"Deacon Ash"

Chapter 20: Windows to the Soul

I was glued to my chair, perusing the note over and over. Guilt was no longer the operative sentiment for having believed that my foster mother was out of her mind. Imbecilic was the more appropriate term. All these years, I thought she was insane and I had felt sympathetic toward her. I should have loved her in the exact same fashion that she had loved me. Had I done so, my heart might not have been so hardened against her passion to protect me. I may have steered clear of the demon, free from this prison within Victorian walls.

My tear ducts that had long been dormant were on the verge of a great eruption. The overwhelming need to drink subdued them, disallowing a hint of a tear to fall down my cheek. I folded the note up, returned it to the envelope and set it on the table.

A chill draped itself upon me as I reached for the bottle of liquor that Deacon Ash had left me. The sensation had started at the center of my crown, worked its way down my sullen face, my neck, my torso, all the way down to my feet until my toes curled from the cold. The winds blew its hollow tune. It seemed as if the house would finally topple under its fury. As I had expected, the lights flickered, confirming my familiarity with the protocol of my ensuing doom.

My already impaired breathing had become shallower and irregular under the guise of fear. A dizzy spell had me reeling as I fought to regulate my breathing. My heart's percussion beat an abnormal rhythm. I wanted to pass out, to hide from it all.

"Breathe...breathe," I had coached myself.

I regained control of my air intake but the cold fright remained.

My ears picked up on the approach of Chaos's fire paws. His arrival had come to a sudden stop on the other side of the front door.

Sweat beaded on my forehead. The hum of the wind was intertwined with the beating of my heart and ragged breathing.

A thin billow of jet black smoke sailed under the door. Chaos had made his ritualistic appearance in the same fashion as the first night.

"Good evening, Seth," he said. "It's so good to see you...so good to smell you...so good to soon tear your soul apart...so very soon."

Somewhere from within my subconscious, I heard my own voice giving me critical advice. It said take hold of the holy water. Agreeing with the recommendation, I followed through. It had not clicked that my eyes hadn't left the almost formed hellhound until I blindly redirected my hand from the Jim Beam to the bottle of holy water, tipping it over. My reflexes slowed, I had turned in time enough to see it roll off of the table and onto the floor. I hit the hardwood and crawled under the table for it, catching sight of Chaos from my peripheral as he locked on to my location.

I heard the heavy paws bounding for me. The bottle was in my hand with the top twisted off when the oversized head guided by crimson orbs made its way under the table.

"Come out and play, Seth," Chaos teased.

The hellhound's head shot forward and collided into a shower of the holy liquid. With a horrific shriek, he bounded backward in retreat.

I had clamored from under the table, knocking chairs over in the process. Chaos was at the front door, shaking his pendulum head and pawing at the dampness, trying to fling the liquid off of his blackish-red muzzle. His eyes had gone from deep crimson to light red. He seemed worried, afraid, discouraged.

I had inched forward and doused him heavily. The hellhound writhed in pain, shaking his head and pawing more fervently, pressing up against the front door from his attacker.