"Deacon Ash"

Chapter 13: The Deacon's Rules

"Let us begin," Deacon Ash said as he gazed at the kitchen ceiling.

Chaos ripped a sharp yelp that had momentarily deafened me. I had to shake my head to rid my ears of the awful ringing.

"First of all," Deacon Ash had started.

He lowered his gaze in my direction.

"I'm a demon within this deacon and this here Deacon Monroe Ash is about to expire."

A pivotal question had formulated in my mind as I processed Deacon Ash's words. It had traveled from my brain to my tongue and almost out of my mouth, but I forced my lips to hold the inquiry at bay. Somehow, I had a gut feeling that the demon manifested in the old man's decayed body had been reading my thoughts...again.

"I suppose you really want to know what all this has got to do with you," Deacon Ash said.

He had taken the words right out of my sealed mouth.

"Well, I'm going to tell you," Deacon Ash said. "But I think it'd be more fitting to do this over a drink."

"Yes...a drink," Chaos said.

The bottle of Jim Beam levitated under Deacon Ash's power and poured liquor in his glass until full. To his humor, I had leaned back in my chair shaken out of my wit when the bottle began to pour liquor into my glass. Once my glass was topped off, the bottle floated over to Deacon Ash and dropped lightly onto the table.

"Drink," Deacon Ash said, taking two gulps.

"Drink it all down," Chaos said.

I raised my glass and sipped with disagreeing lips.

"See, this here deacon loved to drink before he was a deacon and after. Just like you, he loved his liquor," Deacon Ash said. "I gave him a chance to escape from me I'll give you the same opportunity."

The demon within Deacon Ash's corpse looked down at his body, giving it a once over. He stroked his gouged face, sliding his fingers into the maggot infested trenches.

"I broke him and when he died, I took his pitiful body," Deacon Ash explained. "Been in this body a long time but it's decayed beyond repair. Working to destroy this town took a lot out of it. I enjoyed being in here, except for his manner of speaking. Can't stand the way he talks."

"You...killed the town, the people?" I asked.

"Most of them, as God is my witness...no pun intended," Deacon Ash said, behind a blood-curdling laugh.

He had laughed so hard that he had upchucked maggots and bile from his insides onto his dirty grey suit.

True to form, Chaos passed his tongue over the slop with a passion.

"The town was already a dying town. I just quickened the pace," Deacon Ash said.

"Don't take all the credit, master," Chaos said.

"Forgive me, my friend," Deacon Ash said. "When they tried to run, this great hunter by my side stopped them. Once I took their flesh, he devoured their worthless carcasses and souls."

I thought of my foster mother. Had the demon been the cause of her death?

"No, I didn't kill your poor old mother," Deacon Ash said. "I told you I tried to break her and couldn't."

"Stay out of my head," I whined.

My hands served as a shield as I covered my head to block the mind-probing.