I took the card against my own better judgement and got up. Sticking around drinking with this new, smooth version of my old hook-up seemed like a horribly bad idea. “I need to go.”
He left me with no other choice. Intentions clear, my choices were staying and beating my head off the brick wall of his ego or walking away without the concussion. I walked away.
The place was crowded enough to make it feel like the inside of sardine tin near the dance-floor, but it had its empty spots. There were a few darker corners with nothing to them as I weaved through the room. I found the hallway to the cloakroom almost clear. Just a few more steps and I’d be at the exit.
That’s when I caught the faint red glow of a Wrath Demon in the eyes of a man who was leaving. He didn’t look at me, he didn’t seem to have noticed me at all. I froze on the spot, until he passed, unable to take my gaze from him until he was gone from sight. Then I moved quickly to the door he’d just come out of. I caught the handle before it closed. The dark corridor beyond should have put me off entering, but I’d already made the decision to go inside. I glanced around. The hallway to the exit was empty. No-one was watching me. No-one was going to tell me off for opening an unmarked door. I slipped inside. The door closed as I took my phone from my bag to light my way.
Wrath were the deadliest of all the demon types. The actions taken to attract the other demons didn’t always mean drawing blood. A human had to do something violent to attract a Wrath. Usually that meant something bloody. My heart started to race as I walked down the dark corridor. There were two doors at the end, one on either side of me, and I was attracted to one more than the other. Instinct. I didn’t question the choice as my hand closed around the handle.
The door opened inwards. I shone the torch on my phone into the dark room. There was a smell inside. Something like burning wood, only it’s mingled with disinfectant and something else. I looked around, moving the torch slowly. The sudden sight of someone across the room made me jump, but a closer look revealed it was only my reflection in a wall-mounted mirror. There’s a row of sinks under it. Clearly, I’d found toilets that weren’t being used yet. If this was any normal night out, it might be a jackpot moment.
I didn’t move from my spot just inside the door. Light was the only thing that’s going to make walking further into the room less of a horror story waiting to happen. I checked the wall near the door for light switches. Nothing. Shit.
I kept my hand on the edge of the door as I crept further in. Never really been afraid of the dark, but this felt different. Something’s in here. The smell of burning got stronger. I held my arm out with the torch, running it down the front of the toilet stalls. They’re all open and I got the sudden image of a hand leaping out of the darkness to grab my wrist and pull. It was enough to make me whip my hand back. I held the phone to my chest, fingers trembling. My heart was thumping so loudly it’s all I could hear. I was afraid to move, to breathe, to speak.
I forced myself to take a couple of breaths before I took a step forward. There’s something ahead of me, hiding in the darkness. I could see little flashes of red light. Another demon? My stomach took a nosedive as I considered the idea that this might be a trap. In the dreamscape I’d be given a weapon. In the real world? I had zero fighting skills, beyond throwing something heavy or screaming in the bad guy’s face until real help arrived. I didn’t run around beating the shit out of humans. It wasn’t in my job description. I was not a vigilante, or a super-hero. I was a dream walker.
My foot connected with something on the ground and I bit back a yelp. No hand materialised to grab my ankle. But a faint noise was followed by a whoosh of flames that rushed along the ground and engulfed a human shaped mass standing against the wall. I held the torch out. It didn’t help, so I turned the camera on and zoomed in. The crackling roar of the fire was getting louder as I stared at the screen.
The woman was propped up against the wall, her throat slashed open. She was pretty. Pale skin, dark hair. Kind of reminded me of Lucy, if I’m being honest. A lump formed in my throat. That poor woman.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and moved to get the hell out of the room. The fire was raging and there was nothing to put it out with. I had to get out. I turned and crashed into a wall. No, wait… it’s a man.
He smiled as I looked up into his eyes. The demon grinned back at me, sparkling crimson in his pupils. “Hello, dream walker.”
He didn’t move. I didn’t want to be this close to him, but I could feel the heat of the fire at my back and I knew I had no-where to run. My instincts didn’t usually screw me over this badly.
“What have you done?” I sounded shell-shocked because I was, but I asked because stroking his ego in a round-about way might be my only chance out of this mess.
“I’m only doing what I must.” He touched my face and I wanted to throw up in my mouth. I managed not to, reminding myself this wasn’t a Lust Demon I was dealing with. He wasn’t thinking disgusting thoughts about me, at least not in a sexual way. He smiled and put a hand on my chest, pushing me into the room forcefully, making me stumble in my heels. “Sweet dreams, beautiful.”
My back hit the sinks and I winced, watching as he closed the door. I was so screwed. The smoke was rising. I could taste it in my mouth. The click of the lock moving into place brought the reality of my situation crashing down on me. I was trapped in a room on fire. I had to find a way out, and fast.
I thought about calling Jimmy, but I didn’t want the demon to get him. I could probably direct him here, but what if the guy who locked me in is waiting in that dark corridor? He’s capable of anything. He’d just shown me that. I couldn’t put a friend in that kind of danger. I found a tissue in my bag to cover my mouth and nose while I looked around the room. The glint of a reflective surface above one of the back cubicles made me want to jump up and down, until I realised how high up it was, and how close to the fire.
Shit. I was going to have to walk through the flames, or jump over them, at least. I jumped, and the flash of heat freaked me out, making it feel as if I caught fire when I jumped. I had to look down to make sure I didn’t. My ankle felt a bit weird, but I didn’t care. I needed to climb up to that window and get outside. I started to cough as I dropped the tissue to climb the toilet and cistern. My shoes made the climb awkward, so I stayed on my tip-toes.
Taking them off would waste precious minutes I didn’t have. The window seemed to be able to open, but its locking mechanism was jammed. I stuffed my phone into my bag and picked out a nail-file. I managed to scrape away the paint that’s been layered over the hinge. I hoped to hell it would open now. I pulled and pulled. It creaked but it didn’t budge. I coughed so hard it felt like I must have hacked up a lung. One last try, and then I was climbing back down and attempting to break the window with the top off the cistern. Please, let this work.
I yanked it as hard as I could, and the window opened. I leaned forward and gasped in the cold fresh air. It’s a tight squeeze but I pulled myself outside, only having to wiggle a little to free my hips. If I’d weighed just a few pounds more I might have been done for. My body was aching as I pulled myself to my feet in the alley. My legs and clothes were dirty and it felt like I’d been sucking in second hand smoke all night, but I was alive, and I had a demon to dream of tonight.
I walked around to the front of the building and found it being evacuated already. There was no need to sound the alarm. Sirens sliced through the night. I headed straight for the Starlight. Rule number one, never stick around when the emergency services were on their way. ‘A demon did it’ was never a good alibi. I text-messaged Piper on my way back, telling her I was sorry I’d had to leave, basically to make sure she’s okay, though I was almost completely sure she was outside when the fire started.
She told me about the fire, and she told me Jimmy was okay too, which stopped me from wasting time rifling around in my bag to find the card with his number on it. I feigned surprise at the news and tell her I must ha
ve left before it started, that I’d come out to look for her and ended up being sick so I had to head home. I was glad to hear they were both okay.
I was ready for my visit to the dreamscape the moment I got back to the hotel, thankfully slipping into the stairwell before the girl on the reception desk could glance my way. I looked, and felt, like hell, but there’s a smile on my face that wouldn’t fade. I could still see the empty stare of the creep who pushed me into that burning room. He thought he killed me when he locked that door. He’d never see me coming.
Chapter Six
Lucy had been pissed at me the day I’d left town, for more than one reason. We’d been in the flat together for three weeks and I was onto my fourth job, and perhaps not surprisingly, I’d yet to see a pay-check for anything. Kind of what happens when you attack a customer with a skewer, or you pass out in the bathroom, or you get caught trying to sneak up on a someone with a spade on your lunch-break. Was it really my fault I was a walking demon magnet? Not that I could say that to anyone. Well, anyone but my grandmother and she wasn’t around anymore.
I was still cut up about it the day I left, starting to wonder if l would ever get used to her being gone. It had been two weeks since she’d died and I couldn’t force myself to believe it was real. It happened a week after I moved out. I know she was pushing eighty, but the guilt of that isn’t lost on me. I thought I’d had to do this, to prove I could. Turns out, I was wrong. I’m just not capable of holding down a real-person job.
“Rent is due in a week,” Lucy reminded me, her voice tight.
“I know that,” I snapped back at her. “I have the money.”
It was a lie, but she didn’t know it. Well, her expression told me she did before it tightened back up to that impenetrable mask of hers, but she wasn’t quite bitchy enough to say it out loud. She took a deep breath, something she’s been known to do whenever she’s trying to calm down.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she warned me. “You need to pull yourself together.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Mum.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “This isn’t funny, Tina. It shouldn’t be so hard to hold down a job. How the hell are you ever going to get through life if you can’t even last a week at a fast food place?”
She had a point, but I was sick to death of being beaten over the head with it. I’d given her every excuse under the sun over the last year or so that I’d been trying to work part-time. Bad bosses, horrible conditions, terrible wages. She knew by now that I was the problem.
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that I’m not meant to flip burgers.”
She made a growling noise as she picked up her jacket and purse. “I have to go. I’m going to be late for work.” She turned at the door and stared me down. “I don’t care what you need to do to keep the job you have now. If you lose this one, you can forget about living here.”
She slammed the door as she left. I sank into my chair and sighed, wishing the problem was that simple. Keeping the job at any cost wasn’t an option. The reality was too different. Do whatever you can to keep the job, but exorcising demons will always come first. If something’s gotta give, it can’t be saving people from themselves. Gran was smart, but she made her money telling fortunes. She found it much easier to keep dream walking from interfering with her ability to make a regular income.
Her death had hit me hard. A week after I moved in with Lucy I went around to make her breakfast and she wasn’t already up and about. The bad feeling that gave me turned out to be well-founded. I went into her room and I couldn’t wake her. She still felt warm, but she wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t take it in. I ran for the phone. Her doctor lived nearby and arrived quickly. The worst moment of my life was seeing him walk out of that room and shake his head gently as he closed the door over.
I was lost when that happened, barely getting through it. Lucy had been softer on me than she should have been, because she knew Gran had been all I had. But I couldn’t blame her for getting pissy now. I was supposed to split the rent with her, and I couldn’t hang onto any shitty job long enough to come away with anything more than a fistful of tips. I wasn’t pulling my weight, and I didn’t know how to fix that.
I’d hoped I could move back into Gran’s council house, but it wasn’t going to be moved into my name because I’d officially moved out. So there went any kind of help I might have gotten towards paying my rent. Not that I’d want to take handouts, but what other choice did I have? I was trying to keep a job, but it just wasn’t working out. I had nothing in the way of savings considering I couldn’t hold down a job for any longer than a week. Demons got in my way every damn time. I’d tried a million different ways to cut myself off from that part of me, the dream walker, but it didn’t matter what I did, they always found me. And it always, without fail, screwed up the rest of my life.
Gran used to tell me I was never meant for a normal life. It had sort of made me feel better when she said it, telling me I needed to go easier on myself, but the reality was a harsher matter.
Relationships were too hard to maintain with all the lies that had to go hand in hand with my dream walking. So I was stuck with meaningless one night stands if I wanted male attention, and a fiery on-again, off-again friendship with the girl who lived next door to me when we were kids. Shallower friendships were easier. I kept in touch with a few girls from school and various workplaces. Girls like Piper. When I wanted a night out, those were the people I called. Not Lucy, never Lucy. She hated to see me drinking. Told me it turned me into a monster.
It was later the day that she’d warned me about the rent when I got the news that I’d inherited the house in the Highlands. My grandmother had owned it, and I never knew about it. She’d left me everything, including her rust-bucket car and the few thousand pounds that had been in her savings account.
I’d packed a bag while Lucy was at work and put it into the trunk of the car, already knowing I was going to leave. I’d left Lucy an envelope with three months’ rent inside on my bed. It was close to a third of what I’d just inherited, but I figured she deserved it for putting up with me for so damned long.
I’d had all of that done already when her sleazy boyfriend showed up. I should have left before that, but I’d wanted one last night of normalcy before I ran away. I’d already tried to talk myself out of it, knowing I was doing the same damn thing my mother had done to me. Taking the coward’s way out. Running from my problems before they ruined the last real friendship I had left, with one of the only two people I still loved in this world. The thought of leaving choked me up, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. Took me a year to realise I did. Twelve damn months.
I’d hoped it wasn’t too late to fix things. Even if Lucy never properly forgave me, I had to do what was right. I’d done the wrong thing leaving. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Chapter Seven
When I snapped my eyes open the next morning, a ball of dread pulsing in my stomach, I knew something went horribly wrong last night. It hit me like a punch to the guts. I didn’t get to the dreamscape when I fell asleep. I didn’t dream at all. It didn’t make any sense. The demon thought he’d killed me. He wouldn’t be worried about me coming after him. I tried to figure out what had happened. Even if he didn’t think he’d killed me, most Wrath Demons were arrogant enough not to let the existence of one little human girl with a strange ability force their hosts to lose any sleep. This was different, and I didn’t like it.
I got up and got myself ready for the day ahead. I thankfully didn’t end up spending any money the night before, so I hadn’t screwed up my finances before I even had a job. I also handed in my application form to the front desk on my way out last night. When I checked my phone, I find out I have a text from Lucy, asking when I could start work.
I guessed I just nailed two birds with one stone putting my new mobile number on that application form. Now she had it. I hesitated before I messaged her back. Th
e appearance of the demon complicated things. I was going to have to deal with him. Demonic exorcisms were kind of hard to judge, and this one already seemed like it was going to be trickier than most. On the other hand, my cash-flow was getting tighter. A day job would really help with that, the sooner the better.
I started typing a few times and deleted the message each time. I didn’t want to get off to a bad start, and I couldn’t seem to pick the right option. Telling Lucy I couldn’t start right away would make her wonder what I was doing instead. I could already see the frown on her face if I gave her an answer that sounded like fobbing her off. She’d assume I was being flaky, or worse…
The day before I left, she’d accused me of being an alcoholic. A series of unfortunate events had led to me blaming one too many hard-to-explain incidents on being drunk. I hadn’t realised she’d been getting more and more exasperated with my behaviour until she’d come to her conclusion and levelled it at me. I’d been dumbfounded and instinctively let her blast me out, seeing it as a blessing in disguise.
She’d painted a problem onto me that could actually be resolved. I’d felt weird about that, but I’d told her I was going to change. She hadn’t believed me, I could see it in her eyes. That was before I left. So maybe things had changed. Maybe she’d believe I had. I could only hope. If not, she was probably already judging me for not texting her back two hours ago when she’d messaged me. I was glad I hadn’t gotten drunk last night, and not just because it might have made it easier for the demon to kill me.
I almost messaged her back to tell her I’d start tomorrow. I had to dream of the Wrath some time. Surely one more night would do it. The image of the dead girl floated through my head and I wasn’t so sure. I doubted he would leave his host without a fight. None of them ever did, but this one…
This one was already weird. Not dreaming of him when I’d seen right into his eyes earlier that night was enough of an anomaly. The main reason that wouldn’t happen, and the only time I didn’t enter the dreamscape at some point soon after I’d locked gazes with a demon was if the human host wasn’t sleeping. Sometimes sleep-aids messed with the dreamscape, but they never blocked me completely. The dreamer only had to be unconscious to let me in. He didn’t need to be in a dream-state. So, the guy hadn’t slept last night. He had to sleep sometime. How long could someone honestly go without?
Sinners Never Sleep (Seven Deadly Demons Book 1) Page 4