Pandemonium (8 page)

6

I woke up screaming, limbs paralyzed by restraints. This wasn’t unusual. Over the past few months, it had become routine.
What was new was the intense light in my eyes, the number of people around me, and the particular quality of the pain. Someone just out of sight—a tall, blond nurse with blue eyes, I think—was scraping the skin off my hands with a carpenter’s file, or perhaps playing a butane torch over my knuckles. Another tall, blond person was working behind me. The holes in the top of my skull had already been drilled, and now she was inserting the tiny wires that would carry electricity into the folds of the angular gyrus. Other Scandinavians, dressed in brilliant white, moved in and out of the light, haloed and indistinct, murmuring in Swedish. However, when I shut my mouth and stopped screaming, a female voice said, “
Thank
you.” So at least one of them was bilingual.
The butane treatment went on for a long time. I waited for the electricity to travel down the wires into my gray matter and jolt me out of my body. I was looking forward to seeing what the room looked like from the ceiling: my body stretched out on a tasteful pine gurney by IKEA, the sensuous nurses bent over my empty tin can of a body, their crisp uniforms unbuttoned to expose milky white cleavage.
“Hit me!” I commanded in my best James Brown.
“Okay, that’s it,” a male voice said. In English again, unless my hyperstimulated lobes, drawing on race memory encoded in my DNA, were automatically translating. “Take him down to the drunk tank.”
That’s right, I’d been drinking. Coors Light, mostly. Coors Fucking Light! Was it even possible to get drunk on Coors Light?
Evidently.
Walls zipped past. Elevators dropped and rose. The ambulance rumbled. Time progressed in a series of jump-cuts:
Now, Now, Now.
Something bad had happened. Several bad things. I was almost sure of it.
I needed to remember something important. Or unforget it. What was that word again?
I looked into the upside-down face of the man pushing my gurney into the building.
“Anamnesis,” I said proudly.
“Uh-huh,” he said.

Amra and My Very Bigger Brother were waiting for me in the busy front room of the First District Police Station.
“Good morning, starshine,” Lew said.
I smiled weakly. I felt nauseous, still slightly drunk. My body felt like it had been yanked apart and snapped back together by clumsy children. My hands ached fiercely. I suspected the pain would only get worse as the alcohol wore off.
“Thanks for this,” I said.
This:
driving downtown on a Monday morning; putting up money for bail; existing. “Did you tell Mom?”
“What, and kill her?” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t have the energy for banter.
Amra lightly touched one bandaged hand. “Does it hurt?”
“Little bit.” I’d woken up with my right hand wrapped from wrist to fingers, turning it into a club. My left hand was only partially wrapped, but blood had seeped through the bandages on my palm like a stigmata. The tips of my fingers were stained black from the fingerprinting. Or so I assumed. I couldn’t remember that.
The bandages had made it difficult to sign the I-Bond, the piece of paper releasing me on my own recognizance until my court date on April 20. My thought was that if I was still cognizant of anything by then, I’d be more than happy to show up.
We walked slowly toward the front door. I shuffled like an old man. I’d pulled a muscle in my lower back, and my shoulders felt shredded, as if I’d tried to bench press a piano. I hadn’t felt this bad since the car accident.
“I think something bad happened last night,” I said.
Lew laughed. “You think? They told us you tore up a hotel room and half a hallway. Mirrors, TV, broken furniture. Total rock star. And I guess you also banged up three security guards before they tied you down.”
“Oh.”
“Oh yeah.”
Amra opened the door for me. Sunlight smacked me in the face. “The cop we talked to said they haven’t filed assault charges yet, though that could be coming,” she said. “As for the damages, he said we should talk to the hotel, sometimes they’ll drop the criminal mischief charge if—”
I stopped them. “Where’s my bag?”
“What, your duffel bag?” Lew said.
“I need my bag.”
“Jesus Christ, Del, you’re worried about your fucking luggage?” he said. “Forget that shit. You can buy some more clothes. Your bigger problem is that you’re about to do time. We’ve got to get you a lawyer, maybe find a—”
“Do the cops have it? I need my bag, Lew. Find out what happened to my bag.”
He blinked, lowered his voice. “What’s the matter with you? You got drugs in there or something?”
“No,” I said scornfully. But then realized that wasn’t true. The Nembutal. But that was legal, and it wasn’t what I was worried about.
“Please,” I said. “Just find out what they did with it. See if the cops have it.”
He shook his head in disgust, but then he turned and went back to the counter. I sat down on one of the red plastic chairs and rested my arms on my knees. I could feel every pulse in my hands.
“He’s worried about you,” Amra said, after a while. “We’re both worried. This is not just about getting drunk, is it?”
“Nope.”
“This sounds like possession, Del.”
“Yep.” I couldn’t look up. The thing in my head was dormant; whether it was because it was worn down by the night’s exertions or masked by the hangover, I couldn’t tell. I wanted to lie down on the dusty linoleum, because it looked smooth and cool.
Lew walked back. “They say they don’t have anything of yours besides what you had in your pockets.”
“Fuck,” I said.
“Come on, I’ll loan you some clothes when we get to my house.” He was already half out the door.
“We have to go back to the Hyatt,” I said.
Lew, outlined in harsh sunlight, stopped, sighed, then slowly shook his head again, signaling a new level of disgust. I wished he would stop doing that.
“On the way there,” I said, “I’ll tell you everything.”

I told them everything. Almost everything. Something, anyway.
“And that’s what happened last night?” Lew said. “This wolfing out thing?”
Lew was driving again, but I was too nauseous to sit in the back, so Amra had let me take the front passenger seat. I spent most of the drive with the side of my head pressed to the cool window.
“I must have passed out before I got back to my room,” I said. “Or I got back to my room and couldn’t get the restraints on. Either way, I lost control.” Lost it completely. It wasn’t just property damage this time. I’d beaten up security guards.
Amra said, “And you’re sure that this demon is the Hellion, the same one who possessed you when you were a kid?”
“I think so. I don’t know.”
But I did know. It had always been in there, sleeping, even when I couldn’t feel it. The car accident had merely woken it up.
“You said it was just noises,” Lew said. “You said it was no big deal—this Dr. Ram guy was just going to help you with the noises. You didn’t say anything about surgery, or exorcism, or any of that shit.”
“I know.”
“So you’re Mister Big Fat Liar Pants.”
“Basically.”
And there was more. I told them about getting turned down by Dr. Ram and going out drinking, but I didn’t mention meeting Valis, throwing a drink in the fake Piper’s face, or the rest of the night’s wanderings. Not because I was embarrassed, but because I didn’t have the energy.
The Audi’s tiny dashboard clock said that it was almost 10 a.m. The street in front of the Hyatt was clear of pedestrian protesters; evidently even Rapturists had to go to their real jobs on Monday. The DemoniConners were probably sleeping off hangovers.
Lew parked under the glass canopy protecting the entrance and turned on his flashers. He glanced at Amra, then looked at me. “You want me to go in with you?”
“No, I’ll be right back.” Lew’s cell had rung three times during the drive, and it had pained him to ignore the calls. Lew was the Man now, and for all I knew, Amra was the Man too. The fact that both of them had taken off work to bail me out heightened my humiliation. Gourmet shame.
“I’ll go in,” Amra said. She climbed out of the backseat. “It’s pretty cramped back there. Lew, give him your jacket.”
Ah: the bloody shirt. I slid my huge mummy hands through the sleeves of the golf jacket, gritting in pain as I forced them through the narrow wrists, and Amra zipped me.
We went arm in arm to the front desk. Three clerks were huddled in the doorway to the back office, their blue-uniformed backs to us, talking to someone deeper inside the office. Their words were too low to hear, but the conversation seemed intense.
I stood for a full minute waiting for them to notice us. I kept my arms down to hide the bandages. The lobby was too cold; chills ran up my neck. With each passing moment, I felt sicker.
Finally, Amra said, “Excuse me? Can someone help us?”
One of the clerks, a black woman much taller than me, reluctantly broke away from the group. “Checking out?” she said. She barely looked at us; her attention was still back with the huddle.
“Hi,” I said. My voice was gravelly, and I was conscious of the stink of my breath. “Uh, last night…”
Last night what? I trashed your hotel, pummeled some security guards, and was arrested, but I
really
need the bag I left behind. Jesus, even if they had the duffel, they might not give it to me. How many thousands of dollars did I owe them?
Amra spoke up again. “Last night, when we left the hotel, we left a bag behind in the room.”
I looked at her. That “we” touched me.
“What room was it?” the clerk asked.
Amra looked up at me. I blanked, then tried to reel it out of memory. “The thirtieth floor,” I said. “Thirty fifteen?”
She typed on a keyboard tucked under the lip of the desk; typed again; then studied the screen, her expression suddenly cold. There was no way to see what she was looking at, but it didn’t require much of a guess.
“Delacorte Pierce?” she said.
I nodded, feeling a stone drop into my gut.
“Could you wait one moment. The manager would like to speak with you about the bill.”
It was not a request.
The clerk went to the doorway and leaned in past the other clerks.
The wall behind the desk strobed with colored light. I looked over my shoulder, the movement hurting, and froze. Outside, a police car had pulled into the entranceway, lights flashing. A second squad car pulled in behind it, then an ambulance. The lobby pulsed with blues and reds.
“Del?” Amra put her warm hand to my damp neck. Sweat had broken out down my back. I finally put a name to the emotion that had been growing in me since I’d woken up in the drunk tank: dread. Something bad had happened last night.
“Dr. Ram,” I said, almost whispering it.
“What?”
Two paramedics came through the door with a wheeled stretcher between them, escorted by four police officers. Everyone in the lobby stepped out of the way and froze, the pedestrian version of pulling onto the shoulder.
A few yards from me, the wall opened—a door disguised as paneling—and a short white man with precisely cut white hair strode out, followed by two other uniformed clerks. They intercepted the paramedics and police in the middle of the lobby. The white-haired man, some kind of manager, exchanged a few words with the paramedics, then led the group to the elevators.
I suddenly recognized a face among the onlookers: Mother Mariette, the bald priest I’d seen talking with Dr. Ram yesterday. She wore a gray smocklike thing with baggy sleeves, black leggings, heavy boots. No clerical collar. She pressed back against a column until the cops and paramedics passed. She watched them for a second, then strode toward me and the exit, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. Her eyes were fixed on the exit, her expression determined. I fought the urge to duck behind Amra. But I had to know.
“Amra, just try to get my bag. Please.”
I walked away quickly—as quickly as I could, with the muscles of my back seized tight—until I was in the priest’s path.
“Mother Mariette,” I said.
Her eyes flicked toward me, but she kept moving, angling to step around me.
She didn’t recognize me, and I wasn’t surprised. She’d barely glanced at me when she spoke to Valis on the way into the hotel, and she hadn’t even seen me in the bar.
I stepped directly into her way, forcing her to stop. She looked me in the face for the first time. She was not tall, just past my shoulder. From anything farther than ten feet, her narrow face and long neck made her seem much taller. Her lips were set in a hard line, her eyes rimmed in red. She’d been crying.
“Mother Mariette, is it Dr. Ram?”
Her lips parted; her eyes widened. Red and blue lights played over her pale skin.
“Is he dead?”
Just as quickly her expression changed. Flat, controlled rage slammed down like a welder’s mask. “Step away,” she hissed. She pushed past me, not quite running.
I glanced back at Amra. She was staring at me, frowning in confusion.
I started after the priest, running a few steps before the pain forced me into a walk. Mother Mariette reached the door as another car pulled into the entranceway, this one an unmarked vehicle with a blue light on the dash.
By the time I got outside she was ten yards down the sidewalk, the gray smock rippling in the wind, the wheels of the suitcase rumbling over the cement. Lew was in the car, the cell phone pressed to his ear, his eyes on the police cars. He hadn’t seen me.
I hurried after Mother Mariette, making small, involuntary grunting noises as I went. I forced myself to catch up to her, and when I was a few feet away I put out an arm and touched her shoulder.
She spun away from me, throwing out a straight arm that struck my bandaged hand, knocking my arm aside, and I yelped in pain.
“What is it you want?” she said.
I cradled my hand, blinking away tears. “Jesus, you didn’t have to—”
“Out with it. Who are ye?”
“You don’t know me. I was—”
“Speak your name,” she commanded.
She was so angry, and I was still distracted by the throb in my hand, but that Irish voice was knocking me out. “Speak” and “name” were near rhymes, stuffed with extra vowels.
“Del,” I said. I sucked air, coughed. “Del Pierce.”
She stared at me, large eyes set wide in that finely shaped skull. Thirty seconds of silence.
“You’ve been possessed,” she said finally. “Recently, too.”
She sensed it in me, sensed the Hellion. She misunderstood it, thought it was something else—a residue, a taint—but she saw it. I’d never met anyone who could do that.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“You’re one of those goat boys.” She righted her bag, gripped the handle firmly. “Wanting a bit of
cosplay,
scaring yourself with pentagrams and incantations, praying to some god that you don’t wake up as yourself in the morning. Only now it’s happened, and you don’t know what kind of shite you’ve gotten into.”
I wanted to rub my hand, but it would only hurt more. “I don’t understand half of what you’re saying.”
“Sure you do. You wanted Dr. Ram to tell you you were special. And then what happened? Got a little angry? Maybe you’re going to tell the police that you blacked out. You just woke up with the gun in your hand.”
“Dr. Ram was shot?”
Another emergency vehicle, this one a white-and-red van, rolled past us. Mother Mariette turned her back to me and started walking, away from the hotel. I hurried after, but keeping an arm’s length between us.
“Please tell me,” I said. “How did he die? Was it a demon? Which one?”
“The one that uses forty-five automatics,” she said.
“Oh shit,” I said. My father’s gun was a .45.
I had no memory of getting out the pistol. I’d left the party, tried to find my room…and then nothing. But the demon would have had no trouble finding it.
“Only rumor, of course,” she said. “Perhaps it wasn’t the Truth. I’m sure you’ll read the definitive account in the papers.” We reached the light at Lake Street, at a confluence of silver skyscrapers. A park of some kind lay off to our right.
She gestured at the window behind me. “Get me a coffee to take away, Mr. Pierce.” The corner of the ground floor was taken up by a café.
“What?”
“Black, two sugars.”
She stood there, waiting to see if I’d move. No, waiting
until
I moved.
Maybe it was the Priest thing, maybe the Woman thing. Maybe it was the Woman Priest thing. I obeyed.
The line at the counter stretched almost to the door, and I suddenly remembered that for thousands of people—millions of people—nothing unusual had happened last night. They’d woken up in the same bed they’d gone to sleep in, next to the same people they’d slept with for years. Now it was just another coffee break, another venti latté and lemon honey seed muffin, then back to the cubicle to delete an hour’s worth of spam. Poor deluded sheep. They weren’t any safer from demons than the poor fuck who’d gotten taken by the Truth last night, but they refused to admit it. They weren’t immune; they were just undiagnosed.
The line moved quickly, and in a minute the venti paper cup was burning my fingers. (But only the fingers: I held the cup in my left hand, but my palm was too thickly wrapped to feel the heat.) She wanted two sugars, but there weren’t any cubes. Of course not; when was the last time I’d seen sugar cubes anywhere? I poured some sugar into the cup, but that didn’t seem like enough, and I poured again. Now it seemed like too much.
What the hell was I doing?
I snapped down the plastic lid, then sidestepped the tables and incoming customers until I was outside again.
Mother Mariette was leaning against the wall, eyes closed.
“Your coffee,” I said.
She opened her eyes, took the cup from me, and held it up to her lips, but didn’t drink. She closed her eyes again and let the steam from the slit mouth of the cup pass over her face. Her breathing slowed; her body grew still. I realized that from the moment I’d seen her in the lobby she’d been in a state of high excitation, an electron ready to jump. And now, moment by moment—praying, meditating?—she was dumping energy. Blowing off steam.
She opened her eyes again.
There were a dozen things I needed to tell her. About the Hellion, my slipping control, the solution I’d worked out from Dr. Ram’s research. But Dr. Ram was dead, and I was running out of time.
“I need your help,” I said. “When I was five years old I was possessed by a demon. And ever since then, it’s stayed with me. Inside me. And when I read about Dr. Ram, I got an idea for a surgical technique—”
“We wrestle not with flesh and blood,” she said. Not looking at me. “But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world.”
I waited, but she didn’t say more.
“See, that doesn’t really help,” I said.
She sighed. “I know where you’re going with this,” she said, not unkindly. Her anger had dissipated, and now she seemed merely tired. “You’re not the only person to see the possibilities of Dr. Ram’s work. Spiritual amputation, chemical inoculation, surgical exorcism…at the very least a method to positively identify cases of possession. And thanks to Dr. Ram’s death, his line of research is closed, and I doubt anyone will pick it up.”
“What do you mean, closed? If anything, this proves he was on the right track. The demons feared him so much they killed him to stop him.”
She looked at me, smiled faintly. “The demons have no master plan, Mr. Pierce. They don’t work together toward some agenda. Each of them is an obsessive, each of them wants what it wants. If the Truth killed Dr. Ram, it was for one reason—he said he had a cure, and he was lying.” She shrugged. “That’s the Truth’s job. Punish the liars.”
She grabbed the handle of her bag. “Good day, Mr. Pierce. This is the last day of our acquaintance.” She stepped off the curb, between the bumpers of the stopped cars, and the roller bag dropped and bounced behind her.
“Wait! You’ve got to help me! What am I supposed to do?”
She stopped halfway across the intersection, looked back at me. “There’s nothing you
can
do,” she called back to me. “At least not against the demons, for they do with ye what they will. But if I were you…” The light turned green, but she took no notice. “I’d hire a good lawyer.”
She strode the rest of the way across the street, holding up traffic. Someone was going to run her down, or at least lay on the horn—this was Chicago, for Christ’s sake.
But no. She reached the far curb without incident and walked north, toward Lake Michigan, the plastic wheels of the suitcase clattering over each crack and crevice of the sidewalk.