Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel)

by Laura Resnick

  As Max’s chanting rose in volume, tension filled the room—that age-old, never-ending tension between Good and Evil, a battle in which Max had long played a central role and in which I try to play my part. I became aware of heat coming from the bed, and I sensed a golden glow. I paused in my water pistol painting long enough to turn my head and glance at Lopez. To my astonishment, his unconscious body was floating about six inches above the mattress, and he was covered in glowing flames.

  “Madre di Dio . . .” Lucky crossed himself. “Were you expecting this?”

  A putrescent green fog rose from Lopez’s body, writhing up through the flames that covered his flesh, and we heard a bitter, angry, wailing protest. The demonic entity which had briefly possessed him now twisted, fought, and clung, trying to stay with Lopez . . . but the mysterious power which was hidden so deeply inside him that even he didn’t seem to know about it pushed the entity back out again, aided by Max’s chanting. It fought to keep this foul thing from taking over his body, his mind, his life—and this fiery power which did not want to be ruled by anyone else.

  After one last howl of rage over its thwarted ambitions, the foggy green entity floated up toward the wine- and blood-red symbols I had pistol-painted on the wall. It writhed like a ball of battling snakes for a few moments, and then it was sucked into the ancient lettering in a hissing, bubbling mist of spattering green and yellow and red—and disappeared.

  I turned to the burning bed, wondering what to do about the patient. Before I could ask, though, the flames subsided and sank back into his skin, and his body floated back down to the mattress. He looked better, I thought—healthier, more like a guy who was definitely going to live. But I was worried that all this activity might have jostled or dislodged the bewildering profusion of tubes that seemed to be keeping him stable.

  “We should get out of here and let the medical staff tend to him,” I said.

  Lucky nodded. “Sickrooms always kind of give me the willies, you know?”

  Max made a few gestures, spoke some words, and blew some sparkling lavender-colored powder at the doorway, and the veiling spell was lifted. I was about to put my pistol back into my daypack when a woman’s voice made me freeze in my tracks.

  “What in the name of God is going on here?”

  I looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway next to Quinn, who was grimacing at me. She was in her sixties and still beautiful, with long-lashed blue eyes, neatly coiffed red hair, and a trim figure.

  “Mrs. Lopez,” I said weakly. “How were the Galapagos Islands?”

  “Heaven help us,” she said, recognizing me. “It’s the deranged elf.”

  “Oh, you remember me?” We had met before.

  She entered the hospital room, saw the messy red graffiti high up on the wall that I had painted with my water pistol, and turned to look at me. “I don’t even want to know,” she said. “Just leave. Leave now. Leave without speaking.”

  I glanced at Max and Lucky, and I decided that this was an occasion where swift retreat was the best strategy.

  So I turned and walked rapidly down the corridor, intending to exit the hospital before anyone had time to start asking questions about what we’d been doing.

  Trotting behind me, Quinn said, “I don’t think his mother likes you.”

  “No wonder they made you a detective,” I said.

  It remained to be seen whether or not Mrs. Lopez’s opinion of me was even relevant. After all, right before dying, being possessed, coming back to life, and being exorcised, her son had broken up with me. Again.

  I supposed we’d just have to wait and see how well it stuck this time . . .

  Author’s Note

  When Max’s canine familiar Nelli decided to lunge for Detective Quinn in The Misfortune Cookie, I was as surprised as Esther. Quinn seemed like such a normal guy to me. Damn. Now I was going to have to rethink the character and plant little hints that something was Not Right about him . . .

  Until I realized, no, that was what made Nelli’s reaction surprising and made me interested in pursuing the matter: Quinn’s apparent normalcy.

  Not every unexpected twist or detour works out well when I’m writing. In fact, I wind up deleting most of them. But in Nelli’s unexpected reaction to Quinn, I realized that I had the start of my next book.

  On the other hand, I was as clueless as Esther about what caused Nelli’s behavior. And since I’m nominally in charge here, I have to figure out these things or the book doesn’t get written. So after finishing The Misfortune Cookie, I cast around for a while, testing and discarding various theories about why Quinn offended Nelli’s keen mystical instincts.

  By chance, I also happened to be researching paranormal phenomena and ghost hunting at the time. I participated in several investigations, one of them in a particularly notorious location—Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a honky-tonk in Kentucky that’s considered one of the most haunted places in the country and which has appeared on numerous TV programs.

  It was during the investigation at Bobby Mackey’s that I first heard about demon attachment and oppression. Although I am a confirmed skeptic, despite being a fantasy writer, some of the accounts related to me in that shadowy, atmospheric place during the dead of night made a strong enough impression on me that I kept jumping out of my skin in my own (cheery, unatmospheric) home for the next few nights.

  So I pulled all the demonology tomes off the shelves in the “Max and Esther” section of my personal research library and started reading. By the time I had gotten through several volumes, I’d finally figured out what was “wrong” about Quinn.

  So here’s a shout-out to Dan Smith, author of Ghosts of Bobby Mackey’s Music World. He’s the paranormal investigator who first introduced me to the concept of demon attachment.

  I’m also grateful to the various people who took time to answer my questions for this novel about inflicting, treating, and recovering from gunshot wounds. Thanks to my fellow writers with medical backgrounds: Laurie Grant, Victoria Houseman, Scarlet Wilson, and Dianne Drake. And many thanks to Howard R. Bromley, MD, who was very generous with his time and thorough in his answers.

  Special thanks to Dr. Ginger Bell, the medical director for the Cincinnati SWAT team, who was a valuable resource and patiently answered my many questions. I was introduced to her by Captain Douglas Wiesman, Training Section Commander of the Cincinnati Police Department.

  I met Captain Wiesman when I enrolled in my local Citizens Police Academy in an attempt to learn more about the world that Lopez and Quinn inhabit. It was an excellent course with many eye-opening lectures and some exciting hands-on experience, and I encourage anyone who’s interested in learning more about police work to look for a Citizens Police Academy in their region.

  It goes without saying (so now witness me saying it) that any mistakes, inaccuracies, embellishments, liberties, or double negatives in the text are strictly my own.

  As usual, I offer thanks and praise to the team at DAW Books, still the best publishing house I’ve ever worked with. In particular, my thanks to editor and publisher Betsy Wollheim, and to managing editor Joshua Starr, who is indeed a star. I hail the genius of Dan Dos Santos, the artist who’s created yet another fabulous book cover for this series.

  With this particular demon vanquished, Esther Diamond, her friends, and her nemeses will return soon for their next mystical misadventure when they enter a place of unmatched, unbounded, unmitigated Evil: Wall Street.

  —Laura Resnick

 

 

 
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