Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

Immediately, I knew I had the right place. There were cars everywhere, and teenagers littering the lawn and massive front porch. The fear that had gripped me loosened a little. Maybe this wasn’t life-or-death after all. Maybe she’d gone to a frat party. Maybe she’d dropped the phone.

Maybe I needed to get inside that house and find out for myself.

Inside, I found more kids, more eating, more music, more drinking.

But I didn’t find Allie or Mindy.

I glanced around, frantic, not sure where to even start looking. The place was huge.

As if in answer, a scream ripped through the room, cutting through even the din of the party. I couldn’t have been the only one who heard it, and yet I was the only one who reacted, and I was sprinting up the stairs, heading for the source, before the echo of the sound had died out.

What I found turned me cold.

A baby-faced man standing in the center of an oak-paneled study, arms outstretched, his body bathed in red, his skin bulging and popping as something within him rose and grew. And, yeah, I knew what that something was: a demon.

He was surrounded by about a dozen kids sitting casually around the room, not freaking out or even reacting despite the writhing, changing thing in the middle. All the kids, including Mindy, who had a goofy smile on her face. Everyone, that is, except Allie — she was tied to a chair, and my heart twisted when I saw her. I, however, forced myself to concentrate on my goal: killing the demon.

This was not your run-of-the-mill body-inhabiting demon, and yet I’d heard of this kind of thing. Young men who gave themselves body and soul to a demon in order to gain power and never-ending youth. To keep it up, though, they had to make constant sacrifices.

The human/demon hadn’t even noticed me as far as I could tell. The rising had thrust it into a trance, but I guessed that wouldn’t last long. Soon the awakening would be complete, and it would want to feed. And that, I thought, was where all the kids came in.

I needed to take advantage of the trance. I needed to kill the thing right then, and I raced forward to do just that.

“Mom!” Allie screamed. “Be careful! You can’t see it, but he’s a demon, and he’s—”

“I can see him,” I said, tackling the beast and knocking him to the floor. This was going to be too easy.

“Really?” She was so incredulous she almost sounded normal. “What about the room? The tentacles?”

“Tentacles?” I’d been poised to jab my stiletto through his eye. Now I hesitated.

“He’s holding onto the kids. All of us. Me, too,” she said, glancing down at her ankles as if in support of her statement. “There was punch, but I only drank a little, and I could see what was real and they couldn’t and—”

“I get it,” I said, though I didn’t completely. I got enough. The kids who’d drunk the punch must see the demon as I saw him, they just weren’t afraid. Because they were part of it now. Part of the ceremony, part of the world. Kill the demon, and they’d step up to fight. Either that, or they’d die, too.

To ensure the kids stayed alive (and to make sure they didn’t become demonic fighting minions), we had to cut the tentacles before we killed the beast. And since I couldn’t see them…

I jumped off the demon and raced toward Allie, who was screaming questions at me. I sliced the ropes that bound her, then handed her the larger knife. “Cut them,” I said. “Cut all the tentacles. I can’t kill him until the kids are free.”

Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t question, and despite the fact that I was beyond furious with her for sneaking off to a party, right then, I was pretty damn proud.

Quickly, she reached down and sliced through the tentacles that bound her. When she did, the demon I’d left on the floor shook with life.

Damn . I’d been afraid of that.

“I’ll keep you safe,” I said, racing back to the demon. “Hurry!”

She’d sliced through another tentacle by the time I got back to the demon. I landed a solid punch to its bulbous, writhing face. I risked a sideways look and saw a boy who’d been sitting calmly in a chair sink to the floor in a dead faint. Good . I’d rather a roomful of kids not see this.

Another set of tentacles cut, and this time the force of the break brought the demon to life. He leaped up, knocking me off him, then turning to attack Allie. I tackled him, buying her time to slice through another, as the demon twisted and kicked, and I blocked and parried.

I had my stiletto and damned if I didn’t want to use it. Fighting was easier when you were going for the kill. Trying to slow things down was hard. And painful, I thought, when he picked me up and hurled me toward the desk. I landed hard on my back, my breath going out of me, but I didn’t have time to think about the pain. Allie had reached the last kid — the last set of tentacles.

Mindy .

But the demon was on his way there, too.

No way.

I lunged, knocking him down before he could get to Mindy. I screamed for Allie to hurry, fighting to position myself as she hacked at the last two tentacles.

“Now!” she yelled, and I lashed down with my stiletto — and as I did, the demon thrust out his arm, knocking the blade from my hand and sending it skittering across the room. Shit!

I clutched his wrist, my knees clamped tight as I straddled him, but I couldn’t hold him for long. I needed a weapon, something I could slide into his eye — something sharp and pointy that could kill a demon.

“Mom!” Allie said, and as she spoke, she tossed me something small and silver. Instinctively, the demon tilted his head up and opened his eyes wide.

And that was all it took.

I snatched the clippers from the air, held them with the pointy file sticking out, and plunged the metal deep into the demon’s eye.

Immediately, I heard the hiss of the demon leaving the body. Beneath me, all that was left was a shell.

A dead body.

And there I was in a roomful of kids, all of whom would surely awake from their faints soon enough.

I sighed. A dead body wasn’t going to go over well with them.

Lamenting the fact that demons don’t disappear in a puff of ash and smoke, I grabbed the body under the arms and started dragging it. “Open it,” I said to Allie, motioning with my head to a door at the back of the room.

She ran ahead, and I shoved the body into the small, dark closet. For now, that would have to be enough, especially since there was no time to do more.

Around us, all the kids were stirring. I saw Jeremy’s eyes go wide, then saw him look around frantically, relaxing when his eyes found Allie.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“You should go home, Jeremy,” I said. Then looked around at the entire group, “All of you.”

Faced with a disapproving adult, they all slunk out guiltily. All except Mindy, who was looking at me with no small amount of trepidation. “Hi, Aunt Kate,” she said. She cleared her throat, then turned her attention to Allie. “We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”

Allie cocked her head to the side and looked at me, her eyebrows raised in question, as if the fact that she’d done herself proud in the demonic ass-kicking department would erase all the other wrongs of the night.

I didn’t answer. After a minute, that was answer enough.

Allie sighed. But not her usual exasperated sigh. This one was a sigh of resignation and acceptance, and I knew then that although the lesson had been hard fought, she’d learned a bit more about prudence and responsibility tonight.

“We’re definitely in trouble,” her words said, and I know that’s what Mindy heard. But what I heard was, “I love you, Mom.”