“Why?”
“Because there’s a chance that some children are going to be hurt very badly.”
“That’s not very nice,” Cassie told her with a firm shake of her head.
“No, it isn’t. Not at all.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Your father and I are going to try to help them.”
“Won’t the bad things try to stop you?”
“They will,” Theo admitted. “But they won’t succeed.”
“Good,” the child said, returning to her scrambled eggs. “You should never let the bad things win.”
Theo couldn’t have agreed more.
• • •
She left the kitchen, going out into the foyer to see Griffin descending the stairs carrying a satchel.
“I’m ready,” he said, hefting the bag as he reached the bottom step.
“Weapons?” Theo asked, eyeing the case.
He nodded. “Some things that have proven effective over the years.”
“We’re dealing with children, I’ll remind you,” Theo said.
“And you’ll just have to trust me,” he told her. “I’ve learned some things during my years with the Coalition.”
“Fine.” She hoped he was as good as he implied, but even more so, she wished John were back.
“Are they sending a car?” Griffin asked.
“We won’t be going to the airport.”
He looked at her strangely.
“This is where you’re going to need to trust me,” she said.
Griffin continued to stare. “Okay,” he said slowly.
“Because of the things inside of me,” she said, walking toward the center of the foyer, “I can do things as they can do.”
“Like?”
“Like get us to Illinois quickly. Just give me a moment,” she told him. “I need to kick a little demon ass first.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, opening a mental door into her psyche.
Where the monsters waited.
• • •
They knew that Theo would come for them, to enslave at least one of their foul kind to do her bidding.
They huddled deep in the darkness of her mind, their eyes glinting like jewels strewn across black velvet.
“So,” she said by way of introducing her topic. “Who wants to be on my good side?”
They continued to glare at her.
“Oh c’mon now,” she said, moving closer to where they hid. “You don’t really want me to come in and drag one of you out, do you? Think of how embarrassing that will look to your friends.”
They growled and hissed and gurgled their displeasure at her.
“I need a specific talent,” she continued, ignoring the sounds. “I need to get someplace very quickly, seconds if possible.”
Still, none of the foul things came forward.
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time,” she urged.
Billy Sharp sauntered out from the darkness. She sighed upon seeing him.
“What do you want, Billy? Come to negotiate for one of your friends? Well, no dice. Either one of you helps me, or I pick . . . and I doubt that will be very pleasurable at all.”
“I completely understand,” the demon wearing the face of her dead childhood friend said. “And we’d be honored to help you . . .”
“But,” Theo said.
“But we need something in return.”
“This again,” she said with a snarl. “This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal,” she told him. “This is me needing assistance immediately.”
“And we would gladly assist you with nary a struggle, if only . . .” The demon child paused.
“If only what?”
“Let us see,” Billy said simply.
“I don’t understand.”
“It is so very dark in here, inside your mind,” Billy said. “Let us gaze out through the windows of your soul.”
“You want to see through my eyes.”
“That’s all,” demon Billy said. “Not too bad, is it?”
“What’s the catch?”
Demon Billy looked shocked. “Catch? There is no catch. Let us see what you see while on this errand that requires such immediacy, and you’ll get what you need.”
“I kind of figured you wouldn’t want to watch television,” Theo said.
“Not our thing, I’m afraid,” the demon said. “So, do we have a deal?”
“Just to look out?” she sought clarification.
“Just to look out.”
She knew that she was probably making a terrible mistake, but time was of the essence, and there were children’s lives at stake.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But only for this assignment, then it’s back to lights out.”
“Excellent,” Billy said, rubbing his hands together and smiling as if he were about to have delicious cake and ice cream. He turned with a giggle and began to skip back toward the wall of darkness, watched by the two thousand demons, give or take, that he spoke for.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Theo called after him.
“It’ll only be a moment,” he said, just before diving into the wall of blackness.
Theo started to believe that she’d been screwed when Billy emerged, holding the skeletal hand of something made up almost entirely of long, flowing black hair that moved in the air like seaweed caressed by gentle ocean currents. It didn’t appear to have any lower body, floating in the air like a balloon as Billy brought the thing closer.
She tensed as he released its claw, letting it slowly drift toward her.
“This is Elione,” Billy said. “A fiend of the air. I believe she is what you require.”
The fiend drifted closer as Theo stood her ground.
“Remember our deal,” Billy said.
“I remember,” Theo answered, preparing to allow the demon to come closer, so that she could assert control.
“We’ll be waiting,” Billy added.
And the fiend of the air rushed toward her, its hairy form flowing into her open mouth, her ears, eyes, and the pores of her flesh.
• • •
Griffin stared down at the woman’s twitching body and wondered how good an idea this was.
Certainly, any opportunity to get to the scene of the infestation faster was a good one, but truly, what was the cost?
He remembered how he’d been sent by Elijah to observe her at the Cho Institute, to determine the extent of fate that had befallen her. It was so much worse than they had expected.
Yet here she was now, functioning far better than they could ever have imagined. Certainly, the sigils tattooed on her flesh were allowing her the opportunity to control the demonic entities, and she appeared to be doing fine.
Better than fine, actually.
Theo moaned, her eyes rolling back into her head, and he wondered what was happening inside her.
“What’s the matter with her?” asked a child’s voice.
Cassie came down the short hall from the kitchen, looking quite concerned.
“She’s fine, darlin’,” Griffin told her. “She’s asking the . . . things inside her for help.”
Cassie looked at him. “I don’t think you can trust those things, Daddy,” she said.
“You’re probably right,” he said. “But Theo has a special way about her that just might work.”
Stephen came out from the kitchen, looking for Cassie.
“Sorry about that,” he said, extending his hand for her to take. “So, are you going to help me today?”
“You sure you don’t need me?” Cassie asked her father, looking back to Theo.
“I think we’re good,” he told her. “Thanks.”
“Okay,” she said, reaching for Stephen’s
hand.
“Hey, how about a kiss for your dad?”
Cassie turned and darted into Griffin’s arms, giving him a quick peck on the lips.
“Love you,” he said.
“Love you back,” she answered, taking Stephen’s hand, the two of them heading toward his office.
Griffin knelt beside Theo, watching for signs of life. It didn’t even look like she was breathing now, and he reached his hand down to her delicate throat to check for a pulse.
Just as her eyes snapped open.
The eyes were totally dark, as if her skull had been filled with oil.
“Are you all right?” he asked, pulling his hand back.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice sounding raw and strained, as if she’d been screaming for a very long time.
Griffin then noticed the oddest of things. Her hair, already long, and past her shoulders looked as though it was getting steadily longer.
And looked like it was moving as if touched by a breeze that he couldn’t feel.
Or maybe it had acquired a life of its own.
Theo got to her feet, her hair covering her face. He could barely glimpse her wet, glistening eyes behind the intense growth. The hair, now down past her waist and getting longer, spread out around her, drifting in the air.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
He saw that her hands had morphed to something more resembling claws than fingers and was tempted to reach into his bag for a weapon, just in case.
“Yeah, there are kids’ lives at stake.”
And she nodded in agreement, beckoning him closer with long, spindly fingers with a hooked talon at the end of each.
“Closer,” she said to him.
Griffin hesitated but gathered his strength about him and picked up his bag, stepping closer.
Theo’s hair reached for him, and he nearly recoiled away but allowed himself to be entwined in the tendrils of black. He felt himself repulsed by the touch of the demonic, but he managed to hold his ground as the hair continued to flow, and grow, cocooning them both in row after row of hair the color of the darkest night.
Griffin’s eyes were covered, as were his mouth and nose, and just as he began to panic, he felt the world shift, and drop out from beneath his feet.
His body shifting from one place—
To another.
• • •
The thing that had been Caroline Rayland sat in the wheelchair of the nursing-home lobby, collecting its thoughts.
The television was playing on the wall across from where the demon sat, and something caught its eye.
The sound was turned off, but it didn’t matter. The demon knew from what it was seeing, what it was sensing, that this was an ongoing tragedy of an infernal nature.
It smiled, comforted to know that its birth into this world was indeed a timely one. That its purpose, foretold by the Lords of the Abyss, was to be fulfilled.
The demon shuddered. The responsibility that had been heaped upon it was nearly overwhelming, the future of its infernal kind dropped squarely into its lap.
It looked around the lobby. There were supposed to be acolytes to assist it, but it saw none. Its eyes kept drifting back to the television, hoping for a sign of something familiar.
Something that might remind it of home.
It had been so long since it had last seen the infernal realm.
From the corner of Caroline’s eye, the demon caught movement through a nearby window. It leaned forward in the wheelchair, watching a vehicle as it entered the parking lot, pulling into a space between two other cars, whose owners were part of the piles in the lobby.
It watched as the car’s door opened, and a man climbed out. He was tall and gangly, what hair he had cut short and close to the skull. The man sauntered across the parking lot toward the entrance.
The demon waited, making sure that the female form that it wore was innocent and harmless in appearance.
The stranger peered in through the window before going to the door to gain entrance.
The demon slid down a bit in its wheelchair, ready.
The man opened the door and stepped in, fixing his eyes upon the demon. “Hello,” he said simply.
The demon smiled, and the man smiled back.
“Oh, there you are,” the man then said.
The demon cocked its elderly head.
“I didn’t notice you there at first, but as soon as you smiled.”
The demon didn’t quite understand and tensed as the man approached.
“My name is Fritz,” he said, kneeling before the demon and averting his eyes. “I am answering the call of servitude. The infernal lords have sent me to assist you.” Slowly, the man called Fritz lifted his gaze to meet the demon’s. “You are the Cardinal, and I am your acolyte.”
The demon remembered its title, and smiled. Yes, the Cardinal, it thought, feeling a surge of importance flow through the human body it wore.
“Rise,” the Cardinal said, motioning for its servant to stand.
Fritz slowly rose to his full height. “How may I serve you?”
The Cardinal pushed itself up from the chair, noticing that it was still wearing the nightclothes of Caroline Rayland, stained and stinking of sweat.
“This form,” it said, continuing to examine the outside appearance. “To embark on a mission of such magnitude, a certain degree of modification will be necessary.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“This one,” the Cardinal said, raising a bare arm. It reached up with its other hand and sank its clawed fingernails into the flesh of the bicep and pulled the paper-thin skin away. “It’s far too frail for what is ahead.”
“I agree,” Fritz said.
“We will have to do this soon,” the Cardinal said, dropping the bleeding skin in a pile at its feet. “For if this body is badly damaged, or destroyed, it could very well be the end of me.”
“I understand,” Fritz answered.
“Good,” the Cardinal said, not quite sure how he was feeling about this acolyte. There was something the demon master could not quite put a finger on—something that annoyed it.
“We should be going,” Fritz said. “Wouldn’t be good for us to be here when the next shift shows up.”
“Yes,” the Cardinal said. “Though more bodies could provide further sustenance.”
“Though we’d be no further along to reaching the Vessel.”
The Vessel.
The demon suddenly remembered its importance. The acolyte was correct, which angered the demon lord. They needed to reach the Vessel to achieve their ends.
“True,” the Cardinal said, plucking at the front of its cotton nightgown. “We should dally no longer.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Their attentions were caught by movement on the television screen that hung on the wall. A Special Weapons and Tactics van was pulling up to the open area in front of the school, and men wearing black jumpsuits and holding high-powered rifles poured from the rear doors.
The acolyte started to giggle, and the Cardinal took its eyes from the screen to study the expression on the man’s face. There was a serious glee present there.
A glee that came from knowing far more than was evident.
“This thing,” the Cardinal said, lifting its bleeding arm and pointing to the large-screen television. “This is your handiwork?”
Fritz managed to tear his eyes from the screen to look at his new master.
“I set the wheels in motion,” he said, beginning to giggle again. When he saw that the Cardinal was not amused, he stifled his nervous laughter and coughed into his hand. “I’m sorry, a distraction from our true purpose,” he said.
The Cardinal nodded in agreement. “We should be on our way.”
“Of course.” Fritz turn
ed and began to stride toward the door.
“Ahem,” the Cardinal said, clearing its throat.
Fritz stopped at the door, turning toward its master.
The Cardinal continued to sit in the wheelchair. Expectantly waiting.
“Sorry,” Fritz said as he returned to his master and began to push the chair toward the exit.
“Yes, I believe you are,” the Cardinal said with a growl of disappointment.
7
Brenna was out of the car before it had even stopped moving.
She had watched the SWAT van pull up as she was coming down the school drive, cursing beneath her breath as she realized that the situation was escalating far quicker than she’d expected. She had a feeling that this one could get very messy, especially if what they suspected was happening inside really was. She was tempted to give Elijah a call, for the old man seemed to have an uncanny ability to pull strings in the highest echelons of power before larger problems could evolve.
“Excuse me,” she called out as she strode toward the black SWAT van, where the team was suiting up and checking their weapons.
One of them, a burly man with square features and a mustache the color of steel, turned toward her, an AR15 cradled almost lovingly in his arms.
“Who’s in charge?” she asked, taking her identification from inside her suit jacket.
“That would be me,” the man said
“Agent Brenna Isabel, FBI,” she introduced herself. “And you are?”
“Stokes, ma’am. Sergeant Stokes.”
“Sergeant Stokes,” Brenna acknowledged him, then turned toward the old brick building. She could see the broken window on the fourth floor from which the body had been thrown and couldn’t help but glance at the ground beneath. Thankfully, the corpse had already been removed. “I’d like you to stand down until . . .”
“No can do,” Stokes interrupted. “There are twenty-seven children in there depending on us.” He turned toward his team and gestured. “Move out.” Immediately, the men and women began to fan out across the lawn to fall into position around the building.
“Damn it,” Brenna muttered, looking at the crowd of officers and onlookers around her, hoping she would recognize other Coalition agents. She saw no one. She was alone and powerless in the heat of the situation. If only she’d arrived sooner, she could have had this thing locked down tight and . . .
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