Blood of the Demon

Chapter 33

I started toward the door, but Ryan grabbed my arm to stop me. “Wait,” he said. I looked back at him, a little surprised by the force in his grip. It wasn’t painful, but it was solid, and it was pretty damn obvious that he wasn’t going to let me go until he could say whatever he needed to say.

“Don’t put me through thinking you’re dead again,” he said, voice low and just as strong as the grip on my arm.

I almost came back with something flippant—a smartass remark to lighten the mood—but the look in his eyes stilled that line of thought. I suddenly realized how terrible the aftermath of my death must have been for him. He’d seen me eviscerated, my chest and stomach sliced open by the claws of a demon. He’d watched me bleed out onto the white tile floor, and there’d been no reason to believe that he would ever see me alive again. And for nearly two weeks he had lived with the knowledge that I was dead.

I could see the naked emotion in his face. For this one instant he’d dropped his careful guard, letting me see that he couldn’t lose me again, that he wouldn’t be able to survive it a second time.

But as a friend losing a friend or as something more? I wished I could tell.

“I won’t,” I replied quietly. “I promise.”

The tension in his eyes eased, even though we both knew that there was no way to ensure that such a promise would be kept. But I knew that it was more than that. He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t make the self-sacrifice that I’d been willing to make before.

I put my hand over his and squeezed briefly. “This bitch is going down. That I can promise.”

He smiled, but I could see the flicker of unease in it. He knew I hadn’t given him the promise he wanted, but at the same time he knew that it wasn’t a promise I could give. Rachel wasn’t as big a baddie as a demonic lord under the control of the Symbol Man, but I still had to stop her.

But he didn’t say anything, just released my arm. There was an insane part of me that wanted to grab him and hold him and tell him what he wanted to hear, but there was no time and I had no idea what could be said.

We ran up to the front door together. I flashed my badge at the surprised receptionist without stopping or breaking stride, then bypassed the elevator for the stairs. I wanted to take the stairs two at a time, but I really wasn’t in the best shape for advanced stair-running, plus my legs were a bit too short to make that anything other than agonizing. Luckily, my aunt was only on the third floor, so I didn’t lose too much time. Ryan, the bastard, did take them two at a time, and then gave me what was clearly a smug grin when he reached the landing several seconds before I did.

I would have said something obnoxious to him, but getting oxygen to my tortured lungs seemed a bit more important. I merely scowled and gasped for breath as I kept moving down the hall to my aunt’s room.

Not that the running made any difference. I rounded the corner and careened into the open door of her room in classic cartoon fashion, complete with the screeching of my shoes on the tile. I expected to see some sort of dramatic tableau, with the role of the homicidal maniac being played by Rachel and the helpless hostage played by my comatose aunt.

Instead, I burst into the room to see Carl sitting by my aunt’s bedside, quietly reading to her. He stopped midsentence and lifted his head to look at me, the barest trace of puzzlement crossing his features. I quickly scanned the rest of the room to make sure that Rachel wasn’t hiding behind the door or anything else, but the curtains on all of the partitions had been pulled back, and I could see that the only people in the room were Carl, my aunt, and three definitely comatose patients.

“Busy room today,” he said, setting the book down. “Is something wrong?”

Busy? “Who else has been in here?” I demanded, still panting. Damn, but I needed to get in better shape. “Has Rachel Roth been here?”

His brows drew together. “Yes. About ten minutes ago. Very strange.”

“What was strange?” Ryan asked. He wasn’t out of breath at all. I hated him.

Carl tilted his head. “She ran in here, much like you two, and seemed very surprised to see me. Then she told me that she was here to take Tessa downstairs for some tests. I asked her what tests, and she became very angry, then came up to me and grabbed my forearm.” All of this was delivered in a calm, even recitation. “I had no idea what she was doing, but after a few seconds she let go, looking very puzzled and upset. Then she said, ‘Forget it. I can go straight to the source.’” His thin shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“You didn’t think to call the police or anything?” I demanded.

Carl lifted an eyebrow half a millimeter. “For what?”

He had a point. How was he to know that Rachel was a soul-sucking homicidal maniac? “She … couldn’t kill you,” I said, processing everything he’d said. “Must be something about how wards don’t affect you.”

Carl just shrugged again. “Well, she lit out of here. Would have been about ten minutes ago.”

“The source?” Ryan murmured.

I let out a curse. “The portal. She’s on her way to Tessa’s house.”

“Whatever that psycho pixie did to her before, she wants more,” Ryan said, voice near a growl.

Shit. She could kill with a touch now. I didn’t want to think about how much more powerful she could get. I whirled to leave, then looked back at Carl and stabbed a finger toward Tessa. “Protect her!”

He nodded gravely. “Absolutely.”

A blue Honda Civic was parked unevenly in Tessa’s drive way when we pulled up, and I briefly wondered if Rachel had killed to get the car. On the way over, I’d called dispatch to modify the bolo on Rachel to warn officers off from attempting to apprehend her. I absolutely did not want anyone laying hands on her to try to arrest her.

Ryan and I approached the house, guns out and at the ready. The window beside the front door was shattered, and the door was wide open. Obviously the aversion wards didn’t have much effect on someone who was seriously determined to get in. I hope the wards on the portal will be strong enough to keep her from getting another pixie-thing out.

We made entry, one behind the other, covering the hallway and listening for any sounds. I motioned to the library and Ryan nodded. We could both hear movement within. Please let those wards hold!

I did a quick peek around the doorway, just enough to see Rachel standing in front of the portal, her back to us. The wards on the portal were still intact, to my intense relief.

“Don’t move!” I commanded, covering her with my Glock. “Keep your hands where I can see them!” I stepped fully into the library, giving Ryan room to enter as well.

Rachel stiffened, but she kept her arms down by her sides. “You could tell, couldn’t you?” Tension coiled in her voice, and her hands clutched into fists.

“Yes. I could feel it. I could feel what you did.” I kept my gun steady on her, though my voice wasn’t as stable. The memory of the gaping emptiness still left my stomach roiling. “You consumed their essence when you killed all those people.”

“I didn’t want to. I swear! I never wanted it to go so far.” Her voice shook. “But I can’t … can’t stop. I mean, I can. I know I can. I just …” She trailed off, and I could see a shudder run through her.

Like she’s jonesing for a fix. Shit. “How are you doing it?” I asked. I knew it was an innate ability—Rhyzkahl had revealed that much, though the thought that summoning demons and destroying essence might have similar roots was disturbing to me. But right now I was more interested in stalling until I could figure out what to do.

She let out a shaking laugh. “It used to be a little thing I could do. My grandfather died when I was five years old. They brought all of us kids into the room right after he’d drawn his last breath. Horrible to inflict that sort of experience on a kid that young anyway, but for me it was … providence.”

“Because his essence had just been freed,” I said.

I could hear her swallow. “Clinging by a thread to the empty shell. I could see it and feel it, and it felt so damn good. And when I threw myself at the essence, everyone thought I was throwing myself on his body in grief. By the time they lifted me off him, I’d pulled that essence into me.” She turned her head to look at me, eyes haunted and dark. “You always remember your first time, right?”

“I’ve never consumed anyone’s essence,” I retorted. “I wouldn’t know.”

A tremulous smile crossed her face. “It was marvelous. Made me feel so good. I never forgot that feeling. When I got older, I did a lot of volunteer work in hospitals. But I never killed anyone. I always waited … until after it was over.” She paused. “Then I got sick. Breast cancer. I was so scared and desperate, and I was seeing a client at a nursing home …”

“Why bother waiting for them to die, right?” I said.

“He was going to die anyway!” she snarled, but I could see the fear and guilt in her eyes. “It was simple enough to give him a fatal overdose of his heart medicine. And I got better. I … I figured it was like an organ donation. He died just a bit early, and my cancer was gone.”

“But you kept doing pro bono work there,” I countered. That’s it, keep talking. I knew from experience that most people wanted to confess, wanted to tell someone, anyone, what they’d done. I was more than happy to oblige her. Maybe it would give me enough time to figure out a plan. “How many others have died before their time?”

“Only a few.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Only … when I couldn’t bear the hunger anymore.”

“But then you killed Brian,” Ryan said, voice a growl.

She straightened her shoulders and shifted slowly to face us, keeping her hands where we could see them and her eyes on our guns. “Yes, but only because my dear departed husband was a fucking moron and a philandering asshole.” The steel was back in her voice. This wasn’t the addict speaking now. This was the scorned and vengeful wife. “I was willing to tolerate his indiscretions to a point, because being married to a judge was good for my career. But then he got stupid and killed Carol. He was screwing his daughter-in-law.” Her voice dripped with disgust, and I had a hard time not sharing her sentiment toward Harris Roth. “Then he called Davis in a panic—”

“But you were with Davis, having a little revenge affair of your own,” Ryan said.

“It was only fair,” she said, shrugging. “But Davis turned out to be a pathetic whiner. Threatened to go to the police. Moron.”

“But he’d told his wife everything,” I pointed out.

“Another moron,” she said with a derisive sneer. “You know what she wanted from me? She wanted to come back to Beaulac as if nothing had happened. Wanted me to make sure she’d still be ‘accepted.’ Useless bitch. She could have taken me down with one phone call, but she didn’t have the balls.”

I swallowed back a knot of anger. “But why kill Brian?” I demanded. “He never hurt anyone. You couldn’t figure out some other way to cover up Carol’s death?”

Rachel’s lip curled. “I wanted Harris to suffer. I knew that would kill him.” Then her expression shifted to a sad and haunted smile. “Besides, Brian wouldn’t have wanted to live anyway if he’d found out what they’d done.”

“You have a healthy dose of crazy going on in there, lady,” Ryan said.

The look she shot him was pure and glittering hate. “I’m not crazy. I did what I had to do. But …” She took a deep breath as if to steady herself. “But I didn’t realize how much better it was to be right there at the very instant the essence was released, especially when it was … violent. None of it escaped me. I could take nearly all of it. God almighty, but it felt so good.” Her eyes closed in remembered bliss. “I was so strong, felt so perfect. Then when Davis told me he was going to the police—”

“You took care of him too,” I finished for her. “As well as the Galloways, when they were stupid enough to try to blackmail your husband.”

She gave a small shrug. “That was pretty stupid of them.”

“And Ron Burnside,” Ryan said quietly, “the public defender who was going to run against Harris Roth. Did you take care of him too?”

Another shrug. “People die after surgery all the time. Such a tragedy.” But I could see the satisfaction in her eyes.

My thoughts whirled in barely ordered chaos. How are we going to stop her? Is there some way to reverse it? Strip her of the ability? We can’t exactly stick her in handcuffs and put her in jail.

“Why did you come here?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but at this point I needed to get some hint or clue of what to do.

She shifted her gaze to me. “Your aunt. There was nothing there, but she was still alive. I knew she’d been injured during the incident with the Symbol Man, so I decided to find out what was so special about her.” She tilted her head. “I drove past this house every day for two weeks, never quite able to get my nerve up to try to get in and look around.”

The aversions and protections at work, I thought. The good ones.

“And then one day I just … felt like trying.”

Yeah, that would have been when I had the damn things taken down. Idiot.

“Breaking in was fairly simple, especially since there was already a broken window in the back. I came in here and … there was something—a little Tinker Bell thing. It attacked me and stung me, but then I grabbed it.” She shook her head. “I don’t really remember what happened, but … God almighty, it was like consuming a dozen lives at once. I think I passed out … but when I came to, I was different. Stronger.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Hungrier.” A shudder racked her, and I could see a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I don’t want to have to kill anyone else. I swear. But I don’t know how much longer I can control this.” She flicked a glance at the warded portal. “It came out of that corner. I remember that. I figure if I can find another one of those things, then that could hold me for a while. Maybe I could just feed on those and not have to kill anyone else. But nothing’s coming out.” The look she gave me was one of desperate pleading. “You have to help me get another one of those things out. Please!”

I shook my head slowly. “Rachel, I can’t do that. It would only make things worse. I’m sorry.”

Her hands shook as she clenched and unclenched them. “No, you’re not sorry. You want me to starve to death.”

Would that work? Could she be weaned from this sort of addiction? “Let me figure out another way to help you.”

“No! I don’t have time for you to figure something out!” She licked dry lips. “If you won’t help me, then I’ll have to … to do something else. What? You think you can stop me?” She gave a laugh tinged with hysteria. “You can’t shoot me.”

“And what makes you say that?” Ryan asked calmly.

“You would shoot the poor distraught wife of a recently deceased judge, who came to see you only to find out more about her husband’s crimes?” Her eyes glittered. “You don’t have any proof that I killed anyone!” She took a step toward us.

“I don’t fucking care,” I snarled. “Take another step and I will shoot you.” Better to risk losing my career than let her touch me.

She hesitated a second, breathing harshly, then shrugged. “Well, let’s see how that goes then, shall we?” she said cryptically. I was still trying to figure out what she meant when she leaped toward us, hands outstretched.

I fired at the same time that Ryan did, my finger tightening spasmodically on the trigger. Spots of blood bloomed on the front of her shirt, but unlike in the movies, the shots didn’t throw her dramatically across the room. Rachel stumbled forward as Ryan backed to the wall, and she grabbed his gun hand even as he pumped another round into her chest.

Ryan screamed—a sound I hoped to never hear again.

“Shoot me again and he dies!” Rachel rasped, clutching at Ryan’s hand as he dropped his gun and went to his knees, his eyes wide and agony spasming across his face.

“No! Stop!” I shouted, fear for Ryan slamming through me. “Don’t pull any more from him! I’ll help you, I swear.”

Her breath came raggedly, and she seized his hair with her other hand. “Drop your gun!” she ordered. Blood pumped from several places in her torso, but even as I watched I could see the blood flow slow and then—grotesquely—the holes close. Ryan shuddered, face graying, and I realized with horror that she’d pulled from him and somehow used his essence, his natural potency, to heal herself.

“Stop pulling from him!” I yelled again.

“Drop your gun,” she ordered, “or I’ll suck him dry!”

If I shoot her in the head, would that stop her? The thought flashed through my mind and I dismissed it just as quickly. I was several feet away from her, she was using Ryan as a shield, and while I was a decent enough marksman, I didn’t trust my skill enough to be certain I wouldn’t shoot Ryan in the head instead.

I slowly lowered the gun. “If you swear not to kill him or me, I’ll … open another portal so you can get more of those pixie-things.”

Her eyes narrowed in distrust. “How?”

“I have the ability to open a portal between this world and another. So did my aunt.”

Her lips pulled back from her teeth. “Then do it!”

“I can’t work with this one,” I lied. “I have to create a new one. Swear you won’t hurt either of us, and I’ll open another one, just for you.”

“He’s really strong,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. Her hand tightened on Ryan’s arm and he gasped in pain. She actually licked her lips. “Never tasted anything like him before.”

I could feel Ryan’s essence pulsing erratically. “I can’t open this portal,” I said quickly, “but I can create another one. Up in the attic. It would take me only a moment … and it’s much bigger and stronger.” I dropped my voice. “But, if you kill him, I swear to you that I will call powers that you cannot even begin to comprehend, and you will be well and truly fucked.”

Distrust, fear, and hunger flickered in her eyes, but she jerked her head in a nod. “Lead the way,” she snapped, pulling Ryan to his feet. His breath rasped harshly, and his face was ashen. But he met my eyes and gave me a faint shake of his head. He thought I was giving in to her. Or maybe he suspected what I was planning to do.

“Try anything stupid and your boyfriend’s a goner,” she reminded me unnecessarily.

“He’s not my damn boyfriend,” I muttered as I turned and started down the hall toward the staircase. She followed, leading Ryan with the grip on his arm and his hair. He looked like shit, but there was still a murderous look in his eyes.

I opened the door to the attic and flipped on the lights. It was cool, bordering on cold, thanks to the AC vent that I’d left open. But more important, I had a diagram already sketched out, and the storage diagram beside it still brimmed with the potency I’d been siphoning into it for the past day.

Rachel exhaled softly as she entered the attic. “This is like that thing downstairs? It doesn’t look the same at all.”

I stepped to the edge of the diagram and picked up a piece of chalk, then turned to look at her. “You’re right. But comparing the portal downstairs to this one is like comparing a toy car to a Ferrari. You’ll have access to much more power than you could ever get with the other.” Holy shit, I hope I don’t fuck this up. She had to be stopped, but I also wasn’t about to let her loose to rampage through the demon realm.

But I knew she could be destroyed. Rhyzkahl had told me that much. I just didn’t know how.

Her eyes nearly glowed with hunger as she looked upon the diagram.

“Kara … no, you can’t do this,” Ryan rasped, then he hissed in pain as Rachel squeezed her hand on his arm.

“Oh, yes, she can,” Rachel replied with a low laugh. “Yes, this will do very nicely. Go ahead, do whatever you need to.” She lifted her chin imperiously to me.

I will. “Stand back and don’t touch any part of the diagram,” I told her. “This will take a couple of minutes.”

“Just get it done.”

I didn’t look at Ryan again. I wasn’t sure if he knew exactly what I was planning to do, but I didn’t want to see his reaction when he figured it out. I quickly lit the candles, sketched the needed changes into the sigils, then positioned myself at the edge of the diagram so that Rachel and Ryan were to my right. I lifted my arms and began the low chant, weaving the power into the summoning and allowing myself a brief twinge of pride at my ability to manipulate the stored potency. The runes and wards flared to life as I quickly worked through the required forms. I was taking some shortcuts, but it wouldn’t matter with this summoning.

I knew I would be safe, especially with the offering I had ready.

The portal widened from a slit to a glowing vortex, and I could hear Rachel’s triumphant laugh. You won’t be laughing for long, bitch.

I spoke the demon’s name, and a heartbeat later the portal went dark, the candles blowing out from a nonexistent wind.

“What happened?” I heard Rachel complaining. “Is it open? Is it done?”

My heart thudded painfully in my chest. I could sense him in the circle. I could hear Ryan’s breath hissing through his teeth. He knew who I’d summoned. I lowered myself to one knee and bowed my head, clutching my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

Blue light flared. Rachel gasped, and I knew I had mere heartbeats before she figured out that I’d duped her.

“My lord Rhyzkahl,” I said, voice trembling despite my best effort to appear strong. “Save Ryan Kristoff and stop Rachel Roth, and I will serve you as your summoner.”