that hard a concept to understand. Very well, I will explain it in terms even you should be able to grasp. Whoever wears the choker is possessed by the creature inside it; Malice.
The hired help drag me past the museum and into a smaller room. Re-enforced concrete and hard wood door; chains hang from the wall and shackles drape the floor. A large industrial drain sits squat in the middle of the concrete floor, ho-hum, just your standard torture chamber; lacks the stainless steel elegance of Sinister's lair.
I remain passive as the heavy-set black woman and middle-aged, short Hispanic man snap shackles around my wrists but not my ankles. They frisk me and find the incriminating evidence I want them to; the things that point the finger of blame squarely at Rasmussen.
To maintain the act I keep up a steady stream of moans and groans, rolling my head and keeping my eyes half-mask. Inside I'm laughing; the lock mechanism on the chamber door is pathetic.
Ivor and his daughter come into the room. Ivor comes in carrying a bunch of - I don't know what – knives, religious paraphernalia, candles and Delilah has already set a silver censer to swinging. I feel like I'm in Catholic Mass.
'I am Ivor Van Meer, to what or whom do I speak to?' Asks the mark and Jesus it an effort not to laugh outright.
He practically vibrates with excitement. I've done my research on this guy. He's a professional con artist, but he's gone native. Started to believe his own lies; nothing worse than a con man who believes his own lies.
I don't try to hide the snicker that hisses through my clenched teeth this time. I release a slow charge that causes the links of the chains to glow. Not enough to explode just enough to scare Ivor and his daughter.
'I repeat who am I addressing?' Ivor keeps his voice loud and strong. Delilah is watching me fascinated.
'Who would you like to address Ivor Van Meer?' I ask swallowing my accent but keeping my voice more or less normal. No need to over do it; yet.
When he don't answer I decide to up the ante a little, 'Perhaps you would like to speak with Gerta, Ivor?' I smile. It's not a nice smile.
Switching to the few lines of Dutch I've memorised for this very performance I play the role of poor Gerta Von Sachenburg; mother of Delilah, wife of Ivor who died under 'suspicious' circumstances in Holland. The investigation of her death resulted in Ivor leaving for America in haste.
'Ivor? Delilah? - cabbage child, is that you?' Finding out what Gerta's pet name for her daughter was had cost a pretty penny but the effect it had on both Delilah and Ivor paid dividends.
'Ivor what is this? I can't move. Why can't I move? Ivor?'
I rattle the chains, letting the charge build a little more in the metal. Then I let the charge fade dropping my head and pretending to pass out.
'No, this can't be.' Delilah rushes forward; gotcha, p'tite.
'Mom, Mom?' She reaches me and grabs hold of my tattered t-shirt. I squint up at her, my eyes are watering from the incense burning in the censor and if that looks like tears so be it.
'Delilah………' I try to accent the name. Give it a Netherlands twist.
Ivor snaps into life and drags his daughter away from me. I pick up the cynical laughter again. It's not an act. This is laugh out loud funny.
'Demon!' he spits at me and I hear echoes of all the times I was called demon or 'devil' growing up on the streets.
'Who sent you here? What warning do you bring?'
I smile at his daughter as I feed him a line. 'You are a wicked man Ivor Van Meer, you have something my master wants. You're about to lose everything you value.' I don't take my eyes from Delilah. She can't take her eyes off me.
Ivor grabs up a knife and advances on me. I watch him blandly. I can blow these chains to pieces in the time it takes this loser of a con man to make up his mind to kill me.
'……..please, please……..sir, help me. Kill me. I burn. I burn. Kill me…' I whimper, hoping that I'm lying as well with my eyes as I am with my words.
'Who are you?' Ivor demanded. Not happy that I can't take my eyes off his daughter.
'J…James. James White.' Hell, it's as good a name as any; always liked the sound of the name James. Don't know why. I throw in a fake shudder and make a pained face letting my eyes close for just a second.
'Who do you work for?'
'Mur – Mr Rasmussen.' Nikolai Rasmussen was the only other magical game in town. No more adept than Ivor really. But a damn sight more vicious.
They fought over the bilking rights of little old ladies wanting to contact dead husbands, or gullible yuppies who thought faulty plumbing was a poltergeist infestation.
'Please----what's happening to me? Pain -'
I throw back my head and scream, Ivor jumps back. I let the charge race through the chains again.
'It burns----agony through my body----' I scream again and thrash against the chains. I think I've missed my calling; should have been an actor. Deciding I've given Ivor Van Meer enough information to jump to all the wrong conclusions I decide to call an intermission.
Nothing they do can 'rouse' me. After months under Sinister's tender mercies there's not much I fear except him. And not much I can't fake my way through.
I think I actually do fall asleep for a little while because when I pay attention to my surroundings again, Delilah Van Meer is using a cool cloth to wipe my brow. It's nice so I just settle back and enjoy it for the time being.
I let my eyes flutter open with a soft groan once I ready to start the charade again. She jerks her hand away as I look at her. I'm still chained to the wall, knees scraping the floor. My arms have fallen asleep. Need to get these chains off me.
'You,' I whisper. 'Delilah?'
She looks at me suspiciously but nods.
I smile. I don't know if it's nasty or nice, truthfully I'm not sure I have any 'nice' left in me.
'You look like your mother; so small and delicate.' It's a guess but it hits the mark. I can tell when her eyes widen.
'How do you know that? My mother's been dead years.'
Chuckling I give her my best, devilish grin. It's worked before.
'What care I the span of mortal lives? Hell is very wide and we see everything.' I purr. I think I heard this line on a late night Movie or something.
There's a certain irony in impersonating a devil that appeals to me. I'm trapped in service to a real one after all. Lot of people back in Nawlins told me I'd end up this way, come to mention it.
'What are you?' Delilah recoiled further. 'I'm not my father I don't believe in hell.'
I give her a genuine smile this time. Neither did I once, then I discovered hell was an abandoned warehouse in East St. Louis.
'Where do you think I come from then, sweet?'
Delilah tenses, 'I think you're some lackey of Nikolai's, sent to upset my father.' She sneers, 'I won't be fooled by Parlour tricks.'
I let my powers flow again and watch her eyes grow wide. I keep a lock on her gaze though, pulling her into my eyes.
'Really, sweetness, then why is your heart racing? Why are you moving towards the door?'
'It's a trick. What you're doing is a trick; nothing but theatrics. My father does things just like it.' Her chest is rising and falling rapidly. She's scared now.
'If it's all a trick, beautiful, why run away?' I let the power fade again.
Going to have to wrap things up quick before the integrity of the chains is totally compromised. I don't want to break free until I have the prize.
'Don't you want to know how I do it?' I question, fishing for reaction.
Another good guess as curiosity sparks in Delilah's eyes. She bites her lip. 'I'm getting my father.' She tells me but doesn't move.
Her eyes are locked on mine. I smile at her. 'Is that what you really want to do, pretty one? Aren't you curious? Don't you want to learn a new trick?'
Delilah looks torn. 'Are you really a demon?' she demands.
I grin. 'What do you think?'
Delilah frowns, 'I don't see any horns. Aren't demons supposed to have horns?'
I laugh out loud at that, keeping eye contact, 'Only the ones with no sense of style, sweetheart.'
Delilah smiles, 'What about cloven feet.' She looks down at my sneakers,
'You sure don't look like you have hooves.'
'No? Want to come closer and see for yourself?'
Delilah hesitates some more then steps closer. 'You don't seem very evil to me. Shouldn't you be cursing and projectile vomiting?'
I roll my eyes, though truthfully I like this girl, she's got some fire to her. Shame really that I've got to do what I've got to do.
'Like I said, darling, that kind of behaviour is déclassé in the extreme.'
Delilah smiles, 'I don't think you're a demon at all. You don't look that much older than me. You're not evil.'
She makes the mistake then to step into my reach – once my arms are free that is.
'That's where you're wrong, princess.'
It takes no time at all to blow the chains from the wall and explode open the shackles on my wrists.
Delilah cries out and tries to squirm away but I grab her, moving faster than her even with pins and needles numbing my arms from shoulder to fingertip. I catch her up in my arms and clap a hand to her mouth.
'Easy now, easy,' I soothe.
'Not going to hurt you, Delilah. Just need your help with something.'
She fights me all the way across the room, bucking like a bronco. I throw her over my shoulder. The Petite can't weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet.
Any minute now Ivor and whoever else is in the house will be down here. Those explosions weren't quiet, but then explosions never are. I have to be quick which means that I can't afford to think too much about this next part of the job.
You want me to do what?
Really, Lebeau, there is no need to shout. You have already told me your plan for gaining access to the artefact. It should not be hard to find a host body for Malice in the process of acquiring the object.
Dat wasn' part of de original brief, Essex. You never said anyt'ing 'bout possessing people.
Nor did you ask, Lebeau. In any case, you should find Malice an asset in aiding your escape from Van Meer's estate.
Not bothering with subtlety I use an elbow to smash the display case after first throwing a charged blade at the control box for the infrareds around it, all why holding the squirming Delilah over one shoulder; how that for multi-tasking, eh?
Grabbing the choker from the floor where it fell I tug it around Delilah's neck, refusing to acknowledge her fear, her tears, or the fact that I don't know what this will do to her.
She can't be more than sixteen. She's a child. Still I do what I have to do to survive. And it is survival. I won't let Sinister torture me again. No matter what I have to do, or who I have to do it too.
The door to the basement museum flies open and Van Meer runs in waving a ten millimetre firearm and a magic wand, least that's what it looks like.
I drop Delilah to the floor, she seems to have passed out anyway, and throw myself towards Van Meer, hoping my suicidal forward lunge will startle him.
Van Meer squeezes off a couple of shots but I twist and pivot and sail over them colliding with Van Meer and smacking the gun from his hands.
We roll across the floor. I need to get him away from the staircase leading out of the basement, grab Delilah and get gone.
Van Meer waves his wand in a half-circle and I can't help being surprised when the air shimmers and something like a gale force wind smacks into me knocking me into a wall. Guess there's more to Ivor's magic than I thought.
I throw blades of broken glass in a wide arc to take out some of the other pieces in the museum and have Ivor hitting the deck. Ivor rolls behind one of the broken display stands chanting something in a language I don't recognise.
Suddenly Delilah leaps to her feet, a wide and disturbing grin on her features. She holds a ceremonial, jewel encrusted six inch long blade in her hands.
'Delilah?'
Ivor pokes his head out in the open, relief totally obvious on his thin face. Delilah turns to look at him and her lip curls.
'Delilah? Do I look like a Delilah, to you sweetie?' Even her voice sounds different; older, meaner.
Keeping myself very still I watch as she walks over to her confused father and plunges the blade into the side of his neck, up to the hilt.
'It's Malice now, dearie.'
Blood fountains from the wound as she wrenches the blade from Ivor's body. Blood bathes the girl's face as it twists into a satisfied grin and she turns towards me.
'Ooooohh look, a pretty one.' She stalks towards me; a street walker strut. I leap to my feet. More glass shards in hand, ready to charge.
'Malice,' she hesitates as I say her name. 'I'm the one that got you dat body you be wearing. I have a proposition for you.'
The blood soaked girl cocks her head to the side and grins at me like I'm something good to eat.
'Oooooooo, do tell, it's been sooooooo long since I've had a pretty little piece of flesh like you.' She licks her lips, blowing me a bloody kiss.
I can't keep the disgust off my face. 'A business proposition.' I amend.
'I work for a man named Essex, you come wit' me nice and quiet like an' he can guarantee you never be trapped in some dumb ass display case again.' I watch her keenly. 'You have your choice of host bodies too.'
Malice smiles brilliantly, 'Yours?'
I tighten my grip on my blades, let the charge build, but I smile anyway, swallowing down the bile and the shame. 'You ain't woman enough to handle me, cherie.'
Malice laughs, it's a horrid sound, twisted and vindictive and should never come from a girl so young, but then it's not Delilah anymore, is it?
I shunt my thoughts away from there. What's done is done. I did what I had to do. I wouldn't be doing this if I had a choice.
'And if I refuse this proposition sweetcheeks, what then?'
I hold up the glowing blades. 'I rip you out o' dat body you wearing an' put you somewhere nobody ever find you.'
Malice studies me, the glowing blades in my hands, the destruction all around. She comes to a decision.
'Well, honey bunch, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?'
I nod my head, real tired all of a sudden. 'Lead de way den.'
I motion towards the door to the basement, giving her a mock bow.
Malice bats her eyelashes at me, 'Shouldn't you take the lead, big, strong man that you are?'
'No.'
I can't keep playing these games. I feel sick.
Malice laughs, girlish, and starts skipping up the stairs. I want to go home. Oh, right, I don't have a home anymore. All I have is an evil scientific genius who owns me mind, body and soul.
As I follow Malice out of the basement I look down at Ivor Van Meer, his neck still spouts blood, but the flow is slowing, spreading out around him like an oil spill.
I see my face reflected in that pool. There's no expression; nothing. I don't know this man I see reflected in blood. He is not Remy Lebeau, he can't be.
As me and the creature in Delilah's body make good our escape I keep thinking, what am I doing? What am I letting Sinister turn me into?
There are no answers, only the memory of the deprivation tank and the itch of scar tissue at the back of my head. Maybe they be the only answers that matter, after all?
