Chapter 35 #2
“You lie!” The force of the horde before me nearly overwhelmed me, and I took a step back, staggering.
In a split second, I realized my mistake.
With hasty words I had decoupled myself from divine power, putting myself out there without backup, without patronage.
I wasn’t strong enough to do this on my own—not solely on my own.
I did require something to stand with me and for me to punch these demons out of the humans they so obsessively held.
I was bold and I was prideful, and it was too much, too much! I was empty and alone, and I would pay.
But I couldn’t fail. That panic overrode all other.
That certainty was true and sure. Mordechai had warned me, over and over again, of the danger of letting a job go unfinished.
I could not fail, or these demons would never lose their hold on the Grahams, their disease would only strengthen, Sam eventually falling beneath it, the house, the Bells, the town.
Evil, once seeded, once challenged but not defeated, would ripple out like an infection, and it would never, ever be cured.
“Please!” I cried out across the vast emptiness that still filled me—knowing I deserved no help from Mordechai’s spirit or his cabal of chanting men, that I’d be granted no sanction from God or priest. I was doing this all wrong, but it still had to be done! “Please help me!”
A cold wash blew through me then, a howling wind, and I stiffened as I stepped closer to the shrinking humans and the screaming horde, unfamiliar words in a tongue I didn’t know, couldn’t speak but somehow understood, surging up my throat with a tone that was low and snide and…
Achingly familiar.
“She lies?” I challenged silkily, and the screaming stopped, never mind the goggling eyes of the Grahams, their working throats, the straining of their bodies.
Perhaps others could hear their howls of pain and horror, but I could not.
For me, there was only silence except my own fell words.
“She binds me, doesn’t she? And I have walked this earth since darkness fell.
You all have failed. You held domain here for what, seven years?
A kingdom could be gained in seven years.
A generation destroyed, yet you simply slept after you had bundled Sonillion away.
You didn’t break your humans’ minds, you lazy fucks. They broke you. Begone.”
They didn’t ask how, like Sam’s beast had.
They also didn’t wait for psalms or smoke or chanting exhortations.
Because, with this lie so carefully woven with an inspiration from God only knew where, I was done with props, I was done with them.
I lifted my hands and cold wind flowed through the house, blasting into the Grahams, pressing them back against their chairs—their hair lifting, their eyes rolling—
The creatures left through the least damaging way possible.
But of course, there was still damage.
The mother’s hand slapped against her ear, blood spurting forth.
I flinched back, but there was no stopping the blackness that poured out from Mrs. Graham.
Emily scrambled away, the fog of her inebriation the only thing that was keeping her in the room, I knew.
Not just inebriation, though. It had been a busy afternoon.
Max had done more than summon the holy family next door to ground this house, more than cover the chimney.
He’d visited his grandma and her morphine drip.
Emily wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Frank’s demon, Agramon, had more of a hold on him than his wife’s did. He thrust Judith away, as she bled and smoked, and whirled on me like a bear.
“You!” he roared.
I roared right back, and this time, it was my voice—only my voice. “You shot all your horses, Frank. You loved those horses, and you shot them. Their screams, their terrified screams when they saw what was in you, what you’d become. Do you still hear them now? Crying out in the night?”
“Stop it!”
“You stop it. Agramon isn’t that powerful a demon. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I saw something skitter behind his eyes, and I grinned. “That’s right, foul one. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Nooo,” Frank moaned, but I could feel the demon now inside him, twisting and chittering. Wanting to escape, even though Frank’s body was strong, his reach wide. It had been a good run, but it was time for it to end.
“Yes. Through the hand, I think. The nail.”
“Too small,” the beast whimpered, the sound like ripping claws through plaster.
“Cause as much pain as you like,” I shrugged. I heard a gasp behind me and shook my head, remembering I wasn’t alone here. “But if you do, you’ll pay for it. I’ll make sure you pay.”
Frank’s arm jerked as if it was going to come off, bending at an impossible angle.
“Don’t incapacitate him,” I barked, and it straightened then, even as it swelled, expanding beneath the sleeve of his shirt, the threads going tight at the seams. Frank’s lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes going wide, terrified, but the swollen mass kept moving down his arm, toward his wrist. When it reached his hand, he spasmed, fingers flailing wide.
“Out, out, out,” I urged. I could feel Emily behind me, struggling back toward awareness. I’d need more time with her, I knew. More time. “Come on.”
I waved my hand and only then took note of it.
My fingers were blistered, I realized. The lining of my palms had gone red and torn.
I frowned at the skin, the edges turning black even as Frank’s scream pulled my attention back to him.
Why was I still harmed by holy icons? What evil worked in me still?
“No!” He wailed as his finger split in front of me, the skin tearing away from the nail as a cold wash of sickness poured out onto the carpet, once again like smoke.
It spat and sizzled, and Frank shook his hand feebly, trying to get it all out, but only able to hold it out from his body, lank and broken.
“That was messily done,” I sneered, and the coldness rushed through me again, but there was nowhere for it to go but up the flue, nowhere to go but past the holy water-soaked cloth that Max had carefully laid over the chimney.
These possessor demons could not escape without the taint of blessed protection upon them.
The ritual was an ancient one, the rites mostly magic themselves.
But they would do the job. These dark spirits would be crippled for a few lifetimes, if they’d ever recover at all. Good.
Then I turned and looked at Emily, who scowled back at me.
“I know you,” she hissed. “I know what you did.”
“You think so?” But something within me twisted, just a hint—a shiver. Then the lightest touch on my soul withdrew like a whisper and was gone.
Emily didn’t get the memo, though. “Why do you come to torment your own?” She undulated toward me, not quite contained by her own skin. “You have no quarrel with any of us. So why?”
I felt my arms go loose, like a fighter’s might.
I sensed the age of the thing inside of her, remembering its name.
I didn’t know much about Naamah, the seducer.
There were so many demons of lust and avarice that it had been only a shot in the dark that had led me to that name.
But she’d responded to it. So, good enough.
Officer Hernandez still stood at the door, gun drawn and pointed away from her at the floor, but Claire was back, I realized dimly.
She’d come into the room to take the wailing Sam up in her arms. Steve held his glass up like a weapon, as if he could blind any demon that came his way—and maybe he could.
He’d been treated poorly by those assholes in the club, but he hadn’t been possessed.
What if that meant something? What if there was a whole lot left for me to learn about Steve—about everyone?
Max, for his part, had moved along the sides of the room until he’d reached his parents. They were blubbering, in tears, and I felt their weary moistness all the way across the room. I flicked an irritated glance his way and opened my mouth to speak.
Everyone but Emily shut up at whatever I said, as if fire had come out of my mouth, but I couldn’t really bother with that. Emily was circling closer, and she seemed too strong, despite the booze. Happy. Too happy? Doubt sliced through me, quick and cold.
But I didn’t have the luxury of doubt anymore.
Emily laughed, only it was a strange laugh, a double laugh, a triple. I looked at her harder and realized the problem. Not just Naamah was here. Not just Naamah. The things swirling around inside Emily were more than one creature, more even than two. “What have you done, Emily?” I whispered.
“She opened me up, you know,” Emily spat back. “I had no idea. The strength, the possibility.”
“The damage.” I was still reeling from Frank and Judith, but deep inside myself I sensed the wrongness of what was happening inside Emily. Another something skittered in her eyes, and I sharpened my gaze. Another one? “Ashtaroth.”
“We can do this all night.” Her voice now sounded like an unholy choir.
“You cannot defeat me, even if you have bound Palemerious. Not and have her live. Which isn’t exactly winning, is it?
Killing this broken creature to get us out?
Poorly done. Poorly done.” A roll of voices added to the first—how many demons were in her?
Just what had Carol Ann Graham done to her aunt who made her so jealous, all those long-ago years?
I smiled into their faces, reveling in their rage, their joy, and decided to lean into their misbegotten belief. It was the demons who believed, after all. So much more than humans. “It’s not only Palemerious working here. Remember that.”