The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1

by Jeanne Oates Estridge

  The demons had won.

  Chapter 47

  Belial could have been in the spider-hole for a day or a week when the demon guards returned to drag him out. After the blackness of the hole, even the flickering torches of the corridor made him squint. He’d been so cramped he couldn’t straighten his arms or legs. He crumpled when he tried to walk. The guards lifted him by his armpits and dragged him down the corridor.

  As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw his arms and torso were in ribbons from scratching at spider bites. Away from the pit and the constant bites, his skin began to heal, but it still itched as though the eight-legged beasts crawled over him.

  His guards delivered him to Satan’s office, where the boss was waiting for him with smoking horns. This was it. His long life had finally come to an end, and he couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry. He had only one question: was Dara safe?

  “I didn’t think it was possible…” Satan trembled with rage. “But I’ve found a demon who’s a bigger fuckup than you are.”

  With effort, Belial shifted gears. “Lilith?” She was the sole demon he could think of who was doing something important enough to warrant this kind of fury. Hope burgeoned. He stood a little straighter.

  Satan tapped his nose. “And if she’s screwed up as bad as I think she has, the two of you will be performing a pas de deux in the Lake of Fire.”

  Belial heard this threat with something approaching joy. For Satan to be this angry, Lilith must have bungled things beyond redemption.

  “You sit there.” With a flick of his fingers, Satan tossed Belial across the room, slamming him into a chair. “And keep your mouth shut.” Belial’s lips sealed into a tight line.

  A few minutes later, Lilith strode through the door, a broad smile on her face.

  Satan’s horns streamed oily black smoke. “You stupid slut, you just lost us the bet.”

  But Lilith tilted her head and put a fingertip to her chin. “Now why would you say that?”

  The smoke coming from Satan’s horns thickened. He practically danced with rage. “You know the terms of the bet. If we kill anyone before their time, we forfeit.”

  Lilith had killed someone? Belial hoped it wasn’t Viola. Beyond the fact that he liked the old biddy, her death would implicate Dara and the clinic.

  “But we haven’t,” Lilith said. “That’s the beauty of it.” Obnoxious as she was, Lilith was seldom off-base when she thought she’d excelled. Belial’s hopes wavered.

  “What are you talking about?” Satan didn’t share his appreciation of Lilith’s instincts.

  “How old do you suppose Esther was?” she asked.

  Esther? Lilith had killed Dara’s grandmother? Bile rose in Belial’s throat. Dara would be devastated.

  “She was ninety-five if she was a day,” Satan said. “The old bitch should have been dead years ago.”

  “Exactly.”

  Realization broke over Satan’s face like dawn breaking over the Alexandria Beach. At the same moment, Belial saw the wicked genius of what Lilith had done.

  “The days of man’s years are threescore and ten,” Satan said. “Seventy years.”

  “Psalms 90, verse 10,” Lilith said. “His rules, not ours.”

  “You’re brilliant.” Satan offered her a high five. “Do you know that?”

  Lilith preened. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice. The death of her grandmother will be all it takes to push that vapid little slut past the tipping point.”

  Satan slid his hands over Lilith’s high, tight ass. Lilith rubbed herself against him. Belial thought he might throw up.

  “If you can pull this off,” Satan said, “you’ll have your place at the poker table.”

  “Then save me a spot,” Lilith said. “Because I’m going to deliver that sad, sad bitch like a pepperoni pizza.”

  Frozen in his chair, Belial racked his brain. What could he do to stop them?

  Dara didn’t sleep that night, sick with grief and guilt. She’d involved her grandmother in a war with demonic forces and then left her, unprotected, for the demons to murder. The next morning, she got word from the board of trustees they’d voted to suspend her from her executive director post.

  It was no more than she deserved.

  Lilith delivered the news via phone. “I’m hoping this will blow over, but the DA feels like he needs to come down hard. I’m already getting pushback from the hospital about continuing our support. If we leave you in place during the investigation, it could destroy your donor base for years to come.”

  “I’ll remove my belongings from the office tomorrow, after the funeral.” Dara’s chest felt hollow. Matt’s death, and the baby’s, had left her with two things in her life—her grandmother and the clinic. Now they were both gone. She refused to let herself think about Ben.

  That night was Nana’s visitation. Dara spoke to people in a haze. She’d done this for Granddad, and later for Matt. The good news was that she’d never do it again. She had no one left.

  By the time she pulled into her garage afterward, depression had settled over her like a wet, gray blanket. She felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her life, even after Matthew’s death.

  Despite her best efforts, thoughts of Ben seeped into her mind. She missed his laughter and his quick wit and his interest in the patients at the clinic. She missed his snarky comments on humankind, but most of all, she missed his arms around her. It had taken her body no time at all to become accustomed to the weight of his arm thrown across her in sleep. The loss of that was like having part of herself ripped away.

  She could sense Nana and Granddad looking down from Heaven, willing her to call on God for relief, but she couldn’t do it. God had allowed her to get into this mess. What was the point in asking him for help? She cried herself to sleep.

  Nana’s funeral was at Deliverance Mission Church, as she would have wished. Everyone from the clinic was there, both staff and volunteers. The exception was Dara’s board. None of them were in attendance. They’d evidently decided they couldn’t afford to be associated with a woman who allowed her drunken boyfriend to nearly kill a patient.

  Kelsey was there with Jeremy. Ben will be so pleased. Then Dara remembered he’d never know.

  Beyond offering condolences, everyone kept their distance. It was as though they didn’t want to risk infection with the misfortune that had come her way. She wasn’t surprised. She’d seen the same behavior after Matthew’s death. Pastor Bodine gave Nana’s eulogy, reminding everyone of the years she and Lonnie Perdue had spent fighting demons and saving souls.

  “Who can find a virtuous woman?” he asked. “For her price is above rubies.”

  Dara touched the cross that hung around her neck, letting her tears fall like Florida rain while a CD played Ricky Skaggs singing Nana’s favorite song, “The Soul of Man Never Dies.” The pallbearers carried her casket out to the churchyard, where the spot beside Granddad waited. Pastor Bodine said another prayer, and Dara dropped a single white rose into Nana’s grave. The clods of earth made hollow thuds as they landed on her coffin.

  In the recreation hall behind the church, white paper tablecloths covered the youth ping-pong tables. Folding chairs lined the sides. The ladies of the congregation had brought enough casseroles and sheet cakes to feed an army of mourners. When everyone finished eating—everyone but Dara, she couldn’t stomach the thought of food—Pastor Bodine told her she needn’t help clean up. The church sisters would take care of it.

  “When you’re ready to come back,” he said, “you know that we’re here for you.”

  She did know that. But her latest losses were one more example of God’s callousness toward his children. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  Dara left the church feeling drained, but she’d promised to retrieve her belongings that afternoon, so she girded her loins and drove to the clinic. Gabby got there before her. She buzzed Dara in, telling her once again how sorry she was about everything. Dara nodded. She tried to s
ummon gratitude but felt only emptiness.

  When she reached her office, her determination to get through this trial with her dignity intact suffered a setback. Lilith sat in her chair, browsing through her computer like she owned the place.

  “We felt like it was important to get some new leadership in here right away,” she said. “The clinic can’t afford to have any more bad publicity.”

  Dara pressed her lips together. Her things were already loaded into a cardboard box. Beside it, another carton contained an assortment of stiletto heels Lilith evidently hadn’t found a place for. Dara picked up the first box.

  “I can have someone help you carry those out to your car.” Lilith reached for the phone as though Dara’s staff were hers to command.

  A red mist rose in front of Dara’s eyes. The odor she’d smelled at Mercy Care after Nana died, that cloying scent of sugar donuts and black licorice, was in this room.

  Ben had said, “I’m not sure Lilith is a very good companion for you.” And he’d put a lot of energy into separating Jeremy from Lilith’s clutches. Dara didn’t know how Lilith had subverted the grain-counting test and the eye test, but somehow she had.

  “It was you,” Dara said.

  Lilith looked at her like she had no idea what Dara was talking about.

  “You were the other demon. The one who visited the plagues on the clinic. The one who killed my grandmother.”

  For a moment, Dara thought Lilith would deny it, but then she laughed, a trilling sound that made Dara’s hands shake with the desire to choke her.

  “Guilty,” she said on two notes, making it into a little song of triumph. She rested her chin on her fist as though she were posing for an executive portrait. “What are you going to do about it?”

  There was, of course, nothing Dara could do about it. As Nana had pointed out, over and over, demons were supernatural immortal beings, while she was just a puny human. Rage rose in her, thick as gumbo. She grabbed one of Lilith’s stilettos from the nearby box and snapped off the heel.

  Lilith’s gasp of horror felt so good that Dara chose a couple more at random and broke off their heels, too. It was childish, and probably actionable in a court of law, but it felt great.

  “Are you insane?” Lilith said. “Those are Manolo Blahniks.” Her pupils squared and Dara’s last, lingering doubt disappeared.

  She shrugged. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Lilith’s fingers curved into claws like she would attack. Dara readied herself. Bring it on.

  Lilith dragged a long breath in through her nose and her pupils became circular again. Her hands relaxed and she smiled. “You know, you really want to stay on my good side.”

  Dara picked out another shoe and snapped off the heel, making sure it wasn’t a mate to any of the ones she’d already damaged. Lilith twitched, but the smile didn’t leave her lips.

  “Truly,” she said. “Because I’ve got something you want.”

  “My clinic? We both know that’s never coming back to me. My grandmother? You don’t have her and never will.”

  “I was thinking more in terms of…Ben.”

  It felt like Lilith had punched one of those heels through Dara’s sternum.

  Crossing her legs, Lilith laced her fingers together and cupped her knee. “I am empowered to offer you a one-time deal. If you will come to Hell and make your case, my boss is prepared to allow Ben to return to Earth and live out your life beside you.”

  Dara caught her breath. It was a trap, but a trap so alluring it was impossible not to picture it: a lifetime with Ben at her side, working with her, making her laugh, making love to her. Common sense reasserted itself.

  “And afterwards I’m damned to Hell for all eternity?”

  Lilith looked at the box of broken shoes. Her lips twisted. “Sister, that’s gonna happen anyway.”

  Dara tossed and turned all through that night, imagining a life with Ben. She might be damning herself to Hell, but to Lilith’s point, her estrangement from God already put her at risk. The idea of spending as many as fifty years with Ben at her side was so tempting it was all she could do not to put on her thickest-soled shoes and head straight to Hell.

  She woke the next morning, bleary-eyed, and forced down some breakfast. Milton chose that day, of all days, to become needy, following her from room to room, watching every move she made with his yellow eyes. When she went to the bathroom, he meowed through the door.

  In the plain light of day, the flip side of last night’s internal debate was much clearer. Only an idiot would sign up for an eternity of torture in exchange for a brief lifetime of joy. In spite of that, she spent the day bouncing back and forth. She wouldn’t go. She would. She wouldn’t.

  Late that afternoon, the mail arrived, including a notice that she was late on her association dues. She’d emptied her bank account to make the buy-in for the poker tournament, figuring she would catch up when she got paid. Now she had no paycheck coming. As dusk neared, she settled in a good place. It was time to stop grieving over what she didn’t have and cherish what she did.

  She would treat herself to dinner at Slyders. In the garage, she hit the button to raise the overhead door. Milton streaked past her and into the street. A speeding black sedan caught him under its front tire. There was a horrifying yowl. The car kept right on going.

  She ran into the street, but Milton was dead. Sobbing, she found a piece of cardboard in the garage and used it to scoop up his poor broken body. She shrouded him in a pillowcase and dug a grave off the edge of the patio.

  All the time she was preparing his limp body for burial, she kept thinking about the car. She hadn’t recognized it, but she had no doubt an emissary of Satan was behind the wheel. No matter what she did, her life would not get any better. No hospital would hire a nurse with a history of making bad judgments—Gabby’s experience told her that.

  With no income, she would lose her home and wind up living on the streets. Anyone, anything, she got close to would become a target. She would not be able to have a friend or keep even a menial job. And God could not or would not protect her.

  You haven’t asked, Nana pointed out in her head.

  I shouldn’t have to ask. Some things, some basic human rights, like life, liberty and having a pet, you shouldn’t have to beg for.

  You haven’t asked. The voice was inexorable.

  With that, something broke within Dara. She dropped to her knees next to Milton’s tiny grave and lifted her weeping face to the heavens.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why have you forsaken me? Why have you given me over to my enemies?” And then she listened, and for the first time in her life, she got an answer. An answer that made absolutely no sense.

  Rescue him.

  Rescue who?

  Rescue Ben.

  That was insane. There was no way God wanted her to go to Hell and try to rescue a demon. Clearly, this was her own subconscious forcing its desires into her conscious mind. She tidied up Milton’s grave, sweeping the sandy soil off the patio, and washed her hands. The voice didn’t let up: Rescue him.

  She was lightheaded from not eating, but no longer felt like going out to dinner. She opened a can of soup and heated it. As she spooned the tasteless mess of vegetables into her mouth, the voice chanted in rhythm with her chewing: Rescue him. Rescue him.

  Outside, it grew dark and the stars came out in the night sky beyond the patio door. Rescue him. She tried to watch television, but she couldn’t concentrate. Rescue him.

  After a lifetime of waiting to hear God’s voice, she wished he would shut up, but the voice continued to chant, Rescue him.

  At nine o’clock, she walked out to the garage and picked up her car keys from the cement floor, where she’d dropped them when Milton ran out. She got in her car. She’d never been to Lilith’s house, but she knew right where to find the she-demon.

  A moment after Dara rang the bell at Ben’s beach house, Lilith came to the door. Behind her, on the black granite cou
ntertop that separated the kitchen from the living area, was a row of shoes and a tube of Super Glue.

  Lilith followed her gaze. “Happy?”

  Dara shrugged. “It was one of my better moments from the past few days.”

  Lilith almost smiled but caught herself. “What do you want?”

  “About the offer you made me earlier…”

  Lilith’s gaze sharpened. “Yes?”

  Dara’s heart pounded like she was standing at the edge of a cliff, ready to jump off. Rescue him.

  “Is it still open?”

  “Yes.” Lilith’s prompt answer should have sent Dara running back to the comparative safety of her condo. Instead, five minutes later, they were in Lilith’s Miata, speeding down I-95. The car topped 120 miles per hour. Dara clung to the door handle. She’d assumed Lilith could take her to Hell in her current form, but maybe she needed to be dead first. Lilith seemed unconcerned, driving with one hand while she texted with the other.

  Just before they rammed into the back end of a semi, a black hole opened in front of them. They drove into it and the blue sky and palm trees disappeared, replaced by a landscape of jutting rocks, backlit by flames. The road through Hell, it turned out, was paved with hardened lava.

  Lilith slowed the car, but even so, the ride was so rough that Dara bounced around like a pinball, her teeth slamming together. Lilith smiled, a self-satisfied, feline smile. Dara’s heart sank. She had taken a terrible, terrible risk, and only the goading voice in her head kept her from begging Lilith to turn around.

  They’d driven perhaps a quarter mile when, outside her window, a group of nude runners dashed by, pursued by a swarm of hornets. Lilith sped up and they left the runners behind, descending a spiral over terrain so rough Dara expected the tires to blow any minute. The scenery got worse the further they went.