Rise of the Beast (5 page)

“Allow me to introduce you to Krugloe,” said Lusan. “Please excuse his appearance. He is but an ethereal vapor, a spirit in this world. The two of you will be working as a team. He will provide the mind, the will, while you will provide the physical form.”

“I don’t get it,” replied Julio, who was rapidly becoming more agitated.

“Oh, I think you do,” replied Lusan. “You humans have a name for it. You call such a union demon possession.”

“Mary, mother of God,” gasped Julio. “Demons aren’t real; possession isn’t real.”

“I assure you, God has no mother,” said Lusan. “As for demons; I ask you to look before you, young man. Is not seeing believing? Go ahead, Julio, invite him into you; that is all that is required of you. He will do the rest. No doubt, you will sleep much of the time. He will do all of the thinking for you.”

“No, I can’t,” said Julio. “I don’t want that thing in me.”

“He can’t enter you uninvited,” replied Lusan. “Allow me to present your options to you; they are really quite simple. You can accept Krugloe into you willingly, or you can fall to your death over that wall. It’s a long way down, young man. It is totally up to you.”

“You promised that you wouldn’t hurt me,” said Julio. “You promised.”

“And I’ll keep my promise,” said Lusan, his voice betraying the impatience he was trying to hide. “You can allow Krugloe to take possession of you, or you can climb onto that wall and from there jump to your death. I won’t touch you, I assure you. You yourself will do it for me.”

“I won’t commit suicide,” insisted Julio. Yet he was already walking slowly to the wall at the edge of the lot. The next thing he knew, he was scaling it. No, he didn’t want to do this, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“It’s not too late,” assured Lusan. “You can still choose life. Nonetheless, it is your choice. What shall it be, boy? None shall suspect that what happened
here tonight was anything short of suicide. You were distraught, not thinking clearly after witnessing the death of your friends. It was just too much for you, so you took your own life.”

Julio found himself standing upon the two-foot-wide wall, looking down into the street. How had he gotten here? He didn’t want to do this. Yet he was inching toward the edge.

“It is not just death you’re facing,” noted Lusan. “No, you are not so fortunate as that. It is your eternity in Hell that lies before you. Do you have any idea how long eternity is, boy? No, of course you don’t. And it shall be I who decides exactly how you shall spend that eternity. In my mind, the punishment always fits the crime. Do you know who Salome was? Probably not, I doubt that you’ve read the Bible. She was the stepdaughter of King Herod Antipas. Dressed in the finest, most colorful silks, she danced sensuously before the king to secure from him a favor—vengeance for her adulterous mother. She asked for the head of John the Baptist, and she got it. Now, in Hell, she dances for me, alone, continuously, for all eternity. She dances in tattered, gray rags, with her hands shackled above her head, barefoot within a hot chamber whose floor is but a mass of burning coals. On occasion I go to watch her dance, to take my mind off of my many responsibilities. But mostly she dances alone, for no one, to the tune of her own screams.”

Julio was horrified beyond imagining. He was terrified of heights. He struggled for control, but in vain.

“Are you up for a long, hot swim within the Great Sea of Fire? I can arrange it for you, in much the way I arranged it for the great Adolph Hitler. He caused unimaginable suffering during his reign of terror. Six million people, boy, that is how many human beings he killed in the concentration camps.” Lusan laughed. “Now, he himself is both fried and cremated throughout all eternity. There, afloat in the boiling black oil, surrounded by the towering flames, he has come to know the real meaning of suffering. His suffering has already exceeded the sum total of that he dealt out during his reign, and eternity is just beginning.”

“But I didn’t do anything like that,” cried Julio. “I’ve never killed anyone.”

“But sin is sin,” retorted Lusan. “It doesn’t matter how minor it is; it still brings God’s judgment down on you. But you aren’t some little sinner, are you? You dishonor your mother. You lie and steal. You think God is love? Ha! God has given up on you, turned you over to me to do with as I please. What I shall
do to you in Hell is beyond your imagining—no less terrible than what I have done to Salome or Hitler, just different.”

There was a pause in Lusan’s ranting. Perhaps he desired to allow the horror of the current situation to sink into Julio’s soul. It was working only too well.

“However, I am in a charitable mood tonight,” continued Lusan, in a more reasonable tone. “I’ll allow you to delay your fate for a while if you make the right decision. But your time is running out. What shall it be, boy?”

Julio felt like he was losing his balance; he was on the threshold of plummeting to the street below. Why couldn’t he seem to pull back? “All right, I’ll do it,” he said, tears in his eyes.

“Good,” said Lusan. “Now you’re being sensible. Now step off that wall; you could fall from there.”

A few seconds later, Julio found himself at Lusan’s side, facing the frightening apparition. It was drawing ever closer.

“Now, just stretch out your arms and invite Krugloe into you,” said Lusan. “It won’t be all that bad. You might even grow to like it. Many people do. This isn’t like some grade B movie, you know. Most possessed individuals don’t foam at the mouth, curse God, and generally behave like raving lunatics. Only on rare occasions do I require such melodrama from my minions. No, far more possessed humans go about dressed in a suit and a tie, beguiling others with their demons’ clever tongues. These far better serve my purpose. They are businessmen, politicians, even preachers. You will be like one of them. However, you shall be my witness on the streets, among the gangs of New York. You shall bring a new unity into their midst.”

“Who are you?” asked Julio.

“Oh come on, boy. I thought the answer to that question was obvious,” laughed Lusan. In an instant, Lusan had changed. His eyes had taken on an almost orange hue while his face, which now bore a small goatee, had grown pale and sinister in appearance. From his forehead a pair of small white horns had materialized. “Do you recognize me now, boy?”

How could he not? “Oh God in Heaven,” cried Julio.

“Why don’t you take another guess?” laughed Lusan. “Are you afraid to say
my name out loud? Then I will say it: Satan. Now you know. Stretch out your arms and invite Krugloe in or return to the parapet and complete your act of suicide. It matters little to me which road you choose.”

In that moment, Julio gave up all hope. He stretched out his arms toward the apparition before him. “Come into me demon, just get it over with,” he said.

Julio felt a shock of electric cold as the ethereal vapors seemed to sweep into his warm flesh. He fell to his knees, whimpered in fear, as terrible thoughts of all manner of evil swept through his mind. For but an instant, he knew the mind of a minion of Satan, knew the true heart of darkness, of depravity. Then he was shut out, locked away from that aspect of his new being. He would not be privileged to the demon’s thoughts as his thoughts were to him. Julio was trapped, locked away within the flesh of his own body.

Then the youth arose to his feet once more, but he was no longer Julio. He smiled a devious smile. “This one is weak-willed indeed. He will be easy to control.” There was a pause. “The horns, eyes, and flesh were a nice touch, my lord.”

Satan smiled back at his minion. His appearance had nearly returned to its former state. Only the goatee remained. “I simply gave him what he expected to see, what he feared to see. Return this young man to his home; you know the plan.

“Yes, my lord,” said Krugloe through the lips of the youth. “I shall indeed enjoy this assignment.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Satan. “Treat him gently. I suspect that he will be very useful to us.”

The youth bowed before his master and then turned toward home. He had much to accomplish in the coming days.

Satan stood there until the former Julio had stepped into the elevator and vanished from sight. “Promising beginnings,” he said. It was not clear if he had spoken to himself or to other invisible entities hiding in the night. He gazed out across the sleeping city. “Oh humanity, if only you knew what was in store for you. You might stand in line to leap from this parapet, anything to spare yourself from the days that are to come. But for now, sleep; sleep children of Adam; sleep children of Eve. The day will dawn when you shall worship me as god.”

Satan made his way toward the elevator and stepped in. A minute later, the elevator door opened to the street to reveal an empty car with a lingering trace of faint mist.

The walk home was a nightmare for Julio. He lapsed in and out of consciousness, yet he could feel his legs moving and his heart pumping, sense the chill of the night air. But he was but a spectator to it all. Any further intervention in his own life was beyond his control.

“What are you going to do?” asked Julio. His voice was not heard in the real world. He could not stir his vocal cords to vibrate nor move his lips. It was a voice of the mind. “Can’t anyone hear me?”

“Yes, Julio, I can hear you.”

It was another voice within his own head that answered him. It was the voice of the being who had possessed him, the voice of a demon. “You cannot possibly imagine how good it feels to be physical once more, even in a weak mortal body such as your own. To answer your question, we are going to your home. We, or shall I say I, have much to do in the coming days and months. If I could kick you totally out of this body, claim it as my own, I would in an instant. However, that is not how the game is played, at least not yet. What I can do is lock you up in a small corner, a cell, within your own brain. Don’t harbor any hope of escape, of retaking your body. I assure you that it is quite impossible. I’ve had many thousands of years to learn how to dominate your kind, and a 17-year-old delinquent like yourself isn’t going to stop me.”

“Please, don’t hurt my mom,” said Julio. “Do what you want to me, but don’t hurt her.”

“My, what a change in attitude,” noted Krugloe. “You’ve broken that good woman’s heart for years. Don’t deny it. I know all that you’ve done. Now, suddenly, you’re concerned about me hurting her. There is a place in Hell for your kind. The master did not speak of it openly, but I think I know what he intended. It is a place of heartbreak. Only there the heart of the offender is broken by an arrow piercing the chest and not merely by words or deeds. And it is an ordeal repeated over and over again, just like those who break the hearts of those they love do it not once, but time and time again. Perhaps we can make a place for you there when this is all through, shackled to that heavy wooden trestle for all
times facing a loaded crossbow with a hair trigger trained upon your heart.”

Julio did not respond. He was way beyond the point of being terrified.

“But fear not on that account; I do not plan to hurt her. In fact, I plan to start treating her the way she deserves to be treated—that is, so long as she serves a purpose to me, to the master.”

It took close to an hour to get home. Julio practically ran up the steps of the old apartment building to the third floor. He inserted the key and quietly crept in.

“It’s late,” said his mother, looking up from her book. “Where have you been?”

“Mom,” he said in surprise. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

“Where else would I be?” she asked, setting down her book and walking toward her son. “Where have you been, Julio? Out with your friends?”

Julio walked toward his mother, a thin woman with long, dark hair and sad, dark eyes. “I left my friends hours ago,” he began. “They wanted to go to Central Park, have some fun, but I didn’t go with them.” He lowered his head a bit. “I don’t know, Mom. I just didn’t want to be a part of what they might do. I had this bad feeling, you know? I can’t explain it. I’ve been walking around the city for hours, just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” asked Consuela, placing her hand upon her son’s shoulder.

“I don’t know, Mom, just thinking about my life, about the Kings. Things are happening. They didn’t bother me at first, but now they are.”

“Like what?” asked Consuela.

“Well, people are getting hurt, in and out of the gang,” continued Julio, “and it’s the guys who are doing it. I guess, I’m just fed up, that’s all. It just isn’t me. I’m not like that.” There was a moment of hesitation. “Mom, I think I want to go back to school, get my GED at least. There is a GED class starting up in another two weeks, isn’t there? I think that’s what you told me.”

“Yes,” replied Consuela, “there is. It’s being held only a few blocks away, at the old high school. I’d love so much for you to enroll.”

“It’s a night class, right?”

Consuela nodded.

“I think I want to enroll in it,” said Julio. “I’ve even thought about community college afterward.”

Consuela’s smile was literally beaming. “Julio, you really mean it?”