The Entity Within

by Cat Devon

  “That right.”

  “He said it was the name of one of the demons?”

  “The head honcho demon if there is such a thing,” Zoe inserted.

  “There is such a thing although the terminology may be different.” Returning his attention to Damon, Pat said, “Do you remember me telling you that there is a cosmic connection between you and Zoe?”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Zoe said.

  “Neither did I,” Damon said.

  “Is that why Damon has a tattoo that almost matches my talisman?” she asked.

  Pat nodded. “Probably.”

  “So what is the connection?” Zoe asked.

  “That’s what we have to find out,” Pat said.

  “Well, I checked our family’s Book of Spells and found that Silas was in Salem during the witch trials,” she said. “He made the accusation against one of my ancestors.”

  “I feared as much,” Pat said.

  “So they are after the witches,” Damon said.

  “Not just the witches,” Pat said. “They are after you, too, Damon. And most likely me as well.”

  “You?” Damon was clearly surprised. “What did you do to piss off a demon?”

  “He wasn’t a demon at the time. Just an evil human being who got a thrill out of using fear and torture to wield power.”

  “So you knew Silas?” Zoe said.

  Pat nodded. “We fought on opposite sides of the Civil War.”

  “On the Union or Confederate side?” Zoe asked.

  “The Royalist side,” Pat said.

  She frowned in confusion.

  “It was the English Civil War, not the American one,” Pat explained.

  “But that was way back—”

  Pat interrupted her. “In the 1640s. From ’42 to ’46 to be exact. Silas was a Roundhead on the side of Cromwell. Our families were bitter enemies.”

  “Were you turned on the battlefield?” she asked.

  “No. I wish I had been,” Pat said. “Then maybe I could have saved my family. After Cromwell came into power, our land was confiscated. My sisters fled to France, and I was thrown in jail for crimes against the Protector.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “A vampire?”

  “Cromwell. He was known as the Protector but he sure as hell didn’t protect me. I managed to escape and was on the run for over a year before I was caught again and put in the Tower. As in the Tower of London. I hated those ravens.”

  “Cromwell’s people?”

  “No, the birds. I realize modern researchers say they weren’t there until Charles the Second was returned to the throne but I heard them. I was turned while in prison shortly before I was to be hanged.”

  “Good timing,” Damon said.

  “Damn right,” Pat said. “The transition wasn’t easy for me. I went to France and down to Italy. By the time I had my head on straight, the king had regained the throne and Silas had left England for the Colonies. When I arrived in Massachusetts, the trials were over and shortly afterward Silas was dead. Of natural causes they claimed. He was old by then.”

  “So his grudge against you goes back to the English Civil War?” Damon asked. “When you were both human? It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you killed him?”

  “What?” Zoe looked from one vampire to the other. “What did I miss? Pat didn’t say he killed Silas.”

  “He didn’t have to say it. It’s written all over his hand.” Damon pointed to the tattoos on the back of each of Pat’s fingers.

  “It is?” She looked closer.

  Pat made no attempt to hide his hands.

  “Those are Theban symbols,” Zoe said. It was also known as the Witch’s Alphabet, but she wasn’t about the share that info or they’d somehow use it against her. All she said was “Its origins are unknown but it was used as a substitution cipher to encrypt magical secrets.”

  “Or vampire secrets. The left hand spells out Silas and the right Death,” Damon said.

  “Where did you learn how to read Theban symbols?” Zoe asked Damon.

  “From Eve,” he replied.

  “I had no idea Silas became a demon,” Pat said. “Not until a few minutes ago when you told Neville the name.”

  “You never noticed those symbols on Pat’s hands before?” Zoe demanded of Damon.

  “Of course I noticed them, but usually they aren’t facing me,” Damon said. “They face him. I’m standing beside and slightly behind him now and it’s only then that I recognized them.”

  “So Silas is after Pat.” Her witch’s intuition made her add, “Does this all have something to do with the funeral home?”

  “Why do you keep asking about the funeral home?” Damon demanded.

  “You’re vampires living next door to a funeral home. And now there are demons in underground tunnels. I just put two and two together and got—”

  “The wrong answer,” Damon said curtly. “Forget about it.” He glanced down at the screen of his smartphone then reached out to take hold of Zoe’s arm. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Wait a second!” she said. “What are you talking about? Where are we going?”

  “There’s trouble at the funeral home,” Damon said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You and Pat go ahead. I’ll wait here for you,” Zoe said.

  “No, you’re coming with me,” Damon said.

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s a problem.”

  “I didn’t cause it.” Had she? All she’d done was ask to look up something in the Book of Spells. That was a very limited spell that shouldn’t have had any impact beyond the book itself. “Besides, a second ago you told me to forget about the funeral home.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before we got a demon possession,” he said. “Come on!”

  “Wait, why can’t Pat go with you?” Zoe said. “He knows Silas.”

  “The demon wants to talk to you,” Damon said.

  “What about Gram? I can’t leave her here alone,” Zoe said.

  “Pat is here.”

  “He’s not a Demon Hunter, is he?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “One vampire isn’t enough to protect Gram,” Zoe said.

  “So we’ll get another one.” Damon opened the door to a slightly heavyset man wearing impeccably pressed gray trousers and a crisp designer white shirt. “Invite him in.”

  “He’s a vampire, too?” she said.

  Bruce nodded and smiled.

  “Don’t worry about your grandmother. Pat and I will take good care of her,” Bruce said.

  “Fine. Come in, but I still don’t understand why can’t I stay here,” Zoe said.

  “Because your services are needed at the funeral home,” Damon said.

  “I don’t like funeral homes,” she said. That was putting it mildly. Ever since her father’s funeral when she was very young, she’d had a thing about them. “They give me the creeps.”

  “Too bad,” Damon said.

  “You can’t compel me to go,” she said.

  “A human’s life is at stake.”

  “Maybe you’re lying to get me to the funeral home so you can torture me or something,” she said.

  Damon responded by lifting her in his arms and moving with vamp speed the two blocks to the Evergreen Funeral Home. Zoe’s head was spinning when they arrived. He dumped her back on her feet, but she had to hang on to him a moment until she regained her balance.

  “What if someone saw us?” she said.

  “We moved too fast for human eyes to see us.”

  Zoe fixed him with her best angry-witch stare. “Do not just grab me like that again. I do not appreciate being taken places against my will.” She looked around. They were in a hallway. “Where are we?”

  “In the basement of the funeral home.” She belatedly realized that Nick and Daniella were standing farther down the hall.

&
nbsp; “What’s going on?” Damon asked Nick.

  Daniella answered. “It’s Phil. He’s our embalmer. Well, not mine, as I didn’t go into the family business but started my own cupcake business, as you know. Sorry I’m babbling. I do that when I get nervous.”

  Zoe could sure relate, which was another reason for her to like Daniella.

  “Anyway, Phil has been possessed by a demon,” Daniella said.

  “I can’t just kill him like I did the cable guy,” Damon said. “If I do, then the human dies. The cable guy was not human. He was all demon. Possession is something else.”

  “I tried to exorcise him but it isn’t a power that I have as a druid hybrid,” Daniella said. “His head actually spun around, which can’t be good for him. He has back trouble.”

  Head spinning did not sound like a good thing. “Shouldn’t you call for a priest or something?” Zoe said nervously.

  “You’re the ‘or something,’” Damon told her.

  “I don’t know how to do exorcisms,” she said.

  “The demon demanded to speak to you,” Nick said.

  “Can’t we do that on speakerphone or Skype or something?” Zoe asked.

  “No,” Damon said emphatically.

  “Phil is contained in the embalming room where we prepare the bodies,” Daniella said.

  “What about your family?” Damon asked Daniella.

  “They don’t know a thing about this and we need to keep it that way. They have a big funeral they are arranging with the family of the deceased in the office upstairs. We have to move fast.”

  “We?” That made Zoe feel better. At least there were four of them.

  “You,” Daniella corrected her.

  “And me,” Damon said.

  “The embalming room is in here,” Daniella said, leading them to a door.

  “Do not rush me in there,” Zoe warned Damon.

  “If you don’t hurry, Phil could die. Do you want his death on your hands?” Damon said.

  Zoe didn’t want anything to do with the embalming room in a funeral home on her hands.

  Damon took her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

  He opened the door and entered the room but kept her behind him as he assessed the situation. Zoe jumped nervously as the door slammed shut behind them.

  “Who are you?” Zoe asked the man in the white coat. Actually she was asking the demon possessing the man in the white coat.

  “Guy.” His voice was something right out of a horror movie. “Your time is running out.”

  “Says who?” she said.

  “Says Silas.”

  “Give me a break. I just met him a few minutes ago,” she said. “Talk about impatience. Wait, exactly what do you mean by my time is running out?”

  “What I said.”

  “And you possessed this poor man just to tell me that?” Zoe said, her disapproval evident in her tone of voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s very rude,” Zoe said.

  “The Demon Hunter can’t kill me or he kills the human,” Guy said.

  “I’m not a fan of most humans,” Damon said, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the room.

  “You have your orders and I have mine,” Guy said.

  “Okay, you delivered your message. Now leave,” Damon said.

  “No. I’m not done,” Guy said.

  “What do you want?” Zoe asked.

  “A devil’s food cupcake. I hear they are very good. I can smell them down below. And a Dr Pepper. Your mother introduced me to Dr Pepper.”

  “It’s a soft drink, not a person,” Zoe said. “Wait, what about my mother?”

  “She’s the reason I am in this position,” Guy said.

  “Possessing a guy in a funeral home?” she scoffed. “How can you blame that on my mom?”

  “She condemned me to hell.”

  Zoe couldn’t believe it. “What? When?”

  “Right before she died two years ago.”

  Was that why her mother had practiced black magic? Was it to send Guy to hell? “Why? What did you do?”

  “I loved her.”

  Zoe shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “May I burn in hell if I am lying. Wait, I am already burning in hell. Not at this exact moment, however.” He swung Phil’s arms. “It feels good to have human form again.”

  “Stop doing that. You could be hurting him. Tell me about my mother,” Zoe ordered.

  “Oops, my master calls. Gotta go,” Guy said. “Remember, you owe me that cupcake and Dr Pepper.”

  Suddenly demon-free, Phil slumped over and would have fallen had Damon not stepped forward to help him to a nearby stool.

  “Whaa … at happened?” Phil said groggily.

  “You passed out,” Damon said.

  “Low blood sugar,” Zoe added, trying to be helpful.

  “What are you two doing here?” Phil said.

  Zoe tugged on the hem of Damon’s black T-shirt. “Something is happening.”

  “Another possession?” Damon asked

  She shook her head. “It’s my bangle bracelet.”

  “This is no time to talk about your stupid jewelry,” Damon said impatiently.

  “It’s not stupid and it’s pulling me toward something.” Her right arm went straight out at her side, with her fingers aiming at the wall, where several framed certificates hung. But it was the Latin saying that her bangle glommed on to like a magnet to iron.

  CORPORA LENTE AUGESCENT CITO EXTINGUUNTUR.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Phil said.

  Damon looked into Phil’s eyes and said, “You will not remember us.” Grabbing Zoe’s hand, he pulled her from the room.

  Daniella was waiting for them right outside. “Is Phil okay?”

  Damon nodded. “I didn’t sense any lingering demon presence.”

  “There is a Latin saying framed on the wall that starts with Corpora,” Zoe said.

  “It’s a quote from Tacitus.”

  “Do you know what it means?” Zoe said.

  “Bodies grow slowly but are snuffed out quickly,” Damon said.

  “Bodies grow slowly and die quickly is another way of saying it,” Daniella said. “It’s been on the wall in there as long as I can remember.”

  “Why would my bangle be attracted to it?” Zoe wondered aloud. Seeing Daniella’s blank look, she said, “Never mind.”

  “I’ve got to make sure for myself that Phil is okay,” Daniella said.

  Once she was inside, Zoe asked Damon, “Can we leave now?”

  “Yes.”

  This time they walked outside at a normal human speed and went around the corner to the bar and grill.

  “I need to stop here for a minute.” Damon held the door open for her to enter.

  She’d barely taken a few steps inside when her bangle once again pulled her toward the wall. This time it was behind the bar where there was a sign, again in Latin.

  CINERIGBRIA SERA VENIT.

  The sign was higher up than the last one, which left Zoe with her arm raised and her bangle plastered against the sign.

  “Let me guess,” Damon drawled. “Your bracelet again?”

  “It’s a bangle, actually, but yes.”

  “You wear a magic bangle along with your talisman?”

  “The bangle never was magical before. I got it from the Home Shopping Network. It has hand-carved cameos around it, and the writing is from an Italian love letter.”

  “Written by Tacitus?”

  “No. Written by a woman in the twentieth century not—”

  “When Tacitus was around in ancient Rome,” Damon inserted.

  “Right.” Using her free hand, she pointed to the sign above the bar. “What does this one say?”

  “Fame to the dead comes too late,” Damon translated.

  At his words, the bond was broken between the bangle and the sign, allowing her to lower her arm. She studied her bangle. “I don’t know what’s going
on here.”

  “Maybe your grandmother cast a spell on it.”

  “She wouldn’t do that without telling me first.”

  Zoe was still rattled from her earlier experience in the embalming room. Had that Guy demon been telling the truth about her mother sending him to hell? Or was he lying and trying to besmirch her mother’s name? She also hadn’t recovered from seeing Silas as an astral projection or from discovering he’d been the cause of her ancestor’s death in Salem.

  And then there was the whole embalming-room-of-a-funeral-home thing. She needed a drink. Badly. But she was in a vampire bar. Who knew what was on their wine list?

  She looked at the bottles behind the bar. “You don’t have a lot of alcohol here.”

  “We have enough,” Damon said.

  “Do any humans come here?”

  “Not many.”

  “So this is really a vampire bar for the consumption of blood?”

  “Could you make your distaste any more obvious?” he retorted.

  “I didn’t say anything distasteful.”

  “You didn’t have to. That disdainful wrinkling of your nose expressed your feelings.”

  “Maybe I was just shaking off a sneeze.”

  “Right,” Damon scoffed.

  “What if humans wander in and want to order a hamburger or something?”

  “We compel them to leave and try their luck elsewhere.”

  “Do the bottles have blood in them?”

  “No. Most do not. Why?” he said. “Are you thirsty?”

  “Are you?” she retorted.

  “Are you asking me if the smell of blood in the embalming room aroused my appetite?”

  Her stomach turned. “There was blood in there? I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s an embalming room. You know what they do in there.”

  “Not the specifics, and I don’t want to know. I didn’t smell any blood.”

  “Vamps have an increased sense of smell.”

  “Bully for you.”

  “I can smell your fear,” he said.

  She was sure he was making that up. “What does it smell like?” Wait, she had remembered to put on deodorant this morning, hadn’t she? She’d been in such a rush to get dressed, she wasn’t sure. “Never mind.”

  “What are you afraid of, little witch?”

  “Demons in funeral homes,” she said. “And spiders. I don’t like spiders.” Damn, she shouldn’t have told him that. “I was just kidding about the spiders.” She wasn’t but she didn’t want him to know that.