Forward from the author -
This is a serialized story full of plot and character development. If you haven't been reading since the beginning, please go back and do so to get the full experience.
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Benson was forced to cover his ears against the auditory assault of Elena's catatonic wailing. What had started as a normal scream had become something else, beyond mere fear or trauma. So loud and piercing, it could probably shatter glass. And it seemed ceaseless. How did she even have the lung capacity?
"Elena. Elena! Stop! It's me, Benson! You're safe! Nothing here is going to hurt you!" He rushed to her side, fighting through the cacophonic blitzkrieg. But as he neared, her body spasmed and contorted, and limbs flailed. A whirling fist caught him across the jaw and he reeled in shock, the blow surprisingly fierce. Elena seemed entirely unaware of her actions, her eyes vacantly locked into place, with tears streaming endlessly.
"Caeli! Any ideas? I don't think I can get close without hurting her. That is, if she doesn't beat me up first." He spoke loudly, over the incessant shrieking. He rubbed at his jaw.
Seriously, ow! Was she
always
that strong?
The episode reminded him of something along the lines of an epileptic seizure. He worried that she could grow more erratic, perhaps biting her tongue in the process.
There was a pained grunt from behind him, muffled against the wall. He turned his head to see Caeli leaning against the wall, clutching her head in agony. "Ben... make it... stop! It...hurts!" She doubled over and crumpled to the ground, hands still pressed to her temples.
Suddenly, violently, Caeli's horns burst from her head. Not the smooth, between-blinks transition she usually employed, but a slow, horrible transformation as jagged shards pierced the skin above her ears and lanced upwards. Instead of their usual dark, crystalline obsidian color, they glowed a full angry pink color at their centers, and blazingly white at their edges. Her hands had been pressed against them as they sprang forth, and where she had grabbed at them, the flesh scorched and sizzled.
The smooth skin on her back and at the base of her spine rippled and distended, and as with her horns, her wings and tail ripped outwards from her flesh in a bloody shower, spraying gruesome trails behind her, along the floor and against the wall.
She cried a horrible, warbling cry, the intense pain almost too much for her to bear. She bit her lip to stifle her voice, her own fangs piercing her skin and drawing blood. Her demonic constitution was the only thing that kept her conscious, but in this moment, it only seemed to prolong the torment.
"Oh god, Caeli!" Benson raced over to her, and thinking quickly, he cranked the nearby showerhead on full blast, dousing the anguished woman in cold water. It hissed angrily as it contacted her blazing horns, instantly turning to vapor. Under that cooling stream, though, the incandescent spikes dimmed and slowly returned to their normal black color, with the only pink showing at their luminescent tips. The water washed the blood away from the torn flesh at her back, and he watched in astonishment as the wounds began to knit themselves back up. The singed, black marks on her palms flaked away and already there was pale new skin to take their place.
Even though her body seemed to have repaired itself, she trembled unresponsively, her breathing coming in gasping, body-wracking shudders, cowed by the pain and the fear. She curled into a ball and buried her head in her arms, shielding herself in the only way she could, her wings then draping and shrouding her petite form like a turtle shell.
Benson dropped to her side, comfortingly laying his arms over top her quivering, shuddering body. "Oh my god! Are you alright? Speak to me!"
There came a horrible retching sound from within her wing-encased tomb. "I'll be... fine. Just... stop that... screaming," her voice came, weakly.
She didn't look fine, but there was no chance for her to recover without dealing with the source of her pain. He looked back towards Elena's eerily shrieking form, her head now cocked harshly, unnaturally in their direction. Her body hadn't moved from its spot. Her eyes still stared vacantly, but somehow, her streaming tears seemed more sorrowful, than pained. Just a mere flash of emotion, and finally a slight reprieve in the bloodcurdling sound. Only for a split second, though, before the discordant banshee's lament began anew, even more shrill and intense. Was Elena still conscious, through all of this?
Benson tried to approach her again, but it was difficult. The sound seemed forged of the intent to split his skull open, and it was all he could do to press his hands against his ears to hold his brain inside his skull. He only made it a few juddering steps forward, before being forced onto his knees.
As he fell to the ground, the pain seemed to subside, the magnitude of the sound lessening.
That's it, she's blown out my ears. I'm going deaf
. But as he forced himself to crawl along the ground, the intense pressure indeed seem to dissipate further. Elena's focus never wavered, still turned in Caeli's direction. Was she being targeted?
That single-minded focus reminded him of the
thing
that he had fought in the office shower room, the thing that had enveloped Crenshaw's body. The thing that had brought Elena here in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, whatever it was that had a hold of Elena could be defeated in the same way.
Benson approached around her side now, and sure enough, the focused burst of sound seemed directed solely at the poor demoness' withering form.
Sorry Caeli. Please hold out for just a little while longer
. Slowly, steadily he zeroed in on Elena. While she had tunnel-visioned now, there was no telling what would happen if he took the full brunt of her assault. He certainly didn't have the regenerative abilities of a demon to hold himself together, and the glancing blow to the jaw was already a warning not to take a direct physical hit.
Unlike the trial-and-error approach he had taken with Crenshaw's possessor, it seemed he had only one shot at this. Worse yet, he didn't want to risk hurting Elena, so if this attempt failed, he had no fallback plan. It was all or nothing.
Steady.
Steady
. He crept in a wide arc around the stationary banshee, until he was behind her. Once he was in her blind spot, he rushed in as fast as his feet could carry him, slick as they were on the tiled floor with his wet shoes. That stumbling attempt to sprint forward made the next moment seem to move in agonizing slow-motion. Especially at the last minute, when Elena's neck snapped around, finally attempting to aim in his direction. In that split second, Benson's eyes screwed shut, bracing for the worst.
It never came. He opened his eyes, realizing that he had been successful at putting Elena in a headlock. She tried with all her might to turn towards him, but he was fully anchored to her now. Her arms flailed, but could not find a proper angle and whiffed harmlessly around him. With what took a considerable amount of force, he managed to pressure her jaw shut, leaving her to make only an uncomfortable, strained, gurgling noise. Instead of emptiness, though, her eyes betrayed a pleading expression.
With the threat temporarily neutralized, there was only one thing left to do, to expel the malevolent force that occupied her body. And if the process was the same as last time, then they happened to be in just the right place to do so.
Benson pulled Elena's body off the bench, towards the wall. At least, that's what he aimed to do. But her body wouldn't move. It was anchored fast to the spot, He wrenched at her body with all his might, but the only result was in the creaking of the wooden bench beneath, that he had stepped up onto, one of the wooden slats instead beginning to groan and splinter under that strain.
