Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (3 page)

A demonic evil was clustered at the top of the house, up on the third floor.

At least ten people were staring at me when I opened my eyes.  The giant from the bar was there but his expression was neutral, not hostile.

“Okay, so the problems are all on the third floor, right?” I asked.

Ned looked slightly startled, but nodded agreement.

“The house was built by a famous architect in 1926.  We bought it a year ago and renovated the old servant quarters on the third floor into a suite for our twins.  The Pack children tend to sleep up there with them during overnight events like Moon Runs.”

“At least, they started to do sleepovers up there, but the children were always tired and whiney the next day, complaining about noises and monsters in the closet,” Rose added.

Were children are not usually concerned with monsters under the bed, as their parents
are
monsters.

I walked over and felt the nearest wall, letting my senses ooze into the plaster.  The interior decorating was top notch, but the house was bad.  Rotted at its core.

“Do you want to see the girls?” Rose asked, starting for the grand staircase.

I held up one hand.  “In a moment.  I want a bit of background.  I’ve never come across a multiple possession in the same house before.”

“But you can fix it, right?  You can save our babies?” another female asked, a tall brunette with red-rimmed eyes.

“This is Lisa.  Her daughter Lindsey is the other child involved,” Rose said. 

The giant had moved up close to Lisa, and I recognized that they were mates.

“You are?” I asked him.

“Jep.  Lindsey’s father,” he answered, his voice ridiculously deep.

“So tell me about this architect?  Who was he, what else was he into?” I asked.

“His name was Scott Lloyd.  He built many of the big mansions in Asheville in the twenties,” Granger answered.  “But what do you mean about what he was into?”

“This house is off.  Sour.  Twisted right through its core.  It’s been this way for a long time—I can tell.  I would imagine there are stories about it being haunted.”

Several of the people around the room were nodding, but they stopped when Granger’s frown touched them.

“There are almost always ghost stories about older homes, Mr. Gordon.  I discount them as a matter of course,” he said.

“Some of them are real.  This guy, Lloyd, was he into the occult and séances and shit?” I asked.

“How the hell would I know?” Granger said, a little angry.  “I didn’t move to Asheville until the Seventies.”

“Ahh, actually he was known to be interested in magic and the supernatural,” a voice interrupted.  A young male were, still in his teens, stepped forward and glanced apologetically at his Alpha.

“This is Malcolm, my wife’s nephew.  He’s our resident Know-it-All,” Granger said sourly.

The kid flushed but kept his gaze on me.  Brown hair, brown eyes, tall and thin like he was still growing into himself.  His skin was perfectly clear though, a happy side effect for those who are born were.

“Tell me about him,” I asked.

Clearing his voice nervously, the kid nonetheless started to speak, settling into a rhythm in the first several sentences.

“Lloyd was fascinated by anything paranormal.  He hung out with mediums, psychics, and even bragged about knowing witches.  He held séances and occult ceremonies here, especially around the solstices and equinoxes. Halloween was a big deal here.”

“How the hell do you know all this, Mal?” Granger asked, frowning and turning to Malcolm.

“I did a paper on him for English.  We had to pick a local historic figure, and you had just bought this as the Pack headquarters,” he said with a shrug.  “Got a ninety-three on it.”

“So when did the possessions start?” I asked, still looking around.  My eyes were constantly drawn to the ceiling by the blackness I felt up there.  It was the strongest presence of evil I had ever felt, and I was looking for as many answers as possible. 

“The girls complained about the noises a lot when we moved in and seemed to find reasons not to sleep up there.  About a month ago, Ned put his foot down about them sleeping in our room and ordered them to stay up there.  They had no choice,” Rose said, her tone clear on who she blamed for the situation.  Weres have no choice but to follow their Alphas' direct orders, even the children.

“They also found the box about then,” another female said.  Middle aged, which for weres meant she was really old, she was a short, Hispanic woman with a set of nasty scars on one arm.  She was likely a bitten were, rather than one born to it.  Born weres don’t scar, unless the wound was caused by silver.

“What box, Puebla?” Granger asked, eyebrows raised as if hearing this for the first time.

“We had a house cleaning, remember?  The children were helping me in the basement, and they found a loose set of stones in the wall with this wooden box inside.  Dark oak or something.  It had an old lock on it, and it was pretty small,” she said, holding her hands into length and width dimensions that would fit a small paperback book. “They dragged it to their room but couldn’t get it open.”

“And no one thought to bring it to me?” he asked darkly.

“Actually, they did, and you said they could keep it,” Puebla answered.

He frowned, but then you could almost see the moment he remembered.  “Oh,” was his only comment.

“How did Lloyd die?” I asked the kid, Malcolm.

“Ah, it’s a bit of mystery.  He died in this house, actually.  In his bed.  Had some kind of massive cough thing and basically spewed his own lungs out.  He was a big smoker, so it was probably emphysema or something.”

“Or something,” I agreed, looking back up at the ceiling.  “Okay, let’s go see the girls.”

Chapter 4

The stairway to the twins’ third floor suite was located just outside the master suite entrance, which made sense.  The kids’ rooms were old servant quarters, and the master of the house would want his staff handy to his quarters.

A door off the hallway, just outside the Master bedroom archway, opened to a steep set of stairs.  The top of the stairs was shut off by another door.  The lighting was minimal and left the closed door in dark shadows, like something from every horror movie Hollywood had ever produced.  You just knew that nothing good could be waiting behind that door.  It didn’t help that loud bumps, bangs, and screams were audible from where we stood, looking up.

“You appear hesitant, Gordon?  Mallek told me you could smash any demon!” Granger demanded.

I felt one of my eyebrows arch on its own.  “You know much about demons, Granger?  'Cause I’ve been fighting with them all my life.  You know any easy ways to exorcise
three
of them at once without hurting their victims?  I assumed you tried the Catholic priest route?  How’d that turn out?”

“Father Preston never came back down,” Rose answered for her husband.

“Fantastic,” I muttered.  “Alright, everyone stay down here.  I’m gonna recon the situation and then figure what I might need for help.”

I started up the stairs followed by Awasos.  “You’re gonna wait just outside the door till I get the big picture,” I told him.  He gave me a dark look, but I thought he would abide by my order.

The banging and screams got louder till we got to the top of the stairs; then everything went quiet.  That was kinda standard.  The demons could hear me climbing the stairs and were now waiting for some fresh meat to toy with.

Nearing the top step, I glanced back down the stairs behind, a sea of anxious faces staring up at me.  As soon as I reached the door, I popped it open, slid through it, and shut it tight behind me, right in 'Sos’s face.

The first room was a sitting area with girls clothes strewn over the modern furniture mixed with books, various electronics, and one open makeup case.  The doorway beyond was open but completely dark, and I could literally feel the heavy presence of strong demons on the other side.

Moving closer to the door, I could just make out a human leg on the floor, the loafer-encased foot pointed my way, the rest of the leg leading back into the dark.  Based on its size and the black pants, I was assuming this was the Priest, Father Preston.  I squatted down and touched the bare ankle, feeling for any kind of a pulse.  The blackness beyond was complete, but when I switched to thermal vision, I could see that the body in front of me was almost totally cool and three child-sized outlines of yellow and red awaited me, lined up in a row, perfectly still.

The room stank of shit, piss, vomit, and fear.  There was also a very heavy sulfuric stench that sharply bit at my sinuses.  Thermal vision gave me the outline of everything in the room, from the two double-sized beds to the matching dressers, vanities, and chairs.  But seeing heat patterns doesn’t help with human faces, so I couldn’t tell much about their expressions.  Two of them were wearing shorts and tee shirts, the other a knee-length sleep shirt.  Two evenly matched for height and size, the third much taller.  Three sets of heads tilted to the same side at exactly the same time, considering.  I realized that they couldn’t see me, my unique nature cloaking me from them, but they knew someone was there by the sounds I was making.

The priest was lying on his back, his neck bent at an unlikely angle.  I stepped over him and moved closer, considering my options, still scanning the room.  Between the beds, a small box lay open, the outline of an old-fashioned book lying open on the floor.  Then I noticed a new concern.  There didn’t appear to be a wall behind the beds.  It was as if the back wall of the room had been sliced off, excised from the building, leaving an open box of a room.  The opening where solid sheetrock or plaster was supposed to be was inky dark, darker than even my thermal vision could see into, and I found I couldn’t look straight at it although I tried.

My observations were interrupted by a flying chair.  It lifted itself up and launched at the doorway, the children apparently tired of waiting for me to make myself visible.  I dodged it but had to duck again when an entire vanity tried to occupy my personal space.  Darting toward the girls, I reached to grab the closest, one of the twins by her size.  The demon driving her sensed something at the last moment and moved, striking out with a child-sized arm.  That little arm packed a pretty decent punch, with enough power to slow me minutely.  It was enough to allow all three girls to dodge in three different directions: right, left, and up.  The other chair lifted itself at me at the same time the biggest child swiped a claw-studded hand at me, shredding my tee shirt and drawing blood.

“You!” they all hissed at exactly the same time.  Her physical contact had made me visible to them; recognition was instantaneous.

I succeeded in grabbing the partially transformed, fur-covered hand and yanked the girl toward me.  That would have gone smooth like ice, except one of the dressers smashed me sideways, breaking my grip.

This wasn’t going well.  They fought as a single entity, using both the bodies they controlled and their own demonic telekinesis.  I focused on the one on the ceiling, punching my aura toward her and pulling on the demon inside.  The whole child came instead, along with one from each side.  Clawed hands ripped my back, arms, and chest as all three sliced and diced me. 

I made an instant tactical decision, the best I could come up with under the circumstances…I got the hell out,
moving
vampire fast, too fast for them to follow, and was out the door and in the stairwell in the blink of an eye.

Awasos was sitting on the nearest steps watching me calmly.  The faces below looked expectant. 

“Well?” Stacia asked.

“I just got my ass beat by three little girls,” I replied truthfully.

“That’s not very reassuring,” she answered.

“Yeah, well, time for some new tactics,” I agreed.  “But first, how old are the girls and when did they become able to Change?”

“They’re all twelve and they won’t be able to Change till about sixteen or seventeen,” Granger answered.

“Not even partially?” I asked.

“Hell no!  That takes years to master.  Why?” he asked.

I pointed at my bloody, shredded shirt, noting with some satisfaction when the light of realization struck them.

“How strong is the floor?”

“Huh?  It’s really strong.  Lloyd built to last,” Granger answered, confused.

“Strong enough to hold twelve hundred pounds or so?” I asked as my hand found ‘Sos’s head and ruffled the fur, which reassured me more than him.

“Probably.  Why?” he asked.  I waved him off, looking down at my fuzzy pal.

“New plan.  We go in, you change and keep furniture and were demons off me while I grab them one by one. No squishy the girls, got it?”

His brown eyes flashed molten red and he huffed.

I glanced down at Granger and the hulking Jep.  “I need you two up here on the steps.  I’m gonna grab each girl, get rid of their hitchhikers, and hand them down to you.  You pass them down to their mothers.”  I watched to make sure they understood. They nodded. 

“This is gonna get loud, real loud.  There will be growls, curses, even, mostly from me. I suspect there will be some roaring,” I said with a glance at Awasos.  “But no matter what you hear, you must stay here!”