remained was my body, seemingly floating in darkness. Maybe I was floating; I could no longer feel the chair I sat in or the floor beneath my feet. I was suspended in shadow, all alone.
Or was I?
Slowly I began to feel a presence, like when someone walks into a room you are in and you don’t hear them, but you know that they are there. I considered Mr. Whipkey, but it wasn’t him I was sensing. This new presence felt different, alien, and yet faintly familiar, like something partially remembered from a dream.
An image began to form in the mirror, like thick smoke from a heavy pipe tobacco. It swirled around my head as if I was watching smoke rings in reverse, the nebulous image growing thicker and more defined as it settled closer and closer around me. At last I could make out the faint outline of a form, something like a snake wrapped around my head like a preternatural turban. It was vague and out of focus, but I thought I could also make out dozens of tiny legs, like that of a centipede, grasping my head.
The thing pulsed slightly and it took me a moment to realize that it was in synch with my own heartbeat, which was quickening rapidly. As I stared at the aberration I realized that its spindly legs were not grasping my head, but were burrowed into it! At this panicked realization the creature stirred, uncoiling slightly so that I could see its head.
It opened its eyes.
I screamed.
It was a gut-wrenching sound, a blood-curdling howl of abject terror. My horror induced survival instinct shattered my hypnotic state and my arms flew up on their own volition to block the ghastly reflection. With the paralysis gone I threw myself onto the floor and curled up into a fetal position, my body shaking with fear. “No! No! No!” I heard myself saying, my mind desperately seeking a catatonic state in an effort to forget that horrific vision.
A hand touched my shoulder. I didn't shy away from it, even though my fight-or-flight response had to be off the charts. For some reason the gentle contact alleviated my mindless panic, reminding me where I was: curled up on the Persian rug in Mr. Whipkey’s study.
With a great effort of courage I lowered my arms from my face and looked up at the small man. He had turned the lamp back up, so the room was no longer shrouded in ominous darkness. The old man stared down at me, studying my face with a look that was at once intensely scrutinizing and yet seemed to lack any real concern for my discomfort. It was a hard look, like one would expect from a drill instructor or a stern nun at a Catholic school; no trace of pity and no patience for weakness.
I met that gaze, and somehow those cold, compassionless eyes made me feel better. The old man nodded once, as if satisfied. Then he stood up and went over to the desk along the wall. I heard the clink of glass and saw him produce a green bottle and two small glasses from the bottom drawer.
I began to shake and felt feverish; the room was at once both too cold and stifling hot. Whipkey walked back to me and offered me one of the glasses, half full of an amber liquid.
I accepted the glass, downing most of its contents in one long gulp.
Scotch, I thought to myself as the liquor burned delightfully down my throat and warmed my insides. I drank down the remainder, coughing a bit even as it began to ease my tremors. Maybe it was a high-quality Irish, but it was certainly whiskey and extremely good.
Whipkey’s whiskey, I singsonged to myself and giggled hysterically for just a bit. My host politely ignored this and splashed a bit more of the golden nectar into my glass. I raised it into a small salute, which he returned in kind and we both drank slowly. When I had finished, he took my glass and returned the bottle and both glasses to the desk. I remained sitting on the floor, my knees drawn up with my arms wrapped around them. I felt less feverish than I had, although still a bit clammy. More importantly, the maddening fear that had gripped me was receding to a mere whisper and my mind seemed to be working again.
What had I seen in the mirror? That…thing, it couldn’t be real. I had to be hallucinating or dreaming. Yes this had to be a nightmare, but then why couldn’t I wake up?
“You have a muse,” Mr. Whipkey said, breaking my silent reverie. I looked up at the old man and he was once again staring down at me with his arms crossed.
“No,” I said slowly, confused by the non sequitur, “I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“No,” he replied, with a quick gesture of impatience, “a muse-demon.”
I blinked at him, trying to make sense of what he had just said. “Did you just say ‘muse-demon’?”
The old man removed his glasses with a sigh, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began cleaning his prodigious lenses. His eyes looked odd without the glasses, watery and pinched. “That is not its true name, of course, or even its proper classification, but it is an accurate enough idiom.” He returned the glasses to their place and again studied me with his owl-like stare.
“I’m possessed?” I asked incredulously.
His lips again twitched with that little condescending smile and he said, “No, it is not that kind of demon.”
“There are different kinds?” I asked. The rational part of my mind had apparently thrown in the towel; it no longer even tried to deny any of this was happening. From deep inside I could almost hear the death throes of my reasonable disbelief, muffled beneath the adrenaline and the all-too-real terror.
Whipkey’s smile became a little more genuine, perhaps even a bit patient. “We use the term rather loosely,” he said, “a demon or daemon can refer to any entity that exists outside our reality and should not be confused with the Fallen of Biblical notoriety.”
“I see,” I said, even though I really didn’t.
He waived a hand dismissingly. “Your comprehension is unnecessary; in terms you will understand, you have contracted a parasite, albeit, a psychic one.”
“Psychic parasite: got it,” I said, no longer able or willing to fight what was happening.
Whipkey nodded his head, either in affirmation or in acknowledgement of my acceptance. “I considered this possibility as soon as you told me of you troubles; the muse-demon feeds on the psychic energies given off by creativity and imagination. Obviously, an artist of any form is a richer source of this energy than an average person. A great many artists have met an early end in this way.”
I stared up at him. “You mean, ‘their careers met an end’, don’t you?”
He stared back, his smile gone. “Just as the mind needs dreams to process thoughts, so the soul needs imagination. Without it, the world is an unbearable wasteland, devoid of color, joy, or life.”
“So all those writers and painters who committed suicide or drank themselves to death…?”
“Yes,” he said gravely, “they were victims, some of their own internal demons, others…” He waved his hand in my direction. “This abomination is not common, only a small percentage of those tragedies are due to such an invasion, But those that are quickly get written off as artistic temperament.”
I swallowed. “So, if this thing sucks me dry…?”
“At best you will be driven mad, unable to function in a world you cannot truly touch or comprehend. Most likely, you will seek to end your suffering, any way you can.”
“So what do we do?”
He extended a hand towards me. “Evict it,” he said.
I stared up at him. I didn’t want to believe him, didn’t want to believe any of this. The voice in my head began to protest again, the rational and reasonable part of me that knew such things couldn’t be real. It had apparently awoken from its stupor and was now telling me all this was all a con, that the old man was somehow manipulating me, and that I should I get up and leave. Now!
But I wondered suddenly, was it really a part of me? It was the same voice I had ignored earlier certainly, but was it my fear and doubt disguised as reason and commonsense, or was it something else? Something else, perhaps, trying to convince me to leave?
“It is still your mind,” Whipkey said softly into my inner debate. “You have some say in what resides there.”
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My inner voice that was not my voice began to babble in incoherent denial.
I ignored it.
With a trembling hand I reached up and took Whipkey’s still outreached hand. The old man hauled me effortlessly to my feet.
Still holding my hand he led me like a child back to the chair before the massive mirror. He gestured for me to sit again and I did, with even more trepidation than before. Those who say fear of the unknown is worse than that of the known have never had a glimpse of a demon burrowing into their brain. The voice in my head had become a low growl of rage and no longer sounded anything like my own thoughts.
Once again the old man turned down the lamp, plunging the room into near darkness. This time he came to stand beside me, not behind, and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I know you are anxious, but you must relax, watch yourself in the mirror, relax, I am here, relax.” He continued quietly, speaking short calming affirmations.
The alien voice in my head returned then, quietly snarling words of warning, of impending madness, death, and worse. But I focused on Whipkey’s voice, realizing he was using the soothing words to try to create a hypnotic pattern, and the other voice disappeared into a faint whisper. Even still, I didn’t see how returning to a state of relaxation was possible knowing what I did now.
But to my surprise, I once again began to feel the room slipping away. As his deep voice droned on, I again felt