Chapter Text
The old house resting on the top of the hill was practically a historical landmark. Everybody and their father knew the white Victorian-style mansion belonged to the Maitlands. They all knew the Maitlands had put years into fixing the place up for themselves, that they had spared no expense to their time and to their finances to make it a home. Perhaps that’s why it was so surprising that they suddenly put it on the market for absolutely dirt cheap. Several interested parties walked the property to make sure everything was up to code. They found nothing out of place, no moldy basement or evidence of rampant mice. Not even a loose floorboard or miniscule cracks in the plaster could be seen to deter people away. There was no catch at all to the six-feet-under value offer that they had the house listed for. In fact, the Maitlands had only one condition for potential homeowners: no families were allowed to buy the place. They had turned away several offers upon realizing the biddings had come from couples with children.
Which is probably precisely why the house ended up being sold to one BJ Lawrence, a somewhat frumpy man in his mid-thirties who was solidly single with crippling anxiety and a steady hope of finally moving out of his childhood bedroom. Sure, he could have started out in an apartment like most people. But cramped spaces like that just really weren’t his jamb. After living with his Ma his whole life what he really wanted was his own grand bachelor pad. Besides, the house had intrigued him for so long, and the fact that it was selling for so incredibly cheap had nearly driven his writer’s mind mad with theories.
At first he had toured the house simply to answer his own burning questions. After all, the Maitlands had already turned away so many. BJ had thought it terribly unlikely that they would sell to him, so the most he did to impress was to wash his messy brown hair and throw on a clean shamrock green t-shirt over a pair of baggy blue jeans that were miraculously devoid of any rips or tears. He hadn’t even bothered to shave the scruffy facial hair that was pushing past the five o’ clock shadow and well into the midnight hour of growth. But the Maitlands had interviewed him anyway and he’d managed to hold his own against their barrage of questions and at last they’d gotten around to drawing up the papers to officially put the place under his name. They had also instructed him firmly not to raise a family in the house under any circumstances.
That, of course, had sounded ominous as fuck. He had asked them why, to which they had exchanged looks meaningful to each other (though inconsequential to himself as far as BJ could tell) before Adam Maitland had let out a deep and tragic sigh and rather mournfully replied, “We already made that mistake. Trust me, nothing good will come of bringing a child here.”
Spooky. But also, probably nothing. Hopefully nothing. Either way, BJ had decided that it didn’t matter. His last date had been for the Winter Formal dance his junior year of college. He didn’t see himself settling down with any kids anytime soon. Of course, his loathsome mind just had to betray him as he thought of one particularly enticing gorgeous woman he had the pleasure of meeting every time he checked in with his therapist… The receptionist there really was the total package. A figure-eight body shape paired with dark features and an even darker sense of humor. Not to mention she seemed to thoroughly enjoy his homemade comics. He always made sure to bring Tina the current issue before meeting with Dr. Harmon to discuss his anxiety. Boy, oh boy, would he love to bring a woman like that back home to his Ma. Of course, a woman like that would hardly take interest in a guy like BJ. He had a beer gut and low finances and at a shining thirty-three had only just got around to moving out of his Ma’s house for the first time and buying his own (not that his growing crush on Tina had had anything to do with that decision. Like, he definitely hadn’t been surreptitiously trying to impress her or anything).
Whatever. Right now, even the most intrusive thoughts couldn’t stifle BJ’s growing excitement as he took in the features of his new crash site. While the wallpaper was a little more flowery than he would have picked, he did have to admit that it gave the place a nice, homey feel. The stairs were solid and thick and there were so many rooms upstairs he couldn’t even make plans for them all. One was going to keep his bed, obviously, and another could act as a sort of office for him to write and draw up his comics. Other than that, he was flabbergasted.
He charged up the staircase, feeling that uncharacteristic pounding of enthusiasm in his chest. It was so often his heart hammered about what could go wrong. This one time it seemed to applaud him for what he’d done right. And while he did still breathe a little heavy about the mortgage and what the newspaper might say about a no-name bachelor like himself ending up with the Maitland residence, right now he could only be thrilled to be away from his mother’s snarling embrace. Juno Lawrence was-- and always would be-- a force to be reckoned with. She might have let him stay rent-free in her home, but that had not come without a payment of sorts. He had constantly put up with her mocking and her ridicule and her drunken threats. “Ma, I love you to death but sometimes I swear you're a literal demon,” he said aloud to himself as he continued to patrol the new house.
Riiiight, because you know what demons are like.
BJ stopped midstep. The sarcastic thought had popped unbidden inside his brain. While that act alone wasn’t uncommon, the fact that the voice in his head had been female was out of the ordinary. Not to mention the higher, more nasally pitch which suggested the owner of the voice had been young. Maybe a teenager, or even a little younger. BJ was a man in his thirties, unmarried, and not a teacher; in other words he really didn’t spend much time around kids. He wasn’t sure whose voice his brain might have conjured. Was this a creative spark or something? Maybe his subconscious felt it was time his comics appealed to a younger audience. Ideas for his creative endeavors hardly came about like this, but he supposed he could follow the subliminal advice.
He ran back downstairs, hurrying to his car to grab the last box of his packed things. Dusk was settling across the town and he didn’t want to leave any of his possessions outside overnight. As he shut the door behind him he set the box down in the living room with the rest before digging through them to find his set of art supplies. Along with the voice had come a glimpse for a new character from the hall mirror. It had been nothing more than a flitter of black lace, but it was enough for BJ to draw up the proportions for a new addition to the haunted house series he was working on. A sassy teenage necromancer who could bend the ghosts of the house to her will was sure to add some spice to the comics.
Eughh, a veil? the voice chastised as BJ glanced over his work. What is it for, a funeral? And the hair is all wrong. Seriously, what do men have against bobs?
BJ hesitated, but eventually decided to listen to the criticisms. After all, he’d allowed the voice to guide him this far. Might as well go all the way, he figured and so he picked up his eraser and eliminated the veil along with the sweeping dark hair that nearly dragged against the floor. He drew it back curly and short, the ends curving just under the drawing’s shaded chin.
As he studied the drawing for a second time he was startled to hear a gasp come from his left. Can you actually hear me?
BJ shot to his feet so rapidly he sent his chair flying. It bumped against the far wall, clattering softly as the man whipped his head around this way and that, trying to locate the voice. “H-Hello?” he called out nervously. Holy shit, he hoped nobody jumped out at him. Was it possible someone was hiding out in the house? Were there squatters here?
Okay, tell me if you see this, the voice ecstatically instructed just before the chair went sailing back across the room. It caught BJ just behind the knees, forcing him roughly into the seat with a hard thunk! that rattled the second story.
BJ screamed as he scrambled to his feet for a second time. He flew down the stairs and yanked open the back door, desperate to escape. He had watched the chair move on its own. There was no one in his new house, that much was clear. Obviously his problem was much larger than a teenage stowaway. What he had was a demon, apparently disguising its voice as a little girl’s to try to get closer to BJ so it could suck out his soul!
He forced in a shaky breath, filling his lungs with the cool night air to try to clear his head. It was hard to concentrate with the tremble wracking his body. Normally he could just fidget with his hands but they were so clammy that whenever he tried to wring them together they just slipped right apart, drops of sweat flinging from his fingertips. This was not good, this was so not good! A demon. He had an actual demon terrorizing his new house. He should have known the deal was way too good to be true. Guys like him didn’t get to just move out of their Ma’s house and into their fancy dream home. He wasn’t rich enough to afford the place, and the offer he’d presented had been about nine grand under what the lowball listing had already been at. All in all he’d gotten the place for a mindblowing three hundred thousand dollar discount to what the property was valued at. That alone should have told him something was off.
Christ. No wonder they hadn’t wanted the house to go to someone with kids. And by selling it to him-- a man with no connections and no finances left to hire a lawyer to get him out at this point without losing his deposit and entire life’s savings-- he had been the perfect mark. Great. Just fucking great. Once again, BJ Lawrence had been too late to realize he was being used as the butt of another joke. Wasn’t everybody just laughing it up now?
He let out a yelp as a plastic cup flew out of the door and smacked him on the ass. He turned in the direction of his house as another cup came soaring in his direction to bounce harmlessly off his chest. Well, not completely harmlessly. It was definitely going to leave a small bruise. Another dish came flying at him, this one a ceramic mug, and he ducked with a startled squawk to avoid it. The back screen door slid closed with an angry slam, and BJ could almost swear he heard the furious footfalls of the pissed off poltergeist.
Geez, that was kinda rude, the demon voice huffed. The mug lifted up into the air and bonked against his head.
“Ow,” BJ muttered, rubbing the spot where the mug had hit him. Speaking of bruises. He leveled himself up and glared at the empty yard. “ I’m being rude?” he questioned. Three of his drinking glasses littered the lawn after having been used to pelt him with, yet the demon claimed he was the one lacking manners. What the heck kind of reverse psychology was going on here?
What, like dipping out on somebody in the middle of a conversation isn’t rude?
“You threw a chair at me!” BJ retaliated. He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to hide away its rapid rising and falling. It didn’t seem as though the demon knew how terrified he was of it yet. He wanted to keep that bravado if he could. “What do you want with me?”
The demon went silent. Maybe she was contemplating the question, or maybe she’d decided to be the one to leave the conversation this time as a sort of revenge. It was hard to tell given that she was invisible. A breeze toyed with BJ’s hair, making him shiver and regret his panicked decision to flee to the outside. He wondered if the demon would take offense if he went back inside. Probably better not to risk it.
At long last a sigh floated through the air. It sounded heavy and… sad. It surprised BJ to hear such a noise from a voice that sounded so young. I just want to be seen, the demon voice finally answered. Nobody has even said my name in so long.
The sorrowful lilt tugged at BJ’s heart. She just seemed so depressed, it didn't feel like too much to promise, “I’ll say your name,” and mean it. After all, what could be the harm in saying a demon’s name?
It’s been so long, the demon said again. Can you say it, like, five times?
BJ chuckled at that. “I’ll say it six times,” he told her. “Except, I don’t know your name.”
There was a weighted pause before her confession: I can’t say it.
Oh. Well that might pose an issue. BJ thought about it and then brightened up when an idea struck him. “Well, how about a game of charades?”
You can’t see me, genius.
Fair point. A game of charades might be a little difficult if he couldn’t see whatever she was acting out. He needed something else, something a little more indirect. “Pictionary?” he tried. “I left my art supplies out upstairs. Can you draw it?”
Hmm. I can’t write it down, but I think I know how to get around that. Yeah, follow me!
Not that he could see her. The screen door slid back open and he rushed inside. He assumed she was heading back to his work room so he took the stairs two at a time to meet her there. He reached the top landing and paused for a moment to catch his breath. In his usual routine, work outs were not this common. When he was breathing normally again he rounded the corner to his new office where a pen was already floating over a blank piece of paper.
He leaned over to watch as the pen drew a small circle and colored it in. His eyebrows crinkled together into a frown as the pen moved slightly to the right and drew another circle and colored it in. The pen repeated the steps until nineteen dots covered the page. His confusion slipped from his hairy lips in a wordless groan, not quite voicing the full “what?” that his mind had been thinking.
Can you give me some space? the demon voice demanded. Your whole body smells like armpit.
“Sorry,” BJ obliged, taking a step back from the paper on the desk. He leaned forward as the pen began to move again at the top of the page, forming another larger circle that was left unfilled. Next to it was written the letter “R” followed by a vertical line and then another unfilled circle. Finally the pen wrote the letter “N” before resting on the desk.
Please tell me you know at least some stars, the demon voice pleaded.
Stars? That seemed a little out of the blue. BJ happened to know at least a few stars, but all from the same constellation. He went by BJ, but the nickname was actually short for Betelgeuse. His mom--herself named Juno after one of Jupiter’s moons-- had named him after a star in the constellation Orion and he did happen to know the names of a few neighboring stars in the cluster.
“Oh!” BJ gasped, suddenly understanding what the demon had drawn. “That’s Orion!”
Yeahhh, the demon voice drawled, sounding seriously exasperated. The pen lifted up and slammed down on the writing at the top of the page. I captioned it and everything.
“I thought you couldn’t write out your name?” BJ questioned.
The pen dropped as the demon let out a frustrated groan. My name isn’t Orion. It’s one of the stars in that constellation. That’s why I drew it out.
“Okay, that’s good,” BJ said encouragingly. He nodded his head for extra effect. “It’s actually funny, I’m named after one of the stars there too.”
Hilarious, the demon voice agreed, sounding entirely unamused. The pen lifted again and drew an arrow to one of the stars close to the middle of the three main clusters. It was two dots away from the one representing the Betelgeuse star. It’s this one. That’s my name.
Fuck. This was beginning to feel like a test that he hadn’t studied for. BJ looked at the dot for almost a full three minutes-- long enough for the smudges of ink to start blurring together in his tired eyes. Then, very tentatively, he guessed, “Meissa?”
No! The demon voice growled. The pen smacked the dot directly to the upper left of the one the arrow had been drawn to. That is Meissa. Please tell me you know this one. It’s literally the name of a bad witch in those famous wizard books!
What wizard books? BJ glanced at the paper again, trying desperately to remember the names that went along with the nineteen spots. Betelgeuse was on the other side of Meissa, but what was the star on the right?
With a snap of his fingers and a confident tone, BJ suddenly exclaimed, “Bellatrix!”
Yes! the demon voice cheered. Whoa, I can’t believe you got it! Okay, just say it thr-- uh, I mean five times in a row now, no stopping for anything else in between. Got it?
“Um, okay?” BJ replied. He didn’t want to admit it, but the demon’s enthusiasm was starting to put him on edge. Surely there had to be something more to why Bellatrix wanted him to say her name so badly. And five times in a row? That was oddly specific. What was going to happen to him when he said it the fifth time?
Ready? the demon voice prompted.
BJ shrugged, feeling that it was a worse idea than whatever was about to happen to renege on his end of a bargain with a poltergeist. “Bellatrix,” he intoned, and he almost thought he felt a surge of some ethereal power sprinkle across the room. He didn’t know if he liked it.
“Bellatrix.”
The lights flickered on that second round. A low rumble had almost seemed to follow after as well. That weird energy he’d felt the first time seemed to be getting stronger. He didn’t know if he could make himself say it the full five times in a row.
“Bellatrix,” he said again, and a bolt of actual lightning struck the ground outside with a force so strong it knocked all the power out.
BJ yelped and ducked under his art table. He didn’t know what to do. That menacing power had grown so fearsome he could barely stand it. His throat closed up on itself when he tried to speak the name a fourth time. He was trembling and sweaty and he was too afraid of the levels of control he seemed to be handing over to the faceless demon in the room. He decided with finality that he would not continue their game.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke to the empty room. “I-I really am sorry, but I can’t keep saying your name. I can’t.”
“That’s alright,” the demon voice replied, sounding a little more raspy and a lot more tangible than it had before. When it had spoken the first time, BJ had been sure it was a strange thought in his own head. Now there was no mistaking the voice as belonging to somebody else. It sounded too…
Too solid.
The lights came back on. BJ shrieked as his eyes fell on a girl, solid and firm and standing in his office, the pen still in her hands. He recognized her now from the glimpse he’d caught in the hallway mirror. She had on a lacy black dress that swished across her knees. Her short legs below were clad in stockings that matched her dress in both color and scratchy texture, the feet of which disappeared inside large black combat boots. Her hair was as dark as her outfit, soft curls lightly framing her face to just beneath her sharp pointed chin. It seemed he had drawn the hair almost right; he had entirely missed the bangs that fluttered across her forehead and draped gently above her eyebrows. All the black was in stark contrast to her drastically pale skin and her eerie yellow eyes that glowed like mischievous lamplight. The only splash of color came from her lips that were quirked up at the corners to form a satisfied smirk. They were coated in a deep wine red.
“Wait, but wha-- I-I didn’t… But you… How--”
“It’s simple,” Bellatrix cut across him, holding up a hand to BJ to stop his blabbering. “I didn’t need you to say my name five times. Three times was just enough.”
“Y-You tricked me,” BJ realized.
Bellatrix shrugged her indifference. “Are you so surprised? Demons always get a kick out of tricking hapless humans.”
BJ tried his best to swallow his frustrations and his fear. So it turned out saying a demon’s name did, in fact, have consequences. He could see her now, so he could only assume he had set her loose on the property. It was sort of a strange sight. He had never pictured a demon to take the form of someone so young. Her delicate features would have led him to guess she was just some goth high schooler. He’d known plenty in his time, back in the day. But this one was timeless, and possibly invincible, and plenty dangerous and threatening.
An alarmed whimper prologued his next question as he tried to ask, “So what happens now?”
He nearly shit himself as Bellatrix’s grin turned menacing. Those lamplight eyes beamed as she ran a pink tongue across her upper lip and he caught a glimpse of sharpened white teeth. “I think next, I’ll suck out your soul,” she said intently.
BJ gulped. This was one of those few moments when honesty certainly wasn’t the best policy. He wished he’d just never even asked.