Daemonic Rituals

“No. There must be some sort of mistake. You’ve got the wrong house, seriously man.”

The man leant on the doorframe, the cuts and scratches all over his face clearly showed in the fading orange light of dusk.

“I’m sorry, but it seems you must die, even if it is by my own hand.”

“Man, you're insane!”

“I’m sorry.” The man said again, stepping into the hallway and pushing Drake over, then pinned him on the carpet by the neck. He then slowly took out a black crossbow with his free hand and raised it above his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” Drake screamed at the stranger, slamming his palms against the carpet desperately.

“You’re a Demon, Satan’s spawn, you must die.”

“Dude, you're wack!” Drake tried to push the stranger, but all his groping hands found was an iron hide instead of a chest.

The stranger began to chant an old prayer, which Drake did not know, one that was meant to purge a man of all evil.

“By the power of the almighty Lord, I wash my hands of these sins, in the hope that this disbeliever of the faith may –"

“Stop! Let go of me!” Drake gripped the hairy arm around his neck desperately, but the huge meaty arm would not budge. He felt around the carpet for anything he could use.

“- Repent his trespasses upon the faith, until the time comes that he must depart this world, and enter into the heavenly abode. May the damned be tamed, may the blind see the error in their ways, and correct it. This I say in the name of our Lord and Savior. Am-"

Drake’s hand suddenly came upon a pencil. He drove it into the shoulder of the arm that was pinning him to the carpet. The stranger cried out in pain, and withdrew grip from Drake’s neck. Drake jumped up and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

The stranger dropped the crossbow, and pulled the pencil from his shoulder blade, finding that a dribble of blood bubbled out from under his pitch-black coat. He grinded his teeth and picked up the crossbow again, holding it out in front of him, ready to damn this demon to hell.

“Where are you? Show yourself!” He yelled into the hallway, his coat twirling around him furiously.

Drake stopped, panting, in the kitchen upstairs. Hopefully the man would check the two downstairs bedrooms first. He didn’t. The clomp of the man’s steel capped boots thumping up the stairs made Drake’s skin crawl and his breathing increase dramatically.

“I’m going to get you! Don’t you worry!”

Drake grabbed a knife from the knife rack and braced himself. A crossbow bolt shot through the air, missing Drake’s ear by a whisker, smashing through the window and burying itself in the road outside. Drake hit the floor, drew his knees up to his chest, and held the knife quivering, pointed to the stairs.

Another crossbow bolt flew from the stairs, announcing the arrival of the stranger at the top of the stairs. The bolt hit the drawers, the end sticking out grotesquely. The stranger quickly ducked out of site, to presumably reload his crossbow.

The simple truth of the matter suddenly hit Drake like a boy purposefully riding his bike off a bridge. He was going to die. There was no two ways about it. This was when Drake lost his nerve. He bellowed out from behind the kitchen counter, turning to where the stranger was, crouching behind the dinner table, reloading his crossbow.

The crossbow clicked. The stranger raised it, but Drake was already upon him, yelling and screaming, in a flurry of stabbing and kicking. Blood began to froth at the stranger’s mouth, and he dropped his crossbow. Oblivious to this, Drake kept stabbing away at the man’s side, driving the knife in and out, his hand quickly becoming bloody.

The man’s hands stopped flailing, and his face turned a deathly pale. That was when Drake knew he had won. He turned and got up to leave, but then he had a better idea. His lips curled into an evil, bloodthirsty grin. Two demonic wings tore out from under his shirt.

His whole body swelled in size, ripping at the seams of his pants and shirt, then his nerves shrank from under his skin, and his blood vessels swelled up to the surface, turning his skin a bloated red. He turned back to the corpse, now bathed in its own blood.

Drake knelt down beside the stranger, and began to feast.