Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei (27 page)

And I said looking at his blank, unresponsive face in the hospital had been scary. It was nothing compared to this mania.  Over and over he recited it. His hand never stopped writing, flashing in quick, jerky motions across the blackboard. I’d like to say I followed it but even sane physicists never made much sense to me. One thing that did ring clear though was his fear of him. The observer.

“Karl. I’m here to help you. Can you hear me?”

“The maths doesn’t explain it. Could never explain it. Pointless. Useless. It’s all about him. He watches and he showed us. He’s here. The maths doesn’t work. It used to work but he’s here and now it doesn’t add up!” He clawed at his face even as he kept writing.

The change gave me a moment’s pause. I looked around, saw no one else and faced Karl again. “Who’s here, Karl?”

“Why doesn’t it add up? It used to work. Two plus two doesn’t even equal three.”

Perhaps that one hint was all I was going to get. He’s here. Who? The obvious answer was the thing his wife believed had possessed him. Which then begged the question—was it gone? It seemed Karl didn’t think so.

I left Karl to his endless frustrations and began walking. Once more with the whole TARDIS wackiness. A wall that looked no further than a couple dozen feet away never got any closer and yet Karl and his boards shrank into the distance. The pressure that had tried to keep me from his side vanished and let me wander, so long as I didn’t try to get close to Karl
again. Then it increased and while I knew I could get through it, I obeyed its silent command for now.

Eventually, I ended up back at the row of blank blackboards. There was a fresh piece of white chalk and, really, who could resist that? I picked it up and drew a big happy face.

When I woke up, I was back in my chair and Karl was at his endless trial. Whatever had happened, I’d been out for a while, because my happy face was scratched over with mad slashes of chalk and it was several places down the row of filled boards.

“He will not let you help him.”

I twisted around in my chair.

The new comer stood somewhere behind me. I say somewhere, because he seemed to lean against the back wall, but he was close enough for me to see the faint sheen on his dusky skin, the shadows clinging to his black wings.

“Asmodeus?” I hazarded.

The Demon Lord nodded once so regally I nearly felt like falling to my knees. Nearly. Instead, I snorted and hauled myself out of the chair once more so I could face him, man to demon.

“So, you’re the one keeping him trapped here?” I crossed my arms and spread my feet, showing him I meant business.

Asmodeus’ lips twitched as he looked me over. “No. Karl has done this to himself. It is his defence against me. Keeping me trapped in here with him. He thinks he is protecting Gerry.”

“You’ve possessed him then.”

The demon pushed away from the wall and flicked his wings out.

Holy crap.

Shadows arced around his shoulders and in the darkness they cast, his eyes glowed with sapphire brightness. Then he pulled his wings in and the shadows folded about him like a cloak. With languid steps, he circled me.

“I was, yes.”

“Was? But here you are. Trapped with him in this place.” I did my best to keep the uneasiness out of my voice. There was a strange feeling deep in my gut I didn’t want to explore too much. I didn’t want to know just how this being was affecting me. It might detract from my manly robustness.

Asmodeus’ laugh was almost enough to turn my knees to water. “Part of me. A very, very small part of me. It happens every time one of my kind possesses one of your kind. Once we are… evicted, a small part of ourselves lingers. It will fade, eventually.”

And who was I to say otherwise?

It was my turn to circle Asmodeus. My God. Those wings went all the way.

“So, you possessed Karl
Roeben, but it wasn’t until you left him that he went whacko. Usually it’s the other way around.”

Asmodeus turned to watch me. “Only when that is the desire of the dominant demon.”

“Your intention being?”

The smile that curled his lips was the very personification of that’s-for-me-to-know-and-for-you-to-find-out...if-you-dare. I decided against pressing him on the matter.

“And what’s left…” I waved at him carelessly. “Is like a bad smell. You’re the forgotten shoe left in the hotel room after the occupants have left, stinking up the place.”

You know, I don’t believe the remains of the Lord of Lust appreciated my comparison. His eyes narrowed and those gigantic wings twitched restlessly.

“So, where are you now?”

“I am somewhere safe. Somewhere I can continue to do my work.”

“Work? Causing chaos, sending poor physicists insane?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a nice expression. “You have seen too many movies. I am not here to cause trouble.”

I pointed to Karl at the boards. “But you are sending people insane.”

Asmodeus composed himself. “That was not my choice.”

Things moved into place in my head. “Chris Davis attacking Karl forced you out of him.”

“Strong emotional surges can dislodge my kind. Usually it is a resurgence of faith that does it. The up swell of soul repels us, pushes us out.”

“And you had to find someone else to act as your personal chauffeur.”

He nodded.

“So who’s the lucky bastard?”

“Do you truly expect me to tell you that?”

“Had to try. Now I’m just going to have to sniff you out.”

“I look forward to our next meeting.”

He snapped his wings out to full width and rushed me. Darkness enveloped me.

When I woke up, once more, I was on a bed with a bright light shining in one eye.

“Argh!”

“Ah, Mr Hawkins. Awake at last.” The light disappeared and Dr
Angelshire hauled himself into fuzzy focus. “I was starting to wonder if we had another patient on our hands.”

I managed to sit up and look around. I was in a room much like Karl’s.

“What happened?” Angelshire asked as he checked my pulse.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said.

“In that case, my guess is you fainted and took an unusually long time to wake up.”

“There you go, then.”

The doc stepped back and looked at me over his glasses. “In my experience, and I’ll divert long enough here to impress upon you that my experience is expansive, there’s usually a reason for fainting. Mrs Roeben said you were sitting by her husband’s bed, you went stiff and then you collapsed. Has this ever happened to you before?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

I rolled off the bed, wobbled and caught the wall before I could betray my lack of balance by falling flat on my face. Didn’t really fool
Angelshire but he left me alone. He was probably of the learn-from-your-mistakes school of doctoring. I’m sure if I’d actually fallen over, he would have stirred himself to help me.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. Which was true. My head was clearing and my legs stopped wobbling. If I sounded a bit shaky, that was probably because I could still feel the touch of feathers against my skin.

“Did you accomplish anything with Karl Roeben?”

Standing under my own steam, I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Angelshire crossed his arms. “Have you any new thoughts about the possession claim?”

“Do you really want to hear my answer?” I asked.

He gave me the same, tolerable smile he gave Mrs Roeben. “The Mentis Institute started life as a psychiatric hospital funded by the Catholic Church.”

“Yeah, I know. I once visited someone at the old place. You’ve moved up in the world.”

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction. But do you know why we moved away from the church?”

I glanced at the stylish furniture, pristine walls and distinct lack of religious overtones. “You mean this isn’t church funded?”

Unlike Mercy, Angelshire got the sarcasm. “Hard to believe, I know. We worked for many years to become independent of the church, and it was all because of their interference in our treatment of patients. I told you before about the requirements to declare possession. In all my years, I’ve never seen one person fulfil every one of them, and yet I was constantly battling the priests over patients with schizophrenia. When I wouldn’t give them any leeway, they turned to the patient’s family. I saw too many people take their sick children out of here all because a priest did an exorcism and said they were better.”

“I can sympathise with your position,” I said, and I could. Not every sixteen year old should have to listen to a priest tell him he’s evil. Not possessed by something evil. Just evil.

“But?”

All the pussyfooting about I’d been doing with Ivan and Lila, the ongoing arguments with Erin, was starting to bug me, so I said, “But Karl
Roeben was possessed. The demon’s gone now, mostly. I think you’re right in saying a trauma has caused his stupor, just not the trauma you would choose to believe.”

Angelshire
took a deep breath, pushed his coat back and put his hands on his hips. “Possessed by a demon. And this is your opinion as a psychic?”

Here it comes. He was all sugar and niceness when I wasn’t too outlandish in my claims. Now, I was probably skating very close to ending up in the room next to Karl’s.

I shrugged. “It’s my opinion as someone who’s seen some pretty weird shit in his life.”

The doc took his glasses off and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “I see,” he said, perhaps a little ironically. “You said before you didn’t know if you’d managed to accomplish anything with Karl. Well, whatever you may think, I think you made a difference.”

His tone didn’t make it clear if it was a good or bad difference.

“Karl’s awake?” I asked hopefully.

“Nothing as miraculous as that, I’m afraid. But Mrs Roeben said that just before you collapsed, her husband smiled.”

My heart gave a little jump. Had I done it? Had I reached him, even in a tiny little way? Perhaps my smiley face had done more than piss him off.

“I did see some rather extraordinary things in my time with the parapsychology group,” Angelshire continued. “And because a voluntary reaction to whatever it was you did is a good sign, I’m not going to toss you out and declare you a fraud.”

“Are you going to admit me instead?”

He resisted the smile I knew was lurking in his stern expression. “I will, however, escort you out.”

It was a good compromise, so we had a silent but not too uncomfortable elevator ride down to the foyer.

As we crossed to the doors, Angelshire said, “You believe in demons.”

“You could say that.”

Hand on the door, he gave me long, hard look. “I have to ask, Mr Hawkins, in a world full of incurable cancer, terrorism, poverty, corruption, why do you believe in these things? Isn’t this world full of enough troubles already?”

I pulled my sunglasses out and slipped them on as we stepped outside. Immediately I felt it. I’d thought the female was bad the night before, a couple of seconds of her completely unleashed presence that sent Mercy into a murderous rage. This was inestimably worse. Mercy wasn’t anywhere near, wasn’t even cognitive, and yet it reached out to me and dug inside without so much as a by your leave.

The darkness stirred and I let it turn me until I saw him.

I pointed and said to
Angelshire, “That is why I believe.”

Under the trees in the park across the road, Asmodeus stood still and silent, big black wings drawn tight around him. He nodded his head to us in that regal manner before breaking up into a flock of imps that scattered into the deep shadows.

When Erin woke up sans sharp ache in her chest she asked the nurses if they’d given her more painkillers. They hadn’t. After a while of exploring her ribcage with growing panic, she checked her arm. Under the bandages, all signs of the surgery were gone. If she poked hard enough, she could feel the screws the surgeons had used to hold her bones together, but the skin was healed and there was no residual ache in her bones. Her face still bore the evidence of impact with the airbag and car door, but the most debilitating of her injuries were gone.

Lila Reyes.

Demonologist or…?

Unable to sit still or think straight, she made her way over to the oncology ward to see William.

He was sleeping. At least he was out of quarantine and in a regular room, but their near fatal mistake was close to the front of Erin’s mind. She stayed well back, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest. For a wonder, there were no drips crowding his bedside. There was some colour in his face and he looked like an ordinary man taking a quick nap.

If only that were true. If only this wasn’t just a reprieve from the usual pain and frustration.

Erin touched her healed ribs.

Leaving a note for William, she returned to her room, demanded a discharge, threatened the doctor with a law suit if he didn’t agree and then called Ivan. Half an hour later, she was putting on her blouse while Ivan faced the closed door.

“I don’t think you should be doing this,” he said.

“I feel fine.” She did up the buttons and tried to hide the trembling in her hands. Her head whirled with all sorts of confused thoughts that would need exploring before she could rest.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked as she sat down to put on her shoes. “I ran into your doctor on the way in. He said to tell you he still protests you leaving and that if you end up back here, he has the biggest I-told-you-so on standby.”

“I’m okay, Ivan. I just can’t sit in here all day. There’s work to do.”

“We don’t have any active clients at the moment.”

“There’s the investigation into Gerry’s death.”

“Matt’s investigation. You helped him get into the lab and that was supposed to be it.”

Ready to leave, Erin stopped and faced Ivan. If she told him the real reason why she was about to bully her way back into this investigation, then she’d have to admit to the truth. It was obvious Hawkins hadn’t told Ivan anything about demons and vampires and Erin wasn’t ready to be the person to have that discussion with him.

“Hawkins is hardly a professional investigator,” she said instead. “He needs help still.” Help to stay out of the clutches of his impossibly sexy ‘demonologist’.

“He seems to be doing okay,” Ivan insisted as he followed her out of the room.

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be doing better.”

Ivan knew when to shut up and they rode down to the ground floor in tense silence. In the car park, Erin expected to be lead toward Ivan’s old hatchback, but instead he steered her toward a brand new, white BMW. It was indistinguishable from the previous one.

“Showed up about ten minutes before you called.” Ivan pulled a new mobile phone from a pocket and handed it over. “This was with it. I’ve already transferred the SIM card.”

“There was nothing wrong with my old phone,” Erin muttered.

“It did have some scratches on it.”

Which was hardly professional. Between the phone, the car and the miracle of her healed bones, it was almost as if the accident had never happened. It was typical Sol. Make it like the hiccup never happened and that was that.

“Sol didn’t call to say it was coming?”

He gave her a withering look.

She acknowledged the stupidity of her question with a weary nod and held her hand out for the keys. Ivan hesitated, then handed them over, sighing as he got into the passenger seat.

“I’ll drop you at the office,” she said once out of the car park and on the road.

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“Someone needs to keep the office open. In case Sol springs anymore surprises.”

Ivan grumbled a bit and then asked, “What’s the deal with Mercy?”

Erin carefully didn’t run off the road. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the other night she was acting strange. You know, almost mentally challenged.”

“She’s not mentally challenged,” Erin snapped.

“I didn’t say she was. Just that she was acting that way. Matt made a joke about drugs. Was it more than a joke?”

Thinking fast, Erin said, “Remember when we were chasing down Hawkins and we spoke to the drummer from Mercy’s old band? She said then Mercy had been getting into some serious drugs.”

That gave Ivan something to think about for a while and Erin didn’t feel too guilty. She hadn’t actually lied. Erin pulled the car into a park outside the office building and waited for Ivan to get out. He didn’t.

“And now she just hangs around with him all the time?” he asked.

“Well, not all the time. But she lives with him.”

“And she’s psychic? Like Matt.”

“What makes you say that?”

Ivan cut her an intolerant glare. “I spoke to Detective Courey.”

Stomach jumping, Erin could only think to say, “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. You could have told me, Erin.”

“Christ, Ivan, what did you expect when you hired Hawkins? Didn’t you want to go to him because the ordinary investigation wasn’t getting anywhere? If you didn’t think he’d bring a totally different perspective to the case, you would have just asked me to look into it.”

“I thought of Matt because we knew he investigated weird shit. I’m the one who found out about Night Call, remember. What’s pissed me off is you knew about Mercy and didn’t think to tell me. You knew before they came to my place that night, don’t deny it.”

Gripping the steering wheel hard to keep her hands occupied, Erin said, “Yes, I knew all about Mercy. I didn’t tell you anything about her because I had hoped she and Hawkins would be out of our lives forever.”

“So, it’s my fault you lied to me?”

“I never lied to you.”

“Okay, but you do omit a lot of things. You don’t trust me.”

“Of course I trust you. You’re being childish.”

“Maybe, but I can’t help wondering what else you might be keeping to yourself.”

She almost told him. The whole sordid story was on the end of her tongue, waiting for her to open her mouth and release it. Jaw clenched, she took a deep breath and banished the urge to tell all. She didn’t like hiding things from Ivan but this was too big, too strange for her to contemplate telling anyone else about. If she was the one listening to it, she wouldn’t believe it. The truth of Hawkins and Mercy was something that needed to be seen to be believed and if she could help it, Ivan would never be in a situation that required him to see it. Hawkins could rattle on about the ‘best policy’ all he liked. When it came to protecting the people she loved, there was no compromise.

“Get out of the car, Ivan.”

He did, closing the door a little harder than absolutely necessary.

Pulling into the traffic, a small voice in the back of Erin’s head told her that sooner or later, Ivan would discover the truth for himself. When—not if—that happened, the argument they’d have then would blow this one out of the water.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Erin made her way to the State Library. Walking in past the banner of leaves, she felt her tension ease. The cool, quiet peace of the huge, open space of the Knowledge Walk was always soothing. Climbing the steps to the reference section, she began to feel more like herself. This was what she was supposed to be doing. Researching, looking for answers, gaining information to help her solve the mystery. Within fifteen minutes of beginning her catalogue search, she had a pile of books and retreated to the panoramic Red Box to read.

With a green tinted image of the Brisbane River in front of her, the cityscape across the way standing tall and sparkling in the undiluted daylight, she read about demons and fallen angels and magical rings that could force a demon to do the wielder’s bidding. Scattered throughout the religious connections and the stories of summoners, she saw hints of the reality she’d witnessed and Hawkins had spoken about.

Head full of growing suspicions, Erin left the library and went to
Vogon Books. Inside, Jacob was doing brisk trade with several customers. They all seemed to be bickering over the contents of the same book Hawkins had been having conniptions over. Anxiety warring with nervousness, Erin hung back, willing to wait. Jacob noticed her though and hurried his customers out of the store, still arguing.

“Erin, how’s things?” He did a double take at her face and added, “What happened to you?”

Trying not to blush under her bruising and cuts, Erin frowned. “Hawkins didn’t tell you about the accident?”

“No. Accident? Matt’s not been in or called since the other morning. You’re okay?” His eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

“Hawkins wasn’t involved in the accident. Just me.” She came to the counter and lowered her voice. “It was the demon. She decided her job would be easier with me out of the picture.” And then had second thoughts, apparently.

“My God.” But even as he said it, he reached for his ledger.

“I’m actually here to ask you about Lila Reyes, though.”

Jacob paused in his flick through the black book. “Who?”

“Lila Reyes. The demonologist you sent to Hawkins.”

“I didn’t send a demonologist to Matt. Couldn’t find one willing to talk. Who said I knew this woman?”

Erin sagged against the counter. There was a ghost of a pain in her ribs and a twisting in her guts. Jacob had been her only hope of finding some normalcy in what had happened to her.

“You okay?”

She was shaking her head before reason could stop her. Before Jacob could come around the counter to help her, she straightened and smoothed out her face.

“You’ve no idea where Hawkins is?” she asked.

“None whatsoever. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, but thanks. I’ll give him a call.”

“What’s the deal with this demonologist?”

“I’m not certain yet.” She handed over a business card. “But I’m going to find out. Let me know if Hawkins gets in touch with you.”

She walked out without saying goodbye. In the car, she tried Hawkins. Of course he didn’t answer so she left a message, horrified at how her voice trembled as she spoke. That done, she headed back to the office. The look on her face kept Ivan’s mouth shut as she went into her office. Firing up the computer, she was greeted with emails that weren’t her own.

“Damn it.”

Hawkins had left her computer logged on to his own email. She was about to close the program when something caught her eye. The title of the email was ‘photo’ and it was from Nick Carson of Great White Experience. There was some babbling about when the photo was taken but what jumped out at Erin was the word ‘poltergeist’.

So this was Hawkins’ other case. She clicked on the attachment. A photo popped up of a man and woman on a boat. Behind them was grey sky and greyer water. The couple were snuggled happily against each other, smiling at the camera. He was boyish with a face that would stay eternally young and a lean physique. She was… well, she was a big mess of trouble.

Erin printed out the picture then scrounged out the hard copy of Hawkins’ old file. Slipping the photo into it, she left her office and stopped by Ivan’s desk.

“I’m heading out again, probably for the rest of the day. You may as well go home.”

“I’ve got this report to finish, remember. The one for the Bracus Group.” He kept his gaze on his computer screen, his tone even.

“It’s not due until next week. Take the rest of the day off.”

“I should man the phones in case Sol calls.”

Erin clutched the file to her chest. “Ivan, I’m sorry about before. I don’t like us arguing, but you know there are things I can’t tell you.”

Ivan stared at the computer, fingers tapping at the keys.

“Leave when you’ve finished the report,” Erin muttered and left.

All the way out to Redcliffe, Erin did her best to put the matter of Ivan to the side and concentrate on what she was doing. It was hard. Ivan was the closest thing to a friend she had these days. Leaving a job she loved for one she tolerated in order to earn more money had seen her leave behind her friends as well. William’s friends had slowly trickled away as his disease had progressed, unable to cope with the changes they saw in him or pushed away by the demands of his treatment. He still chatted with them over the phone or the net, but there were no more dinners with discussions lasting well into the night, no more trips to the coast to play at surfing and stand up paddle boarding. Erin knew more about William’s specialist’s life than she did about what her old friends were doing. Ivan was it.

It was hard to distract her thoughts from Ivan because it was difficult to form any firm thoughts about what she was currently doing. There was a vague idea in the back of her head but she shied from thinking about it directly because she didn’t want to get her hopes up, or get so scared of where she was heading she backed off. All she could do was head in one direction and keep moving until she hit a dead end. The rebound would send her off in another direction and she’d follow that path until it got her to where she was going—wherever that was.