Mimi's Demons

Chapter 88: Legion

"You're looking at me as though you feel sorry for me," said Louis. "Why is that?"

"Why did you feel bad for the guy in Russia?" asked Mimi instead.

"Because he was a lunatic," he said dryly, looking off to the side. "Do you know the story of Legion?"

"Legion?"

"It's a story in the Bible. There was a man who lived outside a certain town Jesus passed through...you do know who Jesus is, right?"

"Don't patronize me," she didn't have to try that time to sound like her father.

The black wings of her father's outline fizzled back down to shadow, even as they fluttered with something that could have been like pleasure. She felt his warm arm about her shoulders.

Louis bowed his head in brief apology and continued. "This man lived in a cave and ate the dead bodies out of graves. His howls would disturb the people each night and he was know to cut at himself and run about naked." His black eyes crinkled, as though smiling, though his mouth did not. "When Jesus came to him, he was sore afraid and cried out 'What have you to do with me, ye Son of God? It is not yet time.' Jesus asked the spirit or devil who they were, instantly recognizing that the man was possessed, and they said 'Legion. For we are many.' When Jesus then commanded them to leave the man's body forthwith, they protested and begged that he instead let them enter a herd of swine nearby. He allowed it, and they straightway flew out of the man and into the swine, which went mad and ran into a nearby stream and drowned themselves. Sound familiar already?"

Mimi nodded. "That guy was like us."

"Indeed. Rather, he is like dear Not-Rasputin in Russia. See, the demons, who gave up their right to a body desperately want one. Something about our blood calls up their desire in a way they cannot ignore and, since we are not God whose glory they cannot abide and who they hate, they try to get what they want from us instead. Their whole existence is about trying to get around God to get what He has."

"Wouldn't that make us, uh, more vulnerable to getting possessed?" said Mimi.

"I suppose so. But who do you know would willingly give up their body to demons? Point is, our friend in Russia was like this man. He is our modern day Legion, if he's still alive. It's not like he has the forethought or desire for a social media account I can just check up on a whim."

"Then why do you risk yourself by using them?" she asked.

"Because they're useful," he said. "And I'm not stupid. I know how to differentiate what I want from them."

"But you said so yourself," said Mimi. "Who would want to willingly be possessed by demons? Was the Legion guy in the Bible angry when Jesus told them to get out?"

Louis grinned. "My, you are smart."

"Don't patronize me."

"You think I'm possessed, don't you?"

She did. As her Papa said all the time, people were stupid. That Russian guy was people. That Legion guy was people, and so was Louis.

And so was she. To forget you were people too was stupid.

"I think the monk has the right idea," she said. "He was right to be afraid of them. They hate us. They eat our suffering. They don't even like each other. Why would I want to work with something like that? Why would I trust something like that?"

"They have no choice," said Louis primly. "They have no body."

"But your body dies, and it gets cold and sick and brain crazy," Mimi knew this all too much with the ever present fear of a panic attack hanging over her head nowadays. And it was her hobby to look into all the ways it failed in the goriest ways possible. "And there's only one of you and many of them." She frowned. "They want to eat you, and you're letting them."

Louis was quiet for a moment. He seemed to actually be thinking about what she was saying. But then his face turned back to her and it looked scarily blank.

Duke must have felt something too, for his hand on her shoulder tightened.

But there was one last thing Mimi had to ask.

"If you know one day you'll have to pay for letting all those demons in you, for doing all those bad things, why do you do it?"

Louis blinked, slow and languidly.

"Because I know what I want," he said. "That is what we're here for, after all. It is our power, our right, to do what we want."

Mimi's ears ached and she thought she heard more than one voice say those words.

"I think that's enough." Duke flicked a hand at Louis. "Go away."

Louis stood up and bowed in that graceful way he had the first time, with an arm about his middle and another around his back, then walked out.

Mimi looked to her dad. "Why'd you send him out? He could have told me more."

Duke's mouth was pressed thin. "You're shaking."

And so she was. Her hands had also purpled with cold and her stomach hurt. She hadn't realized it until he pointed it out.

"You're on the verge of a panic attack," he said grimly. "Of course I'm sending him out."

Then, without even asking, he tugged her towards the piano, set her on his lap, and started a simple song as a warm up.

She was about to ask if he was going to let her do her own warm ups so they could start their now very late piano lesson, when he stopped playing and said, "You were right. That man is stupid, and you are to have nothing to do with demons."

"I wasn't going to," she said, actually kind of offended. "I only used them to survive—"

"And he would say the same thing, but now you have me. I believe you, so you have no reason to run away or ask one to murder for you or—"

Mimi stiffened. "I won't."

"Just so we're clear."

"I won't! And I didn't ask—" she suddenly choked, wondering why her throat had gotten so tight. "I didn't tell him—"

"A slip of the tongue." He gave her a hard squeeze. "I know you didn't. You just wanted to get away, and I'm glad. You did the right thing, you aren't bad."

She clenched herself too, trying to get herself to stop shaking apart.

After a moment of quiet, hugging her tightly, he turned back to playing. His song started soft, gentle, apologetic.

Slowly, as though trained into her, her body relaxed. The warmth of her Papa soaked into her back and reached the cold within her.

She didn't want that warmth to ever leave.

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To you who are in on our cultural educational journey with Hubby and boys, we're watching "The Last Unicorn." Dang, that girl's legs. And that music. Hits me in the granny pants. I wasn't alive when it was made, but still, it unearths my earliest memories of orange couches, brown shag carpet, and faux wood paneling. 

One of Hubby's favorite parts is when the wizard accidentally brings the tree to life and it squeezes him to its massive bosom and he says, "Oh no, I'm engaged to a Douglas Fir."