Demon Jack (6 page)

“Don't think of it as a punishment, Jack. Consider it a chance to atone for past sins. You’ll be taken care of, given a place to live, a modest allowance of money for basic necessities,” Hernandez said.

“Peachy.”

Maggie stepped up beside me locking her eyes to mine. She didn’t say anything, just stared for a long moment before turning her attention to the three holy men.

I tore at the situation, but I knew I didn’t have a way out. I sighed, running a hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face. The least I could do was try and figure out something useful from all this.

For a minute, I thought about asking for drugs. They could, hell they should, at least do that for me. I wouldn’t be much use to them in the shape I was in now. I closed my eyes and wedged my willpower against my addiction, fighting it down the best I could.

“I have one condition. One condition and one question.”

Hernandez raised one bushy eyebrow and nodded.

“Essie deserves a funeral. A real funeral.”

The three men looked between each other, before Hernandez turned back to me and nodded.

“That can be arranged,” he said.

“Right. Now, why me? Why me specifically?”

“Who said it was you, specifically, that we were interested in?” Al Dossari asked.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we're not as interested in you, as we are your friend. It just so happens that you two are a package deal,” Hernandez said, matter of fact.

Great. Alice.

I tried to stand, and probably would’ve fallen if Maggie hadn’t helped support me. My stomach did flip flops, my head pounding. Every inch of my body felt like it was being scorched and doused with ice water, all at the same time. I ran a hand over my face and it came back wet with sweat.

“Just so you’re aware, I’m probably going to be pretty pissed at you three when this is all said and done. Just keep that in mind.”

Yavetta actually smirked. Bastard.

“Come on, I’ll show ya to your room,” Maggie said and turned, pulling the door open. She cast a quick glance behind us towards The Three on the couch. For a moment, something flickered across her features. It was a quick tightening around her eyes; a hard stress on her lips and then it was gone.

“I’ll fill ya in on your first assignment.”

Chapter 4

My
room
was in the corner of the church’s legitimate basement. It was small, barely big enough to hold a tiny bed and desk. The foot of the bed was meant to serve double duty as a desk chair. The walls were bare, unpainted. A simple wooden crucifix hung over the bed. The light came from a single bare bulb suspended from the ceiling.

“‘Ere ya are. Yer suite,” Maggie said.

“Better than I’ve had recently.”

I turned to face her and was struck again by just how naturally attractive she was. The light brought out the copper color of her hair and played over the slight dimple in her cheek. She walked past me, and I could smell her perfume. It reminded me of summer, of flowers warmed in the early afternoon heat. For a minute, I almost felt normal again, losing myself in those scents. A part of my brain revolted, though, hitting me in the face with rationality. She was a witch. Chances were, whatever this was that made her look so damn appealing, was every bit as much a spell as it was her natural looks.

She pulled a manila office folder off the desk and held it out to me. I took it. At some point, she had removed the bandages she’d applied to her arms in the van. The cuts on her arms were gone, her skin a crisscrossing fishnet pattern of thin, pink scars.

Given what I’d seen her do earlier, I wasn’t surprised.

I didn’t so much sit on the bed as collapse into it. It was about as comfortable as a slab of concrete. Comfy or not, it was a bed, an actual bed, in a warm room. Both were something I hadn’t been able to enjoy for quite some time. I stretched out, propping my back against the corner and closed my eyes, savoring it.

“E’rything ya need to know is in there,” Maggie said.

I’d almost forgotten I was holding the folder.

I opened my eyes and flipped through the folder. There were four police reports inside, each telling a different story, each story united by a single common thread. A suspended police officer had opened fire on a group of squatters before turning his gun on himself. A sixty-year-old wino killed two of his drinking buddies, beating them to death with his bare hands. A sixteen-year-old girl, a runaway, attacked another homeless man without provocation. She ripped his throat out. With her teeth. She was found dead, an hour later from a stroke. The last one was a woman, early twenties. Witnesses claimed to see her put her hand through another girl’s chest. She had been captured and was currently undergoing psychiatric care. They had all happened in the last thirty-six hours. There was one, unnerving common thread - witnesses claimed that the assailants’ eyes had been glowing green.

“Jesus,” I said, flipping back through the police reports. Little body shaped diagrams marked with notations dictating injury type and locations stared back at me.

“‘Ardly.”

I took a long slow breath, trying to clear my head and look past the raging mass of exposed nerves my body had become.

“This is so fucked up,” I said finally.

“Can’t disagree there. So what’re ya thinking?”

“About?”

She nodded towards the folder.

“I don’t know. I’m distracted and, surprise-surprise, not exactly a trained investigator.”

“Try,” she said.

I flipped through the pages again. It was hard to focus, the words shifting from blurred to perfect clarity and back again. The sound of my pulse hammered in my ears.

I took a deep, steadying breath.

“I don’t think it’s someone like me if that helps. If it were, then this thing couldn’t be in so many different places. Contracts don’t work like that. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say some kind of possession, ghost or spirit maybe. Doesn’t seem like a demon would go through all the trouble of taking over someone’s personality only to give it up so quick.”

“And a ghost would?”

“I have no idea. I’m not exactly a scholar on this kind of thing. I’m half making this shit up as I go.”

“Spectacular.”

“You asked.”

“So how do you know it’s not someone like you?” she asked.

“Because it wouldn’t be able to jump around like that, to different people. This is on the assumption that it’s an ‘it’ and not a ‘them’, but a contract binds the soul to the essence of the demon. They become inseparable, it’s the first part of a Becoming.”

“A what?”

“Becoming. Soul, then body, and then mind. Soul ties the demon here, keeps them out of the limbo of purgatory. Body gives them a vessel, it’s prep work for the mind, demon makes the last deal and gets the mind. That’s it, you become a backseat driver in your own head until you just.... fade away. That much I do know about. Each step carries a mark.”

“What kind of mark?”

“Scar, tattoo, something that contains the contract.”

“So, that?” she motioned towards my face, or rather, the scars of demonic script covering it.

“Yep. Subtlety isn’t my demon’s strong suit,” I said, wrapping my arms around my stomach. It felt like someone had poured ice water in my gut. My jaw and shoulder tuned up to a new crescendo of ache. I took another long, deep breath and tried to focus on the conversation.

“And how deep are you?”

“Soul.”

“Uh huh. There a lot of idiots like you?”

I shrugged.

“Well, let me ask you this,” she said.

I ignored her and set the folder on the bed. She was talking, but I didn’t hear it. I couldn’t take it anymore. The more I had tried to dismiss it the more the craving beat against the bars of its cage. It had finally broken free. If I didn’t get out of here it felt like my brain was going to vibrate out of my skull. I needed to get out of this church. There was no room left for debate. If they wanted my help they could give me that right? I deserved it; I was going to put my life on the line for them. I had listened to their offer; I had fought to ignore it that long. I couldn’t keep doing it. I needed heroin or Alice and there wasn’t any room left for debate.

“I can’t stay here,” I said finally.

“Eh?”

“I can’t stay here. It’s... I’m...” I sighed, trying to get a handle on the frustration and urgency pushing at my words. Deep breath. Pause. Try again. “I’m going insane here. I can’t be inside a church, it’s not healthy for me.”

Maggie smirked.

“Seriously, please. Can we go for a walk, something? Anything?” Even to me my voice sounded whiny and desperate, kicked up an octave or two. My hands were shaking.

Maggie stared at me. Her eyes softened for a moment. She pursed her lips, drawing them into a tight line across her face.

“Please?”

“No,” she said finally.

Desperation morphed into anger. I stood up, or tried to rather, a wave of cramps rolling through my muscles. I collapsed back against the bed, my head thumping off the wall.

“God damn it! Please. You owe me this,” I cried desperately.

She moved quick, bursting into motion and grabbing my shirt. If I hadn’t been cut off from Alice, it would’ve seemed comically slow. Broken and hurting though, I didn’t even realize what was happening until she was nose to nose with me, that warm, summery perfume rolling over my senses in a heady wave. It seemed to have grown stronger with her mood. Her eyes were narrowed, burning with rage. Her face, once soft, had sharpened with anger.

“Listen mate. Let’s get down to brass tacks ‘ere, so yer complete and thorough on exactly what you’re owed.”

I reached out, struggling to push her away. She slapped me, hard. I could feel the warm spot rising up on my already aching jaw.

“Yer owed not a damned thing. Matter of fact, way I see it, you owe me an I’m collectin’. I ain’t the slightest bit crazy about ‘avin to be saddled with a junkie, but there’s bigger things goin' on ‘ere than poor Jack,” she said, contempt dripping from her words.

She shoved me back on the bed. For a long moment, she stood over me terrifying and beautiful.

“Ya got that?”

“Please… just a walk? That’s all I’m asking for.”

She damn near growled at me.

“Yer fuckin’ pathetic.”

She turned and left, slamming the door behind her. A second later I heard the snap of a heavy lock.

I lay there for the next hour, or maybe it was five minutes. I really couldn’t tell. With no clock the time seemed to stretch and then constrict, a minute turning into an hour and an hour turning into a second. My whole body ached, begging and pleading for just a second’s worth of peace.

I picked up the folder, holding it in trembling hands. I needed something, anything, to take my mind off what I was feeling.

I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my focus. It felt like an animal had been set loose in my stomach and was currently trying to claw its way out through my throat. My skin burned. My thoughts raced. For a long moment, I wasn’t able to do anything more than stare blankly at the paper and shake. I swallowed and it felt like moving a lump of concrete down my esophagus. I managed to compose myself enough to try and draw lines between each report mentally.

I’m no expert in possessions, demonic or otherwise, but having Alice around and being somewhat of a supernatural… thing, I’d learned more than my fair share about the things that go bump in the night. I had a general idea about what they could do, what they couldn’t, what rules they had. With vampires, for example, sunlight didn’t kill them. It just made them really sluggish, forcing them into a near death like state. Prolonged exposure to direct light would burn them, pretty badly, but it wouldn’t out-and-out cause them to erupt into towering pillars of flame. I knew about the rules that governed them, how a duel was the next best thing to trial lawyers to settle a dispute. I knew that the Fae were lying little fucks concerned with little more than their own naked self-interest, or that shifters didn't have to have a full moon to change and weren't limited to the classic wolf.

What I didn’t get was how this thing was jumping back and forth from body to body. Or for that matter, why if was doing it.

I tossed the folder on the desk, too frustrated and distracted to think and I settled back on the bed. I closed my eyes, crossing my arms under my head and tried to ignore the feeling of being gnawed apart by my own nerves.

I woke up when Maggie came in. Her hair was damp and combed back from her face. She wore a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and a loose fitting t-shirt under a black leather jacket. She had a messenger bag over one shoulder and it bumped against her hip with each step.

I sat up, wiping the sleep from my eyes and taking comfort in the ridges of scars beneath my fingertips. I was awake for maybe a second before the first stomach cramp hit me, an ice-cold knife turning in my guts. I curled up waiting for it to pass. After what felt like a literal ice age worth of time, it faded away enough for me to stand. I still felt sick, really sick.