Inner demons

[WP] You found it touching when your girlfriend vowed to help you with your inner demons, even if she didn't know that they were quite literal. Then she pulls out a stack of candles and a flask of holy water- giving you a daring smile.

*****

*WARNING: VULGAR LANGUAGE*

"Uh, what are those for?" I ask, as Liz starts excitedly placing the candles on the floor.

"Your demons," she says, setting the flask of holy water on the dinner table so that she can use both hands to place candles. "We're gonna exorcize the fuck out of them."

I force myself to laugh, hoping she'll stop placing candles now that I finally get the joke. But she doesn't. I watch silently as she finishes a circle of twenty or so candles that's about ten feet in diameter.

"Okay, step in there," she says, retrieving the flask of holy water from the dinner table.

"Liz, what the hell?" I say.

"You told me you have inner demons," she says. "What are their names?"

"Uh... alcoholism? Mild gambling addiction?"

"You barely drink. Mike, I know your inner demons are literal."

"How would you even know that?"

"You speak angry Latin in your sleep."

I nod as if that's a perfectly normal thing people do in their sleep. "And that's your proof?"

"You do it with your eyes wide open and completely white."

Again I nod in a "no big deal" kind of way. "Well, I can't speak Latin, so you're wrong."

"It's the demons speaking through you." Liz shakes the flask of holy water with one hand and makes wavy motions around it with her other hand. "Lucky for you, my dad was an exorcist."

I furrow my brow at her. "Come again?"

"He was an exorcist. Died two years ago, but he taught me all he knew before a failed exorcism that caused his entrails to erupt out his abdomen and strangle him to death. Step into the circle."

"Okay, Liz, this is all very funny, but..."

Holding the flask between her hands, she closes her eyes and speaks words I can't understand at first. I eventually recognize it as Latin. You can't go wrong when you hear so many words ending in "us".

"Liz, what..." I begin, but then I gasp when I notice that the holy water is boiling inside the flask.

Liz opens her eyes and pierces me with a furious glare. Her left nostril is bleeding. "Step into the fucking circle," she tells me.

I step into the fucking circle.

"Do you know the names of the demons?" she asks.

"Uh, no," I say, and it's true. "I just see them sometimes."

"What do they look like?"

"One of them is a rotting corpse with the jaw missing."

"Galmor," she says.

I yelp when a portion of the candle circle suddenly lights itself.

"That's a wooden floor!" I shout.

"Silence," she says. "There are two others. What do they look like?"

"Uh... one of them is a... it's a large bird that looks like a bunch of different species of birds sewn together into a single bird."

"What species of bird is the head?"

"Wait, that description didn't narrow it down enough?"

Liz's right nostril starts bleeding along with the left one as if to highlight her waning patience. "What species?" she repeats angrily.

"I don't know! It's the one with the huge beak, the really long beak."

"A toucan?"

"If you say so."

"Ishiitai," Liz says, and another portion of the candle circle lights itself. Only a third of it remains unlit.

"And the remaining demon?" Liz asks. The holy water is now holy steam coming out of the flask and filling the room.

"It's... well, it's a dick. Just a straight-up giant dick."

"Phalloth," she says, and the remaining third of the candle circle lights itself. There's a terrible smell, and the entire room seems darker. I realize the smoke coming from the candles is thick and reddish.

"Liz?" I say, my voice quavering with fear as the reddish smoke makes it harder to see her. The white steam from the flask is mixing with it. All of a sudden, a thunderclap assaults my ears and lightning strikes the floor at my feet.

"Stay in the circle," I hear Liz's voice say.

"It struck inside the circle!!" I shout, pointing at the smoldering hole left by the lightning.

"Yes, Ishiitai and Galmor are counterspelling. I'm handling it."

"Tell me what I can do to help!"

"You can let me concentrate. And stay in the circle no matter what."

I feel something skitter up my leg. I look down. Cockroaches. Dozens of them erupting out of the hole and going for my legs.

"OH JESUS CHRIST!!" I scream, desperately brushing them off of my thighs and shins.

"Galmor is trying to get you to leave the circle," Liz says calmly. "Do not leave the circle or you'll fall straight into Hell."

There's too many cockroaches. I don't have enough hands to brush them all off. "They're climbing all over me, I can't stop them!"

A terrifying voice erupts from Liz's direction. I can hear her own voice somewhere in it. A wind hits me like a truck and I can't help but be knocked out of the circle. I scream in horror, expecting to find out what Hell looks like, but instead I fall on what feels like the wooden floor.

"Oh God! Oh God!" I whimper. "Liz?!!"

As the smoke clears, I see her. She's sitting on a chair, panting, with only a few charred pieces of clothing still clinging to her body. Her skin is literally steaming.

"Liz!" I shout. "Liz, are you okay?"

She's panting too hard to speak, so she just gives me a thumbs-up. The candles and the cockroaches have all disappeared. I run up to her and hold her by the shoulders; her skin is almost too hot to touch.

"Are you okay?" I repeat.

"I'll be fine," she says. "Galmor and Ishiitai are gone."

"What about the other one? The giant dick?"

"Phalloth cannot be exorcised like Galmor and Ishiitai. He has to be summoned into physical form and bested in single combat. He's over there."

I look where she's pointing. Standing in the kitchen doorway is a six-foot tall penis balanced on top of two massive testicles. A vein on the shaft pulses angrily at me.

I shriek very, very loudly.

"Oh, don't be a pussy," says Liz. Then she looks at me and chuckles. "Get it? Don't be a pussy? Against him?"

I'm too frightened to get whatever she means by that.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. "Just grab a kitchen knife and stab him until he dies."

*****

THE END