The Boy Who Killed Demons: A Novel Read online

  Final item, and the one that could cause me serious grief. Wesley’s dad came by last night accusing me of stealing his Spider-Man comic book. Yep, a flat-out accusation.

  Mr. Neuberger, like Wesley, is kind of goofy looking. Scrawny, with tight curly hair, thick glasses and this general awkwardness about him. Him standing next to my dad, it’s a bit of a joke, with my dad lucking out in every possible way genetically, and Wesley’s dad severely shortchanged and just how you’d imagine the dictionary definition of a ‘schlemiel’ to look. To be fair to him, even though he’s not tall, broad shouldered, good looking, and impeccably groomed like my dad, up until last night he was always good to me—always kidding around and genuinely decent. If I could’ve ripped my dad off instead of Mr. Neuberger to get my copy of L’Occulto Illuminato, I would’ve gladly done so.

  Mr. Neuberger was livid when he came by our house last night. My dad sensed something was wrong right away, and instantly put up his lawyer shields. A distinct coolness came off him as he politely invited Mr. Neuberger into our house. I knew what was coming, of course, so it didn’t surprise me when Wesley’s dad asked to speak to me and my dad in private. Once we were alone, he cleared his throat and in a gravely severe voice that I earlier wouldn’t have imagined possible from him, told my dad that we had a serious issue to discuss.

  “And what would that be?” my dad asked with his polite coolness.

  For a moment Mr. Neuberger stared at his hands, his lips pressed so tightly together they nearly disappeared. Then his eyes shifted up to meet mine. The look he gave me was one of mostly disappointment. Maybe a little anger and betrayal thrown in.

  “On September thirtieth, Henry was over at my house, and I have reason to believe he stole a comic book.”

  My dad nearly laughed at that. “A comic book?”

  “A mint condition first issue of Spider-Man valued at forty thousand dollars. I believe that would be grand larceny.”

  My dad physically bristled as he regarded Mr. Neuberger. “What evidence do you have?” he demanded, his tone now ice. But if he thought that would make Wesley’s dad back down, he was mistaken. Mr. Neuberger didn’t even blink.

  “That day Wesley and Henry were hanging out in Wesley’s room when Wesley became violently ill. I now believe he was poisoned with psilocybin mushrooms—the same drugs your son was arrested with at school. Henry used the opportunity of my son being incapacitated in the bathroom to steal my first edition of Spider-Man.”

  “I see,” my dad said. “Was Wesley tested to see if he had ingested psilocybin mushrooms?”

  “No, unfortunately not. At the time I didn’t have any reason to think that he was poisoned. But looking back at Wesley’s symptoms and what later happened with your son, it makes sense.”

  “So you have no evidence that he was poisoned with mushrooms. Do you have any evidence that your comic book was stolen that day? Surveillance video, anything?”

  Wesley’s dad didn’t bother to answer that.

  “Was this priceless comic book just left in the open?”

  Wesley’s dad showed a sick grin. “No it wasn’t,” he said. “It was locked away. Both in a room and a file cabinet.”

  “And were my son’s fingerprints found?”

  Mr. Neuberger shook his head slightly, his sick grin intensifying, like it would have to be chipped from his face with a hammer and chisel.

  “I see,” my dad said. “Henry is now a criminal mastermind. He poisons your son so he can break through several locks, all undetected by anyone. Is that what you’re accusing him of? What would you say if I told you the school’s investigators now believe that Henry never dealt drugs and that those mushrooms were planted in his locker?”

  Mr. Neuberger’s sick grin hardened even more, his eyes now every bit as cold and harsh as my dad’s attitude towards him.

  “I know Henry did this,” he said. “My daughter saw him running up the staircase. He must’ve just stolen the comic book, and when he heard my wife drive up he ran up the stairs.”

  “Really? Is that supposed to prove something? That your daughter might have seen Henry going up a staircase?”

  “She saw him. Through the front window.”

  “And when was this? When she was sitting in the car?”

  “No, when she was walking up the pathway.”

  “This really is outrageous, Walt,” my dad said, shaking his head, his expression incredulous. “You have no idea when your comic book was stolen. You have no evidence that your son was poisoned, just as you have no evidence that Henry did anything. All you have is that your daughter might have seen my son on a staircase. And from this you’re going to level these kind of accusations against Henry? Especially with these false accusations he’s having to deal with at school?”

  Mr. Neuberger took in a deep breath, and slid his stare from my dad to me. “Henry,” he said, “I’m not interested in pressing charges. All I want is my comic book back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I wish I could help you, but I didn’t take your comic book. You can search my room if you want. And if you think I stole and sold it, the only money I have is what I’ve been making with my lawn mowing and snow shoveling business.”

  I was taking a bit of a chance offering to let him search my room—both because of the occult book collection he’d find, and also this journal. Maybe if he saw this journal he’d get the idea of insisting on reading my entries around the time I stole his Spider-Man comic book. But I didn’t think my dad would put up with something like that, so I gave as innocent a look as I could manufacture. He wasn’t buying any of it, though.

  “Why’d Allison see you on the staircase?”

  I scrunched my nose up as if I was trying to remember back a week ago. “She probably did see me,” I said. “I was getting worried about how sick Wesley had gotten, and I was thinking of heading downstairs to look for a phone number for his mom. I don’t remember going downstairs. I was too worried about Wesley to remember things exactly, but I think when I heard a car pulling in, I just wanted to check on Wesley again.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You better be careful with your accusations,” my dad warned him.

  “I’m not lying,” I insisted. “That’s what happened. And those drugs were planted in my locker.” I paused as if I was in deep thought. “It’s funny,” I said after a while. “I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that Wesley might’ve been the one to put those drugs in my locker, but he does have a spare key for it, just like I have the spare for his. Wow. . . Maybe if he really did get sick on those mushrooms like you think, maybe he did all this himself, you know, so he could frame me and steal the comic book so I’d be blamed for it.”

  Mr. Neuberger’s eyes went dead when I said that. It was as if he decided right then that I was nothing but a lying piece of scum and he wasn’t going to waste any more time with me. It wasn’t as if I had stolen his comic book for my own personal gain. It was so I could stop the demons. If he thought his first edition Spider-Man was worth more than keeping the gates of hell from opening up, then fuck him.

  Mr. Neuberger looked away from me to shake his head sadly at my dad. “I tried doing this without police,” he said. “But I guess I’ve just been wasting my time.”

  “You better be careful, Walt,” my dad said. “You better have a lot more evidence than you showed me here if you’re going to bring the police into this, at least unless you want to be sued.”

  At that point Walt Neuberger left. Maybe he went to the police afterwards. If he did, they haven’t contacted us yet. I can’t imagine they’d get involved. Maybe as a courtesy, they’d come by for a talk, even ask if they could search my room, which is making me think I should find a hiding place for my occult books and this journal until all this blows over. But even if they came just to appease Mr. Neuberger and didn’t get anywhere with their investigation, this could still be very troubling. It wouldn’t do me any good for the demon Hanley to see cops coming over to
the house, and it would also interfere with my plans just as I’m learning about how to kill these demons. As far as my dad goes, he dismissed Mr. Neuberger’s allegations as ridiculous, even choosing to ignore my inane explanation of how Wesley might’ve been behind planting the drugs and stealing his dad’s comic book.

  Okay, that covers the three items I needed to report. Now, how to kill demons. For the most part it’s not as hard as I would’ve thought. First, I need a one-foot-long dagger—the material doesn’t matter as long as it’s sharp. Which is good, because at first I was worried that I’d need a solid gold dagger like the one Galeotti used. But anything—gold, silver, iron, steel, whatever—will do the trick.

  Once I get the dagger, I’ll need to etch a series of symbols into the blade, which I also think is doable. According to the book, these symbols will mesmerize a demon long enough for me to get a fatal strike in.

  Finally, the part that has me stuck. The blade must first be washed in virgin blood and then baked. If it wasn’t for Sally, I’d still be a virgin and this would be easy enough to do. Curt and Wesley have to still be virgins, but there’s no way I could approach Wesley now, and I doubt I could ask Curt, either. Besides, they might not be virgins as far as L’Occulto Illuminato is concerned. It’s possible that masturbating could violate their virgin status, at least in terms of this ritual for killing demons, and I’m sure they’ve both been yanking themselves raw.

  So that’s the problem I have: how to get virgin blood. From the web? Maybe eBay? But how could I trust what I end up with?

  I’ll worry about that problem later. For now I’m going to head into Boston and buy myself a very sharp, foot-long dagger.

  Thursday, October 13th 1:50 AM

  I GOT MY DAGGER FROM A CREEPY SHOP THAT SPECIALIZES IN swords and knives. Need a twelve-inch blade? Not a problem. I went with a stainless-steel knife whose handle had the best feel, and it only cost me twenty-seven dollars. I also bought an etching kit from a hobby shop. After dinner, I stayed holed up in my room reading the directions on how to use the etching kit, and once I heard my parents in their respective bathrooms, I waited twenty minutes and then set about etching the symbols outlined in L’Occulto Illuminato. If you ask me, I think I did a pretty damn good job. Now all I need to do is wash this knife with virgin blood and bake it, and I’ll be ready to kill me some demons!

  Alright, I admit it, I’m excited by the idea of it. I’ve been living under the oppressive weight of these demons for too long, and it’s liberating to know that there’s something I can do. I even have an idea about how to get a hold of virgin blood. It’s risky—man, is it risky—but it’s the only thing I can think of. Later this morning I’m going to try it, and if all works well, I might get to kill my first demon as early as tonight.

  Now I need to get some sleep. Surprisingly, I’m not as wired as I would’ve thought. It’s as if I can see that everything is coming to an end and that all I’m doing is playing the part I was meant to play. Fate, I guess. Right now I’m just feeling bone tired, and I actually think I’m going to be able to get some sleep once I crawl into bed and close my eyes.

  Thursday, October 13th 2:45 PM

  I’VE WASHED MY DAGGER IN VIRGIN BLOOD AS DESCRIBED IN L’Occulto Illuminato and I’m now baking it in my parents’ top-of-the-line Thermador oven, which I’m sure is quite a bit better than what Galeotti had available back in his day. I’m scared to death, but also excited about what I’ll be doing soon, and I’ve already picked out the first demon I’m going to kill—and no, it’s not Hanley. As much as I’d like to kill him, he’s going to have to be last for obvious reasons.

  You’re probably wondering why my handwriting is so shaky right now. I can’t help it. Adrenaline is pounding through me like you wouldn’t believe, and it has nothing to do with thinking about how I’m going to be killing demons. What’s got my hands shaking like I’m a nervous wreck is replaying in my mind what I had to do to get the virgin blood that I needed. I still can’t believe I did it.

  Okay, I’ve taken a few deep breaths, and as you can probably tell from my markedly improved handwriting, I’m shaking but not nearly as bad I was a few minutes ago. Let me take a few more deep breaths and hold them longer this time and see if I can calm myself completely.

  Better. Much better now.

  So, where did I get my virgin blood? The most obvious place. Namely, from a hospital. I mean, what better place to get blood?

  I didn’t want to go to any hospitals nearby in case I ran into someone I knew, so I went into Boston. Once there, I wandered around until I ended up in a children’s cancer ward and found a kid who was completely out of it, so I could sit by his bed as if we were relatives and I was visiting and nobody would question me. At times I would get up as if I was heading to the bathroom or going out to get myself a soft drink. What I was really doing was surveillance—giving myself a chance to observe what was going on and trying to piece together the nurses’ and doctors’ routines. At no time did anyone act suspiciously towards me or question why I was there; instead the nurses and everyone else I met were extra nice to me. They must have appreciated that I was spending time visiting one of their sick patients.

  It didn’t take me long to identify who the best sources were for what I needed. I eliminated any of the patients who were twelve or older—I couldn’t risk any of them having had sex, which was possible even at that age. After an hour of waiting and watching, I saw a nurse making her rounds and taking blood from some of the children. When this same nurse took a sample from an eight-year old girl that I had targeted, I snatched it from her cart while she was busy with another patient. She didn’t see me do it, and even though my heart was thumping so loudly in my chest that someone should’ve noticed it and suspected something was up, I was able to walk out of there with the blood without anybody stopping me.

  So how do I feel about stealing blood from a sick eight-year-old? Any guilt at all? None. Not a single bit. All I feel is incredibly relieved and happy that I pulled it off. The nurse who took the blood will wonder how she’d misplaced the sample—she might even decide that some sicko stole it. Too bad. And as for the girl, she’ll have to give another sample. A small price to pay to keep the gates of hell from opening up. Anyway, I made a note of this eight-year-old girl’s name, and when this business with demons is all done I’ll send her a box of candy or something to make up for the inconvenience.

  The blood should be baked onto the knife by this point. Soon there will be one less demon in the world. Either that, or I’ll be finding out the hard way that L’Occulto Illuminato is full of shit, at least as far as killing demons goes.

  Friday, October 14th 10:37 PM

  I DIDN’T KILL ANY DEMONS LAST NIGHT. I HAD THE KNIFE ready and was all set to head out when I chickened out. As soon as I reached the front door my knees buckled and I became paralyzed with fear over the thought of what I’d be doing. More than that. It was almost like a hand had pushed its way into my chest and grabbed my heart and squeezed it into pulp. For a long moment I couldn’t breathe, and then I started hyperventilating to the point where I almost passed out.

  During the two and a half years that I’ve been dealing with demons, I’ve never felt fear like this before. I tried to understand it, and eventually realized it was because I didn’t fully trust L’Occulto Illuminato. Maybe Galeotti believed he was describing the way to kill these demons, but had accidentally left something out—something that he hadn’t even been aware of. If Galeotti was wrong, or if he’d left out even a tiny step, I’d be helpless against any demon I went up against, and the thought of that was terrifying. Or maybe I got one of the symbols on the blade wrong, or maybe I mistranslated the ‘killing of demons’ section of the book. But what could I do other than blindly accept what Galeotti had written? Or trust that I’ve prepared the knife properly and have translated Galeotti’s archaic text correctly?

  The terror never quite left me yesterday. It faded to where I could breathe again, so that I no long
er felt like my heart was being squeezed by a fist, but I didn’t feel strong enough to go after any of the demons. The way I was feeling yesterday I would’ve had a hard time going up against either Wesley or Curt. I kept trying to convince myself that I’d do it later that night after my parents went to sleep, but even if the police hadn’t come over to the house, I still don’t think I would’ve been up to it.

  And yeah, a policeman came over to the house while we were having dinner. Before I get into that, though, when my dad came home, he gave me a quick double take and asked if I was feeling okay. I guess I was looking much paler than normal. My mom also gave me a concerned look and felt my forehead to see if I had a fever. It had been years since she had done something like that, but that’s how bad I was looking. Later, while we were having dinner—Korean takeout that my mom had picked up—the doorbell rang, and a police detective stood waiting outside. He had been sent by Wesley’s dad, and wanted to know if we’d cooperate and let him search for the stolen Spider-Man comic book. Fortunately my dad got all huffy and refused, letting the detective know that without a search warrant he wasn’t going to be searching anywhere within our home. This detective made some veiled threats about how he could’ve cleared this issue up quickly if my dad had been reasonable, but now he was thinking I was guilty because of the way my dad was stonewalling him. If he was trying to scare my dad, it didn’t work—in fact, it probably had the opposite effect of making my dad even more determined not to cooperate in any way. Still, I probably turned several shades lighter as he was making his threats. I had the knife hidden in my closet, but probably not well enough, and all I could think about was what would happen if my dad acquiesced and this cop found it. A knife caked in blood, hidden in the closet. Fortunately my dad held firm, but the incident made me realize the cop could easily come back with a search warrant, which meant I needed to get the knife out of the house.