What happens when a desperate man tests a demon’s ability to hold his liquor?
Demon Drinking Contest
When Father Higgins heard I was calling from a bar, he recited the serenity prayer. When I begged him to repeat the blessings of salt and water, he thought I’d fallen off the wagon.
“No matter what you hear, I need you to keep repeating.”
Setting my phone on the table, I aligned the speaker with a glass. Checking my watch, I poured some table salt in, praying O’Brien still watered down his drinks.
The demon Naromach leaned over my shoulder.
“What’s all this?” He nodded toward the lines of shots.
Sweat trickled down my brow. “A drinking contest.”
Naromach sat. Candles flared. His talons tapped the Long Island Iced Tea at the end. “And this?”
“Something to wash it down.”
Naromach’s forked tongue licked his lips. “What’s at stake?”
“My soul.”
“We have your soul.”
“My soul, tonight.”
“And if you win?”
“A reprieve.”
Naromach smirked, “Agreed.” Without warning he swallowed the first shot.
I raced his demon constitution, downing my drinks with one hand, making the sign of the cross with the other.
Naromach was sipping his Long Island by the time I was halfway down the line. I kept on until he slurped the last drop. I was seeing two demons by the time he clutched his throat.
“What was in those shots?”
“Whiskey, but the water in that Long Island Iced Tea, was just sanctified by a priest.”
Naromach tried to grit his teeth, but his jaw dissolved before he could.
Hahaha awesome.
If you boil the hell out of tea water does it become holy water (couldn’t resist)
Interesting tale. A lil creepy ^_^
~B
Thanks for checking it out. Glad you got a laugh
As far as I’ve come to know you, Drew, you always have a reason (whether obvious to the reader or not). So I wonder: what was your reason behind the choice of the name “Naromach”?
It sounded creepy. That was it
Well, I’ll be. Let’s backtrack ourselves into a really cool answer here, shall we?
Drew: “When I was a kid, I was playing Army in the woods with some friends. We were all decked out in full camo with realistic looking rifles (pellet guns), canteens, and the like. Well, somehow we got separated and I wound up going deeper and deeper into the woods until I was completely lost. Didn’t recognize a thing around me. Since we were playing Army, I did have a few tools on me; but my compass began whirling round and round. I shouted, but it was if the sound couldn’t get beyond six inches, almost muffled, no resonance. I was freaked, for sure, but trying to remember that the worst accidents happen when you panic. Still, night was falling, and I had no plan. The temperature, oddly, rose as it got darker, and my skin prickled, both from the rising heat and the oddity of it all. That’s when I saw a shadow – something darker than the rest of the woods around me – sliding between trees, working itself my way. I did what any kid would do. I ran. I ran and ran and ran until I thought my lungs would burn to ash, and I stumbled on a root. Banged my head. Lost consciousness. When I came to, my friends were standing over me, making quizzical eyes at one another. Then they began to laugh as I moaned, squinting into the sunlight. Sunlight? It was day somehow. They acted as if I’d been gone only a few minutes.
I never knew what had happened, but I’m sure it was demonic. So, in this story, I just took the sounds of ‘camo’ (which I’d been wearing) and ‘ran’ (because it’s what I did so much of in my fear), reversed their sounds, and came up with ‘Naromac, which looked cooler as ‘Naromach.’
And that’s how I came up with the name.”