Page 31 of Demonic Delights

“Sit down,” she beckons me and then starts making tea for us both without asking me whether I’d like some.

For once, I choose to keep my mouth shut and don’t protest even when she empties three milk pods into my mug before setting it before me.

“Sugar, dear?” she asks, and I shake my head because it doesn’t matter; there’s no way I’m drinking anything that resembles watered-down pavement sludge so strongly in colour.

She sits down herself with her own mug, pursing her lips as she takes the first tepid sip, closing her eyes with almost religious reverence. It’s only when she opens them that she asks me what I wanted to talk to her about.

I take a very deep breath. And then I hardly breathe at all as I tell her, words rushing out of me with the vehemence of a broken dam. I cannot let myself hesitate because if I do—if I let myself think about how insane I must sound—I won’t be able to ever tell anyone at all, not even unthreatening Goodwoman Stubbs, whose opinion I have no reason to care about. And so I go on, mechanically presenting “facts” and “evidence”, supporting my “hypothesis” the way I would argue a case at a court of law.

After I finish, an oppressive kind of silence descends, a pregnant pause in the conversation I have just dominated for the better part of half an hour. Goodwoman Stubbs takes a sip of her tea, no doubt cold by now, and my stomach rolls. Hard to tell whether that’s from my imagining the sour aftertaste or from anticipating her reaction.

When she does finally speak, her response to my tirade is nothing short of a shock for me. “I doubt that someone like me has anything new to tell someone like you, Roxana née Moroiu.”

My eyebrows shoot up, and she smiles.

“Ah, yes. I studied Carpathian Occultism: A Historical Compendium as part of my research. I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that your ancestors are featured heavily ... the way that Sangrel Morvian seems to pursue women in your family is truly fascinating.”

“Then you don’t think I’m insane?” I gasp gratefully, and for the first time ever I feel something dangerously like affection for Beatrice Stubbs.

“Well, you did have me worried with that new book of yours,” she shoots me a loaded look, and I smile sheepishly. “But when it comes to Sangrel, I absolutely do not!” she assures me with booming vehemence. “How could I, given everything I know about your lineage?”

“Well, I just worried that your interest in ... this stuff ... may be purely theoretical. I wasn’t sure you actually believed any of it,” I say meekly.

“I absolutely do!” she assures me, blotches of pink blooming on her face. “Gravity existed long before Newton discovered it. Just because science can’t explain something yet, it doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

She’s more impassioned and animated than I have ever seen her. Who would have thought that such enthusiasm could dwell in that dry husk of a woman, with her hair up in a tight bun and the thin line of her severe mouth?

“The first thing we must do is establish what it is that the demon wants.”

“What he wants?” I repeat after her.

“Yes. Demonic possession is never random, and it’s never without a purpose. Historically, demons possessed rulers to exert influence or carry out persecution. Andrew Wilson, I suspect, was possessed by Sangrel with the intention of ending thirteen lives. Has Silas, in the active possession state, ever said anything about wanting to kill someone, perhaps?”

I feel my brow crease with concentration and instantly let up, ever mindful of preventing wrinkles from forming.

“He said nothing like that.” I shake my head. “Nothing about killing. All he keeps talking about is ... oh!”

My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets as I recall Silas’s words from those moments where I now know Sangrel was controlling him.

I’m fucking a son into you is what I’m doing.

I get to pump my seed into you and make you swell with my son.

No, I only make sons.

“Oh fuck!” I swear with a gasp, and Goodwoman Stubbs rewards me with a scowl I have no attention to spare for. “I know exactly what he wants,” I tell her, and her annoyance at my swearing quickly morphs into thrilled curiosity.

“What, dear? What does he want?”

“He wants to get me pregnant! It all makes sense now. From the first moment he got home and wasn’t himself, all he wanted to do was ... well, you know.” I clear my throat, and she nods curtly to indicate that yes, she does know. “And he keeps talking about putting his son into me.”

“Hmm.” She hums, considering my words. “Yes, I suppose that fits. That’s very grave then.”

“Is it?” I raise my eyebrows at her. “I mean, I sure as shit—sorry, I mean I sure don’t want to get pregnant with his demon baby, but is it really grave for anyone else?”

“It is! You must understand that possessing demons are forces rather than entities.” Seeing my confusion, she elaborates. “The way most people picture it is that the possessed person’s soul and the demon are two mutually exclusive beings residing in one body, fighting each other for control. But it’s not so. The demon is more like a parasitic force, fusing with the host gradually until he becomes completely dominant in the body, suppressing the human’s soul. And to do that, he has to use the parts of that human’s soul that are corruptible by his influence. This means that he can only possess a human to fulfil one specific dictate, and for any other objective, he must possess another.”

She pauses, letting me process all this.