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Victoria repeated many times the small text demanding of something. In some time a small sickly spirit appeared. It was dark with scared eyes in a shape of half bald dog. It looked asides. Victoria kept her eyes still closed but she stopped saying the spell. She was smiling. The witch knew better than the spirit that it was there, and it came for her calling. The spirit was silent, numbly looked down.
‘I need my body!’ Vic said straight.
‘There’s a demon inside…’
‘I know.’ Vic interrupted him.
‘He’s more powerful and his position is higher.’
‘I need my body!’ Victoria repeated. ‘Now. Arrange it!’
The spirit didn’t dare contradict the getting angry witch and just disappeared. Victoria opened her eyes and all her self-confidence was gone. But this time she clearly remembered saying the spell in a different language which she knew nothing of, appearing of the essence in the shape of a dog which she could see through the closed eyes and she remembered the fact that the creature hadn’t disputed with her but just disappeared to carry out her order, emitting fear.
Bright light. Warmth. It was her waited-for-long body. Victoria found herself in the mirror in the lift coming down. She touched the surface and very quickly understood that she was behind the mirror and the woman in the lift cabin was her body with the incubus inside.
‘Kharon,’ she whispered.
The demon turned and saw the lost soul behind the mirror.
‘Just a second, love…’
Warmer. Hot. Cosy and comfortable. It was her habitual body. Vic opened her eyes. Yes, it was her body definitely. The demon released it. Kharon stood near her. The girl looked at the watch – it was soon after 6 pm.
‘Jesus, Kharon…’ she was terrified. ‘You’ve been performing in my body the whole day! What’ve you done then?’
‘Nothing special, love. You wanted to take me along. I agreed to this risky venture.’
‘Risky venture?’ Vic got surprised.
‘You know how it’s difficult to be in a different body and not to eat out its energy?’
‘You’re gonna say you haven’t devoured not a single particle of my energy?’ Victoria looked suspiciously at the man and grinned, seeing his slyly eyes.
‘Just a single. Maybe a little bit more.’
‘I’d like you to get it by means of other way.’
‘What an audacious invitation! I’m accepting it with pleasure! But at first, we’re gonna visit your granny, right, love?’
‘How did you… Ah, yes, you’ve been in my body the whole day. By the way about it. I’ve got couple of questions!’ Vic frowned.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘I didn’t mean to surprise you. I,’ she started stuttering, ‘when I was… well… when you threw me out of my body.’
‘Threw you out?’ Kharon couldn’t help but smile.
‘Just wait a second, don’t interrupt!’ Vic squeaked.
‘Sure, Sunshine.’
‘In shorts, when I was there where I’m not supposed to be, between my world in yours, I did something.’
‘What?’ The man raised his brows. ‘How to understand you?’
‘I spoke an unknown language.’
‘Do you remember it?’ it was Kharon’s turn to frown.
‘Shouldn’t I?’
‘What else was there?’ the demon changed the subject.
‘I know for sure I called a spirit to help me to get rid of you… to throw you out of my body. And… I know, it sounds funny, but it’s true! The spirit came out! And it numbly went to charge my order. Don’t laugh at me, Kharon! I’m not crazy.’
‘I won’t,’ he said softly, ‘I won’t. So, you think you called for spirit to help you?’
‘Yes!’ Victoria was serious.
Kharon was serious too as he had never been before, but he tried to pretend to be ok. Of course, he was confused a bit with that Vic managed to keep her memories about her activities and in thoughts he was getting ready to answer the girl because pull of questions was going to happen.
‘It was a dream. Maybe an oblivion,’ the demon blurted out more understanding why Victoria had appeared in the mirror.
‘What a dream, Kharon?!’ the girl was shocked. ‘Do you really suppose me to be insane? Do you really think that I’m incapable of distinguishing reality and dream?
‘No, love. You too often put on the mask of a mentally deficient person. It doesn’t suit you. Stop it. The second, human child, I’d like you to show more respect for me. I remind you that you had deal with Lucifer and that’s why I’m here. I have no intensions to listen to your ungrounded claims. Actually, to file claims to a demon is a nonsense. I’m telling you that your state for that moment was just a dream. As far as I know people can call not only for spirits in unknown language in their dreams. I understand and accept your nervous state but, please, take the fact into account who you’re speaking with.’
Victoria felt fear which she had long since forgotten. For a long time Kharon hadn’t changed his intonation towards her, he had been always kind and polite as well as delicate and tolerant. Generally, he was like a gentleman. The girl had had time even to forget that he was a demon. Whatever had come over him during the dialog that the sound of his voice got covered with dryness and darkness, that his look got gloomy and his hands became cold. Vic didn’t understand.
‘Kharon, I…’ Vic took a step back, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t really mean to insult you…’
‘Insult?’ the demon smirked. ‘To insult a demon? Do you know, love, what I like about you most of all? No one can be angry with you for a long time. Even if he or she wants to, you’ll fix it!’
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl glanced down. ‘I do really believe that it wasn’t dream! How can it be explained then?’
‘Impossible!’ Kharon grabbed the girl. ‘I’ll prove that we’re speaking about oblivion!’
‘How?’
‘Confirm these: the spirit, help, language? Is that right?’
‘Yes, that is.’
‘You remember it as you remember yourself all your life?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ok then. Call the spirit now.’ Kharon folded his arms. ‘Come on, love, say the spell and make it come out. Now.’
Victoria was silent. Suddenly she became ashamed and awkward feeling caught her. If Kharon was right then how stupid and awkwardly she would look like after she said the spell, waiting for someone to appear.
The girl shook her head. Kharon started slowly calming down as he understood that he sounded more convincing than her.
‘Why do you refuse? It’s the best way to check if it was a dream. Say the spell.’ The demon’s voice insisted.
‘Spiritus inferior,’ Victoria whispered.
‘Keep on’ the demon said.
‘Loco, protinus.’ Vic looked at his amber eyes. ‘Spiritus inferior, loco, momentaneus. Spiritus inferior fatis huc te poscentibus affers.’
‘Where’s the spirit?’ Kharon asked the girl who wasn’t so confident.
‘I… I don’t know.’ Vic looked asides seeking for the creature.
‘Doesn’t it prove that you were in oblivion?’ the demon finally smiled, holding the girl tighter.
None of them noticed the old dog behind them.
With a heavy heart Victoria came into the ward. It was silent. The smell of medicine. The support with the dropping-bottle. A woman lay with closed eyes, the mouth was half-opened. There was no move.
Vic sat on the edge of the bed. The grandma hardly could move her fingers. One leg was totally paralyzed, the second moved somehow. The granny was silent: she couldn’t speak anymore. A half of her face stopped obeying to the brain orders.
Kharon stayed in the doorframe. He was idly interested in looking at what would happen. Victoria’s confusion of feelings and experiences were transferred to him like through some wires. It was just a flurry, the heavy, surprising one of emotions.
Vic said nothing but kept on siting. She looked at the paralyzed old woman and didn’t understand why it had happened to her. She was thinking over it for a long time but didn’t find any answer. It often happened what happened, no one was insured, no one had delays. It just happened for some reasons and unexpectedly. No one was ready to be ill.
The demon was still in the door looking up at the girl and chewed gum. He had no thoughts. He didn’t know and face such grief. He wasn’t neither a sympathizer nor pitiful. Actually, he didn’t care. Despite his power of passion and lust, love mortification he was thick skin.
Victoria touched her granny’s hand and got pierced like by lightning. The girl felt the same feelings and emotions she had had when something had paralyzed her after she had left the bookshop… Then she realized and drew the parallel between what happened and her own feelings. Of course! She might have known it!
‘Kharon!’ the girl ran up to him and took him by the hand. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Is that all? We’re leaving?’ the demon understood nothing, following the girl with fast steps.
‘I’ve got it!’
‘What?’ he shouted after her. ‘What’ve you got? I wanna get it too! Vic!’
She ran to the coatroom. Vic quickly put on seeing no one around.
‘Hey, hey,’ Kharon had caught the girl before she left. ‘Wait. Stop. I’ve got 2 questions. The first one is where you’re running. The second: what did you get?’
‘I felt the thing happening to my granny! Remember? When we were at the bookshop? Then my mum called. Do you remember? I felt the same what my granny felt! But I didn’t understand then…’
‘What idiotic ideas come into your head, Victoria! Why don’t you believe in coincidence?’
‘Kharon!’ Vic frowned. ‘Why are you so sceptical? You’re the brightest representative of what doesn’t exist for people! How can you know anything about scepticism definition?’
‘It’s not scepticism, love, it’s realism. How did you get it and what made you think like this?’
‘When I touched her hand, I understood it. Everything I was getting through after the bookshop, came back to my mind in the shape of recollections.’
Kharon kept cool-headed apparently. But inside he didn’t know what to do. Vic was obviously suspicious of her secret gift and the task for the demon was to remove all her suspicions.
‘Come with me, I’ll show you something that does exist really.’
‘Where?’
‘Give me your hand.’
‘Where’re we going, Kharon?’
‘You told me once that you trust me… Give me your hand!’ Kharon insisted, embracing her tightly. ‘Come closer. You do know why you have to do it, love?’ the man smiled. ‘Close your eyes.’
The girl was overwhelmed with prelibation and looking for. In his mind Kharon was torn between worlds and illusions, being sure that he would be capable of distracting Vic from her thoughts. And he found that certain place.
‘You can open your eyes.’ He said quiet.
Victoria was in no hurry to obey the man’s asking. She listened to the silence. It was terrible and horrible. That was the silence which followed Lucifer’s appearance. Having been afraid of wicked recollections Vic opened her eyes.
There was no one around but Kharon. It was an unusual place: there were big trees with green leaves, curled into a conical shape. The leaves weren’t just green but superdeep and pulsing. Her eyes liked watching it and very quickly got tired of the colour. The foliage stormed full of life and inspiration. But everything around was paralyzed. There was no wind. The air was heavy, massive but you could get a lungful of fresh air. The sky was coloured with bright red with the tinctures and stripes of yellow, transferring into orange and lilac-velvet lines. It was a sunset as silent as everything was around. There was not a single bird in the sky, no one sang beautiful songs. The ears were hurt absorbing that silence.
Grass was under her feet. Her feet were bared. The grass was soft, green and ideally even, not a grass-blade out of place. Nature couldn’t create such perfection. It was impossible. Everything was too perfect. But it was pleasant to walk over the grass. There was just grass around. It was warm. You could say it was good, but you needed some wind blowing.
Kharon was nearby, cast down his head. He was waiting for something. Most likely for reaction. He wanted to understand what Victoria felt at that unusual place. But she kept silence and looked around.
There was a house behind her. It was grey with brick tincture. Three-storeyed. It was a big, log house… with a roof made of like skin. The huge columns on the porch had carved figures of cernuous creatures. Everything was made of wood. It was unusual. Victoria had never seen anything like that before. Log construction was softly sharpened, covered with lacquer or something like that, but there were no circle lines on it instead they were long and expressional. In whole the house was repulsive. Victoria didn’t want to come in.
Vic turned to Kharon again. At least the grasshoppers had to chirp! But no, it was silence. The girl was wheeled round to find any sounds with no comprehension of herself and her own attitude towards surroundings.
She got the feeling that she was in an incubator… or in an aquarium where artificial life bloomed where life seemed to be on the palm but indeed there was no any.
‘Where’re we?’ Vic asked, getting surprised with her own voice sound.
There was no echo, no habitual sound in her head. Even her own voice was unfamiliar. Every uncomprehensive thing made Vic feel more fear.
There was a part of a planet on the horizon. Even with no being educated as an astronomer, Victoria realized that wasn’t the Moon. It was a huge and too close located luminary. It was so unbelievable like in those films about space or in that Photo-shop-made pictures of universe type.
Horrible.
Looking at the big ball on the horizon her heart sank. The planet seemed to be rushing straight to the place which everyone used to call home. One minute or two and then apocalyptic collision was going to happen, the blast wave of which would pull all to quantum particles.
Formidable beauty that was it when Victoria realized not new oxymoron. The eyes want to look, they were interested but the body stopped breathing because of fear.
‘This is my home, Victoria,’ Kharon looked at her.
‘Your home?’ her voice sounded so quiet that you could hardly hear it, but the high notes tried to get out anyway. ‘Am I in hell?’
