Chapter Forty-Three
Police, don’t move,” I said, and I sounded like Detective Zaniel Havelock—Hank and his flirting and ring searching were gone. But for the first time since I’d become a cop, I was also Zaniel the Angelus Dictum , and Angelus Lucis . I was a light against the darkness, but this time I had a gun.
“Wait, we know that voice,” Cookson said. He started to look back.
“Hands on your head, lace your fingers together.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I will shoot you in the head if you move. You won’t survive that.”
The demon laughed, the sound of it echoing so that the hair on my arms rose in goose bumps from the sound. “I won’t die.”
“Mark Cookson’s body will, and that sends you back to Hell,” I said.
The demon laughed again. “You still don’t understand what we are, do you?”
“I know you’re a demon and he’s a college student who thought you’d give him his heart’s desire for the use of his body.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong as far as that goes,” Cookson said.
“Demon, what do you mean, demon? What are you talking about?” the boyfriend asked.
Shelby was pulling him farther away from Cookson.
She looked frightened. I don’t know what Cookson’s face looked like because all I could see was the back of his head, but she was seeing something that made her want them both out of his reach.
I approved, one less thing to worry about. Where was my backup?
“Lace your fingers on top of your head, now,” I said.
“And if I don’t, are you really going to shoot me in the head for just standing here with my hands raised?
Will you honestly shoot me, kill me, just because I won’t follow every order to the letter?
You’re a good man, Detective. Good men don’t shoot unarmed civilians in the head when their arms are raised in the air. ”
“I will not let you hurt anyone else,” I said, holding the Sig Sauer P238 in a steady one-handed grip aimed at the back of his head. The gun was so small in my hand that a standard two-handed grip was awkward.
“A bad cop that doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in jail doesn’t shoot unarmed civilians, even murderers, when he’s on security camera,” Cookson said.
I glanced up and there it was: a camera angled exactly right to see me shoot someone that looked human. If I shot him before he did something threatening, and he died, losing my career was the least of my worries.
“I can smell your hesitation, Detective—Havoc, wasn’t that what they called you at the hospital?”
I ignored him and said, “Shelby, take your boyfriend and stay as far across the room from us as you can; do not let him grab you, but go out the front door. There should be uniformed cops out there in a marked car.”
“I won’t let them leave,” Cookson said with his hands raised at the elbow as if he were doing the minimum to look cooperative.
Most security cameras didn’t have sound, or not good sound, so his hands up were clearly visible; me yelling for him to lace his fingers might not be clear in the video.
It would look like I shot him after he gave up.
Heaven help me, but I needed him to look dangerous on the security tape before I fired.
“I won’t let you hurt them,” I said. I nodded at Shelby and she took her boyfriend as far from us as the glass jewelry cases on the other side would allow.
“Unless you have a major holy relic on you, Detective Havoc, you can’t stop me.”
“A holy object will be enough,” I said, still staring at the back of his well-cut hair. My gun was still pointed, one-handed and steady.
Shelby and her beau were moving slowly along the far display cases toward the door.
“I’m not a vampire, Detective; you can’t chase me away with crosses.”
“Not that kind of holy object,” I said.
“Ankh, pentagram, Star of David, throw the Qur’an at me, it’s all the same and all just as useless against me now.”
I thought about what he’d said, against him now. What did he mean by that?
“Don’t lose your nerve, Shelby,” Cookson said.
My gaze flicked to them but didn’t actually look away from the man I was aiming at, so it was hard for me to judge what he was talking to her about.
“If you run for the door, I will stop you,” Cookson said.
“Just move slow,” I said, “don’t run. Demons are like big cats, you run, and they will chase you.”
“He doesn’t look like a demon,” she said, but her voice was strained thin. Cookson was right, her nerve was failing; she was going to make a break for the door soon unless she regained control of herself.
“He’s possessed Mark Cookson’s body,” I said.
“It was a fixer-upper,” Cookson said, “but I’ve done wonders with it, don’t you think, Shelby?”
“Ye . . . yes,” she almost stuttered.
“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” I asked.
“Jeff, my name’s Jeff.”
“Keep her calm, Jeff, go slow for the door.”
“I won’t let them leave, Detective, you know that.”
“How are you going to stop us?” Jeff asked.
“I’m going to kill you, Jeff. I’m going to kill you both.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I said.
“How will you protect them from me after you’re dead?”
“You won’t kill me,” I said.
“Oh, I think I will.”
“I know you won’t,” I said.
“Cocky, I like that in a victim. It’s always the confident ones that beg the most at the end.”
I was fighting so my hand didn’t start to shake with the gun held out and aimed.
I was either going to have to lower it, change hands, or change to a two-handed grip.
I’d wanted to keep one hand free just in case, because I’d shot him in the hospital and hadn’t killed him; of course I hadn’t tried shooting him in the head point-blank, but guns were never the first choice for demon fighting.
Cookson looked completely human now; I was hoping that meant his body was more bullet friendly, but I’d have to shoot him to find out.
“They are too close to the door, Detective. I will not allow them to leave.”
“Are you sure that Mark Cookson’s head is bulletproof?”
“Yes,” he said.
“A hundred percent bulletproof, you’re absolutely sure of that?”
“Yes.” But he sounded a little less certain.
“Because if he dies then you go back to Hell.”
“He’ll go with me.”
“He’ll probably go to Hell, but he won’t be in the same section as a demon that disobeyed the laws of Hell,” I said.
“I have acted within the parameters of the clauses in the treaty that pertain to my kind.”
“You mean the treaty between Heaven and Hell?” I asked.
“What other treaty is there for my kind?”
I couldn’t argue that, so I said, “A little angel told me that you’ve been doing things that aren’t allowed.”
“Heaven is always pissy, but no one in Hell is upset with me, and since that is where I will eventually be cast back into, that is all that matters to me. Heaven can go fuck itself, for I will never see inside its pearly gates.”
I couldn’t argue that with him, so I didn’t try.
“Shelby, don’t!” Jeff yelled.
The demon turned in a blur of speed that no human could match.
I pulled the trigger and he’d been so busy turning, he hadn’t tried to dodge the bullet.
The bullet hit his shoulder, turning him; he reacted like a human being that had never been shot before, hesitating to act, so that I had time to aim at the back of his head and pull the trigger again.
He collapsed face forward to the floor. He didn’t try to catch himself.
He just fell. I kept the gun pointed at the body just in case he hopped up and went Just fooling!
But as the seconds ticked by, I began to breathe again.
Maybe Cookson and his demon weren’t faster than a speeding bullet after all.
Shelby was screaming, and there were men shouting that I could barely hear through the ringing in my ears from shooting the gun without ear protection inside.
I moved so my back was to the display cases and I could see the body on the ground and the uniformed officers coming through the door.
My backup was here, not exactly in the nick of time, but I’d take it.
I raised my shirt to flash my badge and I identified myself as the detective they were supposed to be backing up.