“Sure. What’s in it for me?”
He scoffed. “I dunno. Money. Lots and lots of money. You won’t even have to suck any more rock star cock—”
Helen took two big steps to Joe and clasped a hand around his throat, shutting him up as she pinned him to the door. Ugh, this guy. This fucking guy.
“What did I say back at the fair about slut shaming? Forget it, you blew it. Now. Unless you want me to crush your trachea with my superior witch strength, tell me everything you know about the plot against Brian. Where the clear crystals are, what they’re being used for and how to end the scheme, and the deal with these parties. Go.”
“Or else what? You’ll choke me to death in this hallway? Good luck getting away with murdering a Hollywood executive, you white trash, cow-town tramp.”
The slight slid off of her back. “No, I don’t plan to kill you. Not here, not like this at least. Not when I could boil your flaccid little penis in my cauldron while keeping you alive, listening to your cries as you beg to die.”
She tightened her grip. A cross between a croak and a whimper belched from his parted lips.
“Speak.” She clenched harder. His pulse hammered against the pad of her thumb.
He pressed his mouth into a line, face turning a livid purple.
Acting on a hunch, Helen rolled her eyes, pointing them at a spot between her brows, site of the mystical third eye. A click sounded in her head.
Joe’s mouth dropped.
They had to be pure white, like Nerissa’s were in the house. Awesome.
“A vision of the white eyes is the first sign of my witchcraft curse against you coming into fruition. Next, I enter your dreams and steal your peace. After that, I enter your body and steal your health. Finally, I enter your thoughts and steal your mind.”
A bunch of random references cobbled together from horror movies and enhanced with her imagination, but hey. Every player benefitted from keeping a good bluff handy.
Joe scoffed. “Nice try. I saw guys doing worse shit than that on my lunch break last Tuesday.”
’Kay. Time to break out the big guns and try Nerissa’s out-of-body move. Helen barreled her stare into Joe, concentrating until a pressure originating deep within his head tugged on the muscles behind her eyeballs. She dragged her gaze from his up to the ceiling, and the weight of his essence followed her up there and landed on a spot near a lighting fixture.
“Wh…why am I on the astral plane?” Joe whispered.
“Because I’ve taken control of you and sent you there. And unless you start yakking, I’ll plop your eternal soul anywhere I please and draw from your worst nightmares for inspiration on where to put you. I’m thinking the bottom of a sewage tank. Or how about sharing a body with a torture victim while your meat sack lies comatose in a hospital bed feeling every cut and burn?”
“Okay, okay.” Joe spoke in a raspy voice. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
She loosened her hold, and he coughed and wheezed. “I’m listening.”
“It’s a cult, a fringe thing that takes elements from all kinds of places, from Satanism to European paganism to far-out, esoteric occult mysteries you’ve never heard of. They’re into channeling, opening doors to other dimensions and welcoming through various entities and beings. Also enriching personal power by learning to remote view and levitate.”
He massaged his neck. “The hot thing is still celebrities. Twenty years ago, the ‘it’ practice was turning them into vampires. Now the name of the game is possession.”
“Getting demons to possess celebrities.”
“They turn girls into sex slaves and have them do the most depraved shit you can imagine, but for the most part everyone wants in on possessing the celebs.”
“Why?”
Joe’s expression grew shrewd. “Control. The host has to agree to join forces with the parasitic visitor for the ritual to work. Once union is achieved, the host body can live for decades beyond the natural human life span, but without the side effects that come with being a vamp. And the drones appear normal on the surface, regular, no fangs or sun allergies. But on the inside they’re compliant. Docile. Do as they’re told, able to be programmed and controlled from afar by spells and shit. And we can keep eyes on them through remote viewing and astral travel and intervene in case they get out of line. Real convenient.”
The agenda was to make Brian a pliable drone easy to pilot, a zombie to order around and send on stage, making money for other people without protest or a pesky mind of his own.
And those poor women. These dudes were some sick motherfuckers. “Where do you get your spells? How did you conjure this demon from the pit—yes, I know—and why are my crystals involved?”
“There’s a book that gets passed around. Big, authentic-looking thing with a leather cover. I haven’t seen the inside, but the guys at the top talk about the contents. It’s the directions manual, I guess. I dunno. I just recruit the talent and take my cut.”
Now she was getting somewhere. If she recovered the book, she might stand a chance at ending their ability to cast spells. “Where is the book? And my crystals?”
“The book, I don’t know. Clear crystals are in one or more of the shrines. There are three total. One’s in Wyoming, one’s in Los Angeles, and I have no idea about the final location.”
“So what’s in the room?” She gestured at the hotel door.
“A few of Brian’s guitar picks and some other stuff he asked me to hold for him awhile back. Notes, a book or two. The top brass wants some of his possessions before the Silver Phase to commence the next step of the ritual.”
If she got her hands on one of Brian’s possessions and used the item in the right way, perhaps she could slow down or stop the possession plan. And now she had two
