sheep. They weren’t any safer from demons than the poor fuck who’d gotten taken by the Truth last night, but they refused to admit it. They weren’t immune; they were just undiagnosed.
The line moved quickly, and in a minute the venti paper cup was burning my fingers. (But only the fingers: I held the cup in my left hand, but my palm was too thickly wrapped to feel the heat.) She wanted two sugars, but there weren’t any cubes. Of course not; when was the last time I’d seen sugar cubes anywhere? I poured some sugar into the cup, but that didn’t seem like enough, and I poured again. Now it seemed like too much.
What the hell was I doing?
I snapped down the plastic lid, then sidestepped the tables and incoming customers until I was outside again. Mother Mariette was leaning against the wall, eyes closed.
“Your coffee,” I said.
She opened her eyes, took the cup from me, and held it up to her lips, but didn’t drink. She closed her eyes again and let the steam from the slit mouth of the cup pass over her face. Her breathing slowed; her body grew still. I realized that from the moment I’d seen her in the lobby she’d been in a state of high excitation, an electron ready to jump. And now, moment by moment—praying, meditating?—she was dumping energy. Blowing off steam.
She opened her eyes again.
There were a dozen things I needed to tell her. About the Hellion, my slipping control, the solution I’d worked out from Dr. Ram’s research. But Dr. Ram was dead, and I was running out of time.
“I need your help,” I said. “When I was five years old I was possessed by a demon. And ever since then, it’s stayed with me. Inside me. And when I read about Dr. Ram, I got an idea for a surgical technique—”
“We wrestle not with flesh and blood,” she said. Not looking at me.
“But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world.”
I waited, but she didn’t say more.
“See, that doesn’t really help,” I said.
She sighed. “I know where you’re going with this,” she said, not unkindly. Her anger had dissipated, and now she seemed merely tired.
“You’re not the only person to see the possibilities of Dr. Ram’s work. Spiritual amputation, chemical inoculation, surgical exorcism . . . at the very least a method to positively identify cases of possession. And thanks to Dr. Ram’s death, his line of research is closed, and I doubt anyone will pick it up.”
“What do you mean, closed? If anything, this proves he was on the right track. The demons feared him so much they killed him to stop him.”
She looked at me, smiled faintly. “The demons have no master plan, Mr. Pierce. They don’t work together toward some agenda. Each of them is an obsessive, each of them wants what it wants. If the Truth killed Dr. Ram, it was for one reason—he said he had a cure, and he was lying.” She shrugged. “That’s the Truth’s job. Punish the liars.”
She grabbed the handle of her bag. “Good day, Mr. Pierce. This is the last day of our acquaintance.” She stepped off the curb, between the bumpers of the stopped cars, and the roller bag dropped and bounced behind her.
“Wait! You’ve got to help me! What am I supposed to do?”
She stopped halfway across the intersection, looked back at me.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she called back to me. “At least not against the demons, for they do with ye what they will. But if I were you . . .” The light turned green, but she took no notice. “I’d hire a good lawyer.”
She strode the rest of the way across the street, holding up traffic. Someone was going to run her down, or at least lay on the horn—this was Chicago, for Christ’s sake.
But no. She reached the far curb without incident and walked north, toward Lake Michigan, the plastic wheels of the suitcase clattering over each crack and crevice of the sidewalk. Lew and Amra lived in Gurnee, a far northern suburb that was home to the biggest amusement park in Illinois, Six Flags Great America. From the guest bedroom I could see the hump of the highest section of the American Eagle roller coaster rising up over the bare trees. It was actually two roller coasters, on twin wooden tracks, so that theoretically the coasters could race each other, but in practice they never ran near the same speed.
“Do you ever go?” I said. When Lew and I were growing up, we had gotten to go to the park once or twice every summer, starting back when it was called Marriott’s Great America.
He looked up, saw what I was talking about, then went back to work clearing the bed. “No.” He’d been using the bed as an extra desk, loaded with stacks of papers, technical manuals, and foam-filled boxes that could have transported high-tech pizzas. Most of this garbage went into the closet.
Lew was mad at me, but trying not to be, an unnatural state that he couldn’t maintain for long. He’d only be himself after he’d blown up.
“Did Amra tell you yet?” I said.
“Tell me what?” he said.
But I knew she had. The hour-long ride home had been nearly silent, but right after we’d arrived at their house she and Lew had stayed in the kitchen while I went to the guest room with the blue duffel bag and the black nylon convention bag, shut the door behind me, and unzipped the duffel. Some of my clothes were missing—when the hotel people had grabbed my luggage from the room, they hadn’t bothered retrieving the shirts and pants I’d hung up in the closet. But better that than trying to pack them up; I didn’t want them going through my bag. The important things were there: the bike chains, the Kryptonite locks, and my father’s gun. Still there. I had almost broken down then. Tears welled up, goggling my vision. I unwrapped the oil rag around the pistol, hefted it in my hand. I lifted it to my face, wiped at my nose, and sniffed. A gun after it’s fired smells like cordite or something, doesn’t it? My knowledge of guns came only from television and Elmore Leonard novels. I couldn’t smell anything. The weapon didn’t seem any different from when I’d wrapped it up at Mom’s. Nobody had used the gun, I told myself. Not me, not the Hellion, not even the Truth. I’d rewrapped it, weak with relief. As I’d stuffed it deep in the duffel bag, on the other side of the door Lew had been making outraged noises he barely tried to conceal. Amra had told him. The hotel bill had been four thousand and some-odd bucks. None of my cards would cover it.
And now Lew couldn’t even look at me. He pulled the bedspread off the bed, spilling white kernels of foam and paper clips, and bunched it up. “I’ll get you a fresh blanket,” he said, and carried the bundle to the hallway.
I tried to empty my pockets, fumbling with bandaged fingers. Wallet, keys, crumpled ones and fives, change, a folded card from the Hyatt that said “Please tell us how we’re doing.” I used my palm to spread open the card. Inside I’d written “T & S” and a phone number. Tom and Selena. I dimly remembered promising to call them when I got to California, but why did I say I was going to California?
Lew stalked back into the room and without a word started spreading the blanket out.
“I’ll pay you back,” I said, which we both knew was bullshit. We’d understood from high school on that it was Lew’s job to make good grades, find a high-paying career, buy a two-story house in the suburbs, and generally become Dad. It was my job to fuck up. Occasionally this annoyed me, but most of the time I was comfortable with the division of labor. Lew’s job was nearly impossible, and mine came naturally.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“At least you’ll get the bail money back.”
I couldn’t help it; I just wanted to poke him until he burst.
“There are towels in the bathroom,” he said. “And I’ll get you some clothes that—”
“Lew! Del! You should see this!” It was Amra. I followed Lew to the kitchen. A small TV on the counter was showing a picture of Dr. Ram. I recognized the photo from his book jacket. Almost immediately the story switched to a report on fighting in Pakistan.
