Page 76 of Devil Inside

She’s got inkblot eyes. A Rorschach test in each socket.

“I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to open up to anyone,” she says. “To be myself.”

“Is that hard for you? Opening up?”

“When you’re in someone else’s body, it is... I’m always so hampered by my host.”

“Can you stay? Here? With me?”

“You want us to?” She runs her fingernail across this thin rivulet of scar tissue along my collarbone. A pale creek of crooked skin. “Stay? You won’t be able to get rid of me...”

I pull her in closer, tighter. “Will I see you again? How can I find you?”

“All you have to do is call.”

“You’ve got a phone number? I justreach out and touch someone?”

“Summon us,” she whispers into my ear.

I’m a lighthouse. I’ll guideyouhome.

We lay in bed, our bodies pressed against each other. The city seeps through the window, the sound of traffic, Richmond waking, letting us know that the world still exists.

Balance has been brought back into existence. Heaven and hell are all in order.

“What is that?” she asks.

“What’s what?”

“That song you’re humming?”

“Am I?” I didn’t even realize I was doing it... I don’t even know what song it is. I press my finger against my temple. “The harmony is here. Now it’s stuck. I can’t get it out.”

That’s what possession must feel like. Have you ever gotten a song caught in your mind, but you don’t remember what it is? It’s there, rightthere, at the tip of your tongue... but you can’t find it. You keep humming, the faintest hint of a melody drifting across your tongue, but the words aren’t there. That isn’t a song. That’s her.

Lilith. She’s in my head.

“Hold on.” I sit upright in bed, dragging the sheets with me. “I want to try something.”

i put a spell on you

Lilith

“I want to try something.” Jordan springs out of bed, grabbing our wrist and tugging.

No possessing without permission.His words.Stay out of my body.Does he know we were inside? Even for just a little bit? We didn’t admit to it. Now it’s too late...

What if he finds out?

Are we afraid? Of...what, exactly? Getting caught? When have we ever been afraid of that? This isn’t like us. Not like us at all. Just who are we turning into?

The morning light outside the window strikes our eyes and we wince. It’s still early. We want to stay in bed. Feel the weight of this body pinning us in place. The burden of gravity. The sense of flesh holding us down next to him. Why does he have to drag us away?

“Where are we going?”

“Follow me.” He lures us into his living room. A spartan affair. Music, mostly. There is a turntable perched upon a pair of cinder blocks. Several milk crates surround it, each brimming with brittle vinyl. Records with scuffed corners and faded covers.

“That night at the Flood Zone,” he says, “it was almost like I could see the sound in you.” He sits us down on the bare wood floor, then positions himself before us. He drags a speaker across the floor. The cable stretches, all slack gone. He brings it between us.