Her eyes flamed. “No.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“I’m not deserting her.”
Peter looked around the ICU to make sure no one was listening. “All right, but don’t let your anger get out of control. Please.”
“Look who’s talking,” she said.
“She’s awake,” Holly said in a hushed voice.
“Peter, is that you I hear in the hallway, conspiring with my niece?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Peter called into the room.
“Come here at once, young man. I wish to speak with you.”
“She certainly sounds normal,” Peter said.
Holly wiped away a tear. “Maybe she’s coming out of it. Let’s hope so.”
“Where’s Max, anyway?”
“He went to get a hot drink from the cafeteria for my aunt.”
“Coming.”
“Go slow with her,” Holly said quietly.
Peter slipped into room. Milly sat in a reclining position in bed, looking small and frail. A pillow was propped behind her head, while several tubes ran out of her arm to a gathering of beeping machines beside her bed. Her face sported a mosaic of bruises that would have seemed noble on a boxer or football player, but looked sickening on a seventy-year-old woman.
“There you are,” she said.
He kissed her cheek. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been ground through a cement truck. You know what they say. All’s well that ends well. And how are you, my dear boy?”
“I’m fine, Milly.”
“Holly said that a government agent took you away.”
“It worked out okay. We’re in the clear.”
“Leave it to you to make things right. It appears we have company.”
Max came through the doorway holding a brown paper bag. He tore away the paper to reveal a large foam cup with a plastic lid. “Your drink, my lady.”
Milly took the cup. She pulled back the lid and frowned. “It’s empty, Max.”
“Are you sure?” Max exclaimed.
“Yes. There’s nothing in it.”
“It must have vanished during the elevator ride up.”
“More likely you drank it.”
“Me? Perish the thought.”
“If it vanished, then make it reappear.”
“Your wish is my command.” Max waved his hand magically over the empty cup. “Like a ghost passing through the wall of an Irish castle, I command your drink to reappear. One, two, three! Why, look what we have here-your cup of decaf.”
The cup had filled itself with the steaming drink. Milly sipped it appreciatively. It seemed to lift her spirts, and the color returned to her face.
“How did you do that?” she asked him.
“Can you keep a secret?” Max asked.
“Of course,” she said.
“So can I.”
“How did he do that?” she asked Peter.
“I haven’t a clue. He fooled me completely,” Peter replied.
Max beamed at the compliment. Like all great magicians, he guarded his secrets like the crown jewels, and it would be a long time before Peter would be able to pry this particular trick out of him. Then, Peter had an awful thought. If Max were to die, he’d never know how the trick worked. The secret would die with him, along with all the other secrets that he possessed.
The thought gave him pause. Max had been present the night his mother had turned into a monster, and so had Milly. They’d seen the transformation, and understood its terrible meaning. The other people who’d been there-his father, Madame Marie, and Reggie-were gone. Lester Rowe had been there, but he was now thousands of miles away, and might never return.
Max and Milly were the only ones left who knew the secret of his parents’ supernatural powers. Peter could wait for a better time to talk to them about it, but if he’d learned anything over the past few days, waiting was dangerous.
“I need to have a talk with you and Max,” Peter said.
“This sounds serious,” Milly said.
“It is.”
“What do you say, Max?” Milly asked.
Max looked away, saying nothing.
“I’ll take that as a reluctant yes,” Milly said. “The floor is yours, Peter.”
“Thank you. I have a demon inside of me, which I inherited from my parents, who had the same demon inside of them,” he said, the words spilling out. “Both of you sheltered me from this demon when I was growing up, fearful of the harm I might cause. You tried to keep me from fighting with other kids because you worried I might hurt them.”
“That’s utter nonsense,” Milly scolded him. “You had a nasty little temper when you were a boy, and were getting into scrapes with other children. We tried to curb it, just like any intelligent adults would do. Didn’t we, Max?”
“He did have a temper,” Max mumbled.
“Which he eventually outgrew as he became a man,” Milly said.
“That he did,” Max said.
“So you see, Peter, this is all in your head,” Milly concluded. “If you’d had a demon inside of you, we would have had you exorcized, like that poor little girl in the movie. Only you didn’t, so there was no need. Right, Max?”
“Right,” Max said, laughing under his breath.
The hospital room fell silent, save for the incessant beeping of the machines. Peter might have been angry with Max and Milly, had he not loved them so much. He supposed that in their eyes he was still a child, and always would be. But that didn’t change his desire to know who he was. If anything, it only made it stronger.
“I saw the demon in the film of my mother,” he said quietly.
They both looked startled.
“What film?” Milly blurted out.
“The one taken during a seance many years ago at their apartment,” Peter replied. “I found it in Lester Rowe’s place.”
Milly brought her hand to her mouth. “Lester filmed that?”
“Yes,” he said. “And both of you were present.”
“He knows,” Max said under his breath.
A single tear ran down Milly’s cheek. Max plucked a hanky out of thin air, and handed it to her. Wiping her eye, she said, “I seem to vaguely recall the incident.”
“Tell me about it,” Peter said.
“Max, you do it,” Milly said.
Max moved closer to the bed, and dropped his voice. “Your mother never spoke about what happened that night, but your father did. We met in a pub for a drink, and ended up closing the place down. Your father told me that he and your mother had made a pact with a demon when they were children, and that it was this demon that
