“Why do you think they do?” asked Mike.
“Did you get the feeling that McBride was in your head?”
“Well, yeah. I mean—”
“I don’t mean ‘talking to you in your head.’ I mean right there inside your skull with you. Did she seem to read your mind? To see what you saw?”
Mike sat back in the chair and dropped his hands. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Doing that, seeing someone’s surroundings, getting inside their head, all that takes a lot more effort than sending a thought at someone. I’m not saying they have to know where we are to do it—I mean, they’re demons, right? But I would have to know the location. I’d have to travel there in mind—a kind of ethereal projection—to get that kind of access.” Benny stared at Mike. “I think they are here. Their minds, I mean.”
“But how could they know where we are? We’ve been in this house for years. If they knew our location, they’d have come in force a long time ago.”
“My point,” said Benny with a quick nod. He turned and stared at the Mitchells. “So, how do they know where we are?”
Without turning, Eddie said, “You can stop looking at us like that. I’d bet you all the money we have that it’s because of that goddamn lamp.”
Amanda nodded and turned to face him, resting her bum against the sink. “She could always find us. She followed Eddie for decades. She convinced him to rebuy the lamp after his aunt sold it away. It’s important to her.”
“More than just important,” said Eddie. “It’s like… It’s like a handle. Abby—” His voice cracked, and Amanda rested her hand on his shoulder.
“She used it to cause us harm, to try to manipulate us into fighting each other, into breaking up.” Amanda’s expression turned fierce. “Fuck her.”
“What the hell is that lamp?” asked Mike in the most burned-out voice Benny’d ever heard.
“It’s supposed to be a Tiffany,” said Eddie. “But the shade changes whenever the fuck it wants.”
“Changes?”
Eddie nodded and gave up the pretense of washing dishes. “When my dad first brought it into our house, it was aquamarine with dragonflies on the bottom. When Abby started haunting me, it was midnight blue and dark purple with these funny electric blue fish. And you saw it as the redhead came. Red background with a snake, a tree, and a bird.”
“And this morning? What does it look like now?”
Eddie glanced at Amanda and shrugged. “We left it in your garage.”
Benny turned and sprinted for the door that would lead him to the garage. “We might have to destroy it.”
“We hate the goddamn thing,” said Amanda.
On his way past, Benny grabbed Mike’s arm. “Come on!”
The four trailed out to the garage, and Eddie pointed at the cardboard box they’d stored the lamp under. He blushed. “We…”
“We thought if the lamp were covered, she might not be able to find us.”
Mike stepped forward and kicked the cardboard box off. The lamp sat on the concrete floor. Its shade looked nothing like what Eddie had just described. The shade matched the color of the deep ocean, greens tinged with blues and blacks. Two images adorned it. The first depicted a giant black snake that encompassed the bottom edge, and the second stood proudly in the center of the shade—an image of an angelic woman, though her feathers were done in black, and she was sheathed in crimson red flames.
“That’s yet another new scene,” muttered Eddie. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Interesting,” Benny said. He flipped the box back over the lamp and turned to the others. “Can’t hurt, right?”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Mike.
“I don’t think so.” Benny moved to the big bay doors and pressed the button that opened one of them. As the door rumbled upward, he waved his hand at the drive. “If they were coming, they wouldn’t have wasted the darkness. They’d already be eating us.”
“Eating us?” asked Amanda.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “They feed on humans—some on emotion, some on flesh.”
“That explains a few things,” said Eddie with a grim nod.
“So, what do we do?”
When Benny turned to face them, a smile—his first real smile since finding Shannon broken and bloody—lit his features. “That’s easy. We find out everything we can about this damn thing.”
15
Shannon didn’t know the man who peeked around the curtain at her. It didn’t surprise her that SPECTRe had members she’d never met, but it surprised her that the man they sent knew almost nothing about her.
“Oh, Shannon!” he said with raw grief pulsing in his voice. “What did that old bear do?”
Shannon grimaced. “Tore me up pretty bad.”
“Doctor, uh… Doctor Walker said you’ll be okay in time.”
“Yeah? I’m not so sure.” She squinted at the man—a man who looked nothing like Benny. Shannon supposed it might be a demon in disguise, that they’d found Greg and her already, but she didn’t see the point in having someone pretend to pretend to be her husband. If he was a demon, wouldn’t he be killing me by now?
The man cocked his head and gave it a negative shake. “Shan, do you remember my friend Joe?”
“Of course.”
“He was stabbed yesterday. You two shared a helicopter ride.”
“I know,” said Shannon.
“He began bleeding in his brain in the night. They had to go back in this morning.” The man walked closer. “It looks bad.”
“Will he…” She couldn’t finish the question, not even in the privacy of her own mind.
“He’s in good hands,” the proxy said. “I know his surgeon. Top notch.”
“I thought he was only stabbed? Why is he bleeding in his head?”
The man shrugged. “Rick says he was also clubbed.”
“Rick? That’s his surgeon.”
The proxy widened his eyes and treated her to a stern look. “No, hon. Rick Michaels. You remember him. Joe’s husband?”
Shannon let her eyelids sink. “Yeah,” she murmured. She cast her mind back to the battle in the parking lot, all the way to the beginning, and tried to follow it through until Greg was struck down. But her memory didn’t go that far. The last thing she remembered was fooling the pack of lesser demons and getting hit by what felt like a meteor.
“It’s okay, Shan. Don’t worry about old Joe. He’ll pull through.”
She heard the words as she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, and she wanted to reply, but before she could, she slept.
16
Toby awoke in the shade of a silk pavilion, which matched the color of Lily’s hair to perfection. More silk lay beneath him, and the softest pillow he’d ever slept on supported his head. A cool breeze wafted across his bare chest, and he smiled at the sensation. For a while, he’d forgotten what it felt like not to be hot.
He could smell water—actually smell it—along with meat cooking on a grill. He heaved a sigh and rolled on his side, his back to the desert beyond the open wall of the pavilion.
Lily knelt in front of the small grill on the other side of the tent, her back to him. Her perfect, naked back. Her hair cascaded along her spine like the velvet curtain in a fancy New York theater. Light shimmied across her hair, catching highlights and shadows, seeming to reflect the image of the pavilion as if her hair were a mirror.
“That smells good,” he croaked, and when he did, his lips split, sending shockwaves of pain shimmering through him. “Ow, that hurts.”
“You were silly,” said Lily without turning. “You let things go too far.”
Toby had no memory of anything that happened after he admitted to himself how much he wanted her. He had no recollection of asking for her help—or of having sex with her for that matter. Does it count if I don’t remember it?
Why wouldn’t it? asked Lily’s voice in his mind, but he wasn’t sure if it was his own mind that su
pplied the words or if she actually spoke to him, mind to mind.
“Uh, please don’t take this the wrong way…”
Without getting up, Lily turned to face him, knee-walking in a half-circle. The sight of her almost took his breath away. A half-smile flirted with her lips. “You don’t remember?” She ran the backs of her fingernails down the side of her trunk. “You don’t remember this?”
Toby drew in a deep breath. “I remember wanting you very badly. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it.”
Lily laughed, and it sounded like a thousand glass bells. When she stopped, the desert song took the place of her ringing laughter.
“Did we…”
“Shh, bebe.” She put a perfect finger across her lips, the lacquered nail so glossy it looked perpetually wet. “You passed out.”
Toby sat up and groaned at the woozy feeling that washed through him. He waved a hand at the tent, at the barrel of water in the corner, at the grill. “Did I ask you for this?”
She smiled and turned back to the grill. “Have some water, love. You need it.”
“But did I ask for your help?” Toby looked toward the barrel of water, but he made no move to drink, though the tissues of his mouth and throat seemed to cry out for rehydration.
“Have you had goat before?” She shifted to glance at him over her shoulder, exposing the side of a perfect breast and the nipple at its crown.
“Uh…”
She grinned. “It’s not fair, I know, but a girl has to use what she’s given to best effect.”
He tore his gaze away from her and crawled toward the water barrel. “If I didn’t ask for your help, and I drink from this, does it… Am I…”
She treated him to another bell-like laugh. “Even if you asked me, you are not in my thrall. You don’t owe me anything, Tobes. I don’t want that. I want you to choose to be with me.” She peeked at him again, her orange eyes twirling with intensity. “No matter what.”
A copper dipper lay on the silk next to the water barrel, and Toby filled it and drank, squeezing his eyes shut at the pleasure of the sheer sensation of water trickling down his throat. He needed time to think, to consider all the things she’d told him. I’m still not even sure this is happening. This could all be a mind-fuck like the ones Herlequin loved to throw at little kids.
At the grill, Lily scoffed.
“Sorry?” said Toby, refilling the dipper. “Did you say something?”
She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Be careful, vato. I don’t like being compared to mazzikim. And that particular one and I have history.” She removed skewers of meat from the grill. “I hope you are hungry. I think I’ve made enough for six or seven people.”
The thought of swallowing food made him wince, but the odor of the grilled meat set his mouth to watering. “That smells awesome.”
“Come,” she said. “Lay next to me, and I will feed you.”
“Um…”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s just food, Tobes. I like feeding my mates.”
“Mate? Then we—”
“Relax. It’s a figure of speech.” She wagged her eyebrows at him. “A girl could get to like this amnesia game. What shall we play it about next?”
Toby crawled to her side but didn’t recline. “If you don’t mind, I’ll feed myself for now.”
She looked at him through slit eyelids but flashed a sunny smile. “Don’t be so careful to avoid allowing me to help you that you end up with less than nothing, kisa.”
He picked up a skewer, pulled a piece of the grilled meat off the end, and popped it into his mouth. He bit down, and the hot, succulent juices squirted into his mouth. He grinned at her as he chewed. “Tastes like beef.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “So I’ve been told.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
She spread her hands to her sides.
“You don’t eat—at least not like this. Right?”
She nodded.
“Then how come you know how to cook?”
She turned her head to gaze out at the desert. “I’ve been here for a long time. I was…” She stole a peek at him, then turned back to the desert. “I was invited to come here by a culture yours barely remembers, though it was undeniably the cradle of all the world’s civilizations.”
“Sumer?”
She chuckled. “Close, but no cigar. An Akkadian mystic was the first to bridge the void, the first to call. His invitation intrigued me, so, along with members of my house, we came.” Lily dropped her head. “The temptations proved too much for Lilu. He betrayed me.”
“I don’t understand who Lilu is.”
She lifted her chin and gazed into the deep blue sky. “And you don’t have to.”
Toby popped another morsel of the grilled goat into his mouth. “This is really good, Lily.”
“I’m glad you like it.” She stood and walked to the edge of the pavilion, standing silhouetted against the blazing desert sky.
“I don’t really understand who any of you are. We…” He glanced at her, noting the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. “We interrogated one of the demons from Oneka Falls—”
“Mazzikim.”
“Mazzikim, then. We interrogated one of them a few years back.”
Lily spun on her heel to face him, her face unreadable, but her eyes spinning faster than he remembered. “And?”
Toby wagged his head to the side. “I got the feeling he told more lies than truths.”
“And?”
“He told us about you. We didn’t know it at the time, he said something like ‘the most powerful among us’ came—”
Lily snorted, wearing a lopsided grin.
“—and opened a passage for the rest of them. That you made it possible for them to come here.”
“And?”
“And who are you, Lily? Why are you here? What do you want?”
She threw her head back and laughed, a harsh, mechanical sound that echoed through the desert. In the distance, some animal screamed a challenge in response. She froze, head back, gazing at him from the corner of her eye. It was a freaky thing to see—more like a giant lizard, a Komodo dragon perhaps, staring at her prey than a woman staring at a man. “I don’t think you are ready for those answers, chavo. They would hurt your little head.”
A frustrated sigh gusted out of him. “You are clearly not the same as the mazzikim.”
“Why thank you,” she said in droll tones.
“I can see them,” he said. “I mean, really see them. Their illusions don’t work on me.”
“Yes, I had heard that.”
“But with you…”
“But with me, you can’t?”
Toby shook his head. “All I see is…perfection. I can’t see through to what you really are.”
“This is what I really am. At least at this moment.”
“And the smoke? The black and red smoke that came from the clouds back in New York?”
“That was what I really was at that time.” Lily stepped closer to him, and her black leather minidress and matching chrome-heeled boots congealed around her from the air and held out her hand. “And now, I am dressed. No illusions, just leather.” She cocked her head. “And my daughter? Could you see past her visages?”
Toby smiled up at her and got to his feet. He took her hand, caressing the backs of her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Brigitta? Sure, she—”
“Her name is Naamah!” Lily snapped, fire dancing in her eyes, mouth warped into a sneer.
Toby found he’d taken a step back, the silk wall of the pavilion pressed against his back. “Sorry. We’ve only ever known her as…by the other name.”
Lily nodded, and some of the anger left her expression.
“I could always see past her visages. At least, I thought I could. Back there in the parking lot, LaBouche—”
“That fool.”
“Uh, yes. He peeled Naamah�
�s rotting skin off, and crimson flames and nothing else lay beneath it. I’d never seen past the undead skin.”
“She is an ifrit, not a mazzikim. What you saw before the battle with the traitor was not her true form.” Lily flashed an enigmatic smile.
“And her changes, her rotten flesh, that was as real?”
“Yes, though it was only skin deep.”
“But she could affect true changes, no? I mean, she turned LaBouche into a yellow magpie once.”
“Did she?” Lily sounded bored, her tone flat, emotionless.
“So, is it true? Did your coming here open the way for the others?”
Lily shrugged one perfect shoulder. “I grow bored of this, cazador. I have things to do.” Without another word, she disappeared with a pop and a gust of warm air.
But the food, water, and shelter remained. With a shrug, Toby sank to his knees and continued eating the grilled goat. It tasted too good to let it go to waste.
17
Shannon slept in fits and starts all morning, and none of it satisfied her exhaustion. By noon, the pain meds had worn off, and she ached all over—if not from a bruised or fractured bone, then from a laceration. If not from a gash, then from an abrasion or bruise. If not from any of those, then from overtaxed muscles.
By the time Kristy Walker finally came in an hour after the nurses tried to push lunch on her, Shannon was done with the hospital, done with her injuries, and done with the nurses telling her to wait for this, wait for that. “Get me out of here, Kristy,” she said by way of greeting.
“I know, I know. Hospitals are about the worst place to recover from anything. Too much hoopla, too many people walking around.” She approached the bed and patted Shannon’s forearm.
“No, I mean it. Get me out of here before I lose my mind.”
“Soon, hon.” Kristy stepped to the overbed table and put her laptop on it, moving the untouched tray to the chair at the foot of the bed. She flipped open the screen and scanned Shannon’s chart, then snapped it closed. “Everything looks as I expected. You’re doing well, Shannon, and as soon as we get more fluid into you, I’ll see about discharging you. But you will need in-home care, and about that, I will not budge. That’s probably not a surprise to you.”
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