Expel the Curse, Slay the Demon

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

Out in the spotless corridor, a middle-aged man pounded on the door, rage written across his face.

"Hey! Open this door, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will you! Sir!"

The man was the motel's manager. On any ordinary day, his job began and ended at the front desk on the first floor—taking payment, assigning guests their rooms, and scrubbing out the rooms they left behind.

But now here he was, hammering on a guest's door with a murderous edge sharpening his features.

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

"Open up, I said! What on earth are you doing in there! Sir!"

Even as the man beat on the door in a fury, the sound of metal sheeting being struck kept ringing out from within.

Clunk-clunk! Clunk-clunk!

"Ah, for fuck's sake, what the hell is all this now?"

Strangely enough, even the master key wouldn't open the door.

"Come on, open up! Hey?"

Boom! Boom-boom! Bu-ooom!

The drumbeat went on and on inside. It was the drum of Park Mi-ryeong, the medium who served the Great Dokkaebi, and the rite she drummed out was a barrier against things unclean.

She had to hold back the chang-gwi. And to help her benefactor Kang Hyeong-seok, she had to keep Kim Jae-sik safe.

Bang-bang-bang-bang!

"What is this, a drum troupe in there? Open up already! Come on!"

Even as the man howled and wrenched at the door handle, Park Mi-ryeong stayed fixed on her drum.

She was holding back the chang-gwi. The Great Dokkaebi—visible only to those gifted with the Yeongan—loomed above the motel, barring the creatures' approach.

Squelch-crunch!

Any chang-gwi brazen enough to close in was crushed flat under the dokkaebi's colossal hand, and the ones trying to slip up from behind, out of its sight, were ground beneath its feet.

While the Great Dokkaebi stood guard over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the motel like a patron deity, Kim Jae-sik sat quietly on the bed. The curtains hung parted just a sliver, giving him a view of the world outside.

Shaaaaaaa—

What in God's name kind of rain pours like this?

With eyes brimming over with thought, Kim Jae-sik gazed out at the rain beyond the glass. His mind was full of one person: Kang Hyeong-seok.

"Hyeong-seok..."

As the name left his lips, the space between his brows slowly drew tight, carving itself into a deep furrow.

"Have you really become a shaman?"

Four years. Four whole years.

That was how long he had walked beside Kang Hyeong-seok, from the boy's first days on campus all the way to graduation. Counting the military service it stretched longer still, and every leave Hyeong-seok earned, he came by the professor's office just to show his face.

So even when the boy tried to bury what was in his heart, Jae-sik could see straight through him.

"Hoo... that rascal."

If he'd become a shaman, the least he could have done was say so. What kind of earth-shattering secret was this, that he had to hide it even from him?

His eyes crumpled with pity as Kim Jae-sik breathed out a long sigh. Then he kneaded his hands together and pressed his lips into a hard line.

A tiger spirit, chang-gwi, and a stone elephant statue.

Boom, bu-ooom, boom-boom!

With Park Mi-ryeong's drumming ringing out clearly from the very next room, Kim Jae-sik turned the thoughts over and over.

Banya Temple, the mountain, the tiger stone mound.

Then, as if something had just come to him, his eyes flew wide open.

The mountain.

A tiger is the Mountain Lord, so finding one on a mountain was nothing new—and yet the mountain itself had struck him like a thunderclap.

Mountains hold things besides the Mountain Lord. And perhaps that something would turn out to be the key to it all.

Unconsciously clenching both hands into fists, Kim Jae-sik screwed his eyes shut and wished with everything he had.

A shaman is a human being who has received a god—an existence born of the longing to lean on something divine.

Let that god protect Kang Hyeong-seok. Let Hyeong-seok come home safe.

With desperate sincerity, Kim Jae-sik wished, and wished again.

Tuk-tuk-tuk! Tuk-tuk!

Yoon-sang stared at the Hosikchong from where he'd landed hard on his rear. His mind had gone blank white, and every scrap of strength had drained out of his arms and legs—he couldn't have run if his life had depended on it.

Something was in there. Inside that Hosikchong. Something that had no right to exist.

Clatter.

His phone had slipped from his hand and rolled across the ground, but Yoon-sang couldn't even summon the nerve to film it.

Tuk-tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk!

Even as he sat frozen, the stones that made up the Hosikchong kept trickling loose, widening the hole. The gap that had shown nothing but a pair of eyes now revealed ears and a nose as well.

What lay inside was human. But not some poor soul devoured by a tiger in the distant past and bound to the beast in death—this was a person with both eyes flung wide open, staring.

"Uh, uhhh—"

But as he sat there with his wits scattered, the voice slid into his head once more.

"Pull out the iron rod."

"I-iron? The rod?"

KRAKA-BOOM!

Lightning struck close by, and for an instant the Hosikchong blazed in a fierce, bluish glow. A shriveled, wrinkled face was revealed—and even to Yoon-sang, it plainly belonged to no ordinary being.

"The tiger sealed me in."

Gasping for breath, Yoon-sang's hand went to his bag. Whatever was locked inside a Hosikchong had to be a chang-gwi—that much seemed obvious.

Pitter-patter!

So he scattered the plums from his bag around the Hosikchong, but the eyes never spared them so much as a glance.

Not a chang-gwi, then?

Just as Yoon-sang's terror of the nameless thing redoubled—

"Pull out the iron rod."

Yoon-sang felt close to tears now. He wished, truly wished, that Kang Hyeong-seok were beside him—but alas, the only living soul up here seemed to be him.

"Ugh-hhh..."

Nearly sobbing, Yoon-sang staggered upright. The voice was terrifying and his legs were shaking, but if he left the thing inside the Hosikchong where it was, he had a sick feeling some disaster would follow.

"H-hey, just one promise, okay?"

"Speak."

"Please let me live."

Yoon-sang squeezed the words out, and the thing inside the Hosikchong stayed silent for a long moment before answering with a voice thick with fury.

"Pull it out!"

Yoon-sang flinched and wiped at his eyes with a hand that wouldn't stop trembling. Then, half-crouched, he began inching toward the Hosikchong.

"Y-you have to promise, or I won't do it."

Clatter!

Another stone dropped loose. No words came, but that seemed to be the answer, so Yoon-sang strained his arm out toward the stone mound.

Then he began sweeping the stones aside as if raking through hair.

"There is no time. Pull it out, quickly. What you are thinking of will not come to pass."

"Hnnngh!"

Praying to anything that would listen that this was not something sinister, Yoon-sang cleared the stones from the top down. Then his hand brushed something cold and hard.

A pot...?

It was a siru—the squat earthenware vessel used for steaming rice or rice cakes. It was pierced through with hole after hole, and through one of them jutted something like a long iron needle.

P-pull this out? Why?

Yoon-sang had no way of knowing it, but a Hosikchong is no simple mound of stones over a grave. It is a working of sorcery—nearly a weapon in its own right.

The body of the one the tiger had devoured was burned and laid at the very bottom, and the siru stacked above it signified steaming whatever was trapped inside until it died. The holes in the siru stood for heaven, and the iron rod through them symbolized the lightning bolt. It was a sealing spell, built to keep what lay within locked away without mercy.

Which meant that pulling out the iron rod was to open the road to heaven.

"O-okay, pulling it out now."

Face tight with tension, Yoon-sang pulled at the iron rod embedded in the siru. Rust held it fast—at first the whole pot shifted with it—but pressing down on the rim with his palm as he hauled, he worked it loose little by little.

And so it was, right after Yoon-sang drew one iron rod free of the siru—

GRRRUMBLE—!

The stone mound came crashing down in a rush.

"Waaahhh!"

Yoon-sang scrambled backward in alarm, and the rain poured down harder still.

From the drenched Hosikchong came something that sounded like a long sigh—or perhaps the sound of something slipping out through the holes newly opened in the siru.

"Uh, uhhh—"

Eyes stretched wide, Yoon-sang stared at the Hosikchong. And a moment later, he saw it: something white as cigarette smoke sliding out through the holes of the siru.

What had been imprisoned within was free.

"F-film it. I have to film this."

The phone suddenly came back to him, and he patted himself down searching for it. He found it where it had fallen, snatched it up, and hurriedly filmed the Hosikchong—but the screen showed nothing but a heap of stones.

As if it had been empty from the very beginning.

KA-WHUMP!

His back slammed into a tree, and the rainwater pooled on its leaves came showering down over him. Kang Hyeong-seok hastily gathered himself and rattled the shaman bells, but the Beomgwi was nowhere in sight.

Sssssssss...

All he could make out was a black shape, flitting between the trees with ominous speed. But he couldn't afford to fix his attention on the Beomgwi, either.

FWOOSH!

A chang-gwi that had been waiting for its opening launched itself at him like a tiger on the wing, monstrous jaws lunging for his throat.

Wa-ra-ra-rang!

Hyeong-seok rang the shaman bells in haste. These were the same bells that had held the chang-gwi at bay even back when his hands were still clumsy with them.

The chang-gwi froze mid-lunge, and Hyeong-seok swung the Sinjangkal without hesitation.

THWACK!

The strike felt like slapping a sheet of window paper, and in the same breath the chang-gwi went rolling across the ground.

Geh-eck! Uhhh-heeeck! Grrrrrruh!

Thrashing like an animal struck by a car, the chang-gwi spilled a human scream from its mouth.

Wa-ra-ra-ra-rang!

As the shaman bells cut off the others' approach, agonized wailing rose into the rain.

Ugh-hhhh! Hnnngh! Hnnnnh! Aaahhh! Ah-uhhh-uhhh!

The wails, saturated with bitterness, came from the chang-gwi. Bound to kill Hyeong-seok yet barred by his sacred implements, they grieved as though their entrails were being severed. Tears of blood poured from their eyes—it was enough to make the skin crawl.

The Beomgwi!

Hyeong-seok kept ringing the bells to hold the chang-gwi back, eyes fixed on the forest. Rain fell through the trees. Not a pinch of light reached this mountainside, and only the wind made a sound—still, he could not loosen his guard for a second.

Wa-ra-ra-rang!

Just as Hyeong-seok kept shaking the bells—

KRAKA-BOOM!

Thunder cracked, briefly and fiercely washing everything in a bluish glow. In that flash he caught a glimpse: the Beomgwi, swaying its tail, right beside him. Vertical pupils dilated to their limit. Mottled fur, and heads dangling from its body in heavy clusters like grapes.

Hwaah—

All at once, every sense he had vanished. Hearing, touch, sight—gone entirely, leaving nothing he could perceive.

A tiger bewitches the human mind.

Damn it...

Hyeong-seok swung the hand holding the shaman bells, but no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sound came at all. Even the feeling in his hand was gone; he couldn't tell whether the bells were still in his grip.

And still he could not stop. He kept swinging the hand that held the bells, scanning everything around him.

The tiger had bewitched him. It was as if this whole forest had been turned into a tiger's den.

He chanted the sacred scripture, arms swinging without pause—and faintly, blessedly, the sound of the shaman bells began to seep back into the world.

His five senses came back. And the first thing he registered was a source of light in the distance.

What lit the darkness was neither moon nor star, but a tree. Beneath a lone red plum tree radiating crimson light stood the Beomgwi.

"Souls... souls..."

Perhaps it was the Beomgwi's influence at work. The murky voice of that thing—something that should never have been audible—had reached his ears.

Thud.

The Beomgwi began to advance on its huge forepaws. Hyeong-seok brought the shaman bells up before him and regripped the Sinjangkal. By all rights, he should have surrendered his throat the instant the Beomgwi bewitched him—but two sacred implements were guarding him.

"Your endurance trembles—O shaman dancing a futile dance on a mountain without gods."

Thud. Thud.

Watching the Beomgwi come on at its leisure, Hyeong-seok opened his mouth slowly.

"Don't try your tricks on me."

"All of it is for naught. A Geumjul without meaning, a homecoming without welcome."

Wa-ra-ra-rang!

The shaman bells rang out hard and bright, but the Beomgwi held Hyeong-seok's gaze and kept coming. Its yellow, vertically split pupils swelled unnaturally wide, and the shrieks of the chang-gwi hanging from its body grew louder.

Save me. Save me. I don't want to die. Free me from this thing.

Hyeong-seok... Hyeong-seok... save me...

The last voice he heard belonged to Professor Jang Jun.

Jaw clenched hard, Hyeong-seok stared at Jang Jun clinging to the Beomgwi's jaw. His heart was surging. But he fought desperately to master it, ringing the shaman bells all the while.

The Beomgwi growled low and long. It had taken the Okgap-gyeong—the ancient scripture that drives out evil spirits—and stitched its own twisted verses into the holy words.

Then it pinned Hyeong-seok with those yellow pupils.

A tiger bewitches people—with the venom of its tail, the deceit of its eyes—beguiling them until they move exactly as it wills. But Kang Hyeong-seok, shielded by his two sacred implements and the protection of his Momjusin, could defy the Beomgwi's command.

Swoosh!

He swept the Sinjangkal in a threatening arc, wrapped his fist around the hilt, and clamped down hard on his own mind. At that the Beomgwi's jaws yawned open, a blood-soaked red tongue lolling and lapping.

The Beomgwi was about to spring. It meant to tear out his throat, rip his flesh, crush his bones—to make a chang-gwi of Kang Hyeong-seok, to mock the gods, and to sow calamity through the world of men.

Through the closing gap, Hyeong-seok pushed out a thin breath, and with the shaman bells and the Sinjangkal held firmly in his mind, he opened his mouth.

And then he offered up a prayer. Not one directed at the Beomgwi—a prayer raised to the gods.

Great gods, countless gods—let this shaman's prayer be a wall against calamity.

Reciting the mountain-god prayer, Hyeong-seok met the Beomgwi's gaze with still, quiet eyes. This was a Beomgwi that slew even gods, a demon that toyed with the divine. So many souls were bound to that thing—his prayer begged the gods to watch over him, and to let him save them.

And then—

BU-OOOOOM—!

As though in answer to his prayer, a great drumbeat rolled across the mountain.