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CWB Writing

The Works of Christopher Buecheler

Possessed

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Description

Possessed Cover Image

Some girls go to college after high school. Amber Pérez joined a cult. After the car crash, after she lost her brother, nothing seemed to matter anymore. So when the only friend she had left said, You wanna hang out in some parks, smoke some weed, maybe spray-paint some anarchy signs? Amber said, Sure. Why not? None of it was, like, for real.

That was before Matthias took over. Before he found The Book. Before the ritual.

All it took was one accidental step on the pentagram and, whoops, the demon Matthias meant for himself bonded with her instead. Jayuul’s a jerk who loves projectile vomiting on command and hurting people, but she can’t get rid of him. Worse, Matthias will literally set her on fire if he finds out, and she can’t even tell her friends, because Shannon’s banging him (ugh), and Dylan’s his second in command. She wants out of the whole thing, but where would she go? She lives on Shannon’s couch!

When Amber witnesses another crash, it feels like losing her brother all over again, until she learns she can heal people just as easily as hurt them. The demon’s always had these powers; he’s just never had a host who wanted to use them. No one’s more surprised than him to find out he actually likes doing so.

Helping people not die is a serious motivator, so Amber and Jayuul hatch a plan to keep Matthias from terrorizing Miami with black magic and chemical bombs. She just has to juggle her friends’ suspicion, Matthias’s growing madness, the flirtations of local celebrity and kidnapping victim “Kitty Kim” Alexander, the police, the church, and a betrayal she never would’ve expected. No problem, right?

A completed color illustration in which we can see three people walking down a Miami street at sunset. Two young women and one young man. One of the women is looking into a store window, and we can see that her reflection has been replaced by a demonic figureAmber, Dylan, Kim … and Jayuul (illustration by Alyssa Lee)

About the Characters

A completed color illustration - a portrait of a young woman. She has medium curly brown hair, dark brows, tan skin, and cute freckles across the bridge of her nose. She's smirking slightly and her eyes are looking up and to her right (our left), as if she's beginning to roll them. The background is very dark.Amber's a little over this whole thing … (illustration by Alexandria Neonakis)

Amber Perez is a 23 year-old woman who until very recently held no goals loftier than "get high and eat some nachos." Amber was an ordinary enough girl until her older brother Dennis was killed in a car crash when she was thirteen years old. After that, with anger threatening to consume her, she turned to the bottle and struggled her way through high school, drunk most of the time. It was only when she met her friend Shannon, who invited her to join a group of friends as they bounced around southern Florida, spray-painting anarchy signs, smoking weed, catching death metal shows, and generally avoiding responsibility, that Amber finally started to heal - or at least lock away her anger. Her devout Christian parents were horrified that she'd joined a group calling itself Satan's Children and gave her a choice: renounce the group or get out. Amber said, "Fine," and got out. Now she lives on Shannon's couch.

The group's not what it once was; Matthias came along at some point and brought with him texts on demonology and the occult. Amber stuck around out of inertia, though she never had much interest in the "Satan" part of Satan's Children to begin with. She didn't even buy into any of that shit.

Now things are different. She stepped somewhere she shouldn't have stepped, and there's a voice in her head that doesn't belong to her. The demon meant for Matthias has taken up residence, and getting rid of him is going to be a lot more complicated than anything she's done in a long time. Ugh. Effort.

Suddenly, she's got more important things to worry about than those nachos.

Jayuul is what the ancient Sumerians called an Udug - an ageless spirit that possesses people and grants them uncanny powers, including the ability to break locks, some level of superhuman strength, night vision, short periods of levitation, and vomiting on command. While they are generally thought of as malevolent, the truth is that's only because they're most often summoned by malevolent people. They can also grant their hosts the power to heal, and some hosts also experience precognitive visions. He is able to briefly take control of his host's body (even against their will) and can also speak through them, although the voice comes out guttural and disgusting, like sewage burbling over stones.

Jayuul is not visible to anyone in the outside world, and most commonly manifests as a voice in Amber's head. However, he can appear to her when she looks in mirrors, as a nebulous dark shape with glowing red eyes superimposed over her own body. He is sarcastic and initially unimpressed with Amber. The two of them can't wait to be rid of each other. At least at first.

A completed color illustration - a portrait of a young woman. She has straight, bleach-blonde hair in a pixie cut with brushed to the side bangs, one side of it tucked behind her right ear. She has very pale skin, dark eye shadow and liner, blue eyes, and painted red lips. There are rings in her septum and her lip. She's looking directly at the camera and looks a touch sad/wistful. She is wearing a black choker with a dangling circular pendant around her neck, and a black blouse. The background is very dark.Shannon in all her gothy glory (illustration by Alexandria Neonakis)

Shannon met Amber just as the latter was finishing up high school, and was the first person Amber felt she could be halfway normal around in years. Shannon's main goals in life were finding ways to buy or steal new, cute goth outfits; getting high; and studiously avoiding any significant responsibility. Amber could get behind that, so she moved in with Shannon and Shannon's short-hair tabby, Clam Chowder.

Sweet, shy, unassuming, and maybe just a touch naive, Shannon's the kind of person who traps bugs and lets them go outside of the apartment. Everything except those gross hairy-looking centipedes; she calls Amber to handle those. Despite her love for goth fashion, she's not terribly fond of darkness and despair. She attends all the meetings and listens to everything Matthias has to say even though she finds him a little scary.

Of course, a little scary can also be a little sexy …

A completed color illustration - a portrait of a man. He is in his forties or perhaps fifties. His blonde hair is cut short and brushed back from his forehead. He is long and lean. He is facing the camera with his head tilted slightly down, grey-blue eyes turned up to meet the viewer. He has a long, prominent nose and is smirking.Matthias looking relatively normal … for Matthias (illustration by Alexandria Neonakis)

Matthias has been obsessed with demonology since his encounter with a possessed woman when he was in his twenties. He has spent three decades researching, studying, and searching for arcane knowledge. Though he hides it well, he has also become unstable, dangerous, and obsessed with punishing the people of Miami.

Older than he seems, and much scarier than Shannon realizes, Matthias has spent his entire life waiting for the opportunity to bond with a demon. When Amber accidentally takes that opportunity from him, he is crestfallen and enraged. Unsure what, exactly, prevented the thing he considers his birthright, and unwilling to admit to any of his devotees that the procedure didn't work, he buys time with other magic while attempting to suss out what went wrong.

As time drags on, and he grows more desperate, Matthias begins to consider other, more terrible actions to get what he wants.

He will bring Miami to its knees, and anyone who stands in his way had better have help.

A completed color illustration - Dylan is a white male in his early twenties with light brown hair, long, currently pulled back in a man-bun or ponytail. He's got prominent eyebrows above brown eyes, a medium-sized nose, and full lips. He has a short brown beard. There is a leather cord hanging from his neckDylan may be judging you … (illustration by Alexandria Neonakis)

Dylan servers as Matthias's second in command for a variety of reasons. For one thing, he has his shit a little bit more together than the average member of Satan's Children. For another, he's a little stronger in his belief in the occult than the others. For a third, he's very interested in seeing what kind of social change could be enacted via powers beyond those humans are capable of.

Friendly, chill, and into death metal, Dylan is close with all of the remaining members of the cult, but closest with Amber and Shannon. Amber would love to date him, but Dylan's into dudes with chest hair, and she's neither the former, nor has the latter.

She'd tell him about Jayuul, of course, in an instant ... except the first time Jayuul laid eyes on Dylan, the demon started screaming at her not to mention him. Something about the necklace Dylan wears makes Jayuul not trust him.

But that's crazy, right? Dylan's her friend. He's kept no secrets from her.

A completed color illustration - Kim is a woman in her early twenties. She has long dark hair and large green eyes edging toward turquoise. She's tanned and fit, with full pink lips. She's looking at the camera and smiling a bit.Yeah, sure … we can take a selfie. (illustration by Alexandria Neonakis)

Kim grew up starring in commercials for her father's furniture business, and as a result gets recognized around southern Florida more than she'd like. She's in her final year at the University of Miami, studying business. Not that she intends to take over the furniture empire; she wants to run a tech startup.

She doesn't know Amber. Or Dylan. Or any of the members of Satan's Children. But she becomes familiar with them after she wakes up to find herself tied up in the trunk of Matthias's car. While Amber gets her out of that terrifying situation, they soon find themselves in several more.

Kim's a straightforward, take charge kind of girl who knows how to use her looks, her celebrity, and her brains and is used to the privileges money brings. For all that, she's good natured, and strikes up a quick friendship not only with Amber, but with Dylan as well.

She also thinks Amber is very cute.

Praise for Possessed

"It's a banger!"

"My favorite of your books!"

"Why is she wearing that shirt?"