The_Demons_Wife_ARC

by Rick Hautala

“No…Not Samael,” Claire said.

  Sally was sounding hysterical, now, but Claire couldn’t stop wondering: Who the Hell did we pick up at the apartment yesterday and bring home with us?

  As far as she knew, they had gone to the apartment and found Sally—the real Sally—looking and acting like she was having some kind of mental or emotional breakdown.

  “And after that…after that…” Sally was having trouble catching her breath, and her voice was breaking up over the phone. She was crying and sniffing. “After he did…he did what he did to me, he tied me up and—and put duct tape over my mouth and a pillow case over my head and threw me into the hall closet.”

  “It wasn’t him. Samael wouldn’t do something like that,” Claire said, finally catching her own breath. She might just as well not have spoken. Sally was on a tear now.

  “Can you imagine?…Can you…Can you even begin to understand what I went through?”

  “No…I—I can’t,” Claire said, not sure if Sally was even hearing her.

  “I told you that guy was a creep. Didn’t I? Didn’t I? From the moment I saw him, I knew there was something really wrong about him…something fucking evil.”

  You don’t know the half of it, Claire thought but didn’t say. She almost laughed at the thought, but Sally went on, piling on horror after horror.

  “I thought I was going to die. He hurt me real bad. I’ve got a broken nose, three broken ribs, half my hair’s pulled out, and my left eye is swollen shut. And before he shoved me into the closet and left me there, he called me all sorts of terrible names, saying how after he married you he was going to come back here at night and do all sorts of terrible things to me.”

  “Oh, my God, Sally,” Claire said, holding her hand against her cheek and staring straight ahead.

  “Once I came to—in total darkness—I had no idea where I was. I thought I was dead. But then I started banging my feet against the wall and floor. I kept doing it until—finally—Old Mrs. Hardy, downstairs, called the cops, and they broke in and found me.”

  Sally started sobbing so loudly she was barely able to speak. Claire’s heart went out to her, but as unsettling as this was, she was barely aware she was speaking when she whispered into the phone: “It was the double.”

  “The what?” Sally asked.

  So she has been listening after all, Claire thought, but she was convinced this was something she would have to explain to Sally in person.

  “I’m coming to visit. What hospital are you at?”

  “Maine Med., I think,” Sally said. “I’m not sure.” There was an odd shrillness in her voice that set Claire’s teeth on edge.

  Is this the real Sally?

  It sure sounds like her, but this could be another trap.

  Samael said they would use me to get to him.

  After last night, Claire had a fair estimation of the forces ranged against them. She took some comfort knowing that Michael was on Samael’s side, but he had disappeared so fast this morning she wondered now how much help he could possibly be.

  But she had stood up to the snake demon—which, she guessed, very well could have been the imposter in a different form. She was confident she could handle Sally now. What worried her was wondering when all of this collateral damage would end.

  “I’m so sorry all of this happened,” Claire said.

  “I know,” Sally replied, “but don’t you worry. I’m going to make sure that son of a bitch gets what’s coming to him, I can guarantee that!”

  Wait a second…That’s my husband you’re talking about, Claire thought but didn’t say. She was too stunned to speak.

  “I’ll sue his ass. That’s what I’m gonna do. And trust me—I’m not going to rest until he’s thrown into jail and they throw away the key. You should see what he did to me.” Her voice choked off with emotion.

  “I’m sure it was horrible,” Claire said, but her voice trailed off. She was trying to figure out some way she could convince Sally that it hadn’t—it couldn’t have been Samael.

  How much can I tell her…and how much will she believe? She wondered. She could just imagine Sally’s acid-tongued comments, questioning her sanity.

  “I’ll be there in—”

  She checked her wristwatch and saw that it had been almost four hours, now, since Samael had been taken downtown to the police station.

  Why haven’t I heard from him?

  “—within half an hour.”

  Sally sniffed, as if to say don’t bother.

  “Take care,” she said. “See yah soon,” and before Sally could come back with something sarcastic or hurtful, she ended the call.

  And then immediately dialed Samael’s cell phone.

  ~ * ~

  He answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” was all he said. He spoke with a low voice—almost a whisper—so Claire knew right away that whatever he was going through wasn’t over yet.

  They obviously had brought him in to answer Sally’s accusations.

  “Hey yourself,” Claire said. “Tell me. What’s going on?”

  Samael took a deep breath but didn’t say anything for the longest time. And in that time, the tension inside Claire coiled tightly.

  “They’ve charged me with aggravated assault and criminal restraint,” he finally said.

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “All too serious,” Samael replied.

  “But you know and I know you didn’t do it. You didn’t have time to do it.”

  “So you know?”

  Claire made a grunting sound in the back of her throat and said, “I talked with Sally, and I know it’s simply not possible, I know you’d never hurt someone I care about.”

  “There are some who would doubt the veracity of that.”

  “Not me,” Claire said sharply, and she felt the conviction deep in her soul.

  Samael heaved a sigh, and Claire knew he was relieved to know she believed in him.

  “They have Sally’s charges. This is serious stuff.”

  “You haven’t faced worse?” Claire asked, and she smiled when she heard him chuckle.

  Claire was suddenly jolted to silence. Over the phone, she could hear someone rattling and banging something—maybe the drawers of a steel filing cabinet or something. People were talking in the background, but she couldn’t make out what they said.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve already got a call in to my lawyer, Terry Traut. We’re waiting for him to come by the station.”

  “And do what? Can he get you out?”

  “We’ll see if they let us post bail or if I have to stay here until the trial.”

  “Trial?”

  Claire’s insides felt like cold jelly as she looked around for someplace to sit. Instead of sitting down, she backed up against the nearest wall and then slowly slid down into a squat on the floor. The air in the room sparkled with spinning white dots that burned like stars in the bars of sunlight.

  “Stay there…” she heard herself say.

  Over the phone, it sounded like someone in a nearby room was speaking for her.

  “Look, Claire. I know how hard this is—how hard it will be for you. It’s hard on me, too. Believe me. But I have to do this. Just knowing you have faith in me is all I need.”

  “Oh, Samael…”

  “Because if you don’t love me,” Samael went on, “if I didn’t have any reason to hope, and if you didn’t believe in me…if you didn’t trust me, then there’s no point in doing what I’m doing.”

  And what—exactly—are you doing? She wanted to ask.

  “I’m coming to see you,” she said abruptly.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “Oh, yeah?…Well I do!”

  Samael chuckled and said, “Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

  And then the phone line went dead.

  ~ * ~

  As Claire drove from Falmouth to Portland, she wished she had a Xanax�
�or a stiff drink—to quell her anxiety. The storm had passed, leaving the world covered by a thin coating of fresh snow. The sun was shining brightly, and with temperatures soaring into the high forties and low fifties, the snow would melt soon. She tried to enjoy the beauty that surrounded her.

  Every day passes entirely too fast.

  But try as she might to enjoy the day and forget her worries for the moment, her stomach felt like a nest of writhing snakes. She wondered briefly if she could be pregnant, but then dismissed the idea.

  How can I get pregnant from a tail?

  But now that she was thinking about snakes, she couldn’t ignore the kaleidoscopic images of what had happened last night. The images were too horrible, and the psychic echoes of fear and revulsion and stark terror were still strong and would probably remain that way for the rest of her life.

  She had seen it.

  She had lived through it.

  And she had survived it.

  Earlier this morning, she had checked the bedroom where Sally—or the demon masquerading as Sally—had been. Miraculously, the walls were intact, and there was absolutely no evidence of any struggle

  So either it had never happened or she had imagined it.

  The only other possibility was that the fight had taken place on some different level of reality…some celestial plane that most people in this world never experienced.

  One of those explanations had to be right, she decided, or else Samael, Michael, and maybe Michelle were supernaturally good at rebuilding and cleaning things up. The police would have noticed something was wrong if one side of the house had been torn apart, and a huge headless snake lay dead on the floor.

  She wished Michael had come back to the house before she left so she could ask him about it. She needed answers…something conclusive…something that would remove all of her fears and doubts.

  Could he ever do that?

  Or is living life exactly that?

  Maybe all it amounts to is naming your fears and doubts, and moving through them.

  Ultimately, because she knew this was the only way she could ever handle it, she told herself to accept that she would never know all of the answers.

  Because what did it matter?

  ~ * ~

  Claire pulled into a space in the parking lot next to the police station. A small snowplow was moving back and forth, pushing the already slushy snow into thin ridges along the perimeter of the parking lot. The plow’s warning beeper started when it backed up for another pass.

  Claire got out of the car and locked the door, but before she walked up to the front entrance, she purposely took a moment to enjoy the thrill of being alive.

  Take a deep breath.

  Look up at the beautiful vault of blue sky.

  “Not a cloud in the sky,” she whispered to herself, smiling tightly because she was all too well aware of the clouds that darkened her life…and were getting worse.

  She took another deep breath, smelling the salty tang of the nearby ocean and the thin pine resin in the air.

  “This is life…This is really happening.”

  People passed by on the sidewalk, and cars drifted by heading in all directions. Life went on in spite of her worries. She looked around at the ordinary activity and felt like she was the still point in the turning world.

  The hub.

  The axis.

  But that feeling soon passed, and she started up the wide granite steps to the front door of the police station. The thought that Samael was in there somewhere…locked up…alone…filled her with pity.

  She grasped the door firmly and entered.

  ~ * ~

  The smell of floor wax filled the entryway as she walked up to the front desk. A dispatcher—an elderly white woman—was hunched over her desk, talking to someone on the radio. Without even turning to look at Claire, she raised a forefinger to signal that she’d be with her in a moment.

  Claire stepped away from the window, taking a moment to look around. Her eyes were drawn to the assorted postings on a corkboard—leaflets, “Most Wanted” posters, and advertisements for apartments and various other small businesses around town. All the while, she couldn’t stop thinking that somewhere in this building—

  Probably in the basement.

  —Samael was locked up in a prison cell.

  She shuddered at the thought and was determined more than ever to get him out of here no matter what.

  “How can I help you,” the dispatcher asked, startling Claire, who turned back to face her.

  “Oh, I—I’m here to see my husband.”

  Hearing herself say the word husband still sounded strange.

  “And he is…?”

  “Samael Pierson. He came in earlier today with—”

  “Detective Trudeau. Yeah,” the dispatcher said. She reached for a phone, picked up the receiver, and held it to her ear. Then she pressed a button on the phone’s base. After a short wait, the woman spoke into the mouthpiece, nodded, and then put the phone back in its cradle.

  “He’ll be up to see you in a few minutes,” the dispatcher said.

  “Who, my husband?”

  “Detective Trudeau. Have a seat, if you’d like.”

  And that was all. Without another word or any more consideration, the dispatcher turned back to the array of electronic gear that was chattering with faint voices broken by bursts of static.

  As she took a seat, Claire felt like a cancer patient waiting in her doctor’s office for word as to whether or not she was terminal. While she waited, she watched a variety of people file in and out of the station, going about their business. She wondered what their stories were—what fears and doubts they lived with, but her impatience was steadily mounting, and she was anxious to resolve this situation now and be done with it.

  If I ever can be done with it.

  She involuntarily jumped to her feet when a loud buzzing sound filled the waiting room. She turned toward the heavy metal door just as it slammed open, and Detective Trudeau appeared in the open wedge of the doorway. His face was set, showing no emotion as he approached Claire. His footsteps echoed in the wide room.

  “Mrs. Pierson,” Trudeau said, holding out his hand for her to shake. “What can I do for you?”

  Claire shook hands with him, noticing that his grip was warm and dry. She wondered why she would be friendly to the man. It wasn’t like she was here on a friendly visit.

  And Trudeau certainly wasn’t a friend. He was the man investigating whether or not her husband had assaulted her roommate.

  “I’m here to see my husband,” she said, blurting out the words. “Please,” she added.

  Detective Trudeau regarded her for a moment as if he had something important to say. Then he nodded and, without a word, stepped to one side, indicating that she should approach the door. After another short ear-shattering buzz, the door lock clicked, and Trudeau held the door open for her.

  Once they started down the hallway, and the door slammed shut behind them, the atmosphere suddenly shifted. It became oppressive…stifling. Claire and Detective Trudeau walked side by side down a long corridor that echoed with the sound of their footsteps and the faint sound of voices and the clacking of keyboards from offices on either side of the hall.

  “He’s innocent, you know,” Claire said. She felt foolish doing so, but she had to say something to break the awkward silence between them.

  Detective Trudeau glanced over at her and said, “That’s not for you or me to decide. I just do the investigation.”

  “I was with him all last night and all day today. There’s no way he could have gone to Sal—to my roommate’s apartment and done what she says he did.”

  “Like I said, Mrs. Pierson. That’s not for me to decide.”

  They had reached the top of a flight of stairs, but before they started down, Detective Trudeau said, “Maybe you can tell me what happened last night.”

  “Last night?”

  The image of the demon snake…and th
e Hellmouth and blue-faced demon outside the living room window…and the flock of bats that all had Samael’s face arose in her mind, but she resolutely pushed them aside and focused on the business at hand.

  “Do you really want the details?” she asked. A smile tightened the corners of her mouth. “It was, after all, our wedding night.”

  Detective Trudeau eyed her for a few seconds and then started down the stairs. Claire followed behind him, eager to see Samael again.

  ~ * ~

  Samael was wearing a bright orange prison jumpsuit as he sat in the prison cell, his head bowed. He was leaning forward with his hands clasped together tightly between his knees.

  At least he isn’t handcuffed, Claire thought when she saw him. She smiled at him and said, “Hey.”

  He didn’t register the least little surprise, and he looked up at her slowly as if he had been expecting her all along. Any expression on his face—whatever it might have been—instantly faded away. He stood up and walked over to the barred door. Claire leaned forward so her face was pressed between the iron bars, and they kissed, long and passionately.

  “Jesus,” Samael said softly once they separated.

  Claire flinched and said. “I thought you were uncomfortable saying names like that.”

  “I’m getting better at it,” Samael replied, a roguish twinkle in his dark eyes. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. So…” He stood back, admiring her. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing okay…” She took a breath. “I’m also lying. Oh, Samael! I’m really wor—”

  “Ut-ut. Not now,” he said.

  She knew it wouldn’t do either of them any good to let him see how anxious she was, but the simple act of touching his hands, not to mention kissing him through the bars, both comforted her and made her want to burst into tears.

  “So what’s going on? Have they charged you with…?” She couldn’t finish her question and turned away as her eyes began to sting with tears.

  “Of course they believed Sally. I’ve been charged with aggravated assault and criminal restraint…but—Hey!” He reached out with one hand between the bars and gripped her shoulder tightly. “You have to be strong for me. Got it?”