The Trouble with Demons

by Spear, Terry

  That explained how he got into the house. But not how the gate closed.

  “Then she must have closed the gate from outside the house. In any event, I think she wanted me to be here when you came home,” he said before she could question him about it.

  “My mother didn’t know I was coming home.” Totally suspicious of his motives and not liking that her mother wouldn’t have gotten in touch with her—unless she was with some warlock, she didn’t know what to think.

  Tarn shrugged. “I don’t know why she called me then.”

  But other questions came to mind, and her skin prickled with unease. “She didn’t know your name. How could she have summoned you?”

  Tarn smiled, but again the expression still didn’t reach his darkened eyes. “She knew my name. She told you she didn’t?” He took a seat on the couch. “She opened the portal, and I was drawn to it.”

  “She didn’t summon you?”

  “No. A gate guardian cannot be controlled by a summoner,” Tarn said.

  “You’re a gate guardian? But Mom said you made her say a spell to return you to Seplichus.”

  He shook his head.

  “But she called you forth.”

  “The portal called me forth.”

  Just like for Alana. “You were already in our Earth world?”

  “Can you give us a moment alone?” Tarn asked her companions.

  Hunter glanced at Alana, and she nodded.

  When they walked outside and shut the door, Tarn rose from the couch, then closed the gap between them so suddenly, Alana’s heart rate sped up. The notion flickered across her mind that she hadn’t felt any connection to her dad. Wasn’t that what both Jared and Hunter had said? She’d feel some kind of genetic bond?

  Before she could react, Tarn seized her wrist and said, “Connor, open the portal! Now!” A warlock about her age, hiding in the adjoining dining room rushed out and cast the spell.

  Tarn couldn’t open the portal! He wasn’t a gate guardian!

  “You’re not my dad.”

  “I’m taking you to see him.”

  “No!” She attempted to wrest her arm away from the demon’s steel grip and cast an ice spell, but it didn’t work.

  “Hunter, he’s not my dad!”

  Then Tarn jerked her through the portal. The warlock followed them and closed the gateway.

  ***

  Steel gray clouds wept icy tears and a wind whipped waves into frothing torrents against a stone wall protecting the demon city. Gray buildings blended in with the bleakness hardly distinguishable from the clouds hovering low, and the chilly rain pelting Alana soaked her silky shirt and jeans to the skin. A distinct fishy odor permeated the thick air.

  What concerned her more than the fact the Kubiteron held her hostage with rigid determination—his hand clamped so hard on her wrist he was cutting off the circulation—was the way the other demons quickly moved out of their path. When she looked at her captor, she saw his demon type had changed and her blood chilled.

  “The Baltimore Matusa,” she said, her voice betraying her astonishment when she saw his long, dark hair and sharp black eyes.

  “Tarn is still the name.” He gave her a wicked smile. “A few of us can disguise our demon type.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a safe place.”

  “Safe for whom?”

  “Ferengus wants you for his own. Gryndal wants you dead.”

  Then he didn’t know Gryndal was dead. Good. “And you?”

  “You’re a gate guardian—a dangerous prize. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What about my mother?”

  “She knew better than to hang around until I located you. Smart witch.”

  “She’s in hiding?”

  “Apparently. For being a half-Kubiteron, you sure have stirred up a whole lot of trouble.” With the warlock shadowing them, Tarn forced her inside a brick building. “Maybe it’s your witch’s half that’s the reason.” He shoved her into an elevator. “I figured your dad had some reason to target your mother to create a new gate guardian.”

  “He picked her?”

  “Of course.” He ran his hand over a panel, and the elevator shot upwards. “He and I have had a running battle for eons.”

  “With my father?” Alana held her stomach as she felt like it had stayed on the first floor when the elevator took off for the fortieth. “Why my mother? Why not any other witch?”

  “You tell me.”

  She glanced at the warlock, young, impressionable, a vacant expression revealing nothing of what he thought, blonde like Samson, but wiry and narrow shouldered. But his gray eyes watched her while she assessed him, and if her woman’s intuition told her anything, she didn’t think he was so under the demon’s control.

  “My mother’s not a master at anything. Her abilities are limited at best.” Except for when it came to dealing with poltergeists. Alana’s lips parted for an instant.

  “Think of something?” The doors opened and Tarn pulled her into a darkened hall. “You had one of those light-bulb-moment looks.”

  “She sent me to my uncle’s for training because he’s much more powerful. Why would she do that if she could train me instead?”

  Yet, her mother had—to deal with spirits. But what difference would that make? Alana’s father couldn’t have thought that was important. Cold air whirled around her, making her shiver. She squeezed rainwater from her hair and tried to do the same with her shirt.

  “The demon world is too organized, too boring. We need chaos to liven things up. But we can’t in the demon world. Lesser demons outnumber us. On several occasions, Earth world has been our stomping grounds. Who do you think started some of your most violent wars?” He ran his hand over the door, and it slid open. He yanked her into a spacious room filled with black leather couches and chairs, but at once she sensed pure evil.

  The electrical charges crept over her skin, making chill bumps erupt. Poltergeists. Spirits of those who were evil through and through.

  Tarn made her sit on one of the couches, and she hoped she ruined the leather with her wet clothes. But the leather was icy cold and made her shudder.

  “You’ll stay here while I locate Ferengus and Gryndal. My guards will keep you here, so don’t think of leaving. I’d bring my partners in crime here, but I’m afraid I’d have a fight on my hands.” He gave her a contrary smirk. “If you’re hungry, the fridge is full of human-type food and a few things you’ve probably never heard of.” He looked at the warlock, who still focused on Alana. “Stay here until I need you to open the portal.”

  Tarn slid the door closed on his exodus.

  Before she could say a word to the warlock, five poltergeists—three men and two women floated into the room. To the normal viewer, they wouldn’t have been visible. But with her special gift to deal with poltergeists she could see most of them as not quite in solid form, but close to it.

  Like her mother had taught her, she targeted the leader of the group. No matter how sinister they were, someone always took charge. He or she would be the most dangerous. Alana had never attempted to deal with more than two on her own at once though. But seeing as she had no choice, she took charge and hoped the warlock wouldn’t interfere.

  “Tell me your name and the crimes you committed,” Alana said, her voice sure and steady as she directed her command to the balding spirit who looked like an ex-football jock midway past his prime, the muscles having turned to flab. But his dark eyes held the most contempt for her and the way he hovered threateningly close assured her that he led the pack. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  The spirit moved even closer, chilling her to the bone. “To kill you.”

  “If you killed me, Tarn would make you live a million more horrors. If you tell me about yourself, maybe I can save your soul and release you from this world. He’ll never be able to use you again.” She couldn’t save souls, but she could move the spirits from Earth world to another.

&n
bsp; “Maybe I like causing horror.”

  “Ah, you were a bad boy and you want to continue to be one, is that it?”

  The other poltergeists laughed in a hauntingly sick way.

  “Well, see, I was giving you a choice of living a life of horror—and I didn’t mean that you caused—or freedom.” She let out her breath and waited. He sent a glass careening off the coffee table, and it shattered on the wooden floor. “My mother always taught me to give you guys one more chance, probably more than you deserve. But I’m done being nice.”

  She began a chant but his icy hands seized her throat and began to squeeze. Choking for breath, she tried summoning wind, and to her surprise her wind spell morphed into something she hadn’t expected.

  The wind sucked at him like a mini-tornado, pressuring him to release her. Losing his grip on her neck, his jagged fingernails gouged at her cheeks, but she barely felt the burning pain as the ice cold wind whipped her hair into her eyes, and she tried to catch her breath. She continued to chant, the spirit fighting to reach her again. Despite the wind swirling around him, he grabbed her wrist and held on with one hand, the rest of him being pulled into the vortex.

  Digging at his fingers, she managed to break his grasp and once he lost his iron grip, the wind yanked him back. His face contorted and turned slightly green. Like a feather plucked up into a whirlwind, he couldn’t break free. Cursing and flailing his arms and legs, he was sucked upwards toward the high ceiling. Then with a blood-curdling scream, he vanished.

  The other poltergeists hovered nearby but didn’t approach. Expecting trouble with the warlock, Alana cast a look in his direction, but he folded his arms and gave her an appreciative nod.

  Exhausted, Alana shut off the wind. As much as dealing with the jock spirit had taken out of her, she wasn’t sure she could manage four more ghostly entities. Diplomacy had to prevail with at least a couple of them, unless maybe the warlock was willing to help. Though she doubted he could deal with the spirits anyway.

  A female slid closer, her hair teased and stiffened with heavy duty hairspray piled high on her head, and her leather miniskirt and spandex shirt looked like it should be worn by a woman ten years younger, stretching tight over her curves. “I killed my kids and my husband for the insurance money me and my boyfriend got.” Her brow cocked as if to say, ‘So what’s it to you?’

  “Do you feel any remorse?” Alana doubted the woman did. Who could kill for money and have any kind of human feelings? And people thought all demons were bad.

  “Yeah, I feel a ton of remorse, girl.” She gave a haughty laugh. “We got caught and got fried.”

  The warlock chuckled.

  The poltergeist circled Alana and touched her hair. “What are you, anyway? Not exactly human, are you?”

  “I give you the same choice as the other entity. Give up easily and leave in peace, or…” Alana shrugged.

  “We can’t kill you, Tarn told us. Just keep you here. But he said nothing about you being able to destroy us. That changes the rules. All bets are off.” The female spirit lunged at Alana.

  Still weary from using the first spell on the flabby “Goliath” jock, Alana didn’t react quickly enough before the poltergeist raked her nails across Alana’s neck and seized her throat.

  Alana cast the wind spell, but it didn’t have the same power as the first time, and she was afraid she couldn’t use it again to any advantage without resting longer. The woman held on tight, though she wasn’t as strong as the man, but because the wind spell wasn’t as viable, the situation was much the same.

  Trying to keep up the chant, Alana struggled to extricate the woman’s long, thin fingers from her throat. The oxygen was being cut off from her brain. Her mind faded fast. Concentrate! Don’t let her win!

  The warlock remained silent and unobtrusive. The other spirits hovered around watching with wicked delight as if they were spectators observing a gladiator in the pit, fighting against a lion, except Alana had lost her shield and sword.

  “Do you want to know how we killed them?” the spirit asked.

  Now the murderer’s concentration was focused on her past deeds. The woman’s fingers loosened around Alana’s throat.

  “Tell me,” Alana said, but didn’t hear a word the woman said while she concentrated her own efforts on the wind spell.

  For several precious seconds, the woman rattled on. “It was the most exhilarating high to see my husband dead on the floor of our bedroom, blood pooling on the—” the woman said, then shrieked when she lost her grip on Alana’s throat, the wind whipping her up toward the ceiling and she quickly slipped into oblivion. Or somewhere that her kind would end up.

  Horribly drained, Alana collapsed on the couch. Three more poltergeists to go, and she was afraid now that none of them would go quietly into the afterworld they’d created for themselves.

  She realized, too, that the wind had dried her clothes, and at least she was no longer shivering.

  Scraggly looking with dirty long hair, a man scratched at his bruised and needle-marked arms and drew closer to Alana. His gaunt face was drawn and his yellowed eyes barely seemed to focus on her.

  “Drugs made me kill my girlfriend and baby. Drugs,” he said. “If my dad hadn’t gotten me hooked on them—”

  “So you feel bad that you killed your girlfriend and baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The only thing you feel bad about is you don’t have any more coke,” the last woman said.

  He snickered. “Yeah, my dad was holding out on me. Killed him, too.”

  Alana narrowed her eyes. “Too bad you didn’t have a decent mother to raise you.”

  “She was too busy hooking.”

  “We all make choices in this world. You made yours.” Alana tried the wind spell, but nothing happened. She swore under her breath and used a standby spell.

  The spirit seized her neck with frigid hands and started to choke her.

  She surrounded herself with spirits of her own making, just as deadly as the one who tried to choke the life out of her. Her mind blackening, she hoped the spirits she called forth would take care of the ghostly drug addict before she lost control.

  His rough hands loosened on her throat. She coughed, trying to catch her breath. Black-robed wraiths dragged him away, and he screamed in terror, kicking and flailing.

  “Postpartum depression. I killed my babies. I deserve to live an eternity in hell,” the young woman said, dropping to her knees. Truly remorseful? “Other women prisoners hated me for drowning my three children. They murdered me, but I’ll never find peace. I won’t hurt you. The demon can’t make me hurt you.”

  “You can’t ever hurt another living soul.” Glad Alana could free an agreeable spirit, she chanted the spell to release her.

  The last man sank to his knees. “My dad abused me. I’m one of those sicko cases that could never be rehabilitated. I didn’t deserve to live and I was glad I finally died. I don’t want to cause any more pain.”

  She nodded. “Be free from Earth’s bonds.” She sent him away and instantly, the place felt at peace, and the air smelled of roses.

  The warlock clapped his hands, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “I’m Connor, by the way. Very good job. What do you do for an encore?”

  “Why didn’t you help me?” She touched the painful scratches on her face and felt moisture. Her fingertips were covered with blood.

  “I can’t do anything with spirits. That’s why Tarn left them to guard over you… and me. I take it he didn’t know you had that ability. And as for healing you? Don’t have that ability either.”

  She rushed to the door and tried to open it, but it didn’t budge.

  “It’s configured to his touch only.”

  “So what do you do other than open portals for the sick bastard?”

  He shrugged.

  She tried to open the portal, but nothing happened.

  “He’s got some kind of shield in here so I can’t open one and escape back to
Earth, either.”

  “You could have told me.” She peered out the window, some forty floors above the ground.

  “Can you fly?”

  She gave him a barbed look. “Do I look like a bird?”

  “What does a Kubiteron do?”

  “Heals. Commands the wind. I don’t know what else.”

  The warlock hurtled a couch through the window using his mind. “I can’t fly either, but I can make a couch fly.”

  “Levitation!”

  “Can you do it?” he asked, his brows arched.

  “On others.”

  “Same here,” he said. “Just don’t drop me.”

  “If I drop you, I’ll send your spirit to the good side.” She smiled.

  “I don’t trust that wicked look of yours. I’m sure for helping the Matusa you’d rather I fried for all eternity.”

  He had that right. She could be dead meat, just because Connor helped the demon bring her here. “So why do you help him?”

  She leaned out the window and felt a stiff wind at the elevated height. “Have you ever opened a portal above ground?”

  “Hmm, no. If we jumped through it, wouldn’t we fall forty feet somewhere on Earth world?”

  “Could be. Listen, I really don’t like heights, so get this right, okay?” She climbed onto the windowsill, her legs and arms shaking. “Do it.”

  “You sure are bossy for being a witch.”

  “I’m half demon.” Her eyes flared red. “And proud of it.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact there’s a demon world and some of them are living on Earth. Here goes.” He lifted her from the window and started to lower her.

  At the same time, she lifted him and pulled him out of the window. She struggled against the force of the wind and kept working him toward the ground, but only at the same height as he moved her. She would not release him until he did her.

  Before they reached the ground, she sent a message to Hunter, "If you’re in the demon world, return home. I’m almost free to return and will meet you back at my house."

  When they reached the ground, Connor opened the portal before she could summon the energy. Before she could enter it, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her through. She was several blocks away from home, but immediately sent word to Hunter, "I’m back."