Pandemonium

“You didn’t go back to sleep, did you?”

I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” I felt embarrassed and guilty, as if she’d caught me wandering around the house naked. She started the dryer and came into the kitchen, drying her hands on a paper towel. She threw out the remains of the coffee I’d made at four—I’d needed plenty of caffeine—and started a fresh pot. I busied myself getting down plates and cutting slices of the coffee cake. We sat down at the table and divvied up sections of the Trib. The cake wasn’t sweet in the center—nothing in the Polish bakery was as sugary as something from a regular bakery—but it tasted better to me than any roll or donut I’d found. Or maybe it was just nostalgia. We ate and read in silence for a long time.

The demon I’d seen at the airport two days ago was mentioned on page three. It was a brief story, a follow-up to whatever they’d run the day before. The victim was not going to be charged—nobody thought he was faking. Experts agreed it was the Painter strain of the disorder. (Those were the official terms—strain, disorder—as if marrying a medieval word like possession with more medical and modern-sounding partners tamed the idea, boxed it up into something tidy enough for science.) Best guess, there were perhaps a hundred distinct strains—

a science-weasel way of saying one hundred demons. The CDC recorded over twenty thousand cases of possession a year in the US, some lasting weeks and most lasting only minutes. Some people were hit repeatedly, as if being struck by lightning charged them for life. Most of the time they were seized by the same demon, but sometimes it was a different one every time. The government hastened to add that the reports contained an unknown number of false positives, false negatives, incorrect diagnoses. Demons left behind no DNA, no wake of antibodies in the bloodstream, no cellular changes in the brain. A possession—especially a brief, one-time possession—was easy to hide and easier to fake. Different people were highly motivated to do either. Demons could make you do awful things—but awful things could make you famous. Possession survivors showed up on TV all the time.

Next to the airport story was a sidebar on the International Conference on Possession and its outlaw para-conference, DemoniCon. DemoniCon was not, technically, even a conference: it had no charter, no committees, no reservation agreements. It was an improvised annual party that followed ICOP around the globe. Demonology cranks, hobbyists, and demon fans bought up hotel rooms in whatever city ICOP was being held at that year, tried to crash the more interesting ICOP events, and then made nuisances of themselves. People were worried about more cases of possession cropping up because of the conferences, or worse, more cases of copycat possessions. Nobody wanted armed impersonators of the Pirate King or the Truth running around. Security was supposed to be tight, though that would make no difference to a real demon. Nothing could stop a real demon.

“Lew’s coming at ten?” Mom said.

“So he says.” Amra and Lew had driven back to Gurnee last night. It was an hour up and an hour back, depending on traffic, but Chicagoans seemed to take this in stride.

“And you’re staying in the city both nights?”

“Uh, yeah.” I got up and refilled my cup. The “Self Clean” light was blinking. I hadn’t told her about ICOP, or Dr. Ram. I hadn’t even told her about seeing Dr. Aaron, except that we’d had a good visit, and that she’d gained a lot of weight.

I hadn’t told her anything, and Mom hadn’t pressed me. This wasn’t like her.

“I’m worried about you, my son,” she said.

My son. That always floored me.

“I’m going to be fine,” I said automatically. “I’ve just been . . .” I sat down again, the coffee cup hot against my fingertips. “Mom, back when I was little . . . how did I snap out of it? If it wasn’t the prayer thing, what happened? Did I just wake up one morning . . . back?”

“I suppose you were too young to remember.”

“I was in bed for a long time, I remember that. There were these straps. Right?”