Speak of the Devil mk-4

by Jenna Black

  Her lips tugged downward in an almost petulant expression. Jessica took that moment to issue another whimper. She made what appeared to be a feeble attempt to get up, but she collapsed almost immediately.

  Abraham smiled. “To answer your question about what’s wrong with our dear friend Jessica, she’s drugged to the gills. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s conscious. I thought I’d have to wake her up for the grand finale.”

  What the hell was this psycho up to now?

  Abraham moved a little closer to Jessica, and the light of the candle glinted off something on the floor. A kitchen knife. Not one of those big-ass chef’s knifes, but not a tiny little paring knife, either. I’m no expert in the kitchen, but I decided this was probably a utility knife.

  Abraham put the candle down on the floor. It was a fat pillar type, so it didn’t need any kind of holder. The gun didn’t waver in its aim.

  “I’ve wiped it clean of prints,” Abraham said, then stood and kicked the knife across the floor toward me. Her smile became even more vicious. “Pick it up!”

  The knife came to a stop against the wall, a little bit to my left. Unfortunately, I was beginning to see where this was leading, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  I swallowed hard, though I made no move toward the knife. “You failed to frame me for the last two murders, but this time …” I couldn’t finish my own sentence.

  Abraham laughed, having a jolly old time contemplating murder and mayhem. “This time, it won’t be a frame. This time, you’ll be guilty as hell. Now pick up the fucking knife.”

  Any ideas? I asked Lugh.

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but his voice in my head sounded tense and strained. Do as she says. As long as she’s got that gun on us, we can’t afford not to. Maybe once she thinks we’re doing what she wants, she’ll relax her guard a bit and give me an opportunity.

  Too many maybes! But, as he said, we had no choice but to obey as long as she had that gun pointed at my head.

  Moving slowly, in case she had an itchy trigger finger, I retrieved the knife. It looked lethally sharp.

  While I bent over to pick up the knife, Abraham knelt by Jessica’s feet and grabbed her ankle. Her aim didn’t waver the whole time.

  “When I tell you to,” she said, “you’re going to very, very slowly come closer. I’ll want you to come kneel by her head.” She shook Jessica’s ankle, hard. “Come on, honey, stay awake for this. You don’t want to sleep through your own gruesome murder, now do you?”

  Jessica sobbed and made a feeble attempt to free her ankle from Abraham’s grip. Abraham continued to smile up at me, savoring every moment.

  “That knife I gave you is a little short for the job,” Abraham continued. “It’ll take quite a few stabs before she finally gives up the ghost.” She held up Jessica’s ankle. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t go anywhere, but she’ll probably find she has some fight left in her when you start stabbing her. It’ll be a shame if she gets your skin cells under her fingernails.” Her laugh was maniacal. Almost over the top, really. Nothing like being trapped in a dark room with a B-movie horror psycho holding a gun to your head.

  “Come on over,” Abraham invited when the laughter died. “Slowly.”

  I swallowed hard and stayed put. “What if I refuse?” I asked, just to make sure I fully understood the situation.

  Another psycho-cackle. “Then we all go our separate ways, and every person on that list I gave you dies.”

  “You won’t just shoot me in the head?”

  She snorted. “Way too quick and easy.”

  “So you don’t actually need that gun.” Hey, a girl can hope, right?

  “It’s to discourage you from trying anything heroic,” Abraham explained.

  It was my turn to snort, though it probably sounded pretty forced and phony. “Like you’re in any danger from me!”

  “I like to be cautious. For all I know, you have another Taser on you. And don’t get any funny ideas about sacrificing yourself by forcing me to shoot. If I have to kill you, then you’ll have cheated me of my revenge yet again, and I’ll be forced to take it out on your loved ones. I have nothing else to live for, after all. Now get your ass over here and get to work.”

  I swallowed hard and shook my head. “What did Maguire’s demon do to you that’s worth all this mayhem?”

  “You’re stalling, and I have no patience for it. Move!”

  I started edging forward, my mind working frantically. Lugh, I don’t know what to do!

  Just keep following her orders.

  A shiver ran up and down my spine as an ugly suspicion hit me. Tell me we’re not actually going to kill her.

  That may be the only way to get Abraham relaxed enough for me to take him by surprise.

  But—

  Remember, as far as Jessica knows, she caused Maguire’s demon to be executed in a fit of jealousy. This is not an inappropriate punishment.

  Oh, so now you’re going all Old Testament on me, are you?

  I guess my subconscious desire not to be sick as a dog for the foreseeable future had helped me resurrect at least some of my mental barriers, because I actually felt it when Lugh tried to take over. Reflexively, I fought him.

  “Get over here!” Abraham barked. “If I have to tell you again, then I’ll go to Plan B, which you’ve already indicated you don’t like.”

  Moving while fighting to keep Lugh out of control was almost impossible. However, in my already weakened state, keeping Lugh out was entirely impossible. Between one step and the next, my free will was taken from me.

  I understood Lugh’s point. In a rational, logical way, I knew he was right, and we had to kill Jessica Miles if that’s what it took. It might be our only chance to stop Abraham—our only chance that he might lower the gun, or at least waver in his aim so that if he shot us, it wasn’t in the head. Lugh could heal most gunshot wounds, and with the element of surprise on our side, he was likely to be able to overpower Abraham even wounded.

  No matter how logical it was, I couldn’t bear the idea of killing someone in cold blood.

  I’m doing it, not you, Lugh reminded me, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

  Lugh continued to follow Abraham’s orders and knelt by Jessica’s head. She took a weird, awkward swing at him. Maybe she was hoping to knock the knife out of his hand, but she hit the wrong arm. Her nails managed to dig in, though, conveniently getting my skin under them as further evidence that I was her murderer.

  “To answer your earlier question,” Abraham said, looking a little wild-eyed, “Brennus and I were rivals in love—several times, actually—and I never came out the winner.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Lugh mumbled.

  “Shut up!” Abraham snarled, and the gun wavered slightly. But not enough—and based on the madness in his eyes, we were out of time.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Lugh said, and his knife arm started to swing down toward her back.

  A bunch of things happened at once then. There was the distinctive sound of a Taser pop, coming from the hallway outside. Abraham’s body jerked spastically. Losing his grip both on the gun and on Jessica’s ankle, he crumpled into a heap. And Lugh, with his demon-quick reflexes, managed to arrest his swing just short of Jessica’s back.

  Lugh turned toward the doorway, where Barbie was ejecting the spent Taser cartridge. She smiled at us, though her eyes were a little too wide, and her hands were shaking.

  “Whew,” she said. “That was close.”

  “What are you doing here?” Lugh asked.

  Let me back in, I demanded.

  And how will you explain to Barbie why you’re fine one moment and puking your guts out the next?

  Argh, he had a point there. I hoped the amount of time he remained in control didn’t contribute too much to the misery level I’d suffer when I was back in the driver’s seat.

  Barbie shrugged, trying to look casual. She almost succeeded, too. “It was nice of you to leave t
hat note with all the details sitting on your dining room table. Made it real easy for me to find you.”

  Behind me, Jessica was breathing hard, like she’d just run a marathon, but Lugh didn’t seem too interested in her panic attack, or whatever it was. Instead, he said exactly what I was thinking.

  “You were in my apartment? How? And why?”

  Barbie, looking smug, came farther into the room, though she kept a healthy distance between herself and the temporarily disabled demon.

  “I’m a private investigator,” Barbie reminded me. “About eighty percent of my job is convincing people to do things or tell me things they’re not supposed to. Saul’s staying at my place tonight and he needed an overnight bag. He’s still pissed about something you said to him, and didn’t want to run into you, so I agreed to go for him. The gentleman at the front desk of your building was very accommodating.”

  Jessica’s harsh breaths were now even louder and faster, punctuated with little growling sounds that sounded more like anger than fear or pain. Barbie came closer.

  “Hey, is she all right?” she asked.

  Suddenly, Jessica’s leg kicked out, catching Barbie right in the shin. I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone only seconds before Barbie screamed in pain.

  And then Jessica was on me, punching, kicking, and clawing. For just a moment, Lugh and I both failed to recognize what was going on. Long enough for Jessica to lift me off my feet and toss me into the wall.

  Lugh kept me from feeling any pain, but even he had the wind knocked out of him, and by the time he’d recovered, Jessica was on him again. But, of course, it wasn’t Jessica, it was Abraham.

  Lugh managed to evade the punch that Jessica threw at his face. Which was a damn good thing, since that punch left a sizeable hole in the wall. Lugh threw both arms around Jessica, trying to pin her arms while dragging her to the floor beneath him. He was making at least a token effort not to kill Abraham’s current human host, but he’d underestimated Abraham’s strength.

  Abraham broke Lugh’s grip, and I felt Lugh’s shock as we were once again airborne, heading for a wall. Lugh managed a patently nonhuman maneuver, executing a complicated twist and somersault in the air so that he managed to land on his feet instead of slamming into the wall.

  Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “What the fuck?” she screamed, and I could see the mingled glows of madness and a demonic essence in her eyes. “You were exorcized!”

  Lugh grinned at her, and I got the sick impression that he was rather enjoying himself. “Surprise!” he said, then charged Jessica again.

  This time, he and Jessica hit the wall together. I was surprised it didn’t give way under the ferocious impact. Chunks of plaster rained down on us, but neither demon paid any attention. When they rolled free, locked together in mortal combat, Lugh was on top. He reached for Jessica’s throat, possibly meaning to try to break her neck, but he was once again surprised when she managed a tremendous burst of strength and flipped them both over.

  As king of the demons, Lugh was necessarily one of the strongest among them all, but it seemed Abraham was able to hold his own.

  Though my mind still resided within my body, there was a distinct separation between the two, seeing as how I had no control whatsoever. Nor, in this particular situation, did I have any desire to have control, because I would be dead in five seconds flat if I didn’t have Lugh’s demon strength.

  Because I wasn’t driving, I was able to pay more attention to our peripheral vision than Lugh was. I’m sure he saw Barbie out of the corner of his eye, but his gaze didn’t even flick in her direction, his entire concentration focused on Jessica/Abraham. I, on the other hand, could see Barbie, her back propped against the wall, her face contorted with pain, loading a fresh cartridge into the Taser.

  Abraham mirrored Lugh’s last move, going for his throat. Instead of trying to turn the tables again, Lugh grabbed for Abraham’s wrists, trying to hold him off. Which I suspected meant he was aware of Barbie after all—he was making sure Abraham stayed on top where he made an easier target.

  The Taser popped again, the probes latching on and pumping fifty thousand volts into Jessica’s system. Powerful though he might be, Abraham reacted to that Taser shot just like any other demon: He lost control of his host’s body and went completely limp.

  CHAPTER 29

  Lugh pushed Jessica’s body to the side and sat up while I tried to figure out exactly what had happened. The unknown woman, Abraham’s host, had let go of Jessica’s ankle before Barbie Tasered her. When she’d collapsed, I’d been sure she wasn’t in contact with Jessica. So how the hell had Abraham ended up in Jessica?

  He was in Jessica the whole time, Lugh said, and I knew he was right. Jessica had seemed a little… weird. Particularly when she swung at Lugh as if trying to knock the knife away. Yeah, she was supposed to be drugged out of her mind, but she’d still managed to gouge out some skin for evidence. Not a coincidence.

  But if Abraham had been in Jessica all along, who was the woman with the gun? Whoever she was, she still lay in a heap on the floor, but her body was wracked with sobs.

  “Now that I saved both your ass and your soul,” Barbie said, “do you think you’re ready to level with me?”

  Lugh turned to her, though we were both keeping a careful eye on the two Taser victims, just in case. Even in the light of the single candle, I could see the sweat that coated Barbie’s face. Her eyes were squinched almost shut with pain, and her cheekbones stood out in stark relief.

  I mentally reviewed everything Barbie had seen and heard, and it was not good news. She’d probably have been able to explain away the inexplicable quickness that had stopped me from stabbing Jessica, but not the strength it had taken for me to throw Jessica across the room, nor the midair acrobatics that had kept me from hitting the wall when Jessica threw me.

  We’re screwed, I said to Lugh.

  “I’ll get back to you in a moment,” Lugh said to Barbie. He grabbed my cell phone and quickly called Adam.

  “What?” Adam said when he answered, sounding groggy and grumpy.

  “I need your help, immediately,” he said, then rattled off the address. “Get here yesterday.”

  Adam was instantly awake. “What’s going on?”

  “Too much to explain. Just get down here. And get Raphael down here, too. We may need his inventive storytelling abilities.”

  Adam must have realized he was speaking to Lugh, not me. If it had been me barking orders at him like that, he’d have balked. Instead, he hung up with a promise to be here ASAP.

  “What, no ambulance?” Barbie asked.

  “Not yet. We’re going to need Adam to be a bit creative about what happened here, so we need him here before anyone else.”

  Her gaze was shrewd. “Because you need to hide that you’re somehow still possessed.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Lugh looked back and forth between the two Tasered women, and Barbie said, “Oh.”

  He crossed the room to her, squatting by her side and dropping his voice to the softest of whispers. “Morgan will explain everything later,” he said.

  I will?

  “For now, just know that she and I don’t have the typical demon/host relationship.”

  Are you sure about this? I asked.

  Yes, was his succinct reply.

  “When Adam arrives and my strength is no longer required,” he continued, “I will put Morgan back in control. She will no doubt become violently ill again, but that can’t be helped. Please contain your curiosity for now, and go along with whatever story Adam and Raphael—that’s Tommy Brewster’s demon—come up with.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “Deal?”

  She managed a smile, though pain was written across her face. “I’d do just about anything to find out the real story behind all this. I’m just dying of curiosity.” She shook Lugh’s hand, and her palm was clammy wi
th sweat. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to pass out now.” And true to her word, her eyelids fluttered, and she slumped to the side. Lugh lowered her gently to the floor.

  Then he took the Taser and gave Abraham another jolt, just to make sure he was down for the count. I suggested the unknown woman could use another jolt herself, despite the fact that she was curled up in fetal position and crying.

  She wouldn’t have enough control to curl up and cry if she were a demon, Lugh reminded me. As usual, he was right.

  Adam arrived in less than fifteen minutes. Lugh quickly took him aside and told him the whole story. Raphael arrived only a couple minutes later, and while Adam shared the story with him, Lugh drove my body over to a corner and sat down.

  Are you ready? he asked.

  God, no. The idea of going through another three days or more of the hellish sickness was almost enough to make me leave Lugh in control for the rest of my life. Well, no, not really, but you know what I mean.

  Then Lugh shifted control back to me, and I was so violently ill I had no idea who said what to who or what exactly happened afterward.

  I have only the haziest of memories of the next few days. I know I was in the hospital—The Healing Circle. You’ve got to love the irony. And I know that an exorcist was brought in to the hospital to examine my aura. But I was mercifully unaware of whatever tests may have been performed on me in an effort to figure out why I was so damn sick. All things considered, I was probably a lot less miserable staying in the hospital than I had been when I’d stayed home. After all, they have way better drugs.

  I had visitors every day, although I was rarely clearheaded enough to know the difference between dreams and reality. The first time that I woke up and was actually coherent, it was Adam who sat at my bedside. I might have been touched that he cared, only he was really there just to fill me in on the official story about the showdown at the warehouse so I wouldn’t say anything to contradict it.

  Apparently, everything had gone down approximately as I remembered it, only it was Tommy Brewster who’d gotten into the nasty fight with the possessed Jessica. He’d come with me to meet Abraham because I was ill, and he’d defended me against the attack, the stress of which had somehow made my illness ten times worse. Jessica had, of course, disputed the story, but since all the other witnesses—even the mystery woman—corroborated it, and since the examination by the exorcist had proven I wasn’t possessed, her claims were dismissed.