Every Demon Has His Day, page 18
Without even a pause, Nathan reached over to her bedside table and grabbed the box of Kleenex. He offered her one calmly. Of course, as a Garrett, he probably had more than his share of experience dealing with hysterical women. He waited until she’d finished blowing her nose and wiping at her cheeks before speaking.
“I saw him, too, remember?” he said softly.
“You did?” Constance suddenly felt hope again. If Nathan actually believed her, then maybe he could help. “Did you catch him?”
“No,” Nathan said, a sharp look of disappointment crossing his face. “It was saving you or catching him.”
“I guess I’m lucky you picked me,” she said, blowing her nose. She tried to make it a dainty sound, but there just wasn’t a nice way of clearing out the passages.
“Not so lucky,” Nathan said, glancing down. “I came to your house to arrest you. For Jimmy’s murder.”
Constance felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “Oh,” she said, glancing down at the wad of tissue in her hand. She shouldn’t be surprised, she guessed. He was a Garrett. They always disappointed in the end. “And what about now? Still going to arrest me?”
Nathan was silent a long time, studying her face. “Not today,” he said, and smiled. His smile was contagious, because Constance felt her lips curve up, too. “Got to wait until we get the all clear from the doctor.”
“That’s a relief,” she said. “I’d hate to go to jail wearing this,” she added, tugging at her blue hospital gown. “It’s a little drafty.”
Nathan laughed a little. “Not the most practical thing to wear to jail, I agree,” he said. He leaned forward a little, and then met her eyes. Both of them fell silent, and Constance felt her stomach flip. Was he going to kiss her again?
The heart monitor she was hooked up to started beeping softly. Her heart was racing. Nathan looked at it, then at her, and chuckled again.
“Do I make you nervous?” he asked, a slow smile playing on his lips.
“No.” Of course he did.
Nathan laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked him.
“You’re playing with your hair again,” he said, pointing. Constance blushed fiercely and dropped her hand. It hit the side of her bed rail and accidentally knocked against the button that turned on the TV perched in the corner of the room. It was set to an entertainment news show, and the volume was set to the highest setting. As Constance fumbled to turn it down, the woman on the television started talking about Dante London and her new movie shoot.
Dante’s face appeared on the television, snapping gum and talking to a reporter, and Constance felt a surge go through her hand where she was touching the remote controls for the television. The room started to spin, and she knew what was coming next.
Another vision.
It hit her hard and fast, and she was only able to see Dante London and Corey Bennett together at dinner at the Magnolia Café. The same vision she had last time, only there was more detail this time. They were drinking wine, lots of wine, and Constance saw Corey put something—a white powder—into Dante’s drink when she wasn’t looking. Then they were suddenly somewhere else, a bedroom, or a hotel room, where Corey Bennett turned the lights low and Dante London, seemingly woozy from whatever he’d spiked her drink with, stumbled to the bed, where she planted, face-first.
Constance tried hard to slow down the vision, to figure out where they were, but she simply couldn’t control the visions yet.
She did see Corey Bennett open the door to wherever they were, and Yaman strode in, a smile on his face. The floor suddenly opened beneath his feet, and a great dark hole appeared in the carpet, where something even more sinister than Yaman rose up from the ground. Constance couldn’t see the creature’s face, but she knew without knowing how that was the devil.
The last thing Constance saw, before the vision ended, was the shadow of the devil moving toward the limp body of Dante London.
TWENTY-FOUR
Nice plan with the kidnapping,” Yaman said, sarcasm in his voice, as he and Shadow hovered outside Constance’s hospital window.
“What? I didn’t expect her to have dogwood blooms. Or that damn pentagram.”
“She couldn’t predict a sneeze, you said,” Yaman complained. “She clearly knew we were coming.”
“How was I supposed to know? She seemed pretty clueless for a prophet. I thought it was a good bet. Besides, you’re the one who ran out of there when the fire started. We could’ve just waited her out and grabbed her once the pentagram had burned enough.”
“I didn’t want my new sport coat smelling like smoke,” Yaman said. “Takes forever to get out that smell.”
“You can’t be serious,” Shadow said. “You’re a demon. Smoke is supposed to be your friend.”
“Yeah, well, it ruins good fabrics.”
“You Pride demons are such sissies,” Shadow said.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me!”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Yaman said. “Because we have a job to finish.”
“I’m getting tired of this job,” Shadow said. “I say I should just eat her.”
Near Yaman’s feet came a muffled cry. Dead Jimmy was tied up and bound, like a pig, with his hands and feet together.
“Shut up, you,” Yaman said, and gave Dead Jimmy a kick. “We’ve got plans for you yet, ghost.”
“Um, hello, I’m still hungry,” Shadow growled. “Why can’t I at least eat the doctor?”
“What happened to the garbage truck?”
“I digested that hours ago,” Shadow said. “Now, let me have the doctor. I love people with advanced degrees.”
“You just can’t,” Yaman said. “We don’t want too much attention. This whole thing is supposed to be a covert operation.”
“Oh yeah, covert as in ‘stab the prophet’s husband with a screwdriver’ covert.”
“I told you we weren’t talking about that anymore.”
“And what about the vision she just had? We now know how Bennett’s going to do it and where. Shouldn’t we tell the general?”
“I don’t think we should tell him yet,” Yaman said.
“But he told us to report any new visions…”
“Maybe we could figure this out ourselves, and cut out the general, and go straight to Satan himself,” Yaman proposed. “Then maybe I’ll get promoted.”
“You mean, ‘we.’”
Yaman did a double take. “Right, yes, of course. I meant we would get promoted.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a general.”
“The stars would look nice on your nonclothes.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“What do you think? Anyway, if I were a general, then I could do whatever I want,” Yaman said. “I wouldn’t have to go on these stupid prophet-sitting missions.”
“You mean if we were generals.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said if you were a general.”
“Well, I meant it like the royal ‘I.’”
“There is no royal ‘I.’”
“Are you going to sit there and argue with me all day? Or are we going to agree to try to cut the general out of this?”
“You know my feelings about the general,” Shadow said. “He bit me.”
“Okay, then we are in agreement.”
“Yes, we are,” Shadow reiterated.
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” Shadow paused. “So? What now?”
“Let’s try the kidnapping plan again. But this time you’re going to do it on your own.”
“Why do I have to do all the work?”
“Because it was your idea. And the first time, you blew it.”
“I didn’t blow anything, Pride demon. We had her right where we wanted her.”
“In a protective seal neither of us could break.”
“I could’ve figured out a way in, but nooooo. You had to set her house on fire.”
“Thought I could scare her out.”
“Instead you scared yourself out.”
“Shut up,” growled Yaman. “Anyway, you’ve got work to do. Get going.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Well, you seem to think you can handle it fine by yourself. So go on. Handle it.” Yaman glanced down at Dead Jimmy. “Besides, someone has to babysit the ghost.”
“What are we going to do with him, anyway?”
“I don’t know, but I figured he might come in handy. Now, you’d better get moving.”
Shadow narrowed his eyes and spit. “Fine. But I’m going to eat the sheriff. I’m starved.”
“Whatever,” Yaman said, sounding exasperated. “Just get the prophet. Eat whomever you want. But hurry up, will you? This ghost smells like skunky beer.”
TWENTY-FIVE
One minute Nathan was talking to Constance and the next her eyes had rolled back in her head and the machines attached to her arms went haywire. Nurses rushed in, and a doctor, too, and then they were asking him if she had epilepsy, and he didn’t know. He was pushed to a corner as all the medical personnel rushed around her bedside, and he felt his stomach tighten. It was the same feeling he’d had when he saw her house in flames. He was worried about her, a bone-deep worry that he usually only felt for blood relations like his niece or older brothers.
Constance came to again quickly, and one of the nurses plucked her IV out of her arm while the doctor pulled him aside and told him they’d need to put her under observation overnight and send her to a bigger hospital to get a CAT scan if the seizures continued. No one could tell him if the seizures were serious, or what they meant.
Left alone with Nathan again, Constance looked sheepish, almost embarrassed.
“You been having those episodes long?” he asked her finally.
“No,” she said. “Just since Jimmy…uh, well, since Jimmy…” She seemed to have a hard time saying “died.” “But they’re nothing to worry about, really. My mother gets them, too, and, well, trust me, they won’t kill me.”
Nathan looked at her with skepticism. The seizures didn’t look like nothing. Not from where he was standing. He saw her wince and put her hand to her forehead like she had a raging headache. And he had the distinct feeling she wasn’t telling him everything. She wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t being completely honest, either.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“A Dr Pepper would be great,” she said. “Or a Coke. Anything with caffeine. Helps with the headache.”
Nathan nodded. He remembered a vending machine in the hall not too far from Constance’s room. He could be there and back in a minute or two. He hesitated, not sure if he should leave her, in case she had another attack or Yaman came back to finish what he started. Still, it would only be a minute or two. He supposed it was safe.
“Be right back,” he said, and slipped into the hall.
The minute he was there, he regretted going. Would he be fetching a drink if it were Jimmy in that bed instead of Constance? He hardly thought so. He needed to stop thinking about Constance as someone he wanted to do favors for and start thinking about her as a suspect. He might have seen Yaman, but there’s no telling whether he was really the guilty one, or whether he and Constance might have had some kind of deal to get rid of Jimmy together. A deal that clearly went bad.
Of course, it was a lot easier to be tough-minded when he wasn’t staring at her pretty heart-shaped face. When he didn’t have to look into those green, green eyes. He popped quarters into the vending machine and pressed the button, and a plastic bottle rolled into the bottom tray. He bent down to pick it up, and that’s when the lights above his head went out.
He straightened and waited a half second, expecting the backup generator lights to come on. This was a hospital. Lights just didn’t go out. The backup generator didn’t kick on. The only lights were those from outside in the parking lot and around the hospital, which shone in through the big windows. He glanced down the hall toward the nurse’s station, but he didn’t see a nurse. In fact, he didn’t see anybody. No doctors. No orderlies. No one.
Something was wrong. Dead wrong.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
He glanced back down the hall. At the end, in the shadows, he saw someone moving. He flattened himself against the wall by the vending machine and unlatched the holster at his hip, resting his hand on the handle of his gun. It was probably just a nurse or a patient, but it could also be Yaman. Maybe he’d come back to finish the job he’d started.
Nathan narrowed his eyes and focused hard on the shadow, which was moving methodically toward him. Nathan had excellent night vision. At least, he always thought he did. His old partner used to tease him about being able to see in the dark with his eyes closed.
But no matter how hard Nathan concentrated on seeing the figure behind the shadows, he couldn’t. Even when whoever it was passed a lighted window, no more detail became apparent. Strange. It seemed that no matter how much light fell, it was still entirely shadow. He couldn’t see the man’s face, no matter how hard he tried.
And even more odd, the shadow wasn’t moving like a man. It seemed more like a dog. A really big dog.
He’s a demon, Constance had said.
The words made Nathan feel something prickly in his stomach. He shook the irrational fear from his head. Nathan was a practical man. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Or demons. It was probably a man. It had to be.
Whoever it was, the shadow seemed to be going methodically from room to room, as if looking for something. Nathan decided he wasn’t taking any chances. He slipped back into Constance’s room. She looked at him wide-eyed, and he put his hand to his lips, to show her to be quiet. She nodded.
“Can you walk?” he whispered.
Gingerly, she slid out of bed, her bare feet on the floor. Her hospital gown gaped a little, and she grabbed its edges. She seemed so vulnerable and delicate. She needed someone to protect her. Nathan vowed to be the one to do it as he took her free hand and led her to the door. A quick scan of the hall revealed the shadow had moved up to a hospital room five doors down. Nathan glanced back the other way. The exit was too far to sprint to if they wanted to go unseen. Their best option was the door across the hall—the hospital’s chapel. He tightened his grip on Constance and then pulled her across the hall.
Inside, the chapel was small, and on the wall hung a stained-glass panel featuring a cross and a dove. At one end, there was a very simple altar made up of a wooden table and a cross, and around it were three rows of folding chairs.
He pulled the door nearly shut behind them, leaving it open just enough that he could see the hallway. Constance squeezed Nathan’s hand, and he could feel her fear. He wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but he didn’t know that for sure. He heard the figure coming closer. Nathan dropped Constance’s hand and drew his weapon, aiming it at the floor. She pressed herself against his back, and he could feel her breathing, sharp and rapid. He put his arm out to reassure her, and that’s when he saw she had a water gun in her hands. Where did she get that? And how would it help them? It was plastic, see-through, neon pink. No one would ever think it was a real gun. Did she think it would protect them? Then again, maybe she wasn’t thinking straight after her seizure.
He put both hands on the handle of his gun and leaned a bit farther away from her, keeping his eyes focused on the doorway and Constance’s room.
The shadow moved across his field of vision, just like he thought it would, and headed straight for Constance’s room. Now was Nathan’s chance to get a good look at the man, to see if it was Yaman. But what he saw made no sense. It wasn’t a man at all. And it wasn’t a dog, either. It was something else. Something Nathan had never seen before.
Big, black, and furry, it was the size of a small pony. It had four legs, Nathan could clearly see, but where its head should be, instead of one, there were three. Nathan blinked and looked again, because surely he was hallucinating. But no, it was a three-headed dog. A massive, giant, three-headed dog, with three sets of sharp fangs and red eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. One of the heads sniffed the air and turned, as if able to smell Nathan’s fear. It swiveled toward him and met his eyes, even as Nathan, temporarily frozen with shock, willed himself to do something. The head growled and Nathan, acting on instinct, shut the chapel door quickly and locked it, ushering Constance against the back wall. He raised his gun so it was aimed at the door. Whatever he just saw, if it came in here, he would blow it back to hell.
“What the hell was that?” she whispered.
“Hell if I know,” Nathan said, pointing the gun at the door, his finger on the trigger, nervous sweat rolling down the middle of his back. Of all the things he’d ever seen as a police officer, this was definitely the strangest, and it scared the hell out of him. He flashed back to Yaman taking two bullets without flinching and wondered just what he was dealing with here.
Outside the door came an unearthly-sounding howl, and behind him Constance gasped and squeezed his arm. After a long pause, the dog—if that’s what it was—hit the door hard, and it shook with the impact but didn’t come open. Constance stiffened behind him, but Nathan kept his gun steady. He only hoped whatever that thing was, it wasn’t bulletproof.
The door rattled twice more, and then there was silence.
“Is it gone?” Constance asked, her voice shaky.
“I don’t know,” Nathan said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out, but he couldn’t very well just stand around and hope for the best, either. He glanced behind them and saw there were two small windows left on the altar and they looked out onto the parking lot. He could see his sheriff’s truck sitting there, just ten feet away. The chapel windows were already open. All he had to do was push the screens through and climb out.
The dog rattled the door again, causing Constance to yelp. This time, the dog cracked the wood in the door. It wouldn’t be long before the door came off the hinges entirely.
