Jacky and the Vault of Demons

Tears rolling down my furry face were burning me, only slowly. And in those flames, a new purpose fueled in my heart to protect my village from the wrath of the unholy. Until today, the only thing that kept me moving was the love of Thomson Jr, Simon, and the stories of legacy my dad passed on. I, Jacky, the furry friend of Thomson’s, stepped outside Thomson Mansion for the first time.

***

Isolated from the village, I lived with the Thomsons, inside a 200-year-old Thomson mansion. My kennel sat next to the gate, 10 leaps away from the house—Leaps of my size dog, 3 feet in length and 2 in height. Kennel was Close enough to hear Simon’s laughs, and see shadows of Thomsons moving from the glass windows on either side of the main door. Surrounded by high walls crowned with broken glass pieces, electric fence poles preventing entry of humans, and spells warding off entry of demons, I stayed safe and isolated.

Simon said no one could enter the house. According to him, the main gate never had a key, so there was always a Thomson in the house guarding the vault and controlling gate entry access via a toggle switch to open and close the gate, as well as they would look at the camera before opening the gate. I never asked him what a camera is—not in a way he can understand—but he briefs them in detail—everything. Although the entry was warded, there was a way for demons to pass through the walls. It fell in place with the stories my dad told me, but I have a habit of sniffing around to find it myself, not that I get a chance.

Unlike many households where dogs are loved and free to move around, I was only allowed to loiter within the 6-leap radius of my kennel, till the 1/2 leap spaced wooden poles marking my boundary. Nothing more. To them, I was just an alarm that signals any unauthorized entry, except for Simon.

“Let me play with Jacky,” he insists every day. Only to play with me. He smells fresh like glass, with a hint of earthy notes, and has a wide smile filled with warmth. He even lets me lick his face as I fall upon him, pressing him to the ground—even if he was asked not to—and cuddle as he giggles.

If not for him, I would’ve dug my way out like that man from The Shawshank Redemption. I didn’t see him, but from the words of Simon, I can say he pursued freedom, Something I also wanted. To have freedom, to be loved, to go out, bark with my fellow dogs, and try one or two for myself.

When the Thomsons were out, leaving Simon at home, I barked to call my fellow dogs and have a quick chat from the other side of the gate. The village was cursed with an infestation of demons, they say. Pete keeps a track of unusual activities.

Dad told me… in his tales passed through generations—that 200 years ago, the Thomsons sealed the village’s demons in a vault made of wood from a sacred tree with a ritual that makes it impossible for a human, or a demon, to open it. The only way is for them to work together and unleash the wrath on the village. Maybe that’s why no one from the village is allowed into the house.

Everything for me was half real until it wasn’t. Because only people who can confirm this were the Thomsons, and also the ones with whom I can’t exactly communicate my thoughts. My dad always insisted on staying loyal to Thomson’s and protecting them—no matter what. Legacy bound with the special powers we have, he says. He barely taught anything except for the stories. I only bark and sniff from my kennel, and when someone unknown enters, I howl. In the nights, sometimes, I smell something powerful, unsettling yet unseen. I feel it coming nearby, with every breath, until it reaches the gate or wall. And when it reaches, the smell faints, as if it were thrown back miles. If they can break through the spell, they can just walk through the walls.

***

One day, when only Simon was at home, Roxy and Pete reached the front gate, panting in half-breath, and stood on the other side of the gate.

“No Thomson’s at home, eh, Jacky?”

“Why don’t you cut it and tell what’s happening?” Pete Muzzle nudged Roxy and sat next to him.

“What’s happening?”

“Tommy…Tommy’s acting weird.”

“Weird how? And what does it have it with what’s happening?”

“Tommy’s talking to the demons. Every day.”

“Come on, guys, there are no demons. Thomsons locked them away.”

“So? Can’t there be any new demons, eh?”

“Then whom do you think he was shaking hands with?”

“He cut his palm and shook hands with a demon. A vile of blood, pumped up through the invisible veins, instead of dripping down on the ground,” Pete’s face turned pale and serious.

“My tail curled against my belly, and my voice numbed, involuntarily.”

“You said he talked. What did he say?”

“He cried in anger. I will be the best of the Thomsons, he said, performing rituals they never dreamt of.”

“He is the only Thomson who isn’t gifted with supernatural abilities. He can’t perform any ritual. Although Simon and Eddie, Simon’s elder sister, are new to rituals.” I was trying to decode the words of Tommy’s and Pete’s serious looks. Maybe he was drunk and wasted, and talked no sense, I convinced myself.

“Did you sense any difference in him, eh, Jacky?” Roxy asked with a focused stare and a soft growl.

“Not that I remember, maybe a faint smell of a different alcohol one day. I can barely smell a flower these days.”

“Go now, and figure out what’s happening inside the mansion. We gotta leave,” Roxy and Pete left, and a rather unsettling thought of breaking the rule and entering the house, or letting something bad happen, started worrying me.

***

One day, Everyone in the Thomsons’ house was out. Kids in the town at their friends’, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomson out of town, and Tommy sneaked out with no one to open the gate when the family gets back.

I was free to roam around the mansion. I bounced so hard that my paws barely touched the ground. I strolled every inch of the property like a free bird, huffing with my mouth agape and tongue out.

The compound was at least a 10-minute sprint in a circle. As I covered a quarter of the distance, there was a flower garden. I went near the flowers, sniffed at a hair’s distance, but nothing.

A little more distance covered, there was a chicken cage, with black and while ones in it. I approached them as well, but it was different. A strange smell. A disturbing one. A scent of Tommy lingered on one of the black hens. My paws scraped backward over the gravel and fell back, as if some force pushed me. I snapped out… and continued my stroll.

After half distance, I ran along the wall in the shadow of the walls formed by the setting sun, escaping the warmth of the sun. Then, at a point, the wall breathed hot air. Like something was burning on the other side of the wall. It went right through the down-flapped ear-lid and entered my ear. It was as hot as the soup I get on Sundays. My paw stopped mid-air. Hole the size of my paw. I wonder if Thomsons saw it. I would’ve warned them if I were allowed to roam around the house.

Soon, the Sun has set, and no one’s back yet. When the moon was above my head, I saw someone walking to the gate, and it followed a strange smell. Same as the black chicken’s. It was Tommy, but not exactly him. He stood there for 5 minutes. The door’s locked, so I couldn’t open the gate. But suddenly, a creaking sound of iron rubbing against another came from the gate, and the gate opened. Simon said it was impossible to open the gate from outside, but it opened. Like there was a demon inside the mansion and it opened it.

Tommy entered the gate, looked at me, chained me to the kennel with a sober yet serious look, and walked right to the door. Soon, Simon reached and rang the bell. Tommy opened the door as if nothing had happened. But I knew something was wrong. I barked at Simon, trying to hint to him that something was wrong. He walked right through the door.

***

Now that I think about it, the other day, Pete mentioned, I remember seeing Tommy’s palm cut and covered with blood. Not exactly, but a fainter shade of the smell I felt now. I smelled malice and death, as if death made a pact with him. Was this the special power that Dad was talking about? That I can smell the unholy? I still wonder!

Coming to think of that, I remember Dad telling the story of how Thomsons trapped all the demons in a wooden vault. Thomsons were not just worried about new people, but the pact they bring while walking with a demon. And if that’s the case, and if Tommy had made the pact with the demon to let all the demons out, for some luring power.

No, it can’t be! He has everything here! Why would he do that? Maybe power? What power? Supernatural? A gift to become more powerful than Thomson’s? Smells like a lot of possibilities, and possible ones too!

I wanted to run, but I was chained. I tried running to a point where the chain pulled me back by the neck, and stopped there. I pushed further, but the leather on the collar was pressing me badly to choke, but I couldn’t let loose. So, I jumped on a wooden post, 2 ft in height, nearby, and jumped on it. From there, I could see from a window and hear them.

Simon was tied up to a chair, and Tommy was moving towards him with a knife. He took the wooden vault and placed it on the table before him, with a silver cauldron next to it. He snapped the neck of a black chicken and poured its blood into the cauldron. I closed my eyes in fear. And I could smell the blood; it was Simon’s too. Then I heard a loud thud sound, and Simon was not in the chair. He was down, unconscious in a pool of blood. I tried breaking off the chain, and it pulled me back to the ground from the post. I cried out loud for help, and jumped back on the post to look into the mansion. But there’s nothing. Simon’s gone, and the pool of blood too. As if someone cleaned, but the smell lingered.

***

Soon, Mr. & Mrs. Thomson reached the gate, but no one opened it. They saw me standing on the post and crying. I ran to them, pulled his trousers by my teeth, and from inside the gate. I pulled him towards the gate for a second, and pulled him to the wall, the other. They figured something was wrong, removed my chains with a spell, and asked me to get in and open the gate with the toggle switch.

I ran to the door, pushed it open, moved right to the control switch and toggled it open, and looked behind to check with Simon. With my nose to the ground, I smelled every corner; the smell lingered, but Simon wasn’t there. Thomsons ran into the house and stood next to me.

As the door opened with a sound, Tommy got out of his room, half-asleep, yawning, and asked what had happened, and apologized for falling asleep.

Thomsons asked for Simon and his sister, and he said they weren’t back yet. I was in shock, and I barked, growled at him with fixed eyes. I never did that before! Not to the family. But the anger slowly turned into fear. For Simon. How do I tell them that Simon was back, and Tommy did something to him?

I ran to the chair Simon was tied to, sniffed it, and head-butted the front of the chair towards Mr. Thomson. But they just felt I was creating a mess at home. Soon, Mr. Thomson pulled me out to the kennel. His fist tightened, veins visible, and anger printed on his face, as he looked at my reluctance to get tied. From pulling myself away from him, I suddenly jumped onto him. The tension in the chain suddenly loosened, and he fell back. As soon as he did, I jumped off him and ran towards the paw-sized hole in the wall.

He ran behind me and was terrified. His face of anger suddenly changed as he glanced at the wall. His eyes flicked, his hands shook, and his lips trembled as they pressed against each other. He touched the paw-sized hole. The front side of the hole was cone-shaped hives, one next to the other and sometimes overlapping, made with a sharp tool.

He extended his fingers to reach the outer side of the wall. The three claw marks textured on the wall mocked the holy trinity. With each blow, they grew more evil than the other. It was like a cat made it, but only with a bigger claw. Probably a wolf, or something similar. He felt dread as he touched it, as if his life were being pulled out of him. I grabbed his hand with my teeth and pulled him out. And moved only inches close to his face and barked. He startled, as if he woke up from a bad dream.

The only way to make a hole through or break the wall was by the combined effort of a human and a demon. His eyeballs moved left and right, fast. He looked at me and asked if I felt any strange smell—something disturbing and impure, like malice. I nodded, tilted my head to the house, and barked. He asked me again, “Is the traitor in the house?” I nodded again. “Is it Tommy?” he took both his hands, placed them on my face, fixed his eyes on me, and asked, “Are the kids back? Simon? Eddie?” I nodded at Simon and rolled my eyes down at Eddie. He understood that Simon was back, and something had happened to him.

He rushed into the house. As soon as he reached the main door, he became silent. Acted casual, as if nothing happened. I followed him but only waited at the door, unseen.

He and Mrs. Thomson started checking for Simon, but they couldn’t find him. Thomson took out the wooden vault, and as he carried it on to the table from the dark locker, he could feel the dampness of the vault on his palm. The blood-soaked vault had left a trail of blood on Thomson’s hand, and it smelled of Simon’s. And the keyhole was filled with blood.

“To open the vault…blood of human and an animal…sacrificed… by a human and a demon pact,” He murmured as he tried to understand the situation. That explains why Tommy was talking in the air, and had a blood scar on his palm—probably from a demon pact with the unholy.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomson confronted Tommy about Simon and the vault. He smiled, with a blank face, and spoke nothing. A sound of crying in pain and the creaks of wood, from the vault, reached my ears. It whispered, I will come for you. The vault was drawing something from Mr. Thomson. I can feel him draining. Soon, Mrs. Thomson took the vault away from him and placed it on the table. He snapped back to consciousness, again.

A violent fist of anger and fear hit Tommy on his face. Blood spilled out of the bleeding lips, and a tooth fell as his lower jaw cracked open his mouth. Still, Tommy smiled. The corners of his lips widened as his smile grew wild and evil. He didn’t hit back, as if he were waiting for this to happen.

“Tell me, where is Simon?” he cried out loud. Tommy pointed out the wooden vault that trapped thousands of demons. As soon as he did, Thomson’s eyes went wide open in shock.

“Simon’s dead,” he smiled again, “or maybe not. Probably feeding his soul to the hungry demons,” he waited as the darkness within him grew, like the shadow in the early mornings.

Mr. Thomson quickly reached out to the vault. And as he did, Mrs. Thomson shouted, “NO…!”. But by then, Thomson opened the vault. A black fog from the vault blocked their vision, and as the fog cleared, Mr. Thomson was gone. The vault on the table shook, as if someone were trying to open it from inside. Soon, the noises were silenced. A fresh layer of blood lingered on the vault.

The table moved towards Mrs. Thomson, and she already stared at the vault, as if a spell locked her down. Tears rolled from her eyes, but she was still. I ran inside, head-butted the vault, and ran outside the house with her. As we did, as fast as I could, a faint scent of Simon’s blood lingered.

That’s when I first stepped outside the mansion, not because Simon’s no more there, but to find my purpose, as I fight alongside Thomsons protecting the village from the wrath of the demons unleashed.