“People are out to kill me now!” his stepfather roared. “And they want to kill me because I’ve been struggling to make ends meet for the two of you. Your bloody mother just spent whatever she could get her hands on, and you…you just kept eating and growing and going through clothes like there was no tomorrow!”
That old fear coiled inside Warren again, twisting like a wild animal trying to escape a trap. He felt sweat break out over his brow. Then the burn scabbing and white skin over his left arm and back began to itch furiously.
“But I’ll stop that!” Martin declared.
Vaguely, Warren heard Kelli begging Tulane to stop the recording, but Tulane ignored her. He focused on Warren.
The gunshot pealed within the room, and Warren felt the bullet strike him again. The fear was out of control. He remembered how he’d felt, how he’d never wanted to be hurt again.
Then a child’s voice, which had been pleading for the stepfather to stop, suddenly sounded hot and angry. “I wish you were dead!”
The words were small in the context of things. They shouldn’t have mattered at all.
But Martin DeYoung had stopped cursing and screaming and had blinked at Warren lying on the ground before him. Then he’d put the pistol to his temple and started pleading for his life.
“No! Don’t make me do this! No! Stop! Please!” Martin had started crying then, shaking with effort to take the pistol away from his temple. But he hadn’t been able to. “Nooooooooooo—”
The sharp gunshot ended the scream. Even the conversation between the neighbor and police officer had ended in shocked silence.
Warren’s skin itched even more. He was angry at Tulane for dredging up all those old memories, but he didn’t know how to react. Warren knew he might as well have been a prisoner.
The vid vanished.
“When the police arrived,” Tulane said softly, “they searched the premises, thinking they’d find a third party there. A neighbor or a friend of your mother’s. Someone who had overpowered your stepfather, put the pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. But that isn’t what happened, is it?”
Warren hesitated, weighing his options. “No.”
“You wished he was dead,” Tulane said.
“Yes. But I had for years.”
“But never so fiercely as that night.”
“No.”
“And then what happened?”
“Martin…killed himself.”
Tulane stared at Warren. “Because you told him to.”
“Yes.”
Shaking his head in amazement, Tulane said, “Eight years old. And before the Hellgates opened.”
Warren didn’t know what to say to that.
“Have you ever used your power since then?” Tulane asked.
Warren thought about lying, but he felt certain Tulane would know he was lying. Since he wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he was caught in a lie, he told the truth. “Yes.”
“How?”
“To influence people.”
“The way you influenced the demon to leave you when Edith found you?”
Warren nodded. The itching along his arm and back grew even more powerful.
“And you survived the demon’s attack a few days ago.”
Warren nodded again.
“Has anything like that ever happened before? Accidents that should have hurt you didn’t do much damage?”
“No.” Warren scratched his arm under his coat sleeve. His stomach lurched as he realized something was coming away on his hand. When he looked, he saw that it was white and membranous.
Skin!
The thought terrified Warren. Believing he’d ripped his wound open, he slid out of his coat and pulled his shirt off.
Instead of pink and bloody flesh, though, Warren saw greenish-tinted black scales covering his arm. Where he’d torn the white skin away, the itching had stopped. Unable to stop himself, he raked at his back. More skin peeled away. Beneath it, where he could see along his ribs and side, greenish scales gleamed instead of skin, white or black. Not only that, but the whiteness had spread beyond the burn areas, claiming more of his body.
Twenty-Seven
W hat is it?” Leah asked.
She was referring to the nine-foot-long lizard-
looking demon inside the glass display case inside the House of Rorke’s museum/teaching center. The creature stood poised on all four heavily padded claws. Teeth filled the wicked-looking snout that was longer than a crocodile’s. The tail was thick, corded muscle. Greenish scales covered the demon. Long scars marked it. If it hadn’t been so evil-looking, the demon might have looked beautiful.
Even now, years later and him fully gown, Simon still remembered how scared and awed he’d felt when he’d first seen the exhibit. Back then, the demon had seemed even larger, but no less fierce. Even after the fight in the tube tunnel, gazing on the demon—seeing it poised to strike—was unsettling.
“They named it the Ravager,” Simon said.
“This is a demon?”
“Yes.”
“How long has it been here?”
“The Templar have had it in their possession for hundreds of years.”
“Why wasn’t this shown to anyone?” Leah asked.
“It was.” Simon stared at the creature. That fear from long ago revisited him even though he was clad in his armor. “No one believed it was real.”
“No one?”
“No.”
“Even with the proof before them?”
“No one. It might have been more convincing if the Templar had found more. But this was the only one. It was so torn up when they found it that the artists had to rebuild sections of it.”
“You can’t tell.”
“I know. That’s another reason people found to disbelieve in the existence of demons.”
Unconsciously, Leah placed her hands on the glass before Simon could stop her. She immediately yanked her hands back and yelped in surprise.
“What did you feel?” Simon asked.
“Electricity.” Leah worked her hands. “Is that from a security system?”
Simon nodded. From the immediate primitive fear in her eyes he knew she’d feared—at least for a moment—that the demon within had had something to do with what she’d felt. “Some of the demons possess dark powers that cling to their bodies even after death. They can cause sickness or even fatality. Touching them, alive or dead, isn’t advisable.”
“If you knew the display case was electrified to discourage contact, why didn’t you tell me not to touch it?”
“I didn’t know you were going to
