The Demon You Know

by Christine Warren

  “Then why did you say it?”

  She shook her head so fast she felt a little dizzy. “I didn’t. I swear. I mean, well, I did, but I—it wasn’t . . . I mean, it wasn’t really me. Saying it. I don’t think.”

  Rule frowned.

  “I think what Abby is trying to say,” Tess broke in, sounding drily amused, “is that I had a very valid point about the fact that she might be possessed by something. In this case, something with a bit of a smart mouth, it seems.”

  Abby peered at her over the tips of her fingers. “You realize that sounds vaguely insane, right?”

  Tess arched an eyebrow. “Six weeks ago, didn’t werewolves?”

  The woman had a point, but that didn’t mean Abby intended to give her credit for it. Not when she was having to struggle so hard not to schedule a fitting for her own little white coat with the buckles in the back. “And you can just tell this from looking at me?”

  “Like I said, I’m a witch.” Tess turned to Samantha and Carly. “So why don’t you tell me everything that happened before you got here?”

  Carly finished pulling on her own sweats and shrugged. “You want it unabridged or the Reader’s Digest version?”

  Was Abby the only one here who had been even slightly disconcerted by the fact that when both women had shifted back to their human forms they had been stark raving naked? Or who found it unusual to get dressed in the middle of a hallway with the same nonchalance as in a women’s locker room?

  Judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, Abby guessed she was.

  Hey, don’t go makin’ waves. I gotta say, I been enjoying the scenery.

  Swallowing against the urge to start babbling incoherently—and maybe drooling—Abby stepped in front of the werewolves and crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, I’m not entirely convinced that this whole thing isn’t a nightmare I’m having after a bad batch of moo shu pork, but since I don’t seem to be about to wake up, I’m at least going to dream myself into a starring role here. If you want to know what happened to me, why don’t you try asking me?”

  Tess shrugged. “No skin off my nose. I just thought you might still be a little shaken up by the whole thing. But by all means, be my guest and start spilling your guts.”

  Abby could have started off by telling Tess she wasn’t feeling “a little” anything. She’d stopped feeling little a while ago. She was now thoroughly . . . whatever she was . . . and not seeing her way back anytime soon. But at least that voice in her head seemed to have quieted down for the time being.

  Fortifying herself with a deep breath, Abby considered warning Tess to be careful what she wished for before she squared her shoulders and gave a summarized account of her day so far. It felt more like a week when she thought about it, but she was trying really hard not to do that.

  She started, just like her trouble had, with Terry’s frustrated ambition to be the next Peter Jennings and related the whole tale of their mission to cover the demonstration. She spoke of the escalating tension that had eventually led to Terry turning tail and running away at the first hint of a threat on his person, of her hiding place between the cars, and of her encounter with the thugs, the Other, and the werewolves and . . . accomplice . . . who had brought her here. By the time she finished, she felt like she’d lived the whole thing over again, and she had to stop herself from looking around for a hidden camera.

  Rule had listened to the whole story almost as intently as Tess, but it was the woman who spoke first.

  “Tell me again about the Other who ran into you.”

  “Was thrown into me,” Abby corrected. She shrugged. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you. It’s not like I’m up on all the . . . er . . . varieties of Others out there. So far, all the stories I’ve worked on have been about vampires, Lupines, and witches.”

  “The big three,” Tess agreed.

  “Right. Well, anyway, it’s not like I could identify this kid on sight. He looked pretty normal to me, if you discounted the horns on his forehead. Like your average college kid, really.”

  “What kind of horns did he have?”

  Two months ago, that question would have had Abby searching for the nearest exit and the number of Bellevue’s admitting department. Instead, she stood there and searched her recollection for the closest example she could summon. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?”

  “Of course I have! I loved that movie. Not as good as the book, of course, but it was Hollywood after all.” The look on Abby’s face must have been as confused as the reaction in her head, because Tess grinned and looked unrepentantly mischievous. “Just because we’ve seen—or been—real-life examples of the creatures in C. S. Lewis’s imagination doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate his ability to tell a story.”

  “Oh.” Abby blushed. “Well, in that case, the horns looked like he was Mr. Tumnus’s long-lost cousin. From what I could tell, though, his legs bent the right way around.”

  “He didn’t smell much like goat, either,” Carly offered. “If he did have satyr blood, it couldn’t have been more than half, if that.”

  Tess hummed. “And you said he smiled at you when he knocked you down?”

  Abby nodded.

  “Well, that must have been when the possesser changed places.” Tess said it as if she were explaining how to make scrambled eggs.

  “Possesser?”

  “Sure. You are the possessed, in the throes of possession. Therefore, whatever is possessing you is the possesser.”

  “Possessed? You were serious about that? You think I’m possessed.”

  “What else would you call it when something is inside of you thinking things you wouldn’t think and saying things you never meant to say?” Her shrewd blue eyes fixed on Abby’s face steadily. “That is what’s been happening. Isn’t it?”

  “But the Other didn’t have heterochromia. His eyes were brown. Both of them.”

  “Yes, but he’s part satyr. Like I said before, the situation only seems to apply to humans. With heterochromia, a human’s psyche seems to be more like that of an Other, more open, which is what allows for the possession.”

  Abby looked frantically for some way to refute the other woman’s conclusion, which felt a lot like looking around for a log to grab onto before heading over the edge of the waterfall. “No. I can’t be. It’s not possible.” Her hand flew to her throat. “I’m wearing a cross and everything!”

  “Abby, we’re not talking about vampires here,” Tess said, sounding very much as if she was trying not to laugh. “And even if we were, the cross thing is a myth. Others have nothing to do with religion. Christianity won’t protect you from us any more than it will protect you from a crocodile.”

  Abby shook her head. Again. If people kept telling her things like this, she was going to deny herself into a concussion. “I didn’t say anything about vampires, but demons are demons. They’re the embodiment of evil. God’s symbols have to have power over them.”

  Oh, sweet cheeks, who decided it was safe to let you go wandering the big bad world all alone? Were they nuts?

  Rule opened his mouth, but Tess cut him off. “This is not the time, pal.” She turned back to Abby. “Don’t get our friend started on demons and the misconceptions we mortals have over their origin, history, society, and biochemistry. The lecture is like a five-hundred-part series. Suffice it to say, what you think you know about demons is quite likely a big load of bupkes. Besides, right now, we can’t say exactly what it is that’s possessing you.”

  Abby frowned. “So I’m not going to start spitting pea soup any minute now?”

  Tess had the grace to look uncertain. “Well, no. I mean, that movie was about demonic possession. But we’re still not sure that—”

  “You mean I’d spit pea soup if it was a demon?” Her voice sounded high-pitched and uncomfortable, even to Abby. Heaven knew what it must sound like to anyone else in earshot. At the moment she didn’t care. “I’m possessed by a demon
?”

  “We don’t know that. It could be anything at this point.”

  “Then let’s hurry up and figure it out!”

  “It isn’t a demon,” Rule’s voice rumbled out, providing a convenient and large target for Abby’s glower.

  “And how would you know that for certain? Are you some kind of expert on demonic possession?”

  “Well, actually . . . ,” Samantha said, pursing her lips and studying the polish on her toenails.

  Tess didn’t waste time with beating around the bush, which Abby was beginning to view as something of a trademark of hers. “Rule is a demon, Abby.”

  Surely a person’s blood couldn’t really freeze in her veins, right? That was just an expression.

  Wasn’t it?

  Every muscle in Abby’s body tensed against the instinct to take a step away from the towering male figure, but will is never a match for instinct. She sidled closer to Tess. “A what?”

  “A demon. And you can stop looking like he’s going to pull your heart out through your nose just to listen to the squicking. It turns out that’s not actually a demon pastime after all.”

  At least that implied that Abby wasn’t the only one in the room who’d ever thought it might be.

  Nah, they’re more inclined to honor you to death. Those guys have no idea how to have a good time.

  The mountainous kidnapper didn’t look anything like any demon Abby had ever envisioned. Not only did he not have ram’s horns and goat’s legs; he also didn’t even give her the willies. At least, not the kind of willies she thought the embodiment of pure evil ought to. He did do strange things to her stomach, but she thought that had more to do with the fact that he happened to be one of the most gorgeous living beings she’d ever set eyes on. If he was living, that is.

  He had the physique of a warrior, all muscles and sinew and dense, heavy bones. His face could have been carved in granite by an Italian master attempting to depict one of the archangels. Dark golden hair framed his head like a halo, and those fathomless black eyes made her want to do things she wasn’t even sure were physically possible.

  Heh-heh. Glad to feel you’ve got a pulse, sweet cheeks, but seriously, these thoughts of yours are making me see Rule in a new and deeply disturbing light. So you think you could cool it?

  A demon couldn’t do that to her. Could it?

  Unless he was an incubus. Maybe all those medieval stories about innocent young virgins being seduced by man-shaped creatures in the dead of night weren’t so far-fetched after all.

  Oh, brother.

  Tess tucked a stray curl behind her ear and sighed. “Now really doesn’t strike me as the time to give you the Cliffs Notes history of demons and their kindred, so let me just assure you that Rule is one of the good guys and get back to the business at hand, which involves finding out if whatever is inside you is playing for the home team.” She looked at Rule. “What’s your take so far?”

  The enormous man—demon!—frowned. “I am unable to say for certain unless I can make contact with it, but I can smell a hint of sulfur about her.”

  Abby saw Tess’s eyes widen and her face blank. She took that as a bad sign. “Sulfur? I smell like sulfur? As in ‘fire-and-brimstone’ sulfur? Then it is a demon!”

  “It’s not a demon.” Tess grimaced. “Maybe we can’t put off that history lesson, after all. But if I could make a suggestion, I’d say we should have it someplace that isn’t in the middle of a hallway. (A) because I’d like to sit down, and (B) because I have a feeling that before the class is dismissed, someone around here is going to need a very large drink.”

  “I don’t drink,” Abby murmured while the voice inside her head said, Make mine a double.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rule leaned against the mantelpiece in the upstairs library and kept his eyes on the human woman. She looked a bit like someone had just hit her on the back of the head with a Louisville Slugger, wide-eyed and dazed and more than a little pale. Her mismatched eyes almost blended together now, mostly because her pupils had dilated until only the barest rim of iris could be seen at the edges of the deep black pools.

  The tickling in his chest irritated him. He would have called it heartburn if acid reflux existed in terms of his physiology, but he couldn’t. Instead, he chose to ignore it, along with the tingling at the base of his spine that urged him to stand closer to her. Close enough to touch that milk-pale, baby-smooth skin.

  Rafael had joined his wife and the others when they’d adjourned upstairs. He lounged in an armchair beside the fireplace, his expression intent and serious as Tess and Samantha filled him in on the origins of the current situation. He looked no more thrilled about it than the rest of them.

  “What, in the end, did you determine?” he asked when the others fell silent. “Is the possession demonic?”

  Rule stifled the urge to growl. “It’s not demonic.”

  Rafael’s lips quirked. “I apologize, my friend. Fiendish, is what I meant to ask.”

  Abby seemed to flinch at that, and Rule felt the strange urge to temper his instinctively blunt assurance. “It looks as if it could be. As I told your mate, I cannot be completely sure unless I am able to make contact with the being.”

  The Felix raised a dark brow. “You were waiting for a formal introduction?”

  “No, but permission would make things easier.” His gaze stayed on the woman. Her innocent features proved appallingly easy to read. She appeared ready to scream or to pass out. Neither of which would be very helpful at the moment. “It would make things easier for me, and more . . . comfortable for her if she invited me to look more closely.”

  The delicate jaw firmed, chin lifting as she drew in a breath. “She would need to know what exactly you meant by ‘looking’ first.”

  Rule watched her face and considered his response. It would be a lot easier to do this with her cooperation, but he wasn’t sure that would be her first inclination when she heard what he had in mind.

  “I would need to make contact with the presence in question,” he ventured after a minute, “draw it to the forefront of your consciousness so that I could speak to it. Ask it some questions.”

  He saw how much that idea thrilled her. Her dark eyes flared, and she drew in a breath that shook. “You mean I’d need to let it take over? Let myself really be possessed and go all Linda Blair?”

  Mentally cursing the producers of that movie for all the trouble they’d caused his kind in recent years, Rule gave a curt nod. “For a few minutes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I know what?”

  She scowled up at him, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. He tried not to let them draw his eyes to where they didn’t belong. “How do you know it would only be for a few minutes? What if this demon decides it likes being in control and refuses to fade back into the background?”

  “It’s not a demon,” he gritted out.

  “Whatever. I’m the one who’s being possessed by it, right? I think I should be able to pick my own terminology.”

  Tess stepped between them. “Yeah, let’s not waste time arguing about that. We need to find out where we stand and do something about it. Before it becomes a moot point.” She turned her blue eyes, hardened with determination, on Abby. “Look, I get that this whole thing is making you a little nervous. And I can’t say I blame you, but if Rule says this is what has to happen, then I believe him.”

  Abby frowned at the other woman, but Rule thought he could see more than irritation in her fine features. Fear lurked there as well. “But what if the . . . the thing inside me decides it likes being the one in the driver’s seat? What if it won’t let me go?”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” Rule announced, his voice firm but softer now. “I promise. I will not allow it.”

  “And I believe that, too.” Tess reached out and took one of the obviously unsure woman’s pale hands between her own. “It will be okay, Abby. You can trust us.”

  That
made Abby snort, a half-amused, half-resigned, wholly desperate sound. “At the moment, it doesn’t look as if I have all that much choice.”

  No one said anything to correct that notion.

  Her mouth tightened. “Fine.” She backed herself up to the nearest armchair and sat, her fingers clenching on the upholstery. She raised her gaze and her eyebrows in Rule’s direction. “Do we need to wait for the old priest, or are you going to handle this yourself?”

  Rule bit back his retort. The whiteness of her clenched knuckles revealed the nerves concealed by her smart comments. In other circumstances, he’d have relished making her eat her words, but not just then. Stuffing down the inappropriate urges stirring at the back of his consciousness, he took a step forward and placed himself directly in front of her chair.

  “No need,” he rumbled. “This won’t take long.”

  Her wide eyes followed every movement as he crouched down before her and reached into his pocket. He drew out a short silver chain from which dangled three small charms. Flipping one to the forefront, he palmed it before gently prying Abby’s fingers from the chair arms and pressing her palm to his. He saw her flinch and her expression shift into the early stages of panic as the metal began to heat between them.

  “Shh,” he soothed, keeping her gaze locked to his, intentionally blocking out every trace of their fascinated audience. “It’s all right. It’ll be over in a minute. I promise.”

  A slight grimace twisted her mouth, and her breathing sped up, grew shallow. “I’ll bet you . . . say that to all the girls,” she hissed just before her pretty, mismatched eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, folding forward at the waist like a poorly balanced doll left unsupported on a shelf.

  Mouth grim, Rule caught her shoulders in his hands and shifted her up to rest against the back of the chair. Her head lolled against the dark wing, and her breathing was fast and shallow, like an animal panting. The sharp smell of sulfur grew stronger.