by Jenna Black
No pressure.
Sweat trickled down the small of my back. I tried to calm myself. My life depended on it.
I slipped back into the trance more easily than I’d expected. Amazing what desperation will do for you. Once again, I hit that demon aura with a blast of wind. It wavered for a moment, then settled firmly back in place.
The metal didn’t groan now so much as scream. The temptation to open my eyes and see what progress the thing was making was almost unbearable, but I resisted.
A small, delicate hand clapped onto my arm with a bone-crushing grip. But her hand was over my sweater, no skin-to-skin contact.
I stifled a scream and sent another blast of wind at the aura. Somehow I managed to stay entranced, even with a demon squeezing my arm so brutally I’d wear bruises for days even if it didn’t break anything.
My breath burned in and out of my lungs and my heart slammed against my chest. I was so scared I could taste it, but if I let the fear win, I was demon-chow.
I gathered my power into me, concentrating on drawing every ounce of my strength into my center for one last try. There was another scream of tortured metal, and a second small hand grabbed me.
I almost panicked and let my next blast loose at that moment, but I knew I had only one more chance. If I didn’t throw enough power against the demon, I was toast. So I fought my instincts and held myself together a few seconds more.
The demon’s fingers tore through the fabric of my sweater, and that little demonic hand pressed against the skin of my forearm.
I screamed louder than I’d ever screamed in my life, overwhelmed by terror, horror, revulsion. My worst nightmare come true. A demon forcing itself into my body, taking me over, destroying everything I was without actually killing me…
I shoved my gathered power at it, knowing it was already too late-demons can transfer from one host to another instantly. The millisecond it touched me, I was gone.
Except, I wasn’t.
That red, red aura crept up my arm from the demon’s hand, and then withdrew, half a heartbeat before my power hit it.
I’d thrown everything I had into that blast. The aura shattered into a million tiny pinpricks of color; then it was gone.
I opened my eyes, hardly believing my good fortune, hardly believing I was still myself.
I wobbled on my feet. The floor bucked under me. I felt myself falling in slow motion but couldn’t even get my hands under me to cushion the fall. My head hit that cold tile floor, and I was out.
CHAPTER 2
I woke up staring at a white panel ceiling. My head ached like a son of a bitch. My arm throbbed where the demon had squeezed it. And I was so weak it tired me out to breathe.
I blinked a couple of times, happy to be alive and myself, but wishing I didn’t feel like I’d been run over by a truck. My body groaned in protest when I pushed myself up into a sitting position.
I was still in the containment room, sitting on the white tile floor. But the room was completely empty. My candles were gone, as was my bag, my coat, Lisa Walker, the now-ruined table. Even the bench the parents had been sitting on was gone.
What the hell…?
I pushed to my feet, wobbly and woozy. My stomach turned over, and I almost lost my lunch. I clutched my belly and felt something that shouldn’t have been there. When the nausea passed, I lifted my sweater to find myself equipped with a stun belt.
And I suddenly knew what had happened.
I glanced up at the ceiling, and, sure enough, spotted a surveillance camera. Somebody had watched my little performance, had seen Lisa Walker touch me. Which explained my lovely new fashion accessory. Someone thought I was possessed.
About the only thing that has any effect on a rampaging demon is electricity, which messes with their ability to control the body. I supposed trying to take the belt off would be a very bad idea.
This was turning out to be just a joy of a day.
“Hello?” I yelled. “Can anyone hear me?” And does anyone care?
No one answered, so I tried again. “Hello out there! I’m not possessed. I cast the demon out. You can let me out of here now.”
Still no answer. Can’t say as I was shocked. After what they’d witnessed, the staff here was bound to be paranoid. They were going to treat me with the same caution they might treat Satan himself.
“Can you at least tell me how Lisa’s doing?”
A microphone clicked on. “She’s alive,” a disembodied voice told me. Jenkins, I think, though the voice sounded tinny over the speaker.
“How badly is she hurt?” Human bodies just aren’t made for ripping themselves free of steel restraints. If I hadn’t felt those little hands digging into my flesh, I’d have thought the arms would give before the steel.
Another click. “She’ll recover. Physically, at least.”
Well, shit. That meant her mind was gone. Not that I hadn’t expected it, but it still sucked. There was a slim chance that someday her mind would come back. Most likely, she’d be a vegetable for the rest of her life.
I wanted to say I was sorry, but I had a feeling Jenkins would take that as some kind of confession. Like I was harboring a demon with a guilty conscience.
“I’m really not possessed, you know,” I said.
“We saw the demon touch you.”
“Yeah, and I felt it touch me. But it didn’t take me. Maybe I didn’t taste good.” I couldn’t imagine why the demon would choose not to transfer to me when I was its only chance of escape, but it hadn’t.
“Was that supposed to be a joke, Ms. Kingsley?” The speaker might be tinny, but the disapproval came through just fine.
I glared up at the camera. I had plenty of disapproval to go around. “Was it supposed to be a joke when you locked me in here with a demon that was obviously not as contained as you claimed?” I hadn’t had time to get really angry about this yet, but give me a few minutes and I’d be pitching a world-class fit. “You’ve got a stun belt on me. Why didn’t you have one on it?” I knew the answer to that: they’d believed she couldn’t break free of the restraints. Hell, I hadn’t believed it, either, or I’d have complained the minute I stepped into the room.
“It was an unfortunate oversight,” Jenkins said in his best bureaucratese. It didn’t improve my attitude.
“And thanks for helping me out when you saw I was in trouble,” I snarled.
He lost his good-little-bureaucrat voice and suddenly sounded miserable. “I’m very sorry, Ms. Kingsley. I had to get the civilians out of the room.”
Yeah, and you just had to follow them out while you were at it.
I kept my mouth shut. Maybe because in my gut I thought he’d done the right thing. Only a moron would try to take on a demon one-on-one. Jenkins was a bureaucrat, not a foot soldier. He’d probably left the room to gather a small army of guards with their Tasers and rifles.
“We have asked Father Ben to come down and look at your aura,” Jenkins continued. “If you truly are not possessed, Ms. Kingsley, then I apologize for the inconvenience.”
I sighed. The last thing I wanted was to be a suspected demon host in an execution state and have my fate rest on a priest who might or might not be able to read my aura. Especially when priests universally believed demons were creatures from Hell, sent to plague mankind. I might not be overly fond of demons myself, but I didn’t believe they were the embodiment of evil, either.
“Tell Father Ben to stay home,” I said. “Please call Valerie March and ask her to come make a diagnosis.”
Val has been my best friend since high school. She’s a fellow exorcist, though we each came into the field with a very different agenda. Val’s noble cause was to root out the bad eggs among demons so the rest of them wouldn’t get such a bad rap. Me, I just wanted an excuse to kick some demon ass.
But Val is a damn good exorcist, one of the few I’d trust when my life was hanging in the balance. Unfortunately, she lives in Philadelphia, so it would be tomorrow before she coul
d get here and spring me. But better an extra day in this lovely facility than a date with the oven.
“Father Ben can be here in a little over an hour,” Jenkins said. “Is this Valerie March a local?”
I shook my head. “No, but she’s a trained exorcist.”
“I assure you, Father Ben-”
“Call her, Mr. Jenkins. I’ll give you the number.”
There was such a long silence, I feared he’d decided to ignore my request. I had visions of some superstitious priest condemning me as a demon, of being Tasered into a quivering mass of Jell-O and then strapped to a brand-spankin’-new table. All I’d need was an apple in my mouth, and I’d be ready to cook. Because if they thought I’d been taken over by Lisa Walker’s demon, then they thought I, the most successful exorcist on record, couldn’t cast it out. Which would mean there was no point in trying another exorcism. Just get straight to the burning alive part.
I shivered and hugged myself.
“Very well, Ms. Kingsley. Give me the number.”
I was so relieved I almost collapsed. But I gave him the number. Now all I had to do was wait.
No one looking at Valerie March would believe she’d be friends with someone like me. We are almost polar opposites. I’m tall, big-boned — not fat — with red hair I like to keep cut short. I’ve been known to dress outlandishly, and my left ear is pierced in five different places. My right ear’s only pierced twice. I also have a small, tasteful tattoo of a sword on my lower back. It’s got a fancy hilt with a Celtic knot design, and the blade points directly to my butt crack. When I wear low-rise jeans, you can see the hilt.
I got it when I was fifteen. My only reason was that I’d admired a tattoo I’d seen on a woman on TV. I mentioned it to my parents, who naturally told me how uncouth it was for a woman to have a tattoo. They should have known better. I was at the tattoo parlor the next day. I was grounded for a full month, but I climbed out my window at least two or three times a week.
Val is a strictly-by-the-books kind of gal. The woman wouldn’t even jaywalk! She disapproves of at least two-thirds of my life decisions, but she loves me anyway. That’s true friendship.
By the time she reached the courthouse, I’d been in custody a little over twenty-four hours. They were not the best twenty-four hours of my life.
They kept me in that completely unfurnished room the whole time. I didn’t mind having to curl up to sleep on the tile floor. Well, yes, I minded, but I didn’t mind it as bad as the bathroom situation. As in, I didn’t have one.
I had to ask permission to take a pee. When I did, an army of six or seven guards would show up at the door, fingers on the triggers of their Tasers, as if the stun belt wasn’t deterrent enough. They came with me into the bathroom. Worse, I couldn’t even go into a stall for privacy. I had to do my business while they surrounded me, pointing their Tasers, just itching to shoot me.
Of course, if I was hosting a demon, letting me out of sight would have been a bad, bad idea. Any demon worth its salt can pull a toilet free from the floor. And believe me, if a demon hits you in the head with a toilet, you aren’t getting up afterward.
I held it as best I could, but I couldn’t hold it for more than twenty-four hours. I planned to harbor a grudge about this for the rest of my life.
When Val came into the containment room, the goon squad came with her, fanning out in a semicircle on both sides. I was sitting on the floor when they came in, my back against the wall. I’d have stood up to greet her, but I was pretty sure the guards would shoot me if I moved.
She was wearing the conservative business suit I’d refused to wear myself, and she radiated an aura of competence. Not a literal aura, mind you. Competence doesn’t show up in auras, or life would be a hell of a lot easier. Her blond hair was pulled back into a French braid, and she wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Off duty, she wore contacts, but the glasses made her look more serious and professional.
She smiled at me and shook her head.
“Morgan, you have the most chaotic life of anyone I’ve ever known,” she said.
I grinned at her, but still didn’t stand up. The guards had eased down a bit, but not enough that I’d trust them not to shoot.
“Tell me about it!” I replied. “Can you get me out of here, please?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Another guard entered the room, carrying Val’s suitcase. As I said, some exorcists have fancier rituals than others. Val is one of them. Not because she needs all the trappings, but because she thinks it impresses her clients. Who am I to argue?
Right now, though, I wished she’d go for something a little more understated. I wanted out. But she’s a by-the-books gal, so she was going to put on the whole show, though I suspected she knew right away that I wasn’t possessed. Demons have full access to our memories and can get quite good at pretending to be the person they’ve possessed, but it normally takes a little time and practice. When someone’s first taken, people who know them well can usually see it. Whether they know what they’re seeing or not is a whole other question.
I wanted to ask Val to hurry up — I needed to pee again, and I really wanted to do it without an audience — but I knew better. She was determined to give them the whole frickin’ show, and I was just going to have to wait. I pressed my thighs together and prayed I wouldn’t pee my pants before she got through.
Val’s ritual involved music, candles, and even a circle of power made out of salt. I could see the guards were impressed, their attention occasionally drifting away from me to watch her. If I’d really been a demon host, people would have died while they watched the show.
Finally, Val rose from her trance and declared me clean. Her ritual had been convincing enough that the guards immediately lowered their Tasers and I was able to make a dash to the bathroom.
Jenkins was waiting for me when I got out. I think he was going to apologize for the inconvenience, but I was so not in the mood to hear it. Val, standing beside him, easily read the look on my face. She reached over to put a hand on my arm — right where the demon had crushed my muscles — and smiled up at Jenkins.
“Let me give you a word of advice, Mr. Jenkins,” she said. “I love Morgan like a sister, but if you say anything to her right now, I might end up having to pull her off you.”
Her smile was sweet as spun sugar, but her tone was utterly convincing. Jenkins looked unsure of himself and I almost felt sorry for him. If this had all happened to someone else, I might have said he hadn’t done anything wrong. But it had happened to me, and forgiveness isn’t one of my strong suits. Just ask my family.
Jenkins took her at her word and nodded curtly. He unlocked the stun belt without speaking to me. I clamped my jaws shut to keep myself from starting anything, then let Val lead me out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.
Naturally, I’d parked in a two-hour parking spot, so my car had been towed. Val drove me to the impound lot so I could get it back, along with my luggage, before finally checking into the hotel. The good news was the snow had stopped overnight, and the roads were all nice and clear. Val wanted to talk, but I insisted I needed a shower and a change of clothes first.
I met her at the dinky little hotel bar about an hour later. She’d changed out of her business suit and into a pair of gray wool trousers and a midnight blue turtleneck. This was her idea of casual wear. Me, I was feeling pretty ornery, so I changed into a pair of low-rise black leather pants and a low-cut emerald cashmere sweater. The sweater tended to ride up my rib cage and display my tattoo. There were only four other customers in the bar, all men dressed in business suits, and I felt each one of them take a good long look at me.
I’m not one of those women who pretends she doesn’t know she’s attractive to the opposite sex. My style might be a tad aggressive for a woman, but it goes well with my height and my bone structure, and I’m used to being stared at. I even enjoy it — though my boyfriend, Brian, hates it. He keeps asking me to tone down my wardrobe
when we go out in public. We’ve been dating for a little over a year, and we have enough physical chemistry to set the bed on fire, but he still doesn’t know me well enough not to make that kind of request. I always wear my sexiest outfits when we’re going out. Funny how we end up staying in for so many of our dates.
Val had already ordered me my favorite drink, a piña colada. Yeah, I know I looked silly with a total of seven earrings in my ears, wearing black leather pants that showed my tattoo while drinking something so froufrou. But I hate the taste of alcohol. Whatever I drink has to mask the alcohol or I just can’t force it down.
Val laughed at me when I plopped down in the chair beside her and took a long, grateful swallow of my drink.
“Should I ask why you brought black leather pants on a business trip to Topeka?” she asked, still smiling.
I grinned back at her. “Call it a premonition.”
Actually, I’d brought them because they made me feel feminine and attractive. Yeah, I know black leather isn’t what most people consider feminine, but judging from the way guys look at me when I wear them, I beg to differ.
Her smile faded into a look of concern, and she cocked her head. “So tell me what happened.”
I told her. I didn’t enjoy reliving the memory, but after she flew out here to save my ass, I owed her the full monty.
She was frowning when I finished, and her martini glass was empty. She ordered another, and I stirred the melting remains of my drink.
“Why didn’t it take you?” Val murmured, biting her lip.
I sighed. “I don’t know, Val. I just don’t get it.” I’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours examining the question from all angles, but I hadn’t come up with any answers.
Her second drink arrived and she took a sip. A worry line creased her brow. “Maybe it was just slow for some reason. Maybe it hadn’t had time to take over before you hit it.”
I wished I could believe that. “It was pulling away before I hit it.” I shook my head, fighting an urge to hug myself. I’d never been so unnerved in all my life. Considering what I do for a living, that’s saying a lot. I forced a phony smile. “Look at the two of us — all somber and upset because a demon didn’t take me.”