“I’m gonna end this once and for all,” Detective Surian whispered to herself, then jumped in her car and raced over to Callie’s apartment building.
Detective Thurston didn’t even notice her car drive away when he arrived at the Yamas’ dry-cleaning shop. He got out of his car and, eyes and jaw agape, looked at Vanessa’s and Raymond’s heads on those poles stabbed into the front door of the shop. He retched.
When the other police cars arrived, he’d be too busy explaining what happened to the two owners to think about Surian.
************
She parked her car in front of Callie’s apartment building, got out, and took out her pistol. She ran up the stairs and through the front door, got into the elevator, and went up to the seventh floor. She pushed open the slowly-opening elevator doors to get out faster and squeezed through in her frantic impatience.
As she ran down the hall to Callie’s room, she noted that the pheromone smell was as powerful as ever, but it wasn’t weakening her will at all; indeed, after forgetting to hold her breath, she was surprised at not feeling in any way controlled by the demoness.
In fact, Callie’s front door was open.
She wants me to go in, Surian thought, remembering the opened door to Dr. Visner’s office when she’d gone in to plant the hidden camera. This is a trap. Still, I’ve got to try to stop her. There seems to be no other way, and I’m sick of this shit. A memory of that bear killing her teen boyfriend flashed before her eyes again, as did that dream of the hairy, clawed beast attacking Thurston. A bullet fired directly dead-centre into her heart should kill her, as the Yamas said it would.
She went into the room, her eyes darting around everywhere to see if Callie was there. Her pistol was cocked.
The apartment seemed empty of people.
The bedroom door was wide open.
She went in.
Nobody was there.
She checked behind the bed.
Nobody.
She went over to the closet, which had two folding doors. She opened the right-side one.
No Callie hiding in there.
The pheromone smell was so powerful, it cancelled out any other possible competing smells.
There was enough room for Surian to slip in and hide on that right side; the other side seemed crowded with clothes on hangers, and with boxes on the floor, so she figured she’d have no unwelcome company while hiding there.
She went in and closed the closet door.
She’d wait for Callie to return, then surprise her with bullets in the chest.
After a few minutes of waiting, she came to her senses and realized she should have properly checked the other side of the closet; the pheromone smell had interfered with her thinking after all.
She moved a few of Callie’s dresses aside, then groped around in the darkness with her left hand. She felt what seemed to be an arm. She raised her pistol in her right hand, ready to shoot, but realized the body wasn’t responding to her touch. It didn’t move at all.
She moved her hand up the body, above the shoulder, and felt around for the neck.
She felt only a stump, and the jagged, bloodless cutting-through of claws.
She gasped.
Just then, the bedroom light was turned on, and enough light shone through the crack to let her know that she was standing next to not only Vanessa’s headless body, but Raymond’s behind it.
Surian stopped herself just in time before screaming. She wanted to kick open the closet door and point her pistol at Callie, but found herself suddenly incapable of any movement beyond fidgeting of a few millimetres all around.
“Not yet, Agnes,” Callie told her from the other side. “Don’t worry, though: we’ll all be together soon enough.”
It took all of Surian’s effort to remain calm while paralyzed in that closet indefinitely, tolerating the proximity of those two corpses. She just shook and shook.
Callie, nude as usual, sat on her bed, closed her eyes, and–from what Surian could make out through the narrow slit in the closet door–began meditating.
Come, Dr. Visner, Callie thought, using the mana from the semen she’d swallowed during her sexual encounter with the psychiatrist. Come to me. Let’s make love.
************
Visner left his office like an automaton and went down to the underground parking lot to find his car. He didn’t need to know her home address: her power would guide him there.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, behind her remote control of him, a small voice was whispering in his mind’s ear: I shouldn’t be doing this. He also saw images of that Thai prostitute flashing before his eyes, flashing between the changing of the traffic lights.
************
Surian kept trembling in that closet, cringing at the thought of those two bodies she couldn’t distance herself from. She felt a presence inside her stomach, some kind of energy that felt connected in some vague way with Callie’s ejaculation in her mouth when Callie had manipulated Surian to perform cunnilingus on her; it was forcing her to stay in that immobile position, able only to jiggle a bit. Is this that ‘mana’ that the Yamas were talking about? she wondered.
She saw Callie still sitting cross-legged on her bed, her eyes closed and concentrating on something.
Come to me, Doctor, she thought. Come make love to me.
That mana in her belly, from Visner’s ejaculation in her mouth, was like a doll she could move around any way she liked, and Visner was the doll outside, his car nearing her apartment building.
**************
After enough discussion with the police about the Yamas’ heads, Thurston finally remembered Surian.
“Agnes!” he said with a jolt.
“Yeah, what about your girlfriend?” Detective Hicks said. “She found this horrible display, then just took off? Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know,” Thurston said. “I imagine she got so upset, she just went over to Callie’s apartment to arrest her.”
“We have no proof, apart from your hocus-pocus bullshit, that this ‘Callie’ is in any way connected with all these deaths,” Hicks said. “Hairs of the animal weren’t found anywhere near that apartment this time.”
“Still,” Thurston said. “I should go over there and help her. She’s putting herself in danger.”
“She ain’t interested in you, Andy,” Hicks said, then put his hand on Thurston’s shoulder. “Try a new experience. Open your mind.” He smirked lewdly.
“Sorry, Hicks. I’m not into men.” Thurston ran to his car, got in, and drove over to Callie’s apartment building.
As he was driving away, Hicks watched his car disappear. Andy’s an idiot, just like his girlfriend, he thought. He is good-looking, though.
************
Dr. Visner arrived and parked his car by the park across from the apartment building. As he crossed the road, he thought, This is dangerous. She really has killed people during sex, hasn’t she? I’m not in control of my body; she’s controlling it.
He went through the front door of the apartment building and approached the elevator.
This is some kind of voodoo magic, and I don’t even believe in such things, he thought.
He remembered fucking the Thai prostitute in the ass, then reading the news of her death in the paper.
What if my fucking of Callie triggers a rape trauma of her step-father, and she uses these powers to kill me, or do some other terrible thing to me?
He got in the elevator, and Callie willed him to push 7. See? he thought. How do I know she’s on the seventh floor? I have no control over my movements. I can’t stop myself from having sex with her. I’m putting myself in danger; she’s making my mind want to have sex with her. What is her plan?
He reached the seventh floor, got out of the elevator, and went straight to Room 717, knowing that’s where she was.
The door was still open. He went in.
“Hello, Dr. Visner,” Callie purred as he entered the bedroom.
Oh, shit, Surian thought. I should have known Callie would be luring him here. And I can’t stop her.
Callie spread her legs and lay on her back. Dr. Visner felt compelled to begin undressing.
***********
Thurston was a few blocks from Callie’s apartment building. All of a sudden, though, he felt himself being controlled by an alien intelligence, making him park his car in a parking lot in the area, instead of in front of her place.
“What the fuck?” he said. He budged to get out of the car, but now couldn’t move beyond slight budging.
Not yet, Callie’s voice whispered in his mind’s ear. Don’t worry, though: we’ll all be together soon enough.
Infinite Ocean 