Rachel wasn’t kidding about the blanket fort. “There’s a chance it could confuse the demon. And it gives Lily a place to hide so she doesn’t have to see it. Especially if it manifests in its true form.”
“What’s its true form?” Tobie asked, nervous.
I showed her an image from Rachel’s laptop. Shedomar had a head like a goat, a slender body with backward-bending legs and hooves for feet, and a tail. Fortunately it had no genitalia that I could see.
Tobie curled her upper lip. “Yeah, I don’t want her seeing that. I don’t want me seeing it. Maybe I’ll stay inside the tent.”
Rachel wasn’t kidding about the pizza either. It came around 6:30, and although none of us had much of an appetite, we sat down and ate most of it in silence. Lily kept the doll in her lap.
I thought of a question I should have asked a lot earlier. “Where did the doll come from?”
Rachel thought for a minute. “Dad. He gave it to me. I was around Lily’s age.” She looked at Tobie.
Her mother shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I don’t even remember it. Maybe he got it from—” She bit the rest of her sentence off. “Never mind. It’s been a long time.”
I don’t know much about Rachel’s father. He’d left her mother after multiple affairs, and didn’t have much contact with them after that. He’d died from liver failure—alcoholism—shortly after Rachel graduated from college.
“I think—I think he said he found it at a shop somewhere. No, it was—I remember, it was on Maxwell Street, back when people used to set up and sell stuff. He liked to hang out there.” She took a sip of beer. “An old woman made him buy it, he said.”
“An old woman?” Tobie shorted. “More like a young—well, anyway.” She glanced at Lily. “Why do you like it so much? You only ever saw her today for the first time.”
“I don’t know.” Lily squirmed. “She talks to me.”
“What does she say?” I asked.
She looked down at the floor, uncomfortable. “That she’s going to take care of me. No matter what happens. And I should never let anyone take her away.”
Then she scooted her chair back. “Can I go sit in the fort now?”
Tobie nodded. Mike took her half-eaten slice of pizza as she left for the living room.
“Maybe it’s me,” Rachel said. “All this started when I got here.”
“No, it was before that,” Tobie said. “Before you even called me.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
“And—” Tobie shifted on her feet. “I do appreciate you being here. Trying to help.”
Rachel nodded. “Thanks. I just wish—"
Then Lily screamed from the living room.
We ran. The black cloud was back, swirling like a cyclone. Cold air blew at the blanket fort, pushing pillows and chilling the air around us.
Mike dived into the fort, and Lily stopped screaming. The droning noise was back, a low growl that rose in fury as the cloud whirled faster and faster like an out-of-control merry-go-round.
Tobie started toward the fort with Mike, then stopped. For a moment she seemed frozen, as if she was fighting the urge to turn and flee. Completely understandable—I was feeling it too. But instead she turned her face, then took two steps and planted her feet on the carpet next to Rachel, breathing hard, the muscles in her face tense as looked at her daughter. She put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, biting her lip and shivering in the chilly air.
Rachel blinked, as if she was surprised to find her mother standing with her. Then she pointed to me, and I nodded. We pulled out our phones.
Rachel had found an incantation that had apparently been used against Shedomar in ancient times. Unfortunately, it was in an ancient form of Arabic, and we didn’t trust Google Translate to figure out the correct English version. So we were going to try reciting it in the original. We’d practiced it during the afternoon.
She nodded, and I nodded back. Then we started reading.
The first part we read in unison. Roughly translated, it called on the gods to hear us as we begged them to send the demon Shedomar back to the pit. The only word I was sure I was pronouncing right was “Shedomar.” It came up three times at the end.
As we chanted, the cloud rose up and down, expanding and then pulling back as the air grew colder around us.
Rachel paused, and it was my turn to read solo. I got through it as best I could, hoping a mistake wouldn’t backfire on us and making Shedomar even more powerful and alarming.
I finished my part, and the cloud seemed to settle down a little in the brief silence. Then Rachel started, her voice loud and strong.
Before she got five words out, the cloud suddenly lunged at her, like a wave bursting on a shore. Tobie screamed. Rachel staggered and kept chanting, but the dark cloud enveloped her, whirling fiercely as her voice broke. She staggered, off balance, her legs wobbling.
I stepped toward Rachel, but Tobie already had her arms around her, holding her up as the whirlwind engulfed her. I couldn’t hear her voice, so I started reading again, feeling helpless and awkward as Tobie tried to hold her upright. I saw Rachel’s phone drop to the carpet, and then both women fell, and the cloud swooped over them.
I was about to drop my phone and plunge into the darkness when Lily ran past my legs, shouting. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she had the doll in her hands, and she darted past me and then stumbled into the cloud.
“Rachel! Rachel!” Lily shouted, her small feet shaking on the carpet. “Take it! Take it!”
Mike pushed me aside and grabbed at Lily’s feet. Cursing, I dodged around him to look for Rachel somewhere in the billowing blackness. I knew what he was doing, but I was still angry. My own nightmares are always about losing Rachel.
For a moment all of us were jostling and pushing against each other, trying to grab whoever we loved as the cloud pulsed and puffed like a balloon about to explode. I felt a foot—Rachel? Tobie? Mike kicked my leg, pulling on Lily. I heard Tobie grunt, and Rachel’s voice murmured something in the ancient language we’d been reading, as if she’d managed to snatch up her phone and start chanting again. Mike called for Lily.
Then a roar rose above all of our shouting. Low and rumbling, like a grizzly bear angry at being caught in a trap. Through the cloud I saw Rachel clutching the doll under one arm, her lips moving as she kept trying to read from her phone.
Tobie had her hands on Rachel’s shoulders, shouting into her ear. Lily tucked her head down and let her father drag her away, crying.
The dark cloud rose, but it seemed to thin out. I could see Rachel more clearly. Her eyes were closed but her lips were still moving, as if she was reciting from memory. I staggered toward her. Tobie was pulling her up, coughing and gasping.
The cloud shivered and shifted, black fading to gray, its roar dying down. In another moment it was white, like an ice storm swirling in the air.
Mike picked Lily up and squeezed her to his chest as she tried to stop crying. Tobie looked up at me. “Is it safe?”
The icy white form was spinning, widening across the room like a ring of pale metal, and then it suddenly tightened around Rachel’s chest. An invisible wind pushed Tobie away as Rachel gasped, the doll slipping from under her arm.
Then the ring was gone, like sparkling dust, and Rachel lay on the carpet, breathing shallowly. I knelt next to her. “Rachel, you all right? Rach? It’s gone, I think—”
Rachel’s eyes popped open. They were white. No pupils or iris. White as arctic ice.
Tobie leaned over my shoulder as I reached for her arm. “Rach?”
“Shedomar.” Her voice was low, hoarse, ragged. “Shedomar.”
Oh hell.
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