And he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Will you still like me as a blonde?” Marie joked.
“You know it, baby,” Tom remarked playfully, his voice a bit broken as it came through the telephone receiver.
“Oh good,” she played along. “I’ve got to go into the market for a few things and then I’ll head home. Shall I get you about ten tomorrow?”
“You sure we shouldn’t give it a day or two?”
“We can’t,” she said. “There are only two left. They might already have changed their appearance or done who knows what else to throw us off the trail. I don’t expect we’ll be so lucky with these last ones. We at least have to try.”
She was standing in a phone booth outside the grocery store closest to her house. It was after six now, and the sun was just setting. Shoppers walked past her going in and out of the market, and though she was glad for the private glass door, she still felt compelled to keep her voice down.
“All right,” Tom said. “You’re the boss. I still think we should give them a day or two to let them think they’ve thrown us off the trail.”
“And give them time to get stronger? Make more, even?”
“You’re right,” Tom conceded. “You’re right. In the morning, then.”
“Yes. Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
She hung up the phone, listened to the clink of coins inside it, and then slid the glass door open and headed for the store’s doors. She still wore the outfit she had used to lure the Clark Gable look-alike today and felt self-conscious in it, hoping she did not look too alluring, especially now that she had dyed her hair. It had been Tom’s idea, and she had readily agreed. After having seen Colin Krebs with the incubus at Schwab’s days before, she knew that the next demon she encountered would have another of Julian’s men with it. That had been the reason for using the room at the Roosevelt rather than her own home again. Marie had tried to tell which of the men on Hollywood Boulevard had been shadowing her and the incubus while she had walked with him to the hotel. Whoever it had been, he knew what she looked like now and would have reported to Julian once the demon failed to come out of the hotel. They would be looking for a woman with auburn hair, wary of her. But it would be a blonde who would go after the fourth demon.
After that, she was not sure what she would do—maybe cut her hair short. Instinct told her, though, that if she succeeded in dispatching a fourth incubus, Julian would do everything he could to save the fifth and final one, including confining him to the hilltop mansion and bringing women to it rather than run the risk of having the creature out and about. Perhaps the final two demons would switch their appearance, no longer looking like Cary Grant and James Cagney when they went out tomorrow. If that were the case, she told herself, she would go back to Colin and persuade, cajole or threaten him into giving her new information. And if she was really able to kill all five, she told herself as she walked up and down the grocery aisles, that would still leave the book of spells and the likelihood that Julian would just conjure more demons. Marie knew that she would have to approach Colin again about wresting the book from Julian, but if that failed, she had not ruled out the idea of setting fire to the Piedmont mansion herself and burning up all the treasures inside it, both sacred and profane.
But that was for the future, she told herself as she finished her shopping. For now, she needed to get home, get out of these clothes and get a good night’s sleep. She did not like the way the men in the store looked at her—she was too conscious of their stares, and could feel their eyes on her as she walked past them, and she was tired of it. She longed for tomorrow morning when she could take some refuge in Tom’s arms before going back out to find the next of Julian’s monsters. The way things had been going, she knew that she was not likely to find the next one right away. She had gone through two fruitless days of searching between the Erroll Flynn and the Clark Gable creatures, and she did not relish the days to come, filled with doubts and fears as she knew they’d be.
On the drive back to her house, she turned on the radio in her car, and tried to let the music distract her. The market was not far from her house, and in only a few minutes she pulled off Melrose and drove up her street, slowing down in front of her house and parking in her driveway. She nudged her purse as she reached across the seat for her grocery bags. The purse fell over, and the St. Lucy cross was among the things that spilled out onto the upholstery. She had forgotten to put it on again after dispatching the last demon, and it looked odd sitting there next to her cigarettes and chewing gum. She put everything else back into her purse and then scooped up the cross and her groceries before scooting across the seat and getting out of the car. Telling herself she would put the cross on again when she got inside, she got out of the car and went up the porch steps. She had kept the radio on in the car, and the lyrics to “Full Moon and Empty Arms” still played in her head as she went.
Juggling the grocery bags, she slipped the cross into her pocket so she could more easily get her key into the lock on the front door. As soon as she got the front door open, she almost tripped as Murphy raced out between her legs.
“Murphy!” she said in exasperation, half turning in the doorway to watch the cat disappear among the bushes. Whenever she came home at night, the first order of business was always to feed the cat, and for his part, Murphy always let it be known that he would brook no deviation from routine. Still, she could do nothing now but let him go, the groceries in her arms growing heavy and needing to be put away. So she turned back into the house and bumped the door shut with her hip.
The house was dark except for the light from the bedroom lamp that she always left on; she ran the back of one hand along the wall to find the light switch for the front room. But as she did, she saw a shadow move in the shaft of light from her bedroom. In the instant before she could shout or turn to run, she heard a man’s voice call out to her, quiet and raspy but loud enough for her to hear it say, “Marie?”
The grocery bags slipped from her hands and landed with a thud on the bare floor of her entryway. She heard glass break in the paper sacks, but she did not care what had been lost. Paralyzed, she watched as the shadow neared the hallway and then saw a man’s form silhouetted in the doorway. She knew before she switched on the light what she would see. Even so, when the light flooded the front room and hallway, she feared that she would faint. She could feel herself spinning and floating though she knew her feet had not left the floor; all reason seemed to leave her, and her brain struggled to comprehend the information her eyes were giving it.
It was Ryan. He looked a little older and a bit haggard. In this light and at this distance, she could see terrible scars across his throat. Still, he smiled, the same smile she remembered and carried with her every day.
“Don’t be scared,” he said, his voice little more than a croak.
“Ryan,” she whispered. “They said—”
“I was dead.” He nodded. “I know. They were wrong.”
Which one? said a voice inside her head. Cagney or Grant? But even as she told herself that this was how Julian Piedmont had decided to come after her, that Colin Krebs had betrayed her, and that she should turn and bolt out the door as swiftly as her cat had, her feet remained nailed to the floor. They were wrong, they were wrong, they were wrong, another voice inside her mind said, a voice she found it impossible to ignore.
He was alive. No incubus could mimic Ryan to such a startling degree. As her eyes examined him—the little arch of his eyebrows, the slight bend in his nose where he had broken it playing baseball—she saw that it really was Ryan, really and truly him, down to the mole on his chin and the way bits of his hair curled down across his forehead. She watched, dumbfounded as he walked toward her. Paralyzed with amazement, she told herself that this could not be happening, that it could not be real. And yet, the man approaching her was her husband, impossible though it seemed.
But when he put his ar
ms around her and held her tightly, any thought that this might not really be Ryan evaporated. It was as though he had never left. She buried her face in his shoulder and let him squeeze her, as she wrapped her arms around him and told herself she would never let go. Tears surged up from inside her, and as she sobbed on his shoulder, she kept whispering, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
“Shhh,” he said, running one hand lightly across the back of her head to comfort her. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay now.”
“But what,” she began. “How?”
She lifted her head and turned her face toward his. They kissed, and again she was overcome with the sense that he was here and real and that the last three years had all been a horrible dream. Briefly she felt a surge of guilt, remembering her plans with Tom; but none of that mattered now. Ryan was here.
When she pulled her lips away from his, he wiped at her tears. “I’m so sorry, Marie,” he said hoarsely. “The Navy…I don’t know. When our boat got hit, we were on a Top Secret mission. The Japanese fished the survivors out and kept us in a prison camp on this little island. There were just four of us and twelve guards. Our guys…they missed the island, must’ve figured it was too small for the Japs to bother with. So we were left there. The Japanese didn’t even know the war was over.” He rubbed at his throat. “We tried to escape, and they bayoneted me. One of our guys made it out, though, and he brought the troops back. That was a month ago.”
Marie had been listening in complete amazement, the tingle of his kiss still on her lips.
“The Navy wouldn’t say why,” he went on, “but they insisted it had to be kept out of the papers. And they wouldn’t let us telegram home until they discharged us. Something to do with the mission we were on when we got hit. I’m so sorry, Marie.”
“My poor baby,” she said, gingerly letting her fingertips play over the scar. “My God, how I’ve missed you. You don’t know what it was like. And all I wanted was to talk to you, just one more time.” She laughed and wiped away more tears. “I can’t believe it’s true.”
Then he kissed her again, more deeply this time, and she felt the sadness and joy melt away to be replaced by desire. His arms felt so good around her, his lips so soft. Even the smell of sweat and the slight scrape of stubble against her face made her want him more. She thought not at all of Tom Glass or the incubi, not at all about Jasper or Julian Piedmont, Colin Krebs or Elise, not at all about anything that had gone on in her life for the last several weeks. She thought not at all, but was simply overcome with the realization that she was finally satisfying the longing she had felt for three years, a longing so desperate that she had walled herself away from it and made herself forget that it was there. But now it was back with more force than she had ever dreamed possible. She kissed her husband hungrily and began to push him backwards toward the bedroom door.
“Oh Ryan, oh Ryan,” she whispered between kisses and then put her lips back on his as she felt one of his hands drop down to squeeze her buttocks. Her mind raced back and forth between what she was feeling here and now and her memories of all the times they had made love in this same house, on their honeymoon on Santa Catalina island, on a blanket in the mountains when they had gone for a picnic. It was all one in her mind as she pulled at his belt to undo his trousers, and she felt suddenly as though he had never left, the years of loss and longing undone and restored to her. The joy that welled up in her made her feel as though she would burst if she didn’t laugh or cry or scream first.
And then they were in the bedroom and he was unbuttoning her blouse. She had his belt loosened and then the button on his pants and the zipper. He pulled one shoulder of her blouse down and slipped the bra strap down her arm, bending to kiss her breast while kneading the other. Marie moaned and reached into his pants.
The light beside the bed was still on, and she wanted to look down and see what she was doing, but in turning her head to look around him, she caught sight of their reflection in the vanity mirror against the wall. For a moment, she was completely disoriented by the image of her previously deceased husband fondling the breasts of a half-naked blonde woman. The effect was jarring, and in a flash she remembered the incubi, remembered why she had dyed her hair, remembered joking with Tom about it from the payphone outside the grocery store less than an hour ago.
Whipping her hand out of his pants, she recoiled, suddenly unsure of the man who looked and smelled and felt like her husband. He had been starting to pull down the zipper on her skirt when she pulled back. Now he looked at her face, and she saw complete animal lust in his eyes, unlike anything she had ever seen in Ryan.
“Don’t be scared,” he rasped, pulling the zipper all the way down as she tried to pull away. Startled though she was, Ryan’s gaze and her own sudden fear were not enough to completely break the spell; there was still something about him, something too real for it not to be him, incredible though his story was.
Telling herself she had to be sure, Marie said, “Do you like my hair?” in a loud whisper.
“I love it,” he said. She felt the fingers of one hand moving inside the skirt. “I’ve always loved it.”
With a gasp of renewed grief and fear, Marie kicked him savagely in the shin and tore herself away as his leg folded under him and he uttered a surprised shout. It took him only seconds to recover. Standing and spinning around, he launched himself at her. Marie tried to dodge him, but did not move quickly enough, and he caught her around the waist, the momentum of his charge knocking her backwards onto her bed, with Ryan on top of her. She twisted and struggled underneath him, but he managed to grab both of her arms, squeezing her biceps and raising himself above her so he could use his own weight to help strengthen his hold.
Marie knew he had her, and for a moment she stopped struggling. Looking up into his face, now lined with rage, she could not see how she had ever allowed herself to think this creature was her husband. Even at his angriest, the real Ryan had never looked like this: his teeth bared, nostrils flared, forehead deeply creased, and flecks of foam on his lips as he practically panted above her.
Breathing hard herself, she spat out, “You fooled me. But now I know.”
“Bitch!” the demon said, its voice no longer thin and raspy. “You don’t know a thing.”
She had had her hands on his chest, trying to push him off her, and now she dropped her right to quickly make the sign of the cross.
“Pray if you want,” the demon hissed at her. “It won’t do you any good.” He took one hand off her and quickly dropped his other elbow down so that it dug into her shoulder while the forearm stretched across her collarbones. If he chose to, he could start exerting pressure on her throat with just a quick movement of his arm. With his other hand free now, he began reaching down to tug his pants loose. Marie followed his hand down with her own, pushing and pulling to try and get into his pants before he could. When he saw what she was trying to do, he shifted his other arm and began pushing down on her throat. She immediately felt her air being cut off and gasped in a panic, but she could not draw a breath.
With a surge of strength fueled by fear, she pushed her hand into his open pants and grabbed the monster’s scrotum, twisting her hand and sinking her nails into the flesh. The thing screamed and tried to pull away from her, but she held on.
When it straightened up, it took most of its weight off her, and Marie sat up with it, using her other hand to shove the thing in the chest and knock it off the bed and onto the floor. As it fell, she lost her grip on it, but she plunged after him, landing on the demon’s chest and shoving her knees into its ribs.
“Back to hell, you bastard!” she shouted, closing both hands around its throat and squeezing as hard as she could. In its rage, the creature began to look less and less like Ryan; it turned bright red, and its eyes bulged as it struggled under her. Instantly, she realized it could slip away from her any second; the monster would only need to give up the fight and change its shape to be free of her an
d safely on its way back to Julian’s. Taking a chance, she took one hand off its throat, digging her knee more forcefully into its ribs as she shoved her hand into the pocket of her skirt to draw out the little cross. She bared her lips as she pushed the reliquary into the demon’s forehead.
Smoke began to rise from its skin, and she knew she had it. The thing screamed as she began reciting the exorcism prayer. It bucked beneath her, trying to throw her off, but with each phrase that left her lips she pushed harder on the cross with one hand and dug the fingers of her other hand deeper into the monster’s throat. At the same time, she felt his fingernails ripping the skin on her arms, but she fought back the urge to scream and pull away. Where she had said the prayer forcefully with the other incubi, with this one she recited it with venom, bending close to its face and baring her teeth as she concluded. “Do may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God,” she ordered, “and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb.”
With the last word, she bore down on its throat again, her rage at the demon that had used her dead husband’s image driving her to want to kill the creature in body and spirit. One second the flesh of its throat was pressed against her fingers, and the next her hands hit the floor. Her whole body dropped as the incubus discorporated and turned to dust, and she hit the floor with a loud gasp, her knees, ankles and seat no longer having anything to hold them up. The dust from the thing’s body wafted into the air as she landed on it and then settled back to the floor and the empty shirt and pants that were all that remained of it.
She began to cry, and pulled herself up onto the bed, lying there for several minutes and sobbing out of fear and anger and the return of her grief over Ryan. He had been here in her arms for just a few minutes, more than a ghost, and though it had not been real, for those minutes it may as well have been. And now he was not just gone, but ripped away again, taken from her once more without her ever being able to say goodbye. Worse, his memory had now been corrupted by the thing that had taken his form, and she wished that she could have made the incubus’ death more miserable to make it suffer for what it had done.
The Devil You Know Page 27