“They can go to the ER at the hospital.”
“The hospital is only obligated to deal with acute situations. They don’t have the staff or facilities to deal with chronic disease.”
Nana crossed her arms. “Your patients are better off losing their lives than their souls.”
“They’re not going to lose either one.” Dara stuck out her jaw, as mulish as Nana. “Because I’m not closing down my clinic. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can help me figure out how to protect against him instead of fighting me.”
They glared at each other.
“You are as stubborn as your granddaddy.” Nana leaned forward. “And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”
Dara folded her arms, waiting.
“You’re going to do what you’re going to do.” Nana flicked her bony fingers, as though brushing away any responsibility for the inevitable bad outcome. “Bring him here to me.”
“What? No!” Dara’s instinctive reaction made her realize how dangerous she considered Dr. Lyle to be. She didn’t want him anywhere near Nana. “I’m not putting you at risk by bringing him in here.”
“But you’re willing to put your patients at risk by letting him be around them.”
She looked at her grandmother. Sitting there in her chair, all wrapped up in her afghan, her silver hair gleaming under the harsh overhead lights, she looked so frail.
“That’s why I need your help. I need you to tell me what he’s likely to do and how to stop him.”
“Then bring him here. I need to see him to know how you can best defend yourself.”
“How would I even get him to come here?” Hey, Dr. Demon—would you like to meet my grandma?
“You never told him you know he’s a demon, did you?”
“Of course not, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t figured it out.”
“Tell him you’re reconsidering letting him volunteer. Say that your grandmother is a good judge of character, and if she says he’s okay, you’ll take him on.”
Right, because professional women hauled prospective employees in front of their grandmothers all the time.
“He already knows if I take his grant I’ll have to let him into the clinic,” Dara said. “What does he have to gain by coming here?”
“Because his purpose in volunteering isn’t to mess with your clinic, it’s to come after you. He’ll want to smooth things over now he’s gotten his way.”
Dara looked at Nana’s ankles, camouflaged by the afghan. If she could get Dr. Lyle to examine Nana, Nana could assess how much of a threat he posed to the clinic. He’d displayed no interest in her. Whatever his target was, it wasn’t her. The risk to Nana from seeing the demon doctor was very small. The risk to her patients if she closed down the clinic was huge.
“Fine. I’ll give him a call and see if he can come out this afternoon.”
“I’m very flattered you’ve asked me to examine your grandmother.” Belial smiled down at Dara in the lobby of Mercy Care. Her boat-necked cotton sweater provided a tantalizing glimpse of her collarbones. His groin stirred. He made himself think of the larvae pit until it subsided.
She led him down a gleaming hallway lined with doors. DemSec had warned him to stay away from the old lady, but he didn’t see how he could refuse Dara’s olive branch. He might have found a means to force his way into the clinic, but that was only because the boss had insisted. His tactics had done a huge amount of damage. He had a lot of ground to make up.
The old woman was ninety-four. How dangerous could she be?
“I’ve been told I’m very good with older people,” he said.
Dara glanced at him over her shoulder. The ghost of what might have been a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Thank you for giving up your evening. I appreciate it.”
Her composed expression gave no indication she remembered their little tête-à-tête by the gas pumps or the kiss they’d shared in her doorway. Beneath the overhead lights, though, her upper lip gleamed with shiny salve. She had come prepared.
The hallway they walked through was dotted with blonde oak doors every ten feet. Some were closed, but most were open, revealing wizened old people sitting in chairs or lying on beds. This was where humans warehoused their elderly these days. The boss loved these places.
They passed a room containing an old man with huge ears and a confused expression. He sat in front of a tiny television showing a black-and-white western. His rounded shoulders listed hard to the left. The corner of his mouth drooped, and his left hand curled uselessly in his lap. Dara stopped.
“Give me a moment, please.” She entered the room and straightened the old man in his chair, tucking a pillow in beside him to keep him upright. “Is that loud enough for you to hear, Mr. Tobias?” She turned the volume on the set up a notch.
The old man patted her arm. “You’re a good girl, Susan.”
She covered his hand with her own and smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
Was it her compassion that had made her the Enemy’s choice? Belial didn’t think so. Compassion was not really an asset in battle.
At the end of the hall, she knocked on a door exactly like all the ones they’d passed. A brass slot beside the door held a plastic name plate: Esther Perdue. Other demons might quail at the sight of that name, but Belial just smiled. He hadn’t gotten this far by being afraid of a puny old woman who should have gone on to her reward years ago.
He was painfully aware of the cell phone in his pants pocket. DemSec had installed a highly sensitive microphone that would relay every syllable of his coming confrontation back to Ring Nine. He considered muffling it with his handkerchief, or even leaving it out in the hall, but such tactics would gain him nothing. Balked of the chance to listen in, Satan would assume the worst. Belial couldn’t afford to inflame him any further.
Dara opened the door and stepped inside. He tried to follow but was brought up short at the threshold. When he swung his foot across the doorsill, a thousand stinging bees seemed to swarm his leg. He leapt backward.
“Is something wrong?” From inside the room, Dara raised her eyebrows. The little smile he’d noticed earlier widened.
“Ague-weed and five-finger grass,” a very old voice wheezed from farther inside. “They call it demonweed.”
Dara reached above the doorframe and pulled down a small cloth bag. She reached across the threshold and brushed his arm with it. From elbow to wrist, his skin erupted in needlelike stabs of pain. He yelped and backed away.
“It works really well, doesn’t it?” Dara retreated, looking surprised.
“Stops them every time,” the old voice said.
“I’ve heard you talk about it,” Dara said, “but I’ve never seen it in action.”
The stinging sensation in Belial’s arm subsided but didn’t go away.
“Come on in, demon,” the old voice called.
Belial stayed where he was. It was one thing to suspect Dara knew his identity. It was another to have her confront him. Dara’s smile broadened.
“My grandmother is an excellent judge of character,” she said.
The cell phone in his pocket buzzed. He decided to ignore it. He would not return to Hell a failure. He would not cede the field to Lilith, allowing her to reign in triumph while he was reduced to terrorizing new clients as they entered Hell. If these mortal women thought they could vanquish him with a handful of weeds, they were mistaken.
“Are you coming or not?” Dara asked.
“Of course.” He threw back his shoulders and strode into the room, ignoring the pain that attacked like a swarm of stinging insects. He’d suffered far worse in Hell.
Enthroned on a blue corduroy recliner, surrounded by a circle of herbs, sat a tiny old woman. Beneath a silvery bun, her face was a wrinkled roadmap of her life. In her lap she cradled a worn Bible. Dara stood in front her chair, inside the circle of herbs. While she was thus protected, neither his scent nor his snares would affect her.
“Get behin
d me, girl,” the old woman said.
Dara didn’t move. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s more dangerous if I can’t see what I’m doing.”
Reluctantly, Dara moved behind the chair. It was clear her every sense was on the alert for any threat to her grandmother. He wished he could reassure her that he meant the old woman no harm.
The tray table beside the chair held a glass salt shaker and a cut-glass perfume bottle with a squeeze bulb. He’d pilfered one of Lilith’s Prozac capsules, so he would pass the salt test. He’d just have to stay out of range of the holy water.
“Come closer, demon,” Esther said.
He didn’t move. His mind raced. How much did they know, and how much was guessing?
“Who are you?” Dara asked. “And why are you here?”
“I’m a doctor.” He assumed a look of exaggerated patience. “I came to examine your grandmother.”
“You’re a spawn of Satan is what you are, and you’ve come after my granddaughter.”
He wasn’t a spawn of Satan. The boss would never trust one of those tadpoles with a mission of this importance. He was a fallen angel, no less than Satan himself. He set his bag on the floor and pulled a stethoscope from it.
“How long has she been exhibiting signs of dementia?” he asked Dara.
“You mean demon-spotting? I’d say her whole life. Right, Nana?”
Esther nodded. “Saw my first one when I was five. No one believed me until I met your granddaddy, though. That’s how I knew him for my soul mate.”
Belial stepped inside the line of the herbs. Flaming arrows seemed to pierce his foot and leg, but with effort, he kept his face smooth. “I’ll listen to your heart, if that’s all right, Mrs. Perdue.” He put the tips of the stethoscope in his ears, ignoring the fiery sensations shooting up his calf. This pain was nothing to what the boss would inflict if he let these women best him.
“Your granddaughter is concerned that you may have fluid building up around your heart.” He listened for a moment, careful not to come in contact with the Bible, and nodded. “She sounds pretty congested.” He offered the stethoscope to Dara.
As he’d hoped, Dara’s face drew into worried lines. She came around the chair to listen. “I’ll talk to her regular doctor about increasing her diuretic.”
“The edema might account for the dementia we’re seeing.” He twitched aside the afghan to expose the old woman’s swollen feet. “When the body retains this much fluid, it becomes difficult for the lungs to clear out the carbon dioxide. The oxygen-starved brain begins to manufacture hallucinations.”
Dara looked bewildered. “You really do know something about medicine.”
Logic, ever the demon’s friend, was prevailing. “Of course I do. I’m a doctor.”
Esther’s face colored. She picked up the salt shaker and shook it over the tray table. His eyes swept over the loose grains. Forty-seven. There were forty-seven spilled grains.
“He’s a counter, all right,” Esther said. “No demon can resist counting.”
Why hadn’t Lilith’s drug worked?
“None?” Dara asked.
“None that I ever saw.”
Dara kissed the top of the old woman’s head. “She may be old and ill, but she’s not demented.”
Recovering, Belial shook his head. “Perhaps I should check you for water retention, too.”
Dara picked up a scrapbook from the bed and opened it to a middle page marked with a Post-it note. Staring up from the page was a woodblock print of an angel with shattered wings, tumbling from Heaven. The angel was Belial.
He staggered back and his heel came into contact with circle of herbs. Burning arrows jabbed his foot in a dozen places. He lost his balance and lurched toward Dara.
The old witch brandished the little perfume bottle. “Get away from her.”
“I’m not touching her.” But his foot skidded on the herbs and he grabbed Dara’s elbow to steady himself. Esther aimed the bottle at his hand and squeezed the bulb. As soon as the spray touched his skin, his flesh blistered with a burn that went all the way to the bone. He leapt backward, howling.
“What is your mission?” No glimmer of the compassion Dara had shown the old man down the hall was evident on her face. “Why are you here?”
In that instant, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Joan of Arc. He had badly underestimated her.
He tried to back out of range, but she blocked his way. The old woman sprayed him again, this time in the face. It felt as though his flesh was melting from his skull.
“Gaaah,” he shouted, trying to sound as pathetic as possible.
Esther cackled, baring a mouthful of dentures, but Dara frowned. “Are you sure that’s just holy water?”
Esther spritzed some onto the back of her own hand. It beaded up harmlessly.
He groaned. “It may not hurt you, but it hurts me.”
Dara caught her lower lip between her teeth, but Esther said, “He’s a demon. He’ll heal.”
His skin was already regenerating, although it seemed a touch slower than he remembered in the past. Dara watched as though he were a specimen under a microscope. She reached her hand out but snatched it away before she made contact with his face. “That’s fascinating.”
“That’s Satan.” The old woman set the perfume bottle down on the tray. Dara circled back behind the chair again and put her hands on her grandmother’s shoulders. Esther patted a scarred hand. “Why are you targeting my granddaughter?”
“I’m not,” he said. What would the old woman have thought if she’d known that her beloved Lord had thrown her granddaughter under the chariot wheels? No doubt she would have managed one of those mental contortions that allowed humans to maintain their belief in a kind and loving God. “My focus isn’t Dara—it’s the clinic.”
“That’s it, then.” Dara’s shoulders sagged. “I’ll have to close it.”
If he couldn’t convince her to keep the clinic open and allow him in, his mission was as good as done. It had taken him ten thousand years to claw his way up the ladder, and that had been from a neutral starting point. This time, he’d have to overcome Satan’s bitterness over the loss of the wager.
“This is a research assignment,” he said. “I have instructions not to take any action.”
Dara rolled her eyes. “And I can believe that because you’re a demon and demons never lie, right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Demons lie all the time. But at least you know I’m a demon. You may not recognize my replacement.” He was thinking faster than he’d ever thought in his entire existence. He needed a cover story, one she’d believe, but that wouldn’t cause her to close down the clinic and go into hiding. DemSec would find her, of course, but the timeline of the wager didn’t have that kind of play. His head pounded with visions of scrubbing the black lava floors of Ring Nine on his knees while other demons jeered.
“Replacement?” She was wary, but she was listening. Good.
“Of course. This mission isn’t about me. The boss wants to use healthcare as a template for some other efforts he’s contemplating. We’ve spent the last ten years training demons as doctors. They’re now embedded in clinics and hospitals all over America, trying to get a handle on how they create so much misery when they’re ostensibly trying to do good.”
Beneath his expert touch, the lie took shape and grew like a clay pot on a wheel. “I’m under strict instructions to act like a normal human doctor. The boss believes that if he understands how the model works, he can employ it.” For a story concocted on the fly, it wasn’t half bad.
“You can lock me out of the clinic,” he said. “You can even shut it down, but you won’t stop this project. And in the meantime, with your clinic closed, the patients who depend on you will go without medical care.” He laughed without mirth and then made the first true statement he’d spoken all day, “It doesn’t matter what you choose. The boss wins either way.”
The old woman lifted the
leather-bound Bible from her lap. “Put your hand on this and swear you don’t plan to harm my granddaughter or her clinic.”
He eyed the book. There were tales of demons who burst into flame when lying while touching Bibles. “Was that your husband’s?”
Esther nodded. “He studied this Bible from the time he learned to read until the day he died.”
According to legend, the more time a human had spent reading and praying over a Bible, the stronger its power. He tried to sidestep the issue. “Humans perjure themselves under oath all the time. Do you think demons can do any less?”
She pushed it toward him. “Then you won’t mind swearing on it.”
He was aware of Dara’s eyes, watching to see what he’d do. It was make-or-break time. Swallowing, he put his hand on the book. Sparks lit along his nerve endings like a warning. In his pocket, his cell phone heated like a griddle. “I swear I am not here to harm the Matthew A. Strong Memorial Clinic or Dara Strong.” Was that smoke he smelled? Trying to look like he was in no hurry, he removed his hand.
“Don’t listen to him.” The old lady gripped Dara’s hand. “His tongue can only speak deceit.” But she sounded less sure of herself.
Dara eyed him across the old woman’s silver topknot. “Could you give us a moment?”
“Of course.” He picked up his leather bag and left the room. Once the door closed behind him, he raced to the men’s room with demon speed. He plucked the phone from his pocket and tossed it into the sink, then stuck his head under the tap and turned the cold water on, full force. Steam billowed from his head. When the steam finally thinned, he turned off the tap. He rubbed a paper towel over his hair, put his warm-but-no-longer-scorching phone back in his pocket, and zoomed back to Esther’s room.
A few moments later, Dara opened the door and motioned him back inside. He stepped across the threshold, ignoring the effect of the demonweed.
“What kind of time frame does this mission have?” Dara asked.
That was easy. There were only forty days left in the wager. “Six weeks.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and he knew he’d won.
The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1 Page 11
