by Devin Hanson
“What the fuck is going on here?” I demanded. “Are all these people possessed?”
“Oh yes. You’re troubled by this? You shouldn’t be, nobody is being held against their will.”
“Right. I guess the restraints are for their own protection?”
“See how fast you pick up the lingo? I’m so proud of you.”
“This is too far. I’m calling Tovarrah.”
Mahlat nodded. “You could do that. I won’t even stop you. But before you do, walk with me.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m not helping you corrupt these people.”
“Of course not. We’re just talking.”
I nodded reluctantly. “On one condition.”
“Very well.”
“You tell me how to destroy the ghoul. Not just kill the body it is using, but actually destroy it permanently.”
Steven’s eyebrows went up. “That is quite the ask. There have been kings who would have given the wealth of their kingdom for that knowledge.”
“Is that a no?”
“For that knowledge, you would need to offer more than a few minutes of your time. Your oath, Alexandra. Swear yourself to me and I will tell you everything I know and help you hunt it down myself.”
I got my phone out. “Forget it. I’m leaving and calling Tovarrah.”
“Alexandra, wait. Aren’t you curious? You saw behind the curtains. There are thirty-two men and women here in various stages of possession. Thirty-two! There hasn’t been an awakening like this since 1692.”
That was a rather specific year. It took me a moment to remember the significance of that date. “Salem?”
“We were so close that year. I’ll tell you what. Give me five minutes, and I will tell you something about ghouls that is unknown in this day and age.”
I glowered at Steven, Mahlat, whatever. As much as I would love to throw her half-hints in her face and call the Red House, I needed to know. The ghoul wanted my blood, and without knowledge, I was as good as dead. “Fine. Five minutes.”
“Good. Come, child.” Mahlat swayed away up the center of the room and I had to hurry to keep up. Steven’s legs were a lot longer than mine.
“Why’d you pick a guy to possess anyway?” I asked.
“Beautiful women have no need to resort to dark pacts to satisfy their lust,” Mahlat shrugged. “A drawback of a job done well. I’ve spent decades turning this country to my vision. Women are free to indulge in their sexuality for the first time in eons. Also, Steven has an enormous dick. Would you like to try it?”
My stomach turned. “No.”
Mahlat clicked her tongue. “Shame. He can give a woman a lot of pleasure.”
“I’ll just have to take your word on that. What are you doing here, mother? You don’t need these people.”
“A business opportunity presented itself. The church was asked to provide a product, but they didn’t know how. I showed them the way, in exchange for something.”
I sighed. “Something bad, I take it?”
“Oh, child. Not everything I do is hurtful, you know? Sometimes all I want is to make life easier.”
“I’m sure. Where are we going?”
“To the parishioner’s booth. Not far now.”
Mahlat led me out the back of the hospice room and deeper into the building. With every step, I thought about how much further away from the truck I was going, and tried to remember the twists and turns that we took.
We entered a brightly-lit room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto a manicured garden. There were a few people waiting on comfortable couches, and Mahlat led us to an empty one and gestured for me to sit.
“What are we doing here?” I asked softly.
“Patience, child.”
A moment later, a pretty woman in a flattering dress stepped out of a booth and cleared her throat. “Next, please.”
A young man stood up from a couch and stepped forward eagerly. He looked like he had dressed in his best clothes, but still looked a little ragged around the hems. His eyes were sunken with worry and his hair thinning and streaked with grey, even though he wasn’t much older than I was. He followed the woman into the booth and the door shut behind them.
“And now we listen,” Mahlat said in my ear.
Goosebumps raced up my shoulders and I shivered. Mahlat gestured, and suddenly I could hear what was going on inside the booth across the room as if I was listening to a hidden microphone.
“—ances are in a desperate condition,” the man was saying. “I’ve tried everything. Banks won’t give me the time of day. I owe money to two different bookies. If they knew… I’m out of options. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” The woman had a very pleasant voice and I couldn’t help but remember the way her hips had shifted beneath her skirt.
“Anything. I’m dead, otherwise. I have until next Monday, then it’s over. I’ll sell a kidney. A lung. I’ll prostitute myself, I’ll kill someone. Anything at all.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” the woman laughed reassuringly. “Your financial difficulties can be solved today, before you walk out that door.”
“I wrote down how much I owe,” the man chuckled nervously. “You would give me an unsecured loan for that much?”
“Who said anything about a loan? No, Mr. Blakely, our financial assistance would be a gift. You would owe us nothing.”
Blakely snorted in disbelief. “Do you work for an oil baron or something? Bill Gates? Who just gives away that kind of cash?”
“Does it matter?” There was a thump of something heavy hitting the desk. “This should cover your needs and a bit more besides. It can be yours, right now, all you need to do is sign your name.”
“That’s it?” I could hear the nervous hysteria lurking beneath Blakely’s voice. “Just sign a document?”
“Well, you have to read it aloud first, but yes.”
I turned to Mahlat and she gestured again, cutting off whatever had let us hear into the room. “I think I’ve heard enough,” I said. “Let me guess. Everyone here is in a financial crisis?”
Steven rolled a shoulder, a distinctly feminine motion that looked strange on him. “Not all. Ms. Turner over there is in desperate need of love.” There was something possessive on Steven’s face as he gazed on the grossly overweight woman. “The biological clock is ticking for her. It’s now or never.”
None of the people in the room seemed to be paying any attention to us. I had a feeling they didn’t even know we were present. “The sins are all here, then?”
“Lust, greed, wrath, sloth… even my youngest sister, Sabocet, has a dependent here.”
“I’m not familiar with her. Which sin is she?”
“Oh ho.” Mahlat cackled to herself, taking great pleasure in my comment as if I had cracked a particularly cutting witticism. Then, when it became clear I wasn’t joining in with the hilarity, Steven leaned back against the couch and wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Sabocet is the Succubus of Envy.”
I made a face. I understood now. “Very funny.”
The door to the booth opened and Mr. Blakely came out, clutching a satchel to his chest. I watched him hurry across the room and disappear out the door.
“Humans these days have no concept of spiritual worth,” Mahlat commented.
“What will happen to him now?” I fought the urge to get up and chase after Mr. Blakely. Not that it would do any good.
“He has all his problems solved. Mammet will see to that. Or, I should say, one of Mammet’s offspring will.”
“Like John Raveth?”
“That cretin?” Mahlat sniffed and shook her head. “No. Lilin can no more possess a human than a djinn can go to Heaven. Mammet will send a demon from Hell to guide him in making future financial choices.”
“How long before he ends up here strapped to a cot and bleeding from stigmata?” I asked acidly.
“You saw that one? It’s rare to have that happen these day
s. Real believer, that one. To answer your question, though, two weeks? Three?” Mahlat shrugged. “Quickly enough, at any rate. Always depends on how tenacious he is and how many loved ones he has. For a man like Blakely, I’d expect him to be knocking on our door in ten days or less. No backbone to begin with, and his debt has driven away anyone who would have given him support.”
Jesus Christ. I looked over the other waiting applicants, envisioning them slowly losing control of their minds as the demons took control of them inch by inch. It was horrible, more so because I could see myself in their shoes.
“I’m going to put an end to this,” I said flatly. “You know that, right?”
Mahlat grinned at me. “How? Will you sic the Red House on us? We’ll see them coming ages before they get here. The reavers won’t find anything but empty cots. If you do force an evacuation, all the medical care we’re giving to the penitents will be brought to an end. Many of them might die. That would be on your head, Alexandra.”
“They’re going to die anyway,” I pointed out, but the conviction in my voice wasn’t there.
My mother heard it and tilted her head, her grin widening into a smile. “How curious, that you would still care. You know, any one of those humans could walk out of here at any time. All it takes is their own determination to abandon their sin. Free will is a wonderous thing. So powerful, and so dangerous to the uneducated. It is through their own free will that they are here, and it is through that same free will that their freedom lies.”
“Yeah, right. How many people shake off a demon’s possession on their own?”
“Oh, no. It doesn’t work that way, my child. If they were possessed of the mental fortitude to do so, they would never have called on a demon for aid in the first place. Still, I suppose it is known to happen.”
I shook my head. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the calculated evil. Mahlat would not have allowed me to learn her plans if she thought there was a way I could disrupt them. If I thought Tovarrah could demonstrate even a modicum of restraint, I might have gone to her and hoped for a clever plan.
“Okay. I’ve listened to you. Now it is your turn. Tell me about ghouls.”
Mahlat nodded. “Very well. Never let it be said that Mahlat bat Lilith goes back on her word. Here is your secret, Alexandra: when a ghoul leaves a body, it is vulnerable. They must find a new body, and quickly, or they will disassociate and lose their sense of identity. Once that happens, they are nothing more than a ripple of bad energy that will slowly fade away.”
“How do you contain a ghoul that has left a body?” I frowned, trying to make sense out of the information and fit it to what I already knew. “Can they go through walls? Would a shut door stop them?”
“I said I would give you one secret, child, and I have done so. You wish to destroy a ghoul. I have given you the knowledge necessary to accomplish that. Our deal is complete.”
I bit back a curse. “Fine.” I stood up from the couch. “I don’t suppose you’ll come back to the hospital with me?”
Mahlat smiled, stretching Steven’s face. “You are correct.”
“Well. I hope you find your way back to Hell, then. Sooner rather than later.”
“Oh, child. Hell cannot hold me. This world is full of lust and so long as men desire the flesh of women, I will have a pathway to this place open to me.”
Chapter Fourteen
I found Ryan standing next to the pickup with the fire axe clutched in both hands. When he saw me push my way through the front doors, the mask of cold rage on his face dissolved into relief.
He took half a step toward me, remembered the axe in his hands, and hurriedly put it back in the back of the pickup. “Are you okay—”
“In the truck,” I cut him off. Something on my face cut through the roiling questions and he darted around to the passenger side of the truck. I had the truck in gear and rolling before Ryan got all the way into his seat, and didn’t pull on my seat belt until we were a block away and picking up speed.
Ryan stayed silent until we got on the freeway, then he twisted around to face me. “What the hell happened back there?”
I spared him a glance. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I’m sorry.”
“No way, you’re not getting out of it that easily. I deserve to know.”
“Do you? Why? Because I brought you somewhere then told you to wait in the car?”
“No, because I saw the look on your face, Alex. You brought me because you were scared, and then when things got bad, you sent me away like a child. I’ve seen bad. I can take it. But I can’t help you if you don’t open up.”
I rolled my eyes. “There was literally nothing you could have done to help me there.”
“So, you admit you were scared?”
“What do you want me to say?” I sighed.
“You could start with what scared you.”
“Shit,” I muttered. Why do the men in my life insist on protecting me? There wasn’t any sexual motivation driving Ryan, either. Beyond a few inevitable biological flashes of lust, not once had he looked at me with anything approaching desire. Maybe he was gay, or whatever he had experienced as a soldier had broken that part of his psyche.
How much did I really owe Ryan? He was sleeping under my roof, which brought with it its own dangers, but staying at my house had brought new threats that went beyond that. First the ghoul, and now whatever was possessing the junk in my garage.
Knowledge was the key to survival. The more he knew, the more he could defend himself and make good decisions. Of course, knowledge was its own curse. I had already brought Sam deep into the world of the supernatural. Did I have the right to keep exposing people?
“Well?” Ryan demanded.
I grimaced. I had been silent for several minutes while I pondered. “Fine. You’re right. That man had stigmata.”
“What causes that?”
“It’s a deeply religious reaction to extreme suffering, apparently.”
“He was being tortured? Should we call the cops?”
I shook my head. “No! No police.” I sighed. “Look, Ryan. The last couple days, you’ve probably become aware that there is more going on in the world than what you learn in the science textbooks in school.”
Ryan looked at me expectantly.
We reached the freeway exit and I pulled off. We were almost back home. One good thing about living in an old fire station, there was a freeway entrance only a few blocks away. It made moving about the city much faster as I didn’t waste ten or fifteen minutes just getting to the freeway. I dragged out my answer, pretending to concentrate on navigating the traffic.
Then, since we were just a minute away from home, I stayed silent until I pulled into the parking lot and killed the truck’s engine. “The people you saw in that church were possessed.”
I watched Ryan’s face, expecting disbelief, amusement, fear, any emotion that a normal human would have on receiving news that the nightmare material in movies was actually real. Instead he just shrugged. “I know that. But that isn’t what scared you.”
“What, that isn’t enough?” I threw off my seatbelt and twisted around to look at him. “There had to be twenty or thirty people there fighting for their sanity and souls!”
Ryan gestured, discarding my outburst. There was a different set to his shoulders now, a surety about him that had been absent before. “The possessed can be violent, but they were all restrained. There is a reasonable fear of that, but that fear is borne from ignorance and inexperience. You are not either of those. So, what made you scared?”
I stared at Ryan. “Right now, I’m a little scared of you,” I admitted. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Bullshit. I don’t scare you. I saw you take down that marid without batting an eye.”
“Are you Priory?” I demanded.
Ryan snorted and took off his own seatbelt. “Do you want to talk about this inside?”
“Actually, I think you better answer my fucking question bef
ore I call the cops.”
“What about not involving cops, Alex? You forget that already?”
I threw open my door and jumped out of the truck. The fire axe had slid to the rear of the pickup bed, but I grabbed it and got my feet set before Ryan climbed out of his side. He started around the truck toward me and I fell into a guard position.
“Stay back. You come any closer and I will fuck you up. That’s a promise.”
Ryan stopped in his tracks and put his hands up on the walls of the truck bed in plain view. “Okay. I believe you. Is this good?”
“For now. Answer my questions and we might continue being good.”
“That’s fair.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ryan Halsin, as I said.”
“Why did you come here? Your father wasn’t the station chief, was he?”
“No.”
“How did you have a key, then?”
Ryan shrugged. “I stole it from the new fire station. They kept a spare key just in case. I came here to find you.”
I swallowed and shifted my grip on the axe. “Why?”
“Because you’re my sister.”
The ground dropped out from under my feet and I gawped at him. “What?”
“Well. By adoption. Nils Halsin was my biological father. He was your adoptive father.”
“He… no. That’s impossible! You’re my age, maybe a year or two older. I would have remembered if my father had had another child!”
“This would be a lot easier inside,” Ryan said. He started lifting his hands off the truck.
“You stay right where you are, fucker,” I growled and pointed the axe at him. My hands were shaking and I clutched the axe haft tighter until my fingers tingled and my knuckles were white.
Ryan put his hands back on the truck.
“Good. Now explain.”
He shifted feet and nodded a little to himself. “Okay. Well, somewhere in my family tree was someone like you. A Nephilim. We don’t know if he or she was a lilin or the offspring of some other angel, but my family has always been long-lived because of it. I’m in my forties, not my twenties. I was already in the army when Nils found you. That’s why you don’t remember me.”
