by Jenna Black
Problem was, I couldn’t think of any other reason she’d have come at me like that. This was Val, my best friend, my confidante. Why would she want to hurt me?
“I know you’ve got to be pretty mad at me right now,” Val said, “but I was just doing what I thought was right. I had to subdue you so I could exorcize the demon.” She laughed nervously. “Would have worked better if you actually were hosting one, you know?”
My hand was beginning to ache from clutching the Taser too tightly. I lowered it, but didn’t lower my guard. I felt ridiculous suspecting Val, but it wasn’t like I could just forget what she’d tried to do. And it wasn’t like I could dismiss the creeping sensation that her story made no sense. The best thing I could do was get the fuck out of there and do some serious thinking.
Val let out a sigh of relief and started to stand when I lowered the Taser.
“Don’t get up,” I warned her, pointing the Taser once more. I wanted to put some distance between us. She sat back on her rump and held her hands up in surrender.
I backed toward the door. I don’t know what I thought she could do to me as long as I had her Taser, but at that moment I didn’t want her at my back.
“I’ll leave your Taser in the doorway,” I told her when I reached her front door.
“Okay,” she said, still sitting on the floor, looking a lot calmer than I felt. “If you want to talk later, give me a call. I know you must think I’m the worst kind of bitch right now.”
I shook my head at her in disbelief. “Val, telling me I dress like a biker slut would be bitchy. Trying to Taser me goes so far beyond bitchy I don’t have a word for it yet.”
She hung her head in shame. “I know.” When she looked up at me again, there were tears in her eyes. “Please tell me I didn’t flush twelve years of friendship down the toilet because of my stupid mistake.”
But, of course, I couldn’t tell her that, and the tears didn’t particularly move me. I put the Taser down in the entryway, then stepped out the door.
The place between my shoulder blades twitched the whole time I walked from her house to my office.
CHAPTER 6
I’d been chewing over Val’s actions all day, and I didn’t have an answer that made sense. There were two choices: either Val had really thought I was demon-possessed, or she’d been after me for some other reason. I couldn’t explain her being so convinced I was possessed that she’d try to Taser me into submission. But I couldn’t come up with a reason she’d be out to get me, either. Stalemate.
I tried to go to bed, but just thinking about lying down in my bed and closing my eyes made my stomach clench with dread. I didn’t know what my subconscious would make of today’s drama, and I didn’t want to find out.
I tried watching some shitty movie on HBO, thinking that might distract me at least for a little while, but my mind refused to stop running on the gerbil wheel. I switched the TV off with a grunt of disgust. If I didn’t find some way to get my mind off Val, I would be ready for the loony bin by morning.
I paced through my house, looking for the perfect antidote to thinking. My wandering eventually brought me to the second floor-what there is of it. The Realtor had said my house had “one and a half” stories. Personally, I’m not sure how you can have half a story, but I apparently had one.
There’s only one room on the second floor, and I have everything I need on the first floor so I rarely go up there. The second floor has turned into a rather civilized-looking attic. Anything I don’t know what to do with eventually makes its way up there. Including several boxes of books I’d never bothered to unpack since I’d moved in. I’m one of those pack rats who can’t get rid of a book, even if I hated it.
I don’t know what moved me to do it, but I found myself on my knees in front of one of those boxes, digging through it until I found a dog-eared paperback I didn’t even remember owning. Had I ever read it? I didn’t remember, but someone had certainly read it. If it was falling apart from being read so often, it must be good, right?
Hoping a book would absorb more of my attention than the TV had, I started to read.
I woke up with a start, sitting in the same armchair I’d sat down to read in, though my book was nowhere in sight, and there was a pad of paper on my lap.
Val is not your friend!!!
Morgan, wake up. Fight me. Hurry. There’s someone downstairs!
I’d say the note made a chill crawl up my spine, but that doesn’t do the feeling justice. It was more like an ice age. My heart leapt into my throat, and I clutched the arms of my chair. I had about two seconds to try to convince myself once again that it was just my subconscious. Then I heard the distinctive sound of footsteps downstairs.
My alarm most definitely had not gone off, but I knew I wasn’t imagining it.
You might think a tough broad like me would go pull an Uzi out of a closet and charge down the stairs to confront the bad guys like Rambo on hormones.
Well, I’m tough, but I’m not stupid.
Walking very quietly, I moved to the window that looked out over my minuscule backyard. Pulse pounding wildly, I eased the window up. From downstairs, I heard what sounded like a whisper. A whisper that was answered, so there were at least two of them down there.
I sat on the window sash and swung my legs out. My yard is bounded by hedge roses, but I’ve also got a trellis of climbing roses outside my bedroom, which is just below the second-floor storage room. I grabbed the trellis, hoping it would hold my weight, and eased the window back down.
I scratched the hell out of myself on the way down because I hadn’t had the foresight to plant thornless roses. I dropped to the ground and peered around the corner of my house.
There was a black SUV with tinted windows parked in my driveway. I’d never seen it before.
I didn’t see anyone sitting in the SUV, but there could be an army in there behind the tinted windows. Still, the intruders in my house would eventually check upstairs, and I didn’t want to be squatting here in plain sight when they did.
I made a dash across the yard, a tight fist of fear in my stomach as my ears strained for the sound of a shout, but all was silent. I hurdled the hedge roses-sometimes being tall and leggy can be a real advantage-then kept going. My neighbor’s son has a tree house, and I thought that was the perfect place to hide and watch. I briefly considered knocking on someone’s door to use the phone, but it was some ungodly hour of the night, and by the time I convinced someone to come to the door-if I even could-the bad guys would be long gone. Or they would have heard me knocking and come to get me.
I was probably leaving bloodstains on the poor kid’s tree house, but it couldn’t be helped. I hauled myself up the rickety wooden slats nailed into the trunk and piled into the tree house. A small window faced my house, and I had a good view of the driveway and my front door. Holding my breath, hoping that staying still wasn’t a piss-poor idea, I watched and waited.
I didn’t have long to wait. Not three minutes after I’d put my face to that window, my front door opened and three black-clad figures exited. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle my urge to gasp. All three of them were wearing ski masks, so all I could see were eyes, noses, and mouths, and even that wasn’t very clear in the dark from this distance. From their size and shape, I guessed they were all male, though looks could be deceiving in the dark. What was clear was that all three of them were armed to the teeth.
I’m not a gun nut, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what weapons they were carrying, but each of them had one big-ass rifle or shotgun strapped across his back and a sidearm holstered at his waist. Whoever they were, whatever they’d wanted, they’d been damn serious about it.
They climbed into the SUV and drove away. The driver didn’t pull off his ski mask until he’d backed out of the driveway. I caught a faint glimpse of short hair through the front windshield, but that was it. I couldn’t even tell you what color his hair was. I sure as hell couldn’t read the license plate.
I don’t know how long I sat up in that tree house, shivering from a noxious combo of fear and cold. Eventually, I decided the bad guys weren’t going to come back, so I climbed down and cautiously crept back to my house. I kept expecting someone to jump out of the bushes and grab me, but no one did.
They’d locked the front door behind them-what kind of ski-mask-wearing home invader locks up afterward? — but I had a spare key hidden in the bushes. Not under one of those phony rock things that any idiot would know to look under if he was up to no good. My spare was under a real rock.
After I let myself in, the first thing I did was grab my Taser and arm it. Feeling mildly less skittish that way, I stepped into the living room and dialed 911.
I spent the next fifteen minutes scoping out the house, trying to see if anything was missing. I wasn’t terribly surprised that nothing was. If those guys were burglars, then I was Santa Claus.
Just before the cops arrived, I slipped upstairs and tore the note I’d written to myself off the notepad. I tore the next three sheets off, too, just to be sure. I didn’t think the police were going to search my place that thoroughly, but I still didn’t want them finding the note. It would be too hard to explain.
By the time the cops left, it was five in the morning. I’d told them everything I could remember.
The “burglars” had rearmed the alarm when they’d left the house, just like they’d locked up. I’m betting they were trying to make it look like no one’d ever been there. When I thought about it, I realized that not only was nothing missing, nothing’d been moved. Great. Stealth burglars.
Stealth burglars who didn’t steal anything, who carried two guns apiece, and who got into my house without destroying the alarm. The cops said they probably had my security code and had simply turned the alarm off when they came in.
You can bet I changed my code the moment the cops were finished with me. You can also bet I didn’t go to sleep afterward, tired as I was. I spent the wee hours of the morning sitting on my couch, glassy-eyed, scared, and confused as all hell. And there was no one I could turn to for help. Not Val, who according to my demon or my subconscious — take your pick — was not my friend. Not my brother, for the same reason. And not Brian. Because if my already fucked-up life was going to hell in a handbasket, I refused to take him with me.
By the time night rolled around again, I knew I had to back off my “don’t involve Brian” stance.
I spent most of the day at my office, writing up my reports on the exorcisms of Lisa Walker and Dominic Castello. Paperwork usually takes me longer than it should anyway, but in my state of sleep deprivation, it was a miracle I got done in eight hours.
Usually, Brian and I don’t see each other much on weekdays. He’s often working late, and I’m often traveling, and when we both have to get up early the next morning, it takes some of the fun out of it. But when I thought about going home, I thought about watching those three masked men leaving my house, locking up behind them, and my blood ran cold.
What were the chances that was just a one-time deal? Break in, find she’s not home, go away, stay away. Yeah, right.
Could I count on escaping a second time? No. I’d been damned lucky last night. Even with my subconscious early-warning system in place, it could have gone much worse.
Yes, I was still clinging to the hope that the notes were from my subconscious. But my grip on the illusion was weakening, and some panicky part of me insisted I was going to have to let go eventually. Still, my motto is never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
Yet I couldn’t spend the night with Brian without telling him something about what happened last night. It was out of character for me to spend the night at his place, especially on a weekday. So I told him the official police interpretation of the story-some professional burglars broke into my house last night and were scared off by the noise I made climbing out the window.
I sure as hell didn’t believe it, and I didn’t expect Brian to, either. But I must be a better liar than I thought. Either that, or it just didn’t occur to him that I might lie to him about something like that. Remember, he’s got that Anne Frank, people-are-basically-good philosophy that puts him and me on opposite ends of the cynicism scale. I felt like a heel-a feeling I was getting familiar with-but I made it up to him in bed. He’s always been impressed with my oral skills, and I practiced every trick I knew on him.
Afterward, he fell asleep spooning me, but I lay there awake for a long time, afraid to sleep despite my body’s desperate urge to shut down.
I woke up in a blinding white room.
White walls, white ceiling, white floor. White everywhere.
I looked down at myself to find I was wearing a pair of white jeans with a white sweatshirt. I’d have said I was dreaming, except I didn’t feel like I was dreaming. I pinched myself on the arm, and it hurt.
There was a sound like a quiet exhalation from behind me. Slowly, I turned around.
He was a shocking patch of darkness in the white. About six-five, with straight, jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Black leather bomber jacket decorated with silver rivets. Black leather pants that clung to his legs and tapered into knee-high black leather boots. Tanned skin just light enough to be Caucasian, just dark enough to suggest maybe not.
After I got over the shock of black, I felt a new shock when I got a look at his eyes. They were the color of dark amber held up to the sun, and they were fixed on me with such intense focus that I felt pinned by them.
He took a step toward me, and I lost my paralysis enough to take a step back. He came to a stop, still watching me with that startling intensity, and raised his hands as if to say: “See, no weapons, completely harmless.”
I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but one thing I did know-this guy was not completely harmless. Tall, muscular, imposing, with glowing eyes and a severe, angular face that made me think serial killer. No, not harmless at all.
I cleared my throat, wondering why I wasn’t more scared under the circumstances. I mean, last thing I knew, I was cuddled up in bed with nice, safe Brian. Now I was in some creepy white room, trapped with one of the scariest dudes I’d ever seen. Yeah, my pulse was a little elevated, but I wasn’t terrified like I should be. Maybe I was drugged?
“I suspect we don’t have much time,” Mr. Terrifying said. His voice went with his look, a deep, growling bass that made my knees quiver.
I looked around the empty, featureless room — where the hell was the door? — and wondered just where he thought I was going to go.
Then the psycho-killer smiled suddenly, an almost impish expression that changed everything. The aura of menace disappeared as if it had never been there. Nothing about him had changed. He was still huge, still dressed in aggressive black leather. His eyes still seemed to glow as if there were some kind of light behind them. But he’d gone from insanely scary to impossibly sexy in about one second flat. All because of a smile.
“Your ability to fight me is astonishing,” he said, still in that James Earl Jones rumble.
I shook my head and tried without success to find my voice. It seemed to be jammed in my throat somewhere, and despite the bizarre circumstances, my eyes insisted on taking another inventory of tall, dark, and dangerous. He didn’t seem to mind me looking. In fact, if that bulge in the front of his pants was any indication, he liked it rather a lot.
Heat crept up my cheeks, and I decided that no matter how real this felt, it had to be a dream. I wouldn’t be caught dead staring at a stranger’s crotch the way I was staring at this guy’s.
He laughed, and the sound reverberated somewhere deep inside me, drying my mouth and wetting other portions of my anatomy.
“I see I’ve chosen a guise you find pleasing,” he said, and his amber eyes sparkled with good humor.
“Uh…” That was the best conversation I could manage at the moment.
The humor faded from his face. I felt bereft.
&
nbsp; “You are dreaming,” he told me. “In a way. I’m trying my best to communicate with you. The notes are not…adequate. You keep waking up in the middle.”
Oh, so that’s what this is all about. Yeah, this guy was just the kind of messenger my subconscious would come up with. I tried to play it cool, just waiting for the dream to end. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him my best tough-chick-with-an-attitude look. He seemed less than impressed.
“I know you’re telling yourself I’m some kind of figment of your imagination,” he continued. “But honestly, Morgan, has your imagination ever been this vivid?”
I lowered my eyes, not wanting to see the knowing look on his face. He was a stranger to me. He had no right to look knowing.
“Look,” I said, my eyes fixed on one of the rivets in his jacket, “I don’t know who you are, or what you want — ”
“If you’d be so kind as to let me talk, I’ll tell you,” he interrupted.
Reluctantly, I raised my gaze to his face again. God, he was gorgeous. Lethally so. I made a zipping-my-lips gesture. He raised an eyebrow as if he didn’t quite get it, then spoke again.
“I am Lugh. I’m a demon, and I’m currently in possession of your body.” He frowned, the expression marring the perfection of his face. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose, since I seem unable to influence you except when you’re sleeping.”
I remembered the letter I’d written to myself, the one where I’d named my imaginary demon Lugh. “So you say I invited you in under the influence of drugs, right?”
He nodded. “My first memory when I awoke in the Mortal Plain was of lying on your bed. You’d been tied down. A man in a mask untied you. He didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t make you move or speak. I would guess the man was Andrew, though I can’t be sure.”
“And I don’t remember any of this…why?”