Charm City (The Demon Whisperer Book 1) (15 page)

Simon rented a Honda at Logan International Airport and drove to a motel on the edge of Malden, about twenty minutes outside of Boston proper. Not like he planned it. He wasn't even really conscious about doing it. The roads just rolled their way beneath his wheels, the rotaries and the narrow streets that only a New Englander could love. (And, by
love
, he meant
navigate daily without resorting to vehicular homicide
.)

The motel was a two-storied stretch of rooms with a triangle-shaped parking lot that made no fricken sense at all. At least Chiara didn't comment on the chain-link fence that ran around the back of the property. Keeping someone out or something in? He had the same doubts.

They both just sort of squinted out the window at it a while before shrugging and getting out. Good a place as any. Wasn't like they would be here forever. 

He read a handful of online reviews while they waited for the desk clerk to get off the phone. Non-smoking rooms, huh?  He'd see about that.

Last room on the top floor. As private as it got. At least the foot traffic would be minimal. He ground out his smoke on the cement floor outside the door before he unlocked it, sweeping his hand with a gentleman's bow. "Your suite awaits, milady."

"Of course, it does," she said, her voice echoing from within. Odd. Commercial carpeting and ugly bedspreads in cheap motel rooms didn't usually lend itself to echoes. He peered around the doorway.

Her usual palace. Cruddy couch included.

Told you so
was all she'd said. He smirked right back at her. See? Non-smoking room, his ass.

"Well, what's the plan?" He slouched on her sofa, blowing a smoke ring, wondering what the neighbors would be able to hear through the walls.

"I don't know. I guess I just want to see the area. I want to see all the good and beautiful things there are to see." She clasped her hands against her chest, spinning to face him. "You grew up here, didn't you? Give me a tour. Tomorrow is soon enough for everything to go to Hell."

"True enough." His gaze turned vague as he stared at the fire. "Although Hell usually isn't considerate enough to wait."

He intended to take her into Boston for a full-on Liberty Trail tour, men named Ebenezer wearing knicker pants and tricorn hats.  Baked beans and Irish pubs and cannoli up in Little Italy. Maybe a harbor or two. The whole nine.

But not Salem. He was immovable on that particular point.

It should have been a straight shot down Broadway but he took the back way to town. Old habits. The back way turned out-of-the-way and the next he knew he was driving down the block upon which St. Berenice stood, the stone fortress of Twelve Steps and Plastic Cutlery. Simon slowed down and slouched in his seat as they passed, trying unsuccessfully not to look at the building.

"You should just pull into the lot," Chiara said. "I know you want to."

Grumbling, he did so, parking close enough to the front door that he heard it slam when someone came out. Sounded different from here on the outside. He glanced up at the windows, wondering if he'd see any of the prisoners. Knowing the building wasn't the prison that held them.

"You've stayed here, haven't you?" Her voice broke his reverie.

"More than once. The first time, it was involuntary. This place used to be a psychiatric hospital. I got to stay in the lock-down wing around back." He waggled his eyebrows. "Criminally insane, so they thought."

"That's awful."

"It was what it was. That mug shot you liked so much? Followed by a stint here at the nut house. Nobody knew demons existed, much less how to summon them. Of course, I was the crazy one. No one believed Hell was actually real. The arcane, the occult...movie shit, nothing more."

"Sanitariums are terrible places," she said. Her expression clouded over like a sudden gust of storm, brooding and ominous. "Those poor wretched people, barely covered in rags, left to starve, preyed upon for the sake of medical advancement. Lobotomies. Relief from their demons, they called it."

She cast a scalding glare at the front door, as if this place were to blame for old injustices. "All a lobotomy ever did was cut off the part of the brain that let me communicate with the demon inside, that human connection that enabled it to listen to me. Lobotomies. A life sentence of possession, that's what they are. Those poor souls were damned once they tapped the spikes into their brain. The demon was contained, but only temporarily. Once the host rotted, the demon would vape out to find another open soul. And the sanitariums were full of them."

"Well." Simon shrugged. He eyed her suspiciously. "This place actually wasn't all that bad. What the hell kind of place were you at?"

"Well, it was a while ago." Her gaze drifted as she tried to think back. "What year is it now?"

"Not going to ask, not going to ask, definitely no way I'm going to ask." He shook his head. She'd dropped enough hints that she'd lived anything but an average mortal lifetime. "I mean, they hardly do lobotomies anymore, and even then most of those are accidental. Anyway, I think the term
sanitarium
has gone largely out of fashion."

He tapped a cig out of his pack but didn't light it. "Nowadays if you have a demon causing you trouble, they send you to rehab. Unfortunately, I've seen the whole twelve steps list and none of them directly address exorcism. Bah. Useless. They do have spa days, though, cucumber masks and hot stone massage and organic buffets. And Xanax. The Xanax is always good."

"Do you think you'll ever have to come back here?"

Will I ever come back here? Depends on what "here" is
. He looked hard at the portico, squinting. "Probably."

"Really?" She sounded disappointed. "Do you want to?"

"Maybe." He rubbed his tattoo, an itch too deep to scratch. There was one "here" he'd never be able to leave, not entirely. "Maybe once they get a program that can actually help."

But, deep down, he knew. No program, no infinite number of steps could ever solve his problem.

All the magic in the work couldn't solve that problem.

Not when magic was the problem.

"Yeah, well. Anyway." Enough was enough. Looking at the windows he used to look out of really didn't do much for his perspective. As long as there was magic, he'd be its slave. End of story. He stretched his arm behind her seat so he could back out. "Idle hands are the devil's playthings. And I don't share my toys. "

They passed the afternoon touring colonial historical sites. Lexington and Concord afforded some distraction without the headache of Boston traffic. As they headed back on the Concord turnpike, she chatted about colonial Boston and Paul Revere and something that sounded more like gossip than historical fact. She was showing her age again.

He gave her the royal treatment and treated her to a frappe on the way back. That was when she really blew his mind. Kid acted like she'd been around forever but she never drank coffee over ice cream? He didn't know if it was the caffeine or the sugar that did it. She seemed so excited, so human. So much like a girl.

And that was how he wanted to think of her: just a moment in the now.

Not as the conglomeration of divinities, the child of an Enochian who banished demons with hell fire and blessed the damned with holy chrism. Not as the thinnest sliver of a mortal who was spliced between the Light and the Dark. Not as the woman who travelled through hell gates.

A last glance at the girl who, for the moment, was simply just a girl. Then he turned off the pike, heading to Belmont. It was time.

He couldn't put it off any longer. This road—hell, all roads—led to only one place: his old neighborhood.

He drove stoically, refusing to really see what was outside the window. He paused at a stop sign, waiting, waiting, waiting. For what? What could change? Nothing ever changed. No matter how many times he went back nothing ever changed.

He hit the gas. Couldn't spend a lifetime at a stop sign.

Halfway down the street, he passed an outdated white house, plain plastered, old shingles. Didn't even have to look at it to know it was there. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white.

Chiara tapped on the window. "Wow. That one is stuck in a time-warp, isn't it? Such a picture-perfect neighborhood, then there's that thing."

"Just like life, huh?" The words slid out on edge, sharper than he meant them to be. "Outside is perfection but there's always a flaw somewhere. Always some blight keeping it from being perfect."

He drove to the end of the block and shifted the car into park. A broad field in need of a good mowing. An empty playground. Swings that rocked with the occasional breeze. Abandoned, desolate, void of the sound of happy children.

Alright, well, it was a school day. But still. Even the dog park was empty.

"This is it. This is where...Sarah was taken." He couldn't make his voice obey. No matter how he tried to sound strong, he could never get her name out without feeling like he had a fist around his throat. "It looks the same. How can it look the same? It's been a lifetime—"

Chiara got out of the car and came around to his side, tapping on the window. "Come on. You didn't come all this way to sit in the car."

He took as deep a breath as he could. Tough thing when the sight of a merry-go-round was enough to make a grown man choke on a sob.

He bit his lips and got out of the car. She linked her arm in his as they walked into the park. He knew she wasn't being cute. She was keeping him from turning tail and running. Concentrating on his feet, he counted the steps. Each one was a miracle.

"Where did it take Sarah?" Her voice was soft.

He pointed without looking up. "There. The merry-go-round. I used to push her round, you know. I can still hear her laughter."

He shrugged away from her and rubbed his head. Her laughter. It echoed through his head, innocent. Menacing. Accusing him. "God, it won't stop."

Chiara grabbed his arms. "Simon. Look at me."

"Make it stop." He whimpered, pouring everything he had into his eyes so she would see it, so she'd believe him, help him. "I just want her back."

"Simon..."

"Give her back!" Grief made his voice ragged and raw. He screamed up at the sky, the universe, the whole bloody lot of Creation, just needing the right one to hear him. "Give her back to me, you bastard!"

She shook him, hard. "Focus on me, Simon. Focus! You have to draw a salt circle, right on the spot where the portal was. Do you remember?"

Did he remember? The laughter in his head snapped off like a switch. His vision cleared. His voice became like a stone dropped into a well. "I'll never forget."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag full of salt. Biting off the corner, he poured it out in a stream, concentrating, murmuring, drawing out a circle.

Chiara walked around it, leaning over to inspect it. She nodded her approval. "Good. Now, I need a spell. Do you know how to open Solomon's Staircase?"

Simon crumpled the empty bag and stuffed it into his pocket. "Oh, you've got to be fricken kidding. A Solomon's Staircase on a salt circle? Do you have any idea…"

His mouth snapped shut while he mentally completed the magical calculations. "You do. You want me to do the one thing that can't be done."

"Why can't it be done?"

"It's a hell gate. You want a mortal man to open a hell gate."

Her gaze shifted. "Not entirely."

"A staircase into Hell."

"Yes..."

"Hell gate."

"No, not the same. Hell builds hell gates. They're trying to get out. To create chaos. Unbalance. That's not what this is. We are fixing a wrong."

"You're rationalizing."

"Can you do it or do I need to find someone else?"

He scratched the side of his head. It was pointless to argue with the kid when she was set on something. There had to be limits, though, right? Just because a girl has an idea in her head doesn't make it a good idea. "You do realize that it's a two-way portal?"

She tucked a loose strand behind her ear. "That's the point."

"Why, though?"

"Because I'd like to be able to get out again." Her lips stretched with lukewarm humor.

His heart leapt like it was kick started and banged in his chest, cold adrenaline washing down his legs. "Oh, no, no, no. You are not going down there. That's a death wish."

Chiara rubbed her hands together and looked away. "I'm fairly sure it isn't."

"I can't just go marching down there and expect to skip on back out." Simon started to pace, careful not to step in the salt. "I may be, ah, detained."

She raised an eyebrow in question.

He shrugged. "I put a few of those folks down there."

"And that is precisely why you're not going with me."

Simon grasped her arms and pulled her up to his face. His voice was ragged and weary, lacking all of the iron in his eyes, his set jaw. "I can't let you go alone."

"But you must." She gently extricated herself from his grasp. "Look."

Chiara ran her hands over his chest, smoothing his rumpled shirt before tugging down his collar. Reaching into his shirt, she tugged out the chain. His amulet dangled from the end, winking in the sunlight. "I'll wear this, see? You can cast an
Extemporanivis
spell on this and monitor me."

His tongue felt thick and dry. His amulet. She wanted to take his essence into Hell with her. "And turning that thing into a GoPro is going to make everything all better?"

"As good as I can make it."

His indignation crumpled. That soft voice. So unlike the voice she used when he'd first met. "Why? Just—why this?"

"Because I don't have anything else to offer you, Simon. And I want to make you better. You deserve to feel better."

His gaze never leaving hers, he pulled the chain over his head, feeling the weight of the amulet in his palm. He'd never taken this off, not once, since it had been blooded. It was a part of him. It was his protection, his armor. "You can't go running into Hell and back for the sake of a guy's feelings."

"You're not just any guy. I need you."

Well. He rubbed his lips with the side of his finger, weighing the words. He'd heard them before, countless times from the most random of people. Something about the look in her eyes, the timbre of her voice, the
feel
of her. It all added substance to the words that had fallen so easily yet shallowly from the mouths of others.

Wordlessly, he looped the chain over her head, tugging her hair over it, smoothing it back. If he couldn't go along, he'd send the best part of him with her. There was no one else he could imagine wearing it. "I would protect you with my life, kid. I guess this little piece of me will have to do."

She positioned the pendant so it lay flat below the hollow of her throat. It glowed with fierce swirls, the magic turbulent within, protesting. He simply lay a finger upon it and pressed it against her skin. The glow settled, acclimating to their common touch.

"Now." She scrutinized him with an up and down look. "It would have been easier if you'd worn a tie. I think my scarf will make a nice receiver."

Simon's shoulders crumpled like a sullen teenager and his eyes slid sideways. "It'll look stupid."

"Good thing no one is watching. Now, get chanting."

Chanting, he could do. Simon charmed the necklace with a wave of his fingers and a few words in Macedonian while Chiara tugged the scarf out of her hair. He scowled, but charmed the polka-dotted strip of silk when she held it up.

Chiara licked her lips. "Now, the staircase, if you don't mind."

What could he do? His hands were tied. As much as he hated—really hated—the idea of her descending, he knew he didn't want to stop her. It had been years since he'd known the taste of hope. It was nearly a dead memory but when he looked at her, straight in the eyes, he saw a light there that could only be described as hope. Normal people didn't have that special light in their eyes. She had to be different. She had to be the one to change this path he was on.

So what else to do but cast the Staircase? If anything went wrong, he swore he'd go right down after her. It was his fate to suffer. Not hers.

Even if things went her way, he'd still be the man who opened a hell gate and allowed his friend to walk right through it. It was a new kind of damned for him.

He prepared to cast the spell. But first...he needed a boost.

"Close your eyes," he said.

She didn't even ask why. She only did as he asked.

It only made him feel dirtier than this part usually did.

He slipped his wand out of his pocket and pulled up his sleeve. Clenching his teeth, he mouthed the chant, his voice little more than breath, and pressed the wand into his tattoo. The magic surged through him like a wave of pleasure, one that rolled his stomach and made his arm throb. The pleasure turned to cramping. His mouth watered and tasted like sea water.

Heroin was probably easier.

He cast the spell before the world went sideways on him.

Within the circle, the merry-go-round shuddered and shook and flattened and folded in on itself with metallic clanks. The ground beneath it sank, leaving a stone spiral staircase curling down. A cloud of dust rose, bringing the stench of sulfur.

She blinked hard when she heard the noise. "That was fast."

It was easy. Too easy. He yanked down his sleeve before she could see the sullen glow. "Well. I have dabbled, you know."

She grinned and stepped to the edge, looking in. "One more thing. A Water Wall. Can you do that? Say, the third step down? That will give you enough time to close it if things go south."

He stowed his wand, his fingers still tingling from the hit. "Did I tell you I don't like this?"

She didn't respond.

He closed his eyes and spoke a verse. The staircase filled with water, brimming at the third step.

He spread his hands, one last plea. "I don't have to say it, do I?"

"Don't worry." She shook her head. "I will."

She stepped onto the first step and slowly went down the staircase. Her clothing floated on the water. She kept walking. Her hair floated. She kept on until she was completely submerged and didn't stop. No bubbles, no sound.

He reached into his inside breast pocket. Instead of a charm or an amulet, he pulled out a rosary.

Making the Sign of the Cross, Simon began to pray.