As I sat down, she opened the second bag. “Want some?”
Nausea welled again. I shook my head and suppressed the urge to return to the sink.
“So,” Tina said, “Eidolons get the munchies when a victim is almost asleep. The victim lies in bed, trying to relax, and these bad feelings—guilt and worry and stuff like that—start to rise up. The Eidolon feeds on those feelings. At the same time, it tries to make them worse, keeping the victim awake. It can, like, read the thoughts that are making the person feel bad. It’s like it infects those thoughts, making them, you know, fester. Sucks for the victim.”
That was for damn sure. “Habitat?” I asked.
“Most of the time they live in the demon plane and only cross over to our world when they get a whiff of somebody’s guilt. But once the infestation, like, takes hold, the Eidolon can actually live inside the host. That really sucks for the victim, because it means the Eidolon can feed all the time, not just after dark when most demons come out to play.”
The sick feeling in my stomach was growing by the minute. I never should have let that demon get away. “What’s the best way to kill an Eidolon?”
“Wait, you didn’t ask about symptoms. I know that part; we can’t skip it.”
Hearing my own symptoms recited to me was not a thrill I wanted to experience, but it wasn’t Tina’s fault that the timing of this lesson was so awful. “Okay, go ahead.”
“First of all, the victim is, like, super-exhausted from lack of sleep.” Tina looked at me for confirmation at the very moment I was stifling a yawn. I coughed into my hand.
“Are you getting a cold?” she asked. “Spring colds are the worst. I’m glad zombies don’t get those.”
“I’m fine.” I’d gotten plenty of sleep yesterday. Running around Phyllis’s dreamscape had taken a lot of energy, that’s all. “What else?”
“Um, let me see.” She looked at the ceiling as though the answer were written there. “Other telltale signs include lack of appetite and feeling dirty all the time. If someone keeps washing their hands…” She paused, and I shoved the dishtowel out of sight under the table. “Or takes, like, four or five showers a day, that’s a major clue.”
She ate another handful of popcorn, chewing slowly, a thoughtful expression on her face as she regarded me. Crap. She’d just listed the classic symptoms of an Eidolon infestation, and here I sat, the perfect textbook case for every single one, from the purple circles under my eyes to the near-crazy need to wash my hands yet again. I’m not infested! I wanted to shout. I only summoned the demon to question it.
The words were almost on my lips when Tina spoke. “Do you have any ice cream? I kinda hate to ask. It’s not like I want to eat you out of house and home or anything, but I’m still hungry.”
“Ice cream?” I almost laughed. She wasn’t diagnosing me, just judging how many snacks I’d let her have. For a minute, I’d worried I was going to have to fend her off while she waved around a mail-order dagger, challenging my Eidolon to a duel. “Yeah, there’s chocolate. There might be another kind, too. See what’s in the freezer.”
Tina grinned and went to the fridge. I sat on my hands to suppress the urge to wash them.
“Anyway,” she said, pulling out a pint of cookie-dough flavor, “those are the symptoms. Did I miss any?”
“You hit all the important ones.” I didn’t want to go through a long list of minor symptoms and find myself twitching with every single one.
“Cool. Now we can move on to how to kill Eidolons.” She took a spoon from the silverware drawer and returned to the table. “The book says that a bronze dagger will do the trick, like with most demons. A couple of stabs, and pop! It explodes.” She pried the lid off the container and dug in. “But you know,” she added, speaking around a mouth full of ice cream, “that seems like it’d make a big mess. An Eidolon looks kinda like a maggot, right? Have you ever squished a maggot?”
Bile rose, and I swallowed hard a couple of times, shaking my head.
“Well, it’s really gross. Who’d want that gunk all over their bed? I mean, if an Eidolon already makes you feel all slimy, popping one would really—”
“I get the idea, Tina. Move along.”
She dug out another big scoop. “So I was thinking. The book says that if you kill an Eidolon, another one will follow unless you get rid of the feelings that attract the demons to you in the first place. That Russom dude recommends psycho-whatsis—”
“Psychoanalysis. R. G. Russom was a big fan of Sigmund Freud.”“Who’s that—like, some actor?” Tina rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about demons here.”
“Freud wasn’t—” I sighed. “Never mind, go on.”
“So anyway, Russom recommends using that psycho stuff to, like, pull out guilt and other negative emotions at the root. But here’s what I thought: Why not start with that? No maggot-popping needed.”
I closed my eyes for a moment against the image of a popped maggot—I’d killed enough Eidolons to know how accurate it was—and wiped my hands on the dishtowel under the table. “Psychoanalysis can take years, though,” I said. “Killing the Eidolon gives the victim relief and some time to work on the psychological issues.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Explain, then. Let’s say you were faced with an Eidolon. Not a client’s—one of your own. What would you do?” My voice sounded a little too eager.
“I’d embarrass the sucker to death.”
I almost laughed. That was not an idea I’d expect from Tina, who thought weapons were the cool part of demon slaying. On the other hand, she was a teenage girl. I motioned for her to continue.
“See, I was thinking about personal demons and why they’re so scary and all. And I realized that they’re scary mostly because we’re scared of them.” She shook her head. “Wait, that sounds kind of obvious. What I mean is, the victim gives the demon the power to be frightening. If you give something, you can take it away, right?”
I leaned forward. “And how would you do that?”
“You know that trick to get rid of stage fright—the one where you imagine the audience in their underwear?”
“You think people should picture their demons wearing underwear?” This time I did laugh, as the image flashed through my mind of my scowling Eidolon with a matching bra-and-panties set stretched around its bloated, slimy body. Pink satin. With lace. And rosebuds.
Tina grinned, taking my laughter as encouragement. “Sure, why not? But it doesn’t have to be underwear. When you’re scared of something, make it seem all lame and ridiculous. If you’ve got an Eidolon, give it a nickname, like Snookums or Tinkerbell or Butterfly. I mean, who could be scared of a demon called Snookums?”
“So when you’re lying in bed and your Eidolon shows up…”
“I’d say, ‘Hi, Snookums. I hope you’re not hungry, because I had the most awesome day.’ I’d imagine Snookums wearing a silly-looking party hat and those glasses that have a big fake nose attached. I’d tell jokes and think about things that make me happy. You know, think about them on purpose. If old Snookums tried to make me feel bad, I’d push away that thought and find one that made me feel better. Even just a little bit better.” Tina finished the last spoonful of ice cream and pushed the carton to one side. “Okay, so now you’re going to tell me what’s wrong with my idea.”
“No, I’m not. It’s a very solid idea.” Parts of it were exactly what I’d done to keep the Eidolon I’d summoned under control, thinking about flowers and puppies. “You’ve put a twist on what I usually recommend to clients, which is to find a way to get rid of those feelings of guilt and worry. When you do that, you cut off the Eidolon’s food supply.”
“You mean Snookums’s food supply. ‘Eidolon’ sounds too serious and scary. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking, too. ’Cause if there’s one thing zombies understand, it’s food. When you’re hungry and there’s nothing to eat, you’re not going to hang around. You’re going to go somewhere else, some place where you have a chance to score some chow.” She eyed the empty ice cream container a bit sorrowfully.
“It’s a good method. Just remember that some clients find it hard to follow. Once anxiety takes hold, some people can’t push it away, no matter how hard they try. In those cases, it may be necessary to kill the Eid—er, Snookums—first and then get psychological help. It doesn’t have to be psychoanalysis; there are faster, more modern methods. I recommend meditation, hypnosis, counseling. It depends on the individual client.”
“Speaking of chow,” Tina said, “I’d better get home or I’ll miss dinner. And that would be, you know, a disaster.” She pulled a candy bar from her backpack and ate it in two bites as she put Russom’s away. “So I did good today?”
“You did. I like that you’re thinking outside the box. Fighting demons isn’t always about weapons.”
Tina beamed as she shrugged on her backpack. “Sometimes you have to think like that. Sometimes your teacher tells you not to bring your dagger to school anymore.”
After Tina had gone, I found myself back at the sink, washing my hands again. This had to stop. I pictured the Eidolon that sprawled on my torso, its horrible larval body quivering as it fed. Not a Snookums. Not even a Tinkerbell. What was the other name Tina had tossed off? Butterfly.
Something in my gut cringed.
Butterfly. Yeah, I could see that. It already looked like a bug. I imagined the lump of a body sprouting wings, beautiful wings covered in delicate, colorful patterns. They fluttered gently above me.
The nausea I’d been feeling shrank to a pinpoint, then disappeared.