by Gail, Stacy
Hell had come to ruin everyone’s most important meal of the day.
With the single-minded determination of a woman on a mission, Ella moved from her hiding place toward the lobby’s fire alarm, her gaze never leaving the pair now getting everyone’s full attention. In a move that was so fast it appeared to blur around the edges, the now-gory mess that was supposedly Lana Dever spun in place until it faced her head-on, as if the monster had suddenly known she was nearby. Ella had thought she understood the term if looks could kill before, but the malevolence boiling over in the demon’s eyes gave her a new definition.
The maddened intensity of the demon’s attention stopped her dead in her tracks. Jaw tight, she balanced lightly on the balls of her feet, like Jacob had taught her. If a mugger or stalker wanted to make you into a victim, the first thing to do was look that predator dead in the eye to show there was no victim present. She only hoped a hardcore stare-down worked just as well against spawns of hell.
“Lana!” Despite the hysteria rising to a deafening roar in the lobby, Ella clearly heard Richard’s voice as he grabbed the demon that looked like the deceased woman by the shoulders. “What is this, darling? What’s happening?”
Darling? Well, well. Isn’t that interesting.
The demon’s head jerked as if it were trying to dodge a blow even as several people closed in on them to render assistance. Another too-fast motion brought the demon out of Richard’s clutches and next to a young man wearing a Chicago Bears hoodie and carrying a breakfast tray. He stepped back automatically, but already the demon’s appearance began to morph. For the briefest moment there was simply no face at all—no pretty Lana. No near-death Lana. Nothing. Just a blank lump waiting to be molded. And just as suddenly another person stood there—an unfamiliar, sweaty middle-aged guy whose soft, blubbery mouth leered at the man in the hoodie, who in turn grabbed a knife off his tray before dropping it with a crash.
“No, get away! You can’t touch me anymore!” The hysterical man swung wildly at the demon, who whipped around with that inhuman speed and pushed a woman straight toward the screaming man. Still screaming and flailing at anything that moved, the Chicago Bears fan knocked the woman squarely in the face, and she went down like the loser in a prizefight. As a small pool of blood puddled under the unconscious woman’s head, a twisted smile curled the demon’s sweaty face, and without warning it looked back in Ella’s direction. Pain twisted between her eyes as if something alien was trying to crowd her brain out of her skull, a sensation that was so sick and wrong she nearly vomited. Before she could stop it, the image of Charles Rainier forced its way to the forefront of her mind, and a shattered cry escaped her even as she blindly clawed in the direction of the fire alarm.
Nate. Focus on warning him. Saving him...
The demon’s face began to melt, to morph into Charles’s image, and with one last frenzied half-scream she yanked on the alarm with all her might.
Chapter Thirteen
“I broke a nail.”
Startled, Nate looked away from the rush of midday traffic to Ella. When he’d found himself alone in the hotel room, his first panicked thought was that she’d been abducted. A frantic sweep of the room uncovered no signs of a struggle, but he did find the note she’d left by the bed complete with an efficient mention of the time and a promise to be back. But she’d been gone longer than seemed necessary, and he’d been out of the room with bag in hand the moment the fire alarm had gone off. His ability to move like lightning had never been needed more, and though he logically acknowledged it had only taken a handful of seconds to reach the ground floor, they had been the longest seconds of his life.
Now, miles away from that chaos, he had no idea what it meant that he’d become that rattled over not knowing if Ella was safe or not. Irony of ironies, he was still too shaken to figure it all out.
“Damn.” Huddled in the passenger seat and looking as gray as the overcast day around them, Ella stared at the down-to-the-quick tear in her nail as if it were the most depressing thing that had ever occurred in the universe. “I guess I broke it when I pulled the fire alarm.”
“Ella, I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s just a nail.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t take the possibility of being found more seriously.” That was what he’d meant, and the regret echoed through him until he thought he’d go nuts. “If I’d been with you—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t walk around for the duration of this...this madness like we’re conjoined twins.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because then we would look like that bad condom commercial where the man and woman can’t seem to physically separate. I refuse to be a cliché. Or a bad condom commercial.”
He fought the need to smile. It would mess up his bad-mood groove. “I still should have been there.”
“Why? The same events would have happened.”
“Yeah, but I might have been able to see which way the bastards ran off.” The only thing on his mind had been getting to Ella. That need had been the glue holding his world together, a world he strongly suspected would have fallen apart if he hadn’t been able to find her. But he had, running unerringly to where she’d made it out into the parking lot amidst what appeared to be a sea of traumatized Boy Scouts. Seeing her safe and sound had been such a beautiful moment of relief he had no doubt he’d remember it to his dying day.
And only later did it occur to him that he’d known exactly where she was without even thinking about it.
Kyle had been right; his mojo was coming back. But it was coming through on an altogether different frequency. If he didn’t figure out how it worked—fast—it was going to be worse than useless. It could wind up being a hindrance of the deadly kind, and he’d had enough of that to last him a lifetime.
“I don’t get it.” She’d brought her finger up to her mouth to nurse the damaged tip, then examined it closely. “Why were they there? I mean, why roll up like you mean business, then turn tail and run the moment you’re spotted? What was the point of Rainier and his pet demon even showing up at your hotel like that?”
“Make no mistake, they did have an agenda. I’ll be sure to ask them all about it before I rip them apart with my bare hands.”
He felt her glance brush over him. Then he realized how bad he had it if he was capable of feeling the weight of her gaze. “You might recall from your police days that ripping people apart with bare hands—or anything else, for that matter—is usually referred to as murder.”
“Justifiable homicide in Richard Rainier’s case, and it’s nothing at all for the demon since it wouldn’t technically die—it’d just go back to where it belongs.”
“Uh-huh. I think I read about that in Hellboy.”
God help him for having a weakness for women who made him want to laugh and curse at the same time. “As of now, whether we look like a bad condom commercial or not, we go everywhere together. Understand?”
“We don’t have to walk belly to belly, do we? I have a healthy sense of humor, but even I draw the line at absurdity.”
“Just think how much fun that would be, though.” His hand sought hers before he gave it a thought, and a knot he didn’t know was there loosened in his chest when her fingers laced with his with a welcome squeeze. Bottom-lining it, it was his presence in her life that had dropped this madness on her doorstep, when she’d already had more than her fair share. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d tried to dislocate his digits. “I have a confession to make—I get hot just thinking about being belly to belly with you.”
“Talk i
s cheap, mister. Instead of driving aimlessly around Chicago, we could always go back to my place—”
“Since I’m positive Rainier and his zombie demon somehow killed both Gabrielle Litte and Briella Fields, I’d feel like a sitting duck in a place they already know about. And for what it’s worth, I’m not driving aimlessly. I’m...feeling.”
“You’re feeling what?”
He hesitated a second, then figured she had a right to know. “I’m testing to see if my gift of finding hidden things is returning. Not that it was ever that hot to begin with, what with my mom crippling me at birth.”
“Lovely,” he heard her mutter. “Real Mother of the Year material there.”
“In her mind, she was trying to save me. And who knows? Maybe she did shelter me from the more dangerous aspects of knowing where things are. And I’ve always wondered if I would have survived her if I’d displayed anything stronger than my quiet little instincts. Luckily the feelings I used to have—I called it my inner compass—were so low-level no one even noticed them, least of all my mother.”
“But you noticed them when they vanished.”
He squeezed her fingers, grateful she understood. “Something’s happening to me. It’s not working like it once did. This isn’t on a subconscious level, though I suppose that’s what I’m waiting to feel now. What’s been happening to me lately has been...I don’t know. Weird.”
“What’s been happening?”
“Dreams.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Sometimes they’re waking dreams. Though I guess things like that are referred to as visions. Or insanity.” Nate tried not to grimace at how loopy this shit sounded. But since they were in this together, the least he could do was serve up the truth. “And these images I’m seeing don’t necessarily focus on stuff I’m wanting to find. For instance, instead of dreaming about your whereabouts when I was trying to find you, I kept getting this no-faced giant of a guy standing in a cavernous snow globe telling me not to look in his direction because he wasn’t ready for me yet. At the time I thought I had to lay off the late-night snacking. Geez, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, and he had to admire how she didn’t try to sugar-coat it. “That must have been some kind of snacking.”
“Except that wasn’t the problem. Soon after that, I had the same dream while wide awake, only this time it hurt.”
“What do you mean, it hurt?”
“I mean it made a hangover seem like a pleasant summer breeze. Worse yet, I felt that exact same pain when we met up with Rainier and his zombie demon. It hammered me right between the eyes and pulled me in their direction, even though finding the person or people who’d targeted Gabrielle Litte and Briella Fields wasn’t on my to-do list. At that point all I wanted to do was keep you safe.”
She made a thoughtful sound. “I think your gift has decided you’ve finally grown up.”
He shot her a quizzical look. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
“Up until you lost your gift, you’d always used it to find the things you wanted, and for the most part it was pretty accurate, right? It was certainly accurate in finding me when I was stumbling my way out of the Smokies.”
He nodded. “That’s basically how it worked, yeah. I’d concentrate on a person or object, and most of the time I’d get a quiet little hunch to go in one direction or another. Sometimes, though, I’d get nothing at all, or worse—a false feeling and a total wash-out on whatever it was I wanted to find. Like I said, in terms of power I’m pretty much a zero.”
“Or it’s possible you’ve been misusing your gift this entire time.”
There was a beat of silence. “I think you need to eat. Your blood sugar’s low.”
“I’m serious, Nate. When you made the choice to embrace your gift and learn how to use it to help others, it was under the threat of being discovered by your mother, who would have done heaven knows what to you. You had to stifle everything in order to survive.”
“She hasn’t been around for a long time, Ella.”
“But by then you got used to manipulating your gift quietly, subconsciously pushing it in the direction you wanted it to go. What if it was never supposed to work that way?”
“I don’t know how else I’m supposed to work it.”
“You keep talking about what you wanted to find. But what about what’s needed? When you thought your gift was gone, there was no point in trying to manipulate it in any specific direction. With that kind of pressure gone, it’s possible your true abilities are now operating the way they were always meant to.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get how I need all the weird stuff I’m dreaming about. I mean, snow globes and rowboats? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“That part might just be the usual dream weirdness, but the faceless man is another story. From what you just said, you saw a faceless being before you even knew something without a face existed. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“But you just proved my point, Ella. I don’t need that no-face nightmare. What I need is for that shithead to get out of my realm and back into his.”
“Right. And the only person around here who can make that happen is you. Hence the visions.”
He pursed his lips. “I think you’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s successfully used the word ‘hence’ in a sentence.”
“I actually think it’s encouraging this faceless thing doesn’t want you looking for it, almost like it’s afraid of you for some reason,” she said, ignoring him. “What do you think that means?”
“If I knew that, I’d be turning this town upside down looking for him.” With that, he abruptly took an exit ramp north of the Loop district in downtown Chicago. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should stop trying to guide things and just dream a way out of this.”
“Why not? That’s no crazier than anything else I’ve heard the past couple of days.”
He tried not to wince, but when the woman was right, she was right.
* * *
Ella took one look at the room’s flowery wallpaper and figured The Shore Hotel must have been the best place to stay around the time Ferris Bueller was taking a day off. A dated, waist-high bureau dominated by an oversized mirror faced a king-sized bed. The violet carpet had also seen better days, but she took comfort that the gold and white bedspreads looked relatively new, and the multitude of pillowcases appeared bleached to within an inch of their lives.
“Home sweet home.” She plopped her bag next to the bed while Nate plugged in both his phone and laptop, then opened the latter and made himself comfortable at the laminated round table. “It could be worse. There could be no Wi-Fi.”
“Bite your tongue.” The pale, colorless glow from the screen lit his face as he let his fingers do the walking across the keyboard. “The one thing I need now is to stay in touch. I’ve got some friends who have great research resources, and they’ll want to know about this latest incident. Who knows if it’ll help, but it’s better than flying blind.”
“I wouldn’t begin to know where to look for answers. All I know is that as long as I can keep that thing from showing me Charles Rainier’s face, I can hold my own. But otherwise...” She trailed off, shivering at the memory. Ironic or not, the idea of an actual demon was nothing compared to the dread and hopelessness Charles Rainier inspired. “I can’t emphasize enough how much I hate that face.”
“I know.” He glanced up from the
screen. “I’ll get you home before you can begin to miss your little purple house, I promise.”
And then what? She felt the words rise so fast she almost wasn’t able to stop them. Good grief, she had to have a screw loose if she was looking for a promise of a relationship while they were enmeshed in a game of hide-and-seek with a spawn of hell. “If we were at my house, we wouldn’t have to worry about finding the dastardly duo. They’d come to us.”
“On their time, when they’re prepared. Playing the role of sitting duck isn’t my idea of a good time. I do the hunting around here.”
“You wouldn’t have to go looking for them if I hadn’t freaked out so badly this morning.” With nothing else to do, she wandered to the window framed by plum-colored drapes and saw a surprisingly pretty view of Lake Michigan. “I swear I had it all under control until that thing started squirming around in my head and fishing out Charles Rainier’s face. Whenever I cave like that, it shows just how weak I still am. I hate that.”
“You’re not weak. You’re the kind of strong that inspires me to take on the world and make it a place that’s worthy of you.” Again his gaze snapped away from the screen to lock on hers. “Wait. What do you mean, squirming around in your head? Did that demon do something to you? Did it touch you?”
“No.” Reeling from the achingly sweet flood of emotion his admission unleashed, Ella tried not to get too swept away by focusing on the simple task of drawing the window’s sheers. “I told you, it didn’t even seem to know I was there until after its face started to change from the unscarred and perfect Lana, to the horror-show Lana I remembered. It is strange,” she added, her brow furling as she came to perch on the edge of the bed. “Richard Rainier and his evil sidekick gave me the impression that they’d wanted to blend in with the crowd and not make a fuss. Then without warning the demon went all slasher-flick nightmarish, and it caused a panic. Maybe it wanted to feed off of that negativity? That’s how spawns of hell are usually portrayed in just about every Halloween movie I’ve ever seen.”