The Devil's Daughter Box Set

by G A Chase

  “From my experience, the pellet takes a bit of time to work its way out of the body, so I’ll be able to warn Jennifer to keep away before the demon surfaces.”

  As soon as Kendell returned with the square blue-glass jar, Polly held up the med kit’s cell phone. “So here’s the plan. I’ll be outside running the connection. Once I power Sere up, Thomas is going to be thrashing around like a madman. Myles, Fisher, and Bart will need to hold him down. No matter what happens to Sere, do not touch her. When the pellet is out of Thomas, Kendell will scrape it off Sere’s bandage and into the spirit jar. Do not touch the pellet. If it falls, let Sere pick it up again with her bandaged hand. Only when it’s safely isolated and capped in the voodoo jar will I turn off the connection. We can’t risk Thomas’s demon breaking free to possess the first human he comes across.”

  Sere put her hand on the man’s stomach like an old-time faith healer. At least I don’t need an incantation, she thought. “Ready?”

  Thomas’s eyes were still wild with demonic anger, but his clenched teeth proved he was struggling against the urge to fight back. He gave her a single nod.

  “Hit it,” Sere called out to Polly.

  The itchy tingling sensation of the elastic bandage turned into pulses of electricity that ran from hand to elbow. Sere’s muscles flexed as if they’d just been supercharged. The body under her touch writhed with demonic fury. “Hang in there, Thomas.”

  Bart had hold of the man’s feet while Myles and Fisher held each arm out as if nailing Thomas to a cross. The constant struggling, combined with the power that surged through Sere, nearly made her forget about Jennifer. Like a photograph that had been double exposed, Sere could make out the ghostly image of the homemaker working in her kitchen overlaid on the scene in the warehouse.

  “Stay back, Jennifer.” Though Sere spoke the words out loud in the warehouse, the woman at the stove looked in the direction of the struggle on the concrete floor.

  “What’s going on?” Jennifer’s words sounded as ethereal as she appeared. No one other than Sere looked in her direction.

  Sere had never witnessed their connection from outside of Jennifer’s body. “We’re performing an exorcism. I needed to borrow your energy. Just give me a minute, and we’ll let you be. Whatever you do, don’t come any closer to me.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Jennifer said.

  “I am,” Sere responded, crouched under the woman’s kitchen table.

  A black hole lined in fire tore the fabric that separated their two realities. Between keeping her hand planted on the bucking, demonically possessed Thomas in life, maintaining her cool despite the flames of paranormal energy running up her arm in Jennifer’s imagined kitchen, and making sure the woman didn’t become another of the possessed, Sere felt like a juggler who couldn’t afford a single distraction.

  The demon who walked through the gap between dimensions and materialized in the homemaker’s cheerfully decorated domain, however, made Sere want to turn and run. Twice Thomas’s size, covered in blood, and snarling like a rabid dog, the creature turned first to Jennifer and then to Sere. “Release me,” it roared.

  “What in the name of all that’s holy is that?” Jennifer yelled through the roaring flames.

  “A resident of hell.” Sere got out from under the table then stood to face the demon.

  Once the monster was fully through the gap, Sere felt a tug on her arm from in the warehouse. For the love of God, Kendell, don’t fucking drop the pellet. Sere couldn’t imagine how she’d be able to find it amid the chaos.

  Once Sere pulled her hand off Thomas’s chest, the black hole in Jennifer’s kitchen closed, releasing the demon into the space between the two women. The monster turned toward the homemaker. Come on, Kendell, move your ass! Sere mentally pleaded.

  “It won’t come off the bandage.” Kendell’s voice sounded like it came from far down a corridor, not right next to Sere.

  “Shut off the connection,” Bart yelled.

  “No, don’t.” Fisher’s voice sounded much closer. “The demon needs to be contained first.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Kendell yelled. “I can’t touch the pellet, and the knife just slides right off it.”

  “Do something before he gets me!” Back in the kitchen, Jennifer’s panic radiated into Sere’s chest. The creature had clearly zeroed in on his next victim and was moving in to take possession.

  “Not so fast, asshole.” Sere clenched her fist around the pellet. The demon puffed up in anger but moved no closer to Jennifer. “I can’t hold him forever,” she called out to the others in the warehouse. “Someone think of something.”

  “Have them turn up the power,” Jennifer yelled from the other side of the demon. “You can crush him like a bug.”

  “Can’t do it,” Sere replied. “It would drain you. Our connection only works if I respect the boundaries. Too much of an imbalance between us might cause my soul to infect yours the same way this demon slipped into Thomas.”

  “Okay, then don’t do that,” Jennifer said. “But I want to help.”

  The demon stared at Sere as if she’d just revealed some weakness. Blood dripped from its mouth like saliva. “All I have to do is wait you out. You can’t hold me forever.” Unable to advance on Jennifer, it moved in closer to Sere. “Or maybe I’ll just devour your soul.”

  The clanking of an iron skillet onto the tile floor made the demon turn to look at what had happened.

  “You don’t want her,” Jennifer said.

  Sere strained to focus on Kendell. She didn’t dare say aloud what she was thinking for fear the demon would be ready with a counter move. Holding her fist to her chest in front of Kendell, Sere flipped it over as if flipping the switch away from herself.

  Kendell nodded, whispered in Fisher’s ear, then held the bottle with both hands close to Sere’s fist. Fisher gave Sere a quick nod and ran toward Polly, who was standing outside the roll-up door.

  Focusing back on the scene in the kitchen, Sere stared into Jennifer’s eyes, willing her to understand. With the demon distracted by the homemaker, Sere pointed first at her chest then quickly at Jennifer. Jennifer gave a trembling single nod that Sere mimicked in the warehouse.

  “Now,” Kendell yelled to Polly.

  The energy reversal sprang Sere’s fingers out straight, freeing the pellet from the electromagnet bandage. The willpower and self-confidence she’d relied on no longer made up the bedrock of her existence. She had all the trepidation and terror she had experienced as the scared little girl who’d just been yanked out of Guinee and dumped in hell. Staring at her transparent arm, she realized that with her power now being sent to Jennifer, she was nothing more than a disembodied ghost in the kitchen, unable to confront the demon. She had to test how far the transfer went.

  “Hey, asshole, I’m over here,” she yelled at the monster. Her voice faltered from lack of conviction.

  The demon didn’t even flinch. Freed from Sere’s grasp, he crept around the butcher-block table like a cat sneaking up on a mouse.

  “So this is what it’s like to be you,” Jennifer said as she picked up the hot skillet from the floor.

  “Don’t fuck around, woman,” Sere yelled to Jennifer. “That demon means business. Just hold him off until Kendell can take the pellet from my hand.”

  “But until she does, this bastard is mine.”

  Since the monster hadn’t responded to Sere, she assumed only Jennifer was able to hear her. She had to help somehow. “Though you can see him, he doesn’t have any mass. He only exists in this energy connection we’re sharing. That cast-iron club isn’t going to do you any good. Focus on keeping him out of you.”

  Jennifer raised her hand toward the demon as if she could vaporize him with sheer force of will. He continued circling around the table toward her.

  “I thought you said he was nothing more than energy,” she said.

  “He’s been trapped in a body for the last twenty years,” Sere said, “and befor
e that, he had substance in hell. If you try to hit him and have your attempt go straight through his body, he’ll learn quickly that he doesn’t need to navigate around your kitchen.” She could feel the woman’s desire for combat growing.

  Jennifer backed toward the sink like she was luring him into her trap. “Come on, you bastard. Show me those big demon fangs. I’ll bet you just love towering over defenseless humans.”

  Sere had never seen a battle from the perspective of those she cared about, but listening to Jennifer, she realized the words weren’t that different than the taunts she would have used. Think. Analyze the situation. What would I do? How can I help Jennifer? Even without her self-confidence, Sere still had Joe’s training to rely on.

  “I know he looks imposing, but he’s kind of a chickenshit. In all the years he was trying to take over Thomas’s life, he barely managed any true evil at all. Demons feed on power, and right now, he’s losing energy like a toy that had its batteries left on all night. Treat him the way a woman authority figure would deal with a schoolyard bully.”

  Jennifer straightened her stance and crossed her arms under her breasts, the skillet still in her hand, as if she were about to tell Thomas to go to his room. She shook her head. “You are just so precious. Am I supposed to be afraid of you?”

  The creature puffed himself. He had to keep his head bent to fit under the ceiling. “I am a demon from hell, and I’m going to take possession of you, body and soul.”

  The woman chuckled. “I dressed my son up as Dracula last Halloween. Even he had a better dark accent, and he’s only nine.”

  Sere felt the tongs Kendell had improvised from Bart’s knives press into the bandage around her hand. “Time for you to go into your little jar, pesky demon.”

  The demon evaporated as easily as butter in a hot pan. Jennifer’s eyes switched from the monster that had been between them to Sere. “You.”

  Sere turned her face away. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me.”

  “I got it, Polly,” Kendell yelled. “Better call 9-1-1. Thomas doesn’t look so good.”

  With the connection to Jennifer severed, Sere collapsed onto the concrete floor. Her arm stung, but the sensation was now only physical. She rolled to her side and looked in Thomas’s eyes for any hint of the demon. They were as crystal blue and pure as a mountain lake.

  He lay gasping for breath and bleeding from the hole in his stomach. “Thank you. I’m finally free. You fulfilled your promise.”

  Drained of energy, Sere struggled to push herself off the floor. Bart pulled her onto his lap. “Just take it easy for a minute. I’ve got you.”

  “It worked.” She couldn’t quite believe it. Beheading Thomas in hell had been one of her earliest mistakes, though the freed demon taking possession of the real wasn’t completely her fault. Professor Yates had used the boy’s image as his hell-based assistant. Too many facts rolled around Sere’s mind for her to make sense of what had just happened and how it might help with the fight ahead.

  Polly knelt down next to her. “You were right about that pellet. It did more than just separate the doppelgänger from the real. You thought it might magnify whatever was already in charge of the body.”

  Sere did her best to help Polly make sense of what had happened. “Thomas had lost his battle against his demon, so the pellet amplified the evil.”

  Polly looked over at Fisher while talking to Sere. “And you hoped having your friend swallow one might help him combat his inner demon.”

  Sere took hold of Polly’s arm and pulled herself up from Bart’s embrace. “I’m still not willing to use him as a test subject. Fisher isn’t the problem—whatever the Laroques are creating is. What would happen if a doppelgänger body—inhabited by both the evil copy and the human spirit—were to undergo what Thomas just experienced?” Sere’s strength ebbed, causing her to fall back against Bart.

  “That’s an interesting premise.” Polly stared at the warehouse ceiling. “A doppelgänger body already connected to its real would bypass the professor’s equipment. We’d lose all control over its ability to regenerate, as it would have a self-contained source of energy—basically like running off a battery. A single paranormal pellet inside wouldn’t be able to sever the connection, but it would still focus on strengthening the dominant energy. More than one pellet, however, would only confuse the two spirits. As with Thomas, the pellet would need to be inside the body long enough to fully isolate the main source of power. Once the pellet had done its job, it would have to be removed the same way you just did with Thomas. Going in and digging it out would only allow the dominant energy to be reabsorbed by the body.”

  Sere wasn’t crazy about subjecting Jennifer to another demon, but the woman had performed admirably for her first time facing pure evil. With a little training, the happy homemaker might make a formidable ally. “Would it matter which persona was magnified?”

  Polly bit her upper lip. “It shouldn’t. Disconnecting either one from the body would be like removing either the positive or negative terminal from the battery. Either one would render the toy doll unresponsive. And unlike you, the remaining spirit wouldn’t be able to draw on an outside energy source because it’s no longer being run through our interdimensional computer.”

  That explanation made Sere’s head swim. She concentrated on the next step, and her mind cleared. “So we would need a way to inject a single shotgun pellet into the doppelgänger without him noticing.”

  Bart helped Sere to her feet. “I’m on it.” He grabbed a couple of shells from her belt. “Give me half an hour in one of Joe’s hidden workshops. There must be one somewhere in this city.”

  Though she was still weak, she appreciated his no-nonsense attitude. There was work to do. “Grab the black satchel from my saddlebag. There’s a map in there of Joe’s hidden caches. I’ll swing by Fisher’s offices once I finish with my meeting.”

  He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t go doing something foolish—at least not without me.”

  As he left, the paramedic van pulled up. Things were about to get busy, and Sere didn’t have the time or skills to come up with a believable excuse for Thomas’s injury. She took Kendell’s arm. “Help me to the back door.” She checked to make sure the rest were dealing with Thomas. “I’m looking for a gutter-punk girl. She’s shorter than me, like, five-foot nothing, mid-to-late teens, and scraggly black hair that probably hasn’t been washed in a month. She might go by the name Doodlebug, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Is her doppelgänger among the latest outbreak of demons?” Kendell asked.

  Sere wasn’t ready to let on about the girl out in the swamp. “I received some information, and I’m trying to decide if it’s bullshit or worth pursuing.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. If she’s in the Quarter, I should be able to find her and bring her by the Scratchy Dog before we open tonight.”

  “There’s no need to alert her just yet. Get a picture so I know you’ve found the right girl, but just keep track of her for now. Depending on how the information pans out, I might not even need her.” If the little doppelchick was lying, having the girl’s real at Sere’s mercy might prove useful.

  41

  Chapter 13

  Sere rode her motorcycle back to Mr. Fisher’s offices and left it in the care of the homeless who were always camped out in the narrow alleys. Then she ducked into the offices and stripped off her shotgun and holster. From inside the saddlebags that she’d dumped on the chair, her snakes rattled their displeasure.

  “I hate leaving you guys again, especially when I’m going somewhere you’d love,” she said, “but making a show of strength against this dude probably wouldn’t end well.”

  Even if the former head of the police department wasn’t afraid of reptiles, people on streetcars had a way of freaking out when they saw rattlesnakes poking their heads out of women’s bags.

  Down to just the knife in her boot for protection, she headed out of her o
ffice. “Mr. Fisher should be in shortly,” she said to Linda. “He wanted to check on a client in the hospital.”

  The receptionist glared from behind her computer. “He’s taking too personal an interest in some of these new customers you’ve brought in. And I’ve yet to see an invoice for his services. This isn’t how business is conducted.”

  “So you’ve told me,” Sere said. Though saving the world seemed a reasonable distraction from combing through taxes, the receptionist had a point. Mr. Fisher wasn’t going to stay in business long if he was only working part-time. “I promise, once this latest issue is resolved, we’ll both round up some paying clients.”

  Sere had to run the block from the office to Canal Street to catch the City Park streetcar as it clanked to a stop. The old wood, iron, and glass car reminded her of the horse-drawn version she’d ridden as a child. Filled with humans and their associated odors, this one smelled only slightly better than the one she remembered. Once she took a seat on the cramped wooden bench, the car jerked into motion. Between the lurching, claustrophobic confines, and human stench, she wondered if the covertness of leaving her motorcycle behind had been worth the effort.

  By the time the streetcar slammed to a halt at the last stop, Sere’s legs felt like they belonged to an eighty-year-old woman. She groaned as she unbent her body from the cramped space. I swear, I’m walking home. Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone will try to mug me. I could use the workout. In spite of the painful ride, she returned the conductor’s smile as she stepped off the iron step.

  Walking through the park helped calm her nerves after the physical shakedown of the streetcar. The place lacked the wild untamed life of the swamp, but she felt free of the constant bombardment of humanity and their prying eyes—both actual and technological.

  It took her a half hour of exploring the hidden trails to stumble across the small cabin made of stone and wood that sat on the bank of a man-made lake. On a park bench by the shore, an old man was tossing bread to the ducks. They huddled around him in the water as if he were a regular benefactor of the flock.