would have,” she said. “He was already high as a kite before you came. I suspect he’ll need medical attention.” She turned to look at me, her eyes flicking briefly to the Taser and away. “If you let me move into him while you talk to Melanie, I can repair whatever damage he’s just done to himself.”
“Can you cure the HIV?” Barbie asked.
Melanie shook her head. “I can stop it from causing any harm while I’m in residence, but I can’t outright cure it. Shall I transfer?”
I didn’t have to let her, not now that I had the Taser. I could just shoot her full of electricity and send her back to the Demon Realm. But despite my notable lack of faith in both mankind and demonkind, I found myself wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I was going soft.… Or maybe I just didn’t like Rick and wasn’t as worried about protecting him as I should have been.
“Do it.”
Melanie sat on the bed beside Rick. She untied the tourniquet, then picked up the empty syringe and tossed it onto the bedside table. The look in her eyes said she genuinely cared about him, but maybe she was just a good actress. She reached out and brushed an errant lock of hair off his forehead.
Melanie’s body language changed subtly, her shoulders slumping as her hand fell away from Rick’s face. His eyes opened, and I knew immediately that the demon was now in the driver’s seat. His pupils were no longer dilated, and the expression on his face was too … serene to belong to the angry, drug-crazed asshole who’d hit me.
Melanie looked up at me, her eyes a little too wide as she chewed her lip. “How did you find me?” she asked.
Something had clearly frightened her. My first thought was that the demon had threatened her before it moved out, but she was pressing close to Rick, as if seeking his protection.
“Was the demon telling the truth?” I asked. “Are you a willing host.”
“Yes. Tell me how you found me!” She was breathing hard, her hands clenched into fists in her lap.
Rick sat up and put a soothing hand on her back. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, though of course it was the demon talking, not Rick the Prick. “Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.”
I felt like I’d somehow missed a part of this conversation. “What’s the matter, Melanie?” I asked. “What are you afraid of?”
Instead of answering me, she turned and practically flung herself into Rick’s arms. He held her tightly, tucking her head under his chin and looking at me over her head.
“The only person who knew Rick’s full name was her sister,” he explained. “She thinks you found her because Beth betrayed her. And that you’re going to hand her over to her parents.”
“No way in hell I’d do that,” I assured him. The little hairs on the back of my neck were prickling.
Maybe it was naive of me, but I was dead certain Beth had told me the truth, and that she was very, very worried about Melanie’s safety. Worried enough that there was no way she’d have given Rick’s name to her parents, not when that would have helped them track Melanie down. Worried enough to reach out to a stranger and ask for my help—and risk telling me Rick’s name.
I turned to Barbie as apprehension settled in the pit of my stomach. “You didn’t happen to check to see if we were being followed when we came here, did you?” I asked.
Barbie muttered a curse under her breath. “No. It never occurred to me.”
Damn it! It had never occurred to me, either. How had Beth known I was the exorcist her parents had hired? Maybe because they had “carelessly” left my card lying around for her to find? And if they knew Beth wouldn’t give them Rick’s name, what better way to find it than to trick her into telling someone else? Someone else who would conveniently lead them right to their wayward daughter.
Melanie cowered in the demon’s arms, and he rocked her like a baby. I met his steady gaze.
“They wouldn’t really…?” I started, then found myself unable to finish the question. I’d had a pretty sucky relationship with my parents, and they’d never protected me in the way parents should protect a child. But even
“Her mother has ambitions within God’s Wrath,” the demon said. “What better way to prove her loyalty and commitment to the cause than to sacrifice her own daughter? Besides, I think she truly believes she’d be saving Melanie’s soul.”
There was a loud knock on the front door, and we all froze. Melanie let out a bleat of terror, and I couldn’t blame her. Sure, it could be just a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of sugar—does anyone really do that?—but I wasn’t counting on it. I checked the charge on my Taser, and Barbie drew her gun, flicking off the safety.
Rick shook his head. “They’ve done this before, and they know how many people are in this apartment. There will be too many of them for us to take. And no one in this building will stick their neck out for us.”
Of course, Rick didn’t know that he wasn’t the only demon in the room. I had a feeling Lugh would even the odds.
The knock sounded again, more firmly. A male voice shouted something authoritative-sounding, though I couldn’t make out the words.
“Call the police,” Rick said. His voice was still calm, but his eyes were wide and frightened-looking, and he was holding Melanie so tight he was practically crushing her. “Tell them what’s happening, and tell them if they don’t get here in time, they’ll find us at Melanie’s house. God’s Wrath has what they call a ‘facility’ in the basement.”
There was a loud crash from the front of the apartment. I had a sinking feeling that was the sound of the front door being broken down. “Hold them off as long as you can!” I ordered Barbie as I whipped out my cell phone and hit speed dial.
If I had to go through 911, I’d never get through an explanation before it was too late. However, Adam White, the director of Special Forces—the branch of the Philly PD responsible for demon-related crimes—was a member of Lugh’s council, and I could enlist his aid with a minimum of bullshit.
Barbie, standing in the bedroom doorway, fired off a warning shot down the hall, and Melanie screamed.
“Don’t come any closer,” Barbie yelled to someone out in the hallway. “The police are on their way!”
Yeah, well, sort of.
I figured that from her defended position, Barbie might be able to hold the bad guys off for a couple of minutes. What I hadn’t counted on was the canisters of tear gas said bad guys lobbed our way. It wouldn’t have a whole lot of effect on demons, but it would take Barbie and Melanie out of play in no time.
I didn’t hesitate to let Lugh take control—I wouldn’t be able to tell Adam diddly-squat if I was coughing up a lung, as Barbie was starting to do. She fired off one more shot blindly, then was overcome by the gas.
It seemed like a century before Adam answered the phone. He started in on some sarcastic greeting—I never called him with anything resembling good news—but Lugh cut him off.
“Get to 125 Oak Grove Court, fast,” he gasped, the tear gas making his breath come short even if it didn’t incapacitate him. “Basement. God’s Wrath is taking us—”
A masked figure suddenly appeared out of the cloud of gas. Lugh tried to dive out of the way, but twin Taser probes latched onto his chest and stomach, and fifty thousand volts of electricity short-circuited his control of my body. The phone fell from his limp fingers as he collapsed to the floor.
Lugh faded into the background of my mind, and I lost myself to misery.
I must have passed out somewhere along the way, because the next thing I knew, I was in a moving vehicle. My hands were tied brutally tight behind my back, and I was practically suffocating under a heavy hood that blocked my vision. A cloth gag sucked all the moisture from my mouth and bit into the bruise on my jaw. My chest ached from coughing, and my eyes burned so badly I doubt I could have seen anything even without the hood.
It was not looking good for the home team. God’s Wrath never hesitated to take responsibility for the demons they killed, but they were never willing to give up the individual members who’d participated in the murders, making
