Her Favorite Demon

by Bill Prindle

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts: 1, 2, 3, 4

conclusion

Two days later, Edith received a phone call from The Benson School, informing her that Lili and the other finalist Tim Perkins were invited to make five-minute presentations to the board of trustees on why they should receive the scholarship. With the former winner no longer eligible and the school year starting soon, the trustees needed to make a final decision on the scholarship without delay.

Lili wrote her speech and sought advice from Helen Littlefield on how to best present it. Helen made a few suggestions but found Lili’s words and demeanor to be so appealing and persuasive that she advised Lili to just be herself and everything would be fine. But the night before her presentation, Lili lay on her bed and thought about what Helen had said.

“Just be yourself,” Lili said aloud and wondered who that might be. Like her mother? Or her father? She looked at the folded note on her bedside table. From the moment Barbatos had handed it to her, she knew there was something wrong with it. “I worked so hard to be the best student, but it wasn’t enough. All that work — for nothing. But now, if I use the note, I won’t have won it on my own. Or maybe the note is just setting things right.”

The vocabulary word “quandary” came to mind.

She knew what Séraphine would do. In Adieu à l’amour, to protect Rémy from the evil gang pursuing her, she lied to him, telling him she didn’t love him and never wanted to see him again. It was a terrible wrong, but it had saved Rémy’s life. Séraphine had stoically accepted the loss of her best friend as the price of following her destiny to defeat the evildoers.

* * *

Lili’s presentation was first. Headmaster Worley opened the door to his office and motioned her in. When he held out his hand, she shook it, and as she slipped him the note, she smiled and looked him in the eye. It was not a friendly smile.

Her presentation was flawless. She made eye good contact with each trustee, as Helen had suggested. She was poised and articulate. With her auburn hair falling in soft curls over her shoulders, her modest dress, her blue eyes alive with youth and enthusiasm, and her hands gesturing for emphasis at appropriate moments, she saw the adults nodding in agreement from time to time and smiling as well. When she finished, she noticed Worley opening the note, reading it, and quickly refolding. His face turned an alarming shade of red and then took on a pallor as if he’d eaten a bad clam.

Twenty minutes later after Tim’s presentation and the trustees’ deliberations, the chairman of the trustees entered anteroom where Lili, Edith, and Tim Perkins and his parents were waiting. When he thanked the Perkinses for applying and wished them well, Lili knew she had won.

“You have a real friend in Floyd Worley,” the chairman to Lili. “He championed your candidacy and we all agreed.”

The other two board members joined him to congratulate Lili. Headmaster Worley avoided her, mumbled something to Aunt Edith, and left quickly. Lili was surprised by the odd thrill of having some kind of power over him, as though she had bent him to her will. She found the sensation curiously pleasurable.

* * *

That night Lili went out to the barn to summon Barbatos a final time. He appeared all in black, including a knee-length, high-collared, vaguely Victorian silken coat, decorated with black embroidery. His usual chipper attitude was absent.

“You look like a melancholy and ominous vampire,” she said, pleased that she’d been able to work two vocabulary words into her conversation.

“I suppose I do,” he said. “It suits my mood. But here I am, and it’s the seventh day. Any last requests?”

“Yes. Please tell me what was on that note.”

“It’s a phrase Miss Poitrine calls out occasionally when she’s with Worley: Donne-moi une fessée, si tu le veux bien. Please don’t ask me to translate.”

“Is it gross?” Lili asked.

“You mean naughty? In the greater scheme of things,” Barbatos said, “not really.”

“And just that note changed everything?”

“Not just the note,” he said. “Not by half.” Barbatos gave Lili a knowing look, and she understood but still found it hard to believe that she’d summoned such a force. And yet, apparently she had.

“That note is what they call blackmail, isn’t it?”

“Blackmail is such an ugly word,” he said. “You offered Worley a choice — an incentive to change his mind about your candidacy.”

“Well, something worked, but you yourself said I was the most deserving candidate, so everything is back the way it should have been in the first place.” She didn’t feel entirely convinced of her own words.

Lili continued: “What you said about vires intus, I think I get it now. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but when I use it, it feels like the real me. Tell me if that’s bad.”

“There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. So says The Bard,” he said.

“Tell me the truth.”

“Which truth? I think your eyes are open. You’ve learned how the world works. I think you’ll never be innocent, victimized little Lili again, and that’s the truth. How can that not be better?”

She thought for a moment. “You’re a demon. You would think that.”

“Touché,” he said with a sigh.

“Why are you acting so melancholy?” she asked.

“It happens sometimes at the end of an assignment,” he said. “Residual sense of decency, I suppose. Even demons were angels once.”

“Here’s what I want,” she said eagerly. “I want to learn more. Tell me where to start.”

So Barbatos did. He revealed the names of obscure and arcane texts and how to access the knowledge therein, knowledge that would increase her powers and abilities over time. Again he reminded her that what was in her heart was as important as the knowledge itself.

“One more thing,” she said. “Please tell me how I turn off that spell I put on Lon.”

“Easy. Cut out a paper heart, write his name on it, focus your will on the desired outcome, and set it on fire.”

“So what am I now?” She laughed. “A witch?”

“No,” he said, “not yet anyway.”

She looked at him, trying to think of something more to say. “Barbatos,” she said finally, “thank you for helping me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said.

He saluted her with a theatrical bow, and she extinguished the candle,

* * *

Lili got her knapsack and walked through the chilly late summer night to the library, trying to feel how she may have changed and not sure if she felt different at all. When the moon slipped out from behind the clouds, her body cast a lengthening, distorted shadow that looked as though it were a specter following her.

Once settled in her aerie, she logged onto the chat rooms to see if anyone had responded to the questions she’d posted about Augustine Naquin’s book of spells, Incantatorum Vires Intus. On her third try, there it was; it was a reply from Inez in New Orleans.

Dear Lilith,

I am not familiar with the book you mention, but my great-great grandmother Philomène Gaudet inherited similar books, transcribed from the kind of grimoires you describe. In her time, she was a well-known practitioner down here in New Orleans. I have the journal she kept of her experiences as a practitioner of magic. Before she died, she destroyed all her magic books.

I will tell you right now that if you still have this diary, beware! The spells and magic in it are dangerous and powerful! They invoke dark forces! Do not try to perform any of them. I have translated Philomène’s last journal entry for you. It tells you all you need to know.

“I, Philomène Gaudet, sought dark knowledge that should only be known but to God. The spells and curses I performed with that knowledge have put my mortal soul in peril. I was wicked and prideful. I beg His forgiveness for what I have done. Evil takes a pleasing form and seduces with its promises. Beware and take heed. Do not follow my path, for to do so will damn you for all eternity.”

Lilith, my advice to you is to burn those pages before any harm comes to you. Write to me if you need help. — Inez

Lili turned off the computer and took the long way home. The moonlit streets seemed transformed into something unfamiliar and unimportant, like a stage set for a children’s play. It was after midnight, the houses dark, the trees rustling from a light breeze. She felt as though she were a wandering spirit whose destiny lay far beyond the silent, silvery streets.

When she returned home, she combed her hair in front of the mirror and admired the way its tawny hues contrasted with her blue eyes.

“Well,” she said with a laugh, “I don’t feel damned.”

* * *

Thirteen years later, on a drizzly Paris autumn night, a slender, chic woman sat down at an outside table under the awning of the Bistro Faustien. There were no other patrons outside. The waiter asked if she would rather sit inside on such an inclement night. She assured him she preferred to sit outside and asked for two glasses of Courvoisier L’Esprit cognac. He bustled off and came back with the drinks.

When she was certain no one was watching, she took out a piece of chalk such as children use to mark off games on sidewalks and drew a large triangle enclosing the chair across from her. She took the small candle from the table, put it on the apex of the triangle, and, at midnight, spoke some words in Latin.

Barbatos appeared, dressed as a 1920’s boulevardier, an ivory cigarette holder clamped jauntily between his teeth.

“Ah ma minette, comme tu es belle !” he exclaimed. “We meet again as foretold.” He regarded the name of the bistro. “Nice touch!” He took his snifter and inhaled. “You ordered the Esprit? Are you sure you can afford it?”

She said she could.

“Of course you can. How extraordinarily well you have done, Lilith! A savvy and ruthless rising star in international finance who is said to have a preternatural gift for making just the right calls at just the right time. Many lovers, strategically chosen, but no attachments. An apartment here in the seventh arrondissement next to the Quai d’Orsay, a townhouse on 57th Street, and... do you still have the place in Tokyo?”

She shook her head. “Hong Kong.”

“Whatever. Such a busy, busy bee you are.” He savored a sip of cognac. “You have enriched the already criminally rich, gutted weak companies, thrown thousands out of work, helped elect pliable and unscrupulous candidates, and left a string of glittering deals and smoldering wrecks behind you. You are one of my finest acolytes. Félicitations !”

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said.

“And what, pray tell, have you been thinking?”

“Tell me if you planted that diary in the wall.”

“I did. It’s quite real, though. When did you figure that out?”

“A few years ago, I went into a bookstore to buy a Séraphine Flambeau novel for a friend’s niece. The bookseller had never heard of the novels or the author. There is no record anywhere of those books or their author LCR. The diary in the wall was easy to figure out after that. And having Kat get the scholarship... You did it all.”

He gave the classic Gallic shrug. “Guilty as charged. But look at the results.”

“You seduced a desperate fourteen-year old.”

“You were ready to be seduced! And given your parents, you were never just any fourteen-year old.”

“How far back did it all go? To my mother running off with my father? Tell me if your plan was always about me.”

“Your father certainly had our attention. He’d been one of our rising stars but was a bit too greedy and heedless. As his child, you aroused our curiosity. You weren’t what we expected, not at first.”

“Too virtuous? Too innocent?”

“Virtuous, innocent; definitely. But smart and ambitious, too. And angry. Aggrieved. You had an edge, honed to razor sharpness by your abrasive aunt. She brought out a certain vengefulness in you as well. We knew you could be quite singular, as results have proven.”

“Results based on a false premise.”

He didn’t reply but instead sipped his drink. “And yet, here we sit. Nothing false about this. Much nicer than your barn in dear old Dark Haven, n’est-ce pas ?”

“’Evil takes a pleasing form and seduces with its promises,’” she said, swirling the brandy around the glass. “I was warned.”

“Yes, you were, every step of the way. But look, it’s too late for remorse. There have been too many benefits. You deserve all of it; nothing was handed to you. You’re smart, bewitching, resourceful, powerful—”

“And well on my way to damnation,” she said.

“Lilith, can’t we enjoy our reunion and drink a toast to your life, a life that would be the envy of Séraphine Flambeau, if she existed.” He chuckled.

“I’ll join you in a toast to my former life.”

He set the drink down. “And just what does that mean? Are you going to become a nun? Or jump into the Seine?”

“No, nothing like that. I enjoy the game too much, but I want to play a different game now. One with different results.”

“What are you going to do — raise organic turnips? Rehire all the people you threw out of work? Turn all the AR-15’s into licorice whips?”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Lilith, you’re one of us now. We’re not done with you.”

“Barbie, dear, don’t underestimate me. I have taught myself well and as you know, vires intus is a two-edged sword, for good or ill.”

She left money on the table and stood up. He removed his cigarette from its holder and crushed it out on the pavement.

“You are making the biggest mistake of your life, Lilith. You will be surprised at just how arduous — and perilous — redemption can be. It often ends badly for the redeemed.”

Lifting her glass, she said, “I’ll take my chances. As Séraphine used to say, it’s time to do something dangerous. The biggest mistake of my life was summoning you, but I don’t blame Lili or you. Of all the demons I’ve summoned, you were by far my favorite and certainly the best dressed. You were just doing your job, so here’s a toast and no hard feelings. Adieu !”

She drank off her cognac and walked away. Barbatos lit another cigarette and watched as she vanished into the shadows and mist.

“No, it’s not adieu, chère Lili,” he said, “but only à bientôt.”