Jim’s hand began to tremble. In front of him, Kat stripped off the sundress. She let it drop into the water at the edge of the pool. As Jim forced himself forward, Kat stepped backed.
“Come and take me, Jim.”
Her voice caressed him, invited him, lured him. The temptation encompassed him. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Her eyes did more than beckon. They spoke of seduction and promise. Jim ordered himself not to listen.
“Get out of the water, Kat,” Jim told her, finally using her first name.
“You see them don’t you?” she asked.
Jim nodded slowly. Oh yes, I see them. Don’t know why, but so what?
“She’s going to die tonight, Jim. You cannot save her. Just like you couldn’t save your uncle, couldn’t save your friend. But you can save yourself. Come to me.”
Depression pressed in once again. He had involved Uncle Jack and that had gotten him killed. Carl would probably die before help arrived. Now Kat threatened Saffi. What if he got Saffi killed, too? Could he live with that?
“Do you want to save her, Jim? You do, don’t you?”
Jim stopped at the edge of the pool. A few feet of water separated them. His voice slightly above a whisper.
“If she dies, you die.”
“Jim, you don’t understand. It’s not that simple,” Kat said.
She leaned forward and splashed water on her wound. Beads of pink and silver rolled across and between her breasts. Her body was magnificent. It was as close to perfect as Jim had ever seen, even with the pink furrow that now marked her shoulder.
Kat straightened up, her fingertips stroking the top of the water. Her breasts jutted forward like the twin barrels of some erotic weapon. Her gaze drilled deep into his eyes.
His pulse raced and he felt the spark of connection. He also felt disconnected from his own body. At least from every part except the one that always gave lie to the belief that his self-control elevated him above certain temptations.
Kat and temptation became one flesh. She was the water nymph who kidnapped Hylas, Heracles’s warrior son. Jim remembered the myth from school. At least they taught it as myth. Yet, here she was. The water nymph of legend.
Red-eyed shadows swirled about them. What were they? Demons? Was that really possible? Jim’s world closed in and became tiny. Only the shadows, the pool, and the beautiful nymph who aroused, tempted, and revolted him all at the same time remained. Kat raised her hand, extending it out to Jim.
“Save her, Jim. Save yourself. Come to me and you both will live.”
Jim took a step into the water.
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
Saffi climbed into the Viper and shut the driver’s door. For an expensive sports car, the interior was more austere that Saffi would have expected. She fastened the driver’s seat belt and started the engine. The big V-10 responded, growling its consent to be driven. Saffi pushed in the clutch pedal and shifted into reverse. She turned the car, put it in first, then drove toward the gate.
Surprisingly, the gate had been left unlocked, probably in anticipation of Jim’s arrival. Fighting the wind, Saffi pushed the gate open. Once clear of the mansion, she felt the storm buffeting the Viper, but the car treated the hurricane-strength gusts as a minor annoyance.
She turned onto the highway and pushed down on the gas pedal. The Viper responded immediately and the rear wheels broke traction on the wet pavement. The rear end began to float around until the spinning tires regained their grip. The Viper jumped across the opposing lane as Saffi hit the brakes. The Viper stopped inches from where the road dropped off into a ditch.
She took a deep breath, backed the Viper up, and started back down the highway toward Ft. Myers, this time not being as heavy on the gas. The Viper responded like a barely controlled lover, impatient to reach passion’s final destination. She prayed aloud as dark shadows swarmed around the Viper, crossing in and out of her field of view.
***
As Jim stepped into the water, he accepted that he was now dealing with something beyond the bounds of scientific reality. Something beyond his normal, rational universe. It was as real as the water he now stood in, but at this point, he didn’t care. After all, if the worst that Kat and her shadowy allies could do was make him feel bad, he would just have to feel bad as he dragged her ass out of the water and arrested her.
Keeping his eyes on Kat, Jim tucked his pistol into his belt at the small of his back. Since she was naked, Jim didn’t have to worry about concealed weapons. Kat had backed up farther into the pool until the water lapped at her nipples. She kept her hand outstretched toward Jim, inviting him forward.
“I think I have this thing figured out, Kat.”
Jim stopped, with the water at his thighs, only inches beyond the reach of Kat’s hand.
“Whatever occult crap you’re into apparently has limits, and it looks like one of those limits is that your nasty, little, red-eyed friends can’t attack just anybody they want to. Otherwise, why waste your time with all this seduction crap?”
It was obvious from Kat’s expression that she did not care for Jim’s conclusion.
“Don’t overestimate yourself, Jim.”
“I figure that they can only go after freaks like Williams and guys like York. Fools willing to bargain their souls for toys and strippers and whatever else those two morons were into.”
Jim reached into his right cargo pocket and took out a set of black zip ties.
“We can do this nice or we can go the hard way. Your choice.”
Jim took another step forward and reached for Kat. He grabbed her right wrist intending, if she resisted, to put her in a wristlock and drag her from the pool. Unfortunately, for Jim, she resisted.
Kat’s physical prowess was beyond anything that he had ever experienced. Her left hand shot across her body and clamped on his left wrist. She squeezed so hard that he involuntarily released her. Before he could react, she yanked his arm, pulling him toward her. Then, just as quickly, she forced his arm out and away, trying to turn his body enough to reach his gun. Jim tried to pull back but he felt like a six-year-old in the hands of an angry adult. Like he had in the third grade.
He dropped the zip-tie handcuffs and reached back for his gun with his right hand. He managed to get his hand on the pistol’s grip. They both struggled for control of the gun until it finally slipped away to the bottom of the pool. Despite Kat’s unnatural, even supernatural, strength, her shorter height worked against her.
Trying to maintain control, she pulled hard on Jim’s arm, attempting to pull him down into the water. She managed to get her other arm around his neck, applying a rear chokehold. She fastened her right hand onto her left arm, above her elbow. Her arms became an organic clamp, locking the hold.
Jim flailed around until he reached back and found a handful of Kat’s hair. As he tried to pull her off his back, she locked her legs around his waist, digging in with her heels. He let go of her hair. He reached back and punched her in the head several times. His awkward blows seemed to have no effect. He began to feel lightheaded as her chokehold decreased the oxygen to his brain.
He grabbed her hair again and pulled with all of his strength. A hand full of hair pulled loose from her scalp. He reached back again and again tearing out chunks of hair by their roots, yet she held on, and Jim felt the lightheadedness that told him he would soon be out if he could not break free. Using his remaining strength, he turned and struggled to get out of the water. He knew that if he passed out before he broke her grip, he would die. And he was not ready to die.
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
Kat Connors was no longer Kat Connors. Baalzaric had shoved her aside when he realized that Demore would not, could not, be seduced. While Demore might have become a useful tool, he was now a major obstruction to Baalzaric’s plans. It was time for Demore to die.
Kat’s body clung to Demore with all of the strength that Baalzaric could impart. In the struggle, Demore had been able to do some minor dam
age to Kat, but it was strictly cosmetic. The only unknown would be the restoration of Kat’s mind.
If Baalzaric had broken Kat, sent her into a permanently psychotic state, he would have to abandon her. Fortunately, he still had Robert Teal. Baalzaric had never had to share a host, but it would only be for a season. And to get to that season he had to kill Demore.
***
Jim knew he had but a few seconds, maybe ten or fifteen, before he would succumb to cerebral hypoxia. Kat had gotten him into a carotid restraint, a classic sleeper hold. His windpipe was open but the hold drastically reduced the blood to his brain. If he didn’t get free in the next few seconds, he would black out and be brain dead in a minute or two.
He fought his way to the bank, Kat clinging to his back, and staggered out of the water. Once back on firm ground, he used his free hand to grab Kat’s arm where she had anchored it, under his chin. He pulled down with all of his strength. At the same time, he bent over at the waist and flexed his knees. He knew he had only one shot at breaking her hold.
Moving her arm was like trying to pull a piece of rebar out of solid concrete. Yet his effort to dislodge it allowed more blood to reach his brain. Just enough to provide another five seconds of consciousness.
He took one deep breath and launched himself up and backward with every ounce of strength he still possessed. He arched his back as much as possible, so that when they landed, it would be on her neck and shoulders. Like many warriors who train for personal combat, he had one final thought. God, I hope this shit works.
***
Demore’s final maneuver was so unexpected, happened so fast, that all Baalzaric could do was hold on.
Demore’s body crashed down on Kat with hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch. Baalzaric felt Kat’s grip break loose. He also felt the impact fracture Kat’s right clavicle and right arm. The tiny bit of Kat still attached to her mind screamed. For Baalzaric, Kat’s agony was an exquisitely painful reminder of why he prized a body of flesh, and why he would not let Demore win this battle.
In spite of the great strength Baalzaric brought to Kat, Demore’s little trick had worked. He had broken the hold and managed to roll away. Baalzaric turned Kat’s body over on her stomach and tried to make her stand. An agonizing pain shot up from Kat’s right hip as he tried to get her onto her feet. He realized that the impact had also broken Kat’s pelvis, but he didn’t care.
He forced Kat to her feet, delighting in the excruciating pain that flooded into her brain. Demore was still down, and Baalzaric would drag him into the water and drown him. A few broken bones and a bloody scalp would not keep Baalzaric from his destiny.
***
Florida alligators were not known to normally attack humans. They preferred smaller animals and whatever fish they could get their teeth into. The problem was that there was nothing normal about the big gator at the end of the pool. He had stopped being normal almost a century before — when Baalzaric first entered him.
Of course, he was currently free to be himself, but what did that mean to an animal whose tiny mind had been made even smaller to accommodate the needs and desires of a disembodied spirit? Thus, at that infinitesimally small junction where the minute remnant of the gator’s reptilian brain intersected the stark reality of his need to feed, there remained only hunger.
The gator pushed his weary, virtually used up body away from his hiding place under the bank and cruised slowly and silently across the pool. It was the second time this evening that he’d strayed from his perch at the deep end of the waters. The first time, he had pushed himself off the bank, slapping the water with his tail. A stupid move for a decades-old hunter. His prey had heard him and escaped.
Despite his advanced age, his one functioning eye, and his almost useless brain, his ability to sense movement still worked well. The vibrations of some unknown animal crossing the clearing traveled from ground to water to the waiting gator. He could not know if the animal would stop and drink, but it did not matter. Hunger drove him as he pushed himself away from the bank and out into the pool.
The other times tonight, the vibrations faded quickly away, so he turned around and swam slowly back toward his perch. Fatigued from those efforts, he had stayed in the water, remaining in the security of his small enclave beneath the bank. The great bulk of his sixteen-foot-long body fit neatly into the private hole he had gouged out during his almost century-long residence at the pool.
He had closed his eye and rested, though not actually aware of being fatigued. In his near-mindless state, only hungry and not hungry remained, and the periods of not hungry had become so short and infrequent that tonight only hungry survived.
Now, strong vibrations resonated through the water. A tiny fleck of instinct hit its impossibly small target deep inside his brain and propelled him toward the far bank. Dozens of small, sensor-like nodules sprinkled across his face transmitted the vibratory sensations of some animal, or animals, fighting, bathing, or foolishly frolicking in his personal lunch pail. His physical senses, minus the one damaged eye, were unaffected by the demon-induced atrophy of his cerebral cortex.
It took only seconds to be close enough to see and hear the creature leave the water. The gator’s tail stroked the water with all of its strength.
Unexpectedly, the creature he observed fell backward and split into two separate animals. For a moment, neither moved. The big gator hesitated, confused by the choice of two entrées, then pushed harder with his tail driven by his one remaining thought. Hungry.
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
The billboard for Salty’s Shrimp Shack advertised cold beer, hot coffee, twenty-four-hour gas, and more kinds of shrimp than Bubba Gump. Saffi squinted at Salty’s billboard as the rain slammed down hard and the Viper’s windshield wipers strained to keep the glass clear. She barely noticed when she passed the spot where her car had gone off the road.
At this point, it didn’t matter. There was nothing she could do about her car, or about Jack Demore, but she did pray, thanking God that Jack’s soul lived on even if his body had been broken. Jack was in a good place now. Me and Jim? Not so good.
Saffi struggled to see the road as the rain poured down in wind-driven sheets. She passed another billboard. More advertising for Salty’s Shrimp Shack. Saffi remembered seeing the low roof, cinder block structure on the way out from Ft. Myers. The second billboard advertised that the place was twenty minutes ahead. Saffi pushed the Viper hard against the hurricane. As hard as she dared. She would be at Salty’s in ten minutes or less. Come hell, high water, or hurricane.
***
The clouds had closed back in and rain beat down hard. Jim felt it striking his back, neck, and head. He had been successful in getting crazy, naked Kat off his back. He rolled away from where he had landed and tried to stand. He struggled to his knees, then upright. Then something smacked the back of his head.
He opened his eyes and realized he was on his back, rain beating down on his face. He must have blacked out. The thump was the back of his head hitting the ground.
He closed his eyes and remained still, hoping the sudden urge to puke would go away. He fought down the bile that crawled up his throat, just as something clamped itself around his right ankle. Jim’s eyes shot open. He tried to pull his leg back. He kicked and twisted, trying to free his foot, as Kat pulled him back toward the pool. He grabbed handfuls of grass and tried to hold on. Not working.
He pulled hard with his captured leg and did a sit up. He slammed the foot of his free leg into Kat’s face. He kicked her repeatedly until blood erupted from her nose and mouth. She was bent over at an odd angle, her free hand and arm swinging uselessly by her side. Bloody bald spots speckled her scalp. She channeled the raw, ugly nakedness of a wounded beast.
Her hand gripped his ankle like a steel trap and she pulled harder. Her eyes blazed red-orange. Her lips moved, producing unintelligible syllables sprinkled with gross vulgarity. Blood, spittle, and rain washed down her chin, turning her torso pi
nk. Jim felt the wetness of the pool rush up between his legs.
In desperation, he powered himself into another sit up and grabbed Kat’s wrist with his free hand. He held himself in the up position, reached down with his right hand, and pulled his pant leg up. He yanked his back-up pistol from the ankle holster. The water rose to his chest, then his neck. He felt his face slip under water. Holding his breath, he fired four shots at point-blank range.
***
Baalzaric hated Jim Demore more than anyone or anything. Even more than God and the Nazarene. The beautiful vessel, the promise of eternal pleasure, Kat Connors, was destroyed. Four thirty-eight caliber bullets shattered her face, penetrated her skull, and turned her brain into oatmeal. Kat died instantly, Baalzaric went back into the pool, and Demore lived.
A chorus of vulgar screams echoed through the spirit world. If he had to return to the torment of the pool, then he would send Demore straight to the torments of hell.
Baalzaric abandoned the still warm, but rapidly cooling, body of Kat, and reentered his old and very cold, reptilian home. The big gator shuddered and kept swimming. Cold and hungry.
That was all the sensation the gator provided. Baalzaric knew that the gator would always be cold, but he would not have to be hungry. A warm meal lay just ahead.
***
Jim’s leg was free. He forced his feet to the bottom of the pool and stood in the waist-deep water. Kat’s body floated just in front of him. The hurricane-force winds shook the tops of trees, but remained outside of the clearing. This crap just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Looking around, he noticed that the shadows had disappeared. He looked for the red eyes that had been watching him since he entered the foliage-choked barrier surrounding the pool. Gone. Relief. Until the water rippled up in front of him and something bumped Kat’s corpse, knocking it aside. Before Jim could react, the gator struck, and agonizing pain shot up his right leg and slammed into his brain.
The Demon Pool Page 37
