The_Demons_Wife_ARC (37 page)

“That’s the
whole fucking problem,” Samael finally said. He squared his shoulders and
looked as if he was about to stand up to come to her, but when Claire flinched,
he sat back down.

“You have to
understand,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “I’ve done a lot of evil
things…things I’m not proud of—things that will take centuries to be
forgiven—if they ever are, but you have to know before I go away that I truly
love you, and that you really are the one—”

“The one?”

“I don’t know
how or why this happened when it did, but—yes, you’re the one…the only
person…the only mortal I’ve ever met who made me want to change. That’s why I
married you…to make an irrevocable commitment to you, not to Evil.”

 Claire was
filled with conflicting emotions. All she could do was look at Samael as she
tried to sort her thoughts. He’d given everything up for her, and she believed
in him—she truly did. She trusted him…with her life.

“I know you
did…and I’m amazed beyond belief that you would do that for me,” she said. “But
I gave up my life, too. For you. And—look at us! Stuck in this house with
these…these creatures that I couldn’t even imagine before I met you trying
to…to destroy us.”

“They’re only
after—”

“Yeah, yeah. I
know they’re after you, but you have to face the fact that I’m…it hurts that I
didn’t get a fine romance and a fancy wedding much less a honeymoon.”

“I can make
that up to you.”

“When? How
long is this…this attack going to last?” She chuckled softly to herself. “I
don’t think we’re going to have what anyone would call a normal life, and the
way I see it, the future doesn’t look so bright, either.”

Samael stared
at her, his mouth a thin line.

“Does that
mean you…you don’t—”

“Love you? Of
course I love you, Samael. And I think—no, I know I made the right choice. It’s
just…” 

A smile played
across Samael’s face as he looked at her. Claire could tell he wanted to get
up, walk over to her, and give her a tremendous hug and kiss, but she could
also see that he was holding back. Then she remembered something he had
said…something that had slid right past her.

 “Wait a
second,” she said. “You said…What did you just say about maybe having to go
away?”

Samael looked
at her without saying a word. The expression on his face was impossible to
read, now, but then he slowly nodded.

“I did…I
do…have to go away,” he whispered.

“You mean
you’re…leaving me?” Claire was stunned. A cold emptiness opened up in the pit
of her stomach. “Are you saying…”

 “I’m saying I
have to go away…for a while…as part of my redemption.”

Claire was
dumbfounded by this, and without realizing it, she started shaking her head
from side to side as if she still hadn’t heard him correctly or as if she
didn’t believe him.

“Where are you
going?” she asked with a desperate edge in her voice. “Why do you have to—?
What’s this for?”

“You’ll know
soon enough,” Samael replied, and Claire was happy to hear more of the usual
iron in his voice once again.

As if on cue,
the doorbell rang, the deep-throated gong reverberating through the house.

She cringed
when she heard Michelle’s slow footsteps echo in the entryway.

And then the
door opened. A moment before Michelle entered the kitchen, a draft of chilled
air wrapped around Claire’s ankles like a sudden flood of water.

“Detective
Trudeau is here to speak with you, sir,” Michelle said simply.

Claire looked
at her, wondering for the first time where Michelle had come from.

Was she here
last night?

Does she have
any idea what had happened?

There was no
way of knowing, and Claire was positive Michelle, for all of her apparent
subservience, would never tell her if she asked directly.

Samael’s mouth
tightened into a thin, pale line. His face was bloodless, as white as chalk as
he nodded. When he stood up from the table, placing both hands on the table
edge for support, Claire could not believe how the life had drained out of him.
They made brief but intense eye contact. His dark eyes were flat…empty, as if
he had already died, and his body was animated by something else.

She knew she
had to go to him. She had to stand by him. Those wedding day vows, as clichéd
as she thought they might be, were real. She had to be there for him no matter
what had happened…or was going to happen.

She followed
Samael out of the kitchen and down the hall to the foyer. Detective Trudeau was
accompanied by two uniformed policemen. He was talking intensely to Samael, but
they broke off the conversation before Claire joined them. She didn’t miss the
look—of what? Sympathy? Pity?—Trudeau gave her before acknowledging her with a
nod.

“Mornin’ Miss
McMullen,” he said.

“That’s Mrs.
Pierson,” Claire said. Even before the words were out of her mouth, she had the
disquieting thought that this was not Samael’s real name. He probably didn’t
have a real last name and had adopted Pierson for legal reasons…to get him by
in the world.

“You’re
married?” Trudeau said, looking genuinely surprised. “When did that happen?”

“Yesterday
afternoon, as a matter of fact,” Samael said.

The expression
on Trudeau’s face hardened like lines scratched in concrete as he turned to
Samael and said, “Well, that doesn’t change anything. You still have to come
with us.”

One of the
officers snapped a pair of handcuffs off his utility belt and started toward
Samael, but Trudeau held out a hand and checked him.

“That won’t be
necessary,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, the officer scowled at Samael
and then backed down.

“Would someone
please tell me what’s going on here?” Claire asked. It was obvious the police
were here to arrest Samael...or at least take him downtown to the station, but
why?

“We want to
ask your husband a few questions,” Trudeau said. “He won’t be gone long.”

There was
something in his tone of voice, though, that made it clear—at least to
Claire—that it might not be the case. If Trudeau had his way, Samael wouldn’t
be back…maybe ever. She could see that the detective had it in for Samael. If
he couldn’t pin LaPierre’s suicide on him, he was trying to find something else
to hang on him.

“I’ll walk you
to the car,” Claire said, seeing the cruiser parked out front. At least its
lights weren’t flashing. When she took hold of Samael’s arm, she noticed that
both police officers changed their stance as if they were expecting her to
freak out or start fighting.

“You don’t
have to,” Samael said, smiling at her mildly. For some reason, his smile
reminded her of Michael. And when they looked each other in the eyes, she
saw—once again—that his directness and control was back. Relief all but
overwhelmed her.

They were in
this together.

“Come along,
then, Mr. Pierson,” Trudeau said.

He stepped
aside so Samael could grab a coat from the closet, and then they walked outside
with the patrolmen a few steps behind.

Claire walked
proudly with Samael down the steps to the long, curving driveway. She smiled as
Samael got into the back seat of the police cruiser. Before they closed the
door on him, he looked at her. She couldn’t possibly miss the twinkle in his
eyes as he waved to her and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you,
too,” she said.

She leaned
down, kissed him on the cheek, and then stepped back before one of the officers
closed the cruiser door. As she watched them drive away, she almost believed
that everything was going to be all right.

Almost.

Because
something deep inside her told her things weren’t even close to all right.

~ * ~

Later that
day, about three hours after Samael had driven off with Trudeau and the police,
Claire’s cell phone rang. Her heart leaped when she thought it would—finally—be
Samael calling to tell her what the Hell was going on.

But, now—it
was Sally.

“What the—”
Claire muttered as she raised her phone to her ear.

“Sally?”

“Now do you
believe me?”

Claire was
caught completely off guard.

“Sally…How are
you? Where are you?”

“I’m in the
frigging hospital, is where I am.”

“The
hospital?”

“Yeah, thanks
to that scumbag boyfriend of yours…or is it husband, now?”

“Yeah.
Husband. We—ahh. You never showed up yesterday, and when we came by the
apartment to—”

“That’s
because your creep-a-zoid husband of yours got there first.”

“What? When
was that?”

“Around ten
o’clock…I was getting ready to come down to City Hall, and—”

“No. That’s
not right.”

“Bullshit! He
came here, and he…he…”

“That’s
impossible. We were together all morning. He couldn’t have been—”

“And now I’m
in the hospital…because of…of what he did to me.”

A sudden
pressure clamped down on Claire’s chest, making it difficult to breathe.  Her
vision shimmered and flickered, like the air was dancing with heat lightning.

“You’re in the
hospital? When…? How did you—?”

“He beat the
crap out of me, Claire!”

Sally’s voice
choked off, but her words cut through Claire’s confusion and rising panic. At
first, she didn’t believe what she had heard. Then she wanted to say something
in Samael’s defense, but it felt as though unseen hands were holding her by the
throat.

“Did you hear
me? That piece of shit came to the apartment…on the day he was going to marry
you…He beat me up and he…he trashed my apartment.”

“No…Not
Samael,” Claire said.

Sally was
sounding hysterical, now, but Claire couldn’t stop wondering: Who the Hell did
we pick up at the apartment yesterday and bring home with us?

As far as she
knew, they had gone to the apartment and found Sally—the real Sally—looking and
acting like she was having some kind of mental or emotional breakdown.

“And after
that…after that…” Sally was having trouble catching her breath, and her voice
was breaking up over the phone. She was crying and sniffing. “After he did…he
did what he did to me, he tied me up and—and put duct tape over my mouth and a
pillow case over my head and threw me into the hall closet.”

“It wasn’t
him. Samael wouldn’t do something like that,” Claire said, finally catching her
own breath. She might just as well not have spoken. Sally was on a tear now.

“Can you
imagine?…Can you…Can you even begin to understand what I went through?”

“No…I—I can’t,”
Claire said, not sure if Sally was even hearing her.

“I told you
that guy was a creep. Didn’t I? Didn’t I? From the moment I saw him, I knew
there was something really wrong about him…something fucking evil.”

You don’t know
the half of it,
Claire thought but didn’t say. She almost laughed at the thought, but Sally
went on, piling on horror after horror.

“I thought I
was going to die. He hurt me real bad. I’ve got a broken nose, three broken
ribs, half my hair’s pulled out, and my left eye is swollen shut. And before he
shoved me into the closet and left me there, he called me all sorts of terrible
names, saying how after he married you he was going to come back here at night
and do all sorts of terrible things to me.”

“Oh, my God,
Sally,” Claire said, holding her hand against her cheek and staring straight
ahead.

“Once I came
to—in total darkness—I had no idea where I was. I thought I was dead. But then
I started banging my feet against the wall and floor. I kept doing it until—finally—Old
Mrs. Hardy, downstairs, called the cops, and they broke in and found me.”

Sally started
sobbing so loudly she was barely able to speak. Claire’s heart went out to her,
but as unsettling as this was, she was barely aware she was speaking when she
whispered into the phone: “It was the double.”

“The what?”
Sally asked.

So she has
been listening after all, Claire thought, but she was convinced this was
something she would have to explain to Sally in person.

 “I’m coming
to visit. What hospital are you at?”

“Maine Med., I
think,” Sally said. “I’m not sure.” There was an odd shrillness in her voice
that set Claire’s teeth on edge.

Is this the
real Sally?

It sure sounds
like her, but this could be another trap.

Samael said
they would use me to get to him.

After last
night, Claire had a fair estimation of the forces ranged against them. She took
some comfort knowing that Michael was on Samael’s side, but he had disappeared
so fast this morning she wondered now how much help he could possibly be.