“Can she really do that with the holy water?” Rosemary asked, glancing from Audrey to Michael. “I mean — ”
“Holy water is all about the intent in your heart when you say a prayer over it,” Michael told her. “That obviously was enough.”
“Whenever he does come back, I want to make sure I’m miles away from here,” Audrey said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Rosemary remarked. “We have a Jeep out back.”
Perfect. Michael led the way, and they all clattered down the stairs, none of them bothering to keep quiet. It seemed obvious enough that the demon was nowhere around, so haste was far more important than stealth right then.
As they hurried through the kitchen, though, something sitting on the counter caught Audrey’s eye. Recognition clicked, and she realized it was her purse. Probably the Whitcomb-demon had dropped it here when he brought her into the house from the Town Car, but since she had been out cold at the time and had no idea what had happened to her bag, she’d thought it was gone forever.
“Just a sec,” she told Michael, and ran over and picked it up, slinging it over her shoulder.
He gave a nod of understanding, but then they were all back on their way again, out through the mudroom and onto a large covered back porch. Snow gleamed on the brick surface, and Audrey’s breath came out in little puffs of white smoke. She’d thought it was cold inside, but the frigid air out here seemed to penetrate her leather jacket as though it was made out of thin silk.
Luckily, she was moving quickly enough that she didn’t have too much time to worry about the cold. The three of them made their way along a path that led to a porte cochère, and parked beneath it was a mud-splashed but very new-looking white Jeep Wrangler. Even as she grabbed the door handle to haul herself into the passenger seat, Audrey kept thinking that the Whitcomb-demon was going to appear in a puff of smoke and haul her away again. Where the hell was he? Had she really hurt him badly enough to drive him off permanently?
No one stopped them. Rosemary climbed in the back, and Michael got in behind the wheel, foot on the gas as soon as his door slammed shut. He backed out of the porte cochère, pausing for a moment to turn the vehicle around. Then he followed the tracks he’d made coming here, out across the clearing that surrounded the house. In less than a minute, the vehicle was hidden within the woods, ponderosa pines and bare oak and aspen trees on either side.
Finally, Audrey felt as though she could let out a breath. She looked over at Michael, whose gaze was intent on the rough forest road they were following. The Jeep bounced around a good bit, but since he’d gotten out here in one piece, she figured he knew what he was doing.
“How did you find me?”
In the back seat, Rosemary leaned forward slightly. “A little process of elimination and a lot of intuition. And that vision you sent of your surroundings here.”
“That worked?” Audrey asked, startled. At the time, she’d sent out that thought because she had no idea what else to do. Even with Michael telling her that she was a stronger psychic than she believed, it hadn’t been much more than an experiment, a way to tell herself that she was doing something to help herself out of a horrible situation.
“It did,” Michael said. For just the barest second — all he could spare, thanks to the rough terrain they were driving through — he looked over at her. His gray eyes held a warmth she hadn’t been expecting. A flush of heat touched her cheeks, and she realized she wasn’t the only one who’d been reconsidering the harsh words they’d exchanged the last time they saw each other. “I was at the airport, waiting for Rosemary’s flight to get in, and there it was. I told you that you were stronger than you thought.”
Because she’d never been very good with compliments, Audrey gave a little shrug and instead focused on his mention of Rosemary’s flight. “How did that happen, anyway? You coming to Tucson, I mean.”
“I got in touch with Michael when I didn’t hear anything from you,” she said. “And then I convinced him that I could help track you down.”
“Which she did,” he added, “so I’m very glad she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Although she’d been smiling before, now her expression grew sober. “What happened, anyway? In the parking lot at the airport, I mean.”
Audrey did her best to explain how she thought it was Susan picking her up, and then found out later the woman she’d seen was only a terrible illusion. “I don’t know how the demon did it,” she said. “But I really thought it was Susan. So I got in the car, and that’s the last thing I remembered until I woke up in the bedroom here.”
“It sounds like you two really rattled this demon,” Rosemary said.
“He was not very happy with Michael and me, that’s for sure.” Audrey recalled how the Whitcomb-demon’s eyes had glittered with spite, how he’d spoken of the way they had interfered with his plans. “It sounds as though he used the portal in the Glendora mansion a good deal.”
“But for what?” Michael asked. His tone was musing, but she saw the way he frowned, and she guessed that his grim expression only had a little to do with how he was focused on the road.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He wouldn’t say.”
Rosemary shook her head, wild curls bouncing as the Jeep jounced its way along the rutted road. “This is all beyond me. I thought demons only infested houses and occasionally made people speak in tongues and throw up pea soup. What is this guy doing with Lincoln Town Cars and big Gold Rush mansions out in the wilds of Colorado?”
“So we are in Colorado,” Audrey murmured.
“Yes,” Michael said, “a little outside Idaho Springs, which is about a half hour from Denver. Anyway,” he went on, “the simple answer, Rosemary, is that I don’t really know. I’ve investigated probably thirty cases of demon infestation or possession by now, and this is the first time I’ve come across an instance where the demon doing the possessing has basically taken over the life of the possessee…become them, to all intents and purposes. And this case is even stranger because the demon is inside the body of a man who’s well over a hundred years old.”
“He definitely doesn’t look that old,” Audrey said. “In fact, he looks younger than the ghost I saw of him in your backyard.”
Rosemary’s eyes widened. “Wait…you saw Whitcomb’s ghost?”
“I think so,” Audrey replied. “And I met him again in a dream…or maybe it wasn’t really a dream. I don’t know. But both those versions of Whitcomb looked about ten or fifteen years older than the one with the demon inside him.” For a moment, she considered telling them that Jeffrey Whitcomb had been possessed for years before he even moved to Glendora, then decided to leave it alone for now. At some point, she’d have to tell Michael everything she knew, but she didn’t see how that particular tidbit couldn’t wait. The rush of relief at getting out of there had faded somewhat, and now she was just tired as hell. Sleeping on a bathroom floor while wrapped up in spare towels to keep from freezing to death could take a lot out of a person.
“Interesting,” Michael said…but that was all he said, as if he knew she was holding a few things back and also preferred to wait until they could talk in private. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Rosemary, but that it might be better to hash these things out together on their own. Audrey was still a little shocked that the two of them had been able to put their differences aside in order to track her down…although she was very grateful to the psychic for lending her assistance. It was good to know that she’d somehow had a very unexpected friend enter her life.
Yes, it had taken all three of them working together — even if they hadn’t known it at the time — to effect Audrey’s escape. She wondered where the demon had gone. Did he need to be someplace secure to heal from the wounds he’d given himself? Did demons heal faster than humans?
Because he certainly wouldn’t be fit to be seen in public until the gashes he’d torn open in his cheeks had disappeared.
They were all quiet f
or a minute. Then they came to another road, a real road with asphalt, and Michael turned off onto it, relief clear in his face. It had to have been nerve-wracking to maneuver the Jeep along that forest track with the snow still thick on the ground. Now that they were traveling on a paved road, the rest of the drive should go fairly quickly.
Then Michael exclaimed, “Shit!” and took his foot off the gas.
A black Lincoln Town Car was stretched across the road, blocking both lanes. He hit the brakes, but the road was slick with melting snow and Audrey could feel the tires start to slip, to squeal on the wet asphalt. Their vehicle began to spin, hurtling closer and closer to the car in the middle of the road….
She wasn’t sure exactly what happened. Somehow, Michael managed to maneuver the Jeep onto the shoulder, just sliding past the Town Car, which still seemed to loom at them, looking as big as a tank. And then, just as suddenly as it had been there, it disappeared, melting away like mist.
“Holy shit,” Rosemary whispered from the back seat. “What the hell was that?”
“A deterrent,” Michael said grimly. He gave the Jeep a little gas, began to move forward again, going slowly until they were back on the road itself. Even then, Audrey noticed that he stayed about five miles an hour below the speed limit, just in case he encountered another supernatural obstacle. “A little parting gift from Audrey’s host.”
“Why didn’t he try harder to stop us?” Audrey asked. “If he knew I was getting away, why not do something at the house itself?”
“He probably didn’t know,” Michael replied. “That could just have been a trap he left, something that was automatically triggered as we came through. Demons aren’t gods, you know. They have abilities greater than a mortal’s, true, but they’re definitely not all-seeing and all-knowing.”
“Thank God,” she said, her voice shaking a bit. “Because they’re bad enough as they are.”
“I think that was his last-ditch effort to prevent us from getting away,” Michael said. Now his tone was more reassuring than anything else. “Creatures like this don’t like to operate in bright daylight. I think he’ll go off and bide his time, and wait to see what we’re going to do next.”
“Which is?” Audrey asked. She thought she might already know the answer, but even so, his reply calmed her nerves a bit.
“Go back to Tucson and shoot this episode before Colin has a complete panic attack,” Michael said. “After that…we’ll figure out what to do about Whitcomb.”
Because she’d been able to retrieve her purse and therefore still had her I.D., getting back to Tucson was a fairly straightforward process. The three of them went to the Southwest kiosk at Denver International and bought a ticket for the same flight that Rosemary and Michael already were on, thanks to the round-trip fares they’d purchased in Tucson.
“But you can take my seat, and I’ll take yours,” Rosemary suggested. She didn’t seem too put out by the prospect, but then, sitting by yourself on a flight that barely lasted an hour and a half probably wasn’t that big a deal.
Still, Audrey was thankful for the offer, because even though she knew she was safe now, she also realized it would probably be some time before she could completely shake off the events of the past twenty-four hours. And she was equally thankful after they all boarded the plane and she saw that the row in front of them was empty, which meant she and Michael could get caught up on what had happened after the Whitcomb-demon kidnapped her.
He seemed of the same mind, because almost as soon as the plane had taken off — only fifteen minutes late — he leaned closer to her and murmured, “You’re sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. It felt good to be sitting here on this 737, surrounded by the commonplaces of air travel…and it felt even better to have Michael next to her. He looked tired but also calm, as though he knew they’d surmounted one hurdle and would have a little breathing space before the next.
Hopefully, he was correct in that assumption. Now that she could lean back in the padded seat and finally allow herself to relax, she could feel every bruise, every knotted muscle she’d picked up during her sojourn in the demon’s Colorado mansion. Also, she felt warmer now; that bathroom floor had been icy cold, and the chill had felt as though it penetrated her bones. She really hadn’t warmed up much on the drive to the airport in Denver, even though Michael was blasting the heat from his rented Jeep’s climate-control system.
“I’m fine,” she said. Would it be weird to reach over and rest her hand on his? She wanted to, desperately. Now that she’d forgiven him in her heart, she wanted him to know that things would be different between the two of them from now on.
You’ve got to start somewhere, she told herself, and went ahead and lifted her right hand from the armrest and set it on Michael’s left. He started, just a little, and then shifted in his seat so his gaze could meet hers. For a few seconds, they both sat there in silence, watching one another, and then the corners of his mouth lifted, and the golden glints in his gray eyes seemed to grow warmer, like little shards of sunshine. Something hard and tight and frightened in her began to relax, as if she somehow knew this was going to be okay.
His fingers tightened on hers, strong, reassuring. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said.
“So am I. It was…frightening.” There was an understatement. Now she was away, though, the whole ordeal had begun to feel like something out of a nightmare, a nightmare that was slowly fading the longer she could see the sun and know that Michael was here next to her. She shook her head. “It was worse than that, really. I didn’t know how you would ever be able to find me, and I didn’t see how I could escape on foot. I didn’t know how close to the road the house really was.”
“Not that close,” Michael said. He didn’t seem inclined to let go of her hand, instead held on, as if making sure she couldn’t possibly get away again. “About four miles. That’s a long ways to walk in the dark and the snow. And from there it would have been another three miles into Idaho Springs itself.”
Audrey had walked that far on day hikes, but the two situations weren’t remotely similar. Those hikes had been undertaken on sunny, mild days, with the proper footwear and a GPS unit in her backpack in case she really got turned around. “I suppose so,” she allowed. “Anyway, about all I could do was hold on and see if I could come up with some way to get out of there on my own.”
“The holy water was a nice trick,” he said with a smile.
Even though she’d long ago told herself that she didn’t need anyone else’s approval to feel good about her accomplishments, she had to admit that Michael’s smile was a nice reward, especially since he didn’t seem to deploy it very often. Maybe that was because of all the years of keeping the truth of his history to himself, of making sure he never let anyone get too close.
She had to hope he’d let her get close…again.
“I was desperate. But I used the prayer you taught me on him when he was trying to attack me, and when that worked, I figured trying some holy water couldn’t hurt.”
At once Michael’s smile disappeared, replaced by a furrowed brow and an angry glint in his eyes. “He tried to attack you? I thought you said he didn’t hurt you.”
“He didn’t hurt me. Or at least, he held back until he thought I was getting too close to something important.” Quickly, she related the strange dream she’d had with the much older-looking Jeffrey, the way he’d been about to reveal the demon’s name. “And that was when he attacked me,” she said. “Obviously, he must have had some inkling of what was going on in my head, or he wouldn’t have interfered that way.”
“Yes,” Michael said, his tone musing. “Demons never want you to learn their true names, because then you can effectively banish them. The astral Jeffrey must have been trying to make amends by passing that information on to you.”
“So you really think I was on the astral plane, that it wasn’t just a dream?” Yes, Audrey had considered that possibility, but it felt strange to say thos
e words aloud now, even though she and Michael didn’t have an audience that could overhear them.
“I’m almost positive. Not that you couldn’t have simply been experiencing a very clear, very lucid dream, but because of the demon’s reaction to it. If it had only been a dream, you would have known somehow, would have known the information the dream Jeffrey had given you wasn’t true and was only something your subconscious had filled in because you desperately wanted it to be true.” Very gently, he let go of her hand, but only because the flight attendant was now bumping along the aisle with her drink cart.
Audrey eyed the mini wine bottles longingly, but she hadn’t eaten anything more than a few swallows of soup for more than twenty-four hours now. Drinking alcohol didn’t seem like a very good idea.
But Michael got them both some bottled water and a few packets of peanuts. He handed both of them to her, saying, “I’ll get you a real breakfast when we get to Tucson. Or maybe brunch…it’ll be past one by the time we land.”
“Brunch sounds great,” Audrey replied. She’d have to duck into the bathroom to tidy her hair and put on some lipstick, but she knew it probably wouldn’t be smart to go by the B&B to change and freshen up. Knowing Colin, he’d pounce the second she and Michael appeared, and would demand they start shooting immediately. “But the peanuts will hold me.”
She tore open one of the packets and ate a few of the nuts, then washed them down with large swallows of water. Even this simple snack made her feel better, made her think she was going to survive this whole ordeal after all.
Since Michael had remained silent while she ate her peanuts and drank her water, Audrey figured she might as well ask a few questions of her own. “Does Colin know?”
“Not the whole story,” Michael replied, clearly understanding the unspoken part of her question. “He knows you never showed up, and he knows that Rosemary and I were coming to Colorado because we had a lead as to where you might be, but he doesn’t know anything about Whitcomb’s dopplegänger.”
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