How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (Necon Modern Horror Book 9) (4 page)

Angelique ran to Brenda, catching
her as she wobbled against the bed. A sheen of sweat covered Brenda’s face.
“Mommy?” she asked.

“You did it, Brenda, you made her
go away,” Angelique said.

“It wasn’t me.”

A moan from the bed made them
turn towards their grandmother.

Her eyes flickered open. “Brenda,
honey,” she said slowly.

“Grandmom,” they both said,
hugging her.

“How?” she asked.

“I’ve been studying online,”
Brenda said. “I taught Angelique what I know. And she taught me some things I
didn’t know last night.”

“I should have guessed there was
too much Power between the two of you to ignore,” Grandmom said.

“It was Mrs. Johnston, she used
us to get to you,” Brenda said. “But Mommy helped us push her away.”

“Oh, my babies. You didn’t know
what you were doing.” She shook her head. “They found Shelia’s body in her
house, two weeks ago. She’d been dead a long time. I didn’t want upset you.”

“Shelia is Mrs. Johnston? You
knew each other when you were young?” Brenda asked.

Their grandmother closed her eyes
for a moment. She squeezed their hands and looked at them. “Yes. We were like
sisters once, but a man drove us apart.” She shook her head. “Love can be a
tricky thing. Or lust.” She held their hands over her heart. “Don’t let that
happen to you.”

“No, Grandmom, never,” Angelique
said, taking Brenda’s other hand.

“No one will come between us,”
Brenda said.

The doctor and Larry walked into
the room. Larry ran to the bed and hugged her and the girls. “I knew you were
too strong to let anything keep you down,” he said.

“The hugs can continue in a few
minutes, but I need to check my patient,” the doctor said. “Could you wait
outside?”

“Make it fast, because I’ve got a
lot of work to do at home,” Grandmom said. She slipped the nation bag back to
Brenda and the gris-gris to Angelique.

The doctor and Larry walked
through the green and gold light that splashed and shimmered in the room
without seeing it. Brenda and Angelique waved to their Grandmother from the
doorway, knowing she was safe now, surrounded by the power.

I was happy
before I became a zombie

stumbling through Central Park at
night

sleeping in a
tumble of fallen trees all day.

Memories of my
past life jumble together

best forgotten when I lie

face down in ripe
yielding earth.

I was happy
before I lost my soul

to the will of a Voodoo Goddess

binding me to the
light in her eyes.

Dreams do not
come but if they could

they would be of dying once

falling forever
into pure stillness.

The Gate of Impending Irrevocability:

Redi Thomas had spent Friday
afternoon alone in the reception area of the office building. She’d been
bodyguard to Ana Sanchez, an accountant to some of the richest musicians in the
business, for two months. There wasn’t much to look at between the wood
paneling and plush black leather furniture, besides a huge bowl of dried
flowers on the silver center table, and the ghosts.

Two men and a woman. The female
ghost kept her back to Redi, exposing her open skull. Her curly brown hair
framed the ragged hole. The two males’ heads flopped back every now and then to
expose their cut throats. Blood flowed endlessly from the neck wounds,
cascading around them to soak into the white carpet. Redi remembered killing
them.

“Useless haunting, guys,” she
whispered. “I can’t hear you and I’ve seen this before.” She leaned over the
silver table and used the reflection to pat her short afro into shape and put
lip gloss on. Carrying a mirror to freshen up wasn’t her style but her client
always looked good so Redi tried to be as presentable as possible. Dressed as
usual in black, Redi’s turtle neck covered the old scars; the jacket covered
her gun and holster. No one would mistake her for pretty, but her high cheek
bones and naturally plump lips had attracted more than one man or woman.

Ana came out of her office
carrying her overstuffed briefcase, Armani pantsuit still looking crisp. She
pushed her straight red hair behind her ears, and nodded to Redi. They walked
to the elevator and Ana used her thumbprint to activate the private elevator.

Redi’s tall frame cast a shadow over
the petite accountant as they waited for the elevator. She tracked both ends of
the hallway in peripheral vision. There was no movement except for the thin
images of the ghosts nearby.

The elevator stopped in the
parking garage. The white limousine waited for them near the elevator.
Suddenly, there was a low growl behind Redi, and the sound of a large animal’s
claws scraping the concrete. Without turning, Redi shoved Ana in the limo and
jumped in behind her, drawing the small gun from a shoulder holster.

“What are you doing?” the
accountant asked.

Redi looked through the side and
back tinted windows to the empty garage. “You didn’t hear anything?”

Ana straightened her suit. “Not a
thing.”

 
“I heard something, maybe a large dog,”
Redi said, putting the gun away. She tapped on the glass between them and the
driver to signal they could go. Whatever had been there, it was gone now.

When they arrived at Ana’s
apartment building, she said to Redi, “It’s a good thing it’s Friday. You need
to get some rest this weekend. I don’t need a jumpy bodyguard.”

Redi nodded and watched her enter
the building.

The ghosts followed her down the
street and into the subway. She waited on the subway platform at the right end
furthest from the Friday night crowd.

“What do you think is happening?”
she asked them softly.

The female ghost spun wildly.
Glowing bits of her smashed brain disappeared into the shadows. The male ghosts
made faces at Redi while taking turns on their knees pounding the concrete
platform and trying to tear at her with their hands.

“No opinion?” She could use a
cigarette, but the vibration under her feet and a gentle push of air signaled
her train coming.

The streets of the Lower East
Side were filled with people on their way to dinner, mostly innocents, although
she didn’t believe in innocence. The others, pickpockets, drug dealers, gang
members, and desperate people, were sprinkled among the crowd. Only the most
dangerous dared to make eye contact with Redi. They nodded respectfully when
she looked in their direction.

As soon as she unlocked her
building door, the three ghosts flitted away. She sighed. That meant there
would be different ghosts waiting in her apartment. They had started following
her three years ago, when she changed careers. It was ironic that they showed
up after she stopped being a hired assassin.

Midway up the second flight of
the creaky wooden stairs, she heard the growl again. Redi took her gun out and
stood in a shadowed corner of the hallway. The sound of claws slamming the
stairs sped up as the large animal began to run.

She clicked off the safety and
waited. The growls were deafening. Unable to stand it any longer, Redi ran to
the edge of the stairwell and leaned over the banister pointing her gun down. .
. at nothing.

Leaning back against the wall,
she took a deep breath. Either she was losing her mind, or someone was playing
an elaborate trick. Someone with a death wish, because this wasn’t even mildly
amusing. She walked up to the third floor with her gun in her right hand,
unlocked her apartment door, turned off the alarm and locked the door behind
her.

She flipped on the light.
Movement in the center of the living room made her swing the gun with two hands
at a huge two-headed gray and white wolf. It stood almost as tall as Redi in
front of her red leather couch, both heads growling. She aimed for its heart.

“Sh-h-h, Geh, sit down,” a male
voice said from Redi’s right. The animal crouched on the floor, low growls
still echoing from its twin throats, two pairs of red eyes fixed on Redi.

She spun around and pointed the
gun at a slim, tall man leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was
dressed in a white tuxedo; his long wavy dark hair almost touched the floor.
His features were Japanese, but his skin was mocha brown, the same shade as
Redi’s. She thought he had no eyes, but realized they were entirely black. She
could see the wall through him.

Some kind of ghost, but not
anyone she had killed.

“Who are you?” she asked, putting
the gun down on the ebony wood coffee table.

He smiled, showing stained
pointed teeth. “I need a favor.”

“I don’t do that kind of work
anymore,” Redi said, pouring gin into a glass. “What would you offer me to come
out of retirement, a shot at redemption?”

She lit a cigarette, inhaled
slowly and sat down on the couch. He sat opposite her, but not on anything she
could see. The dog lay at his feet, its huge heads surrounded by blue flames.

He shook his head. “That only
happens in the movies.”

“Then why should I do this favor
for you?”

He uncrossed his long legs and
leaned forward.

“After all you’ve done,” he said,
spreading long fingers out, the three-inch nails shaped to needle points. “What
would removing one more person from this time and space mean?”

“It occurs to me, looking at you,
that one more person just might mean the difference between one level of hell
and another,” she said.

“You’ve got to know that, with
your body count, there’s not much to hope for when you die,” he said, waving
around the room.

The room filled with ghosts, the
silent kind that Redi was used to seeing. Usually there were only a few at a
time, now they crowded the room. They watched, a few laughed silently and
pointed.

“So I kill this one person for
you and get what in return?” she asked.

He stood and walked through ebony
wood coffee table. The dog rolled over onto its side. “I could get you a few
hours a day without the company of your victims.”

“I’ve gotten used to being
followed by ghosts.” She reached through his leg to set her glass down on the
coffee table. “I’m sure there’s somebody else you could get to kill this person
for you,” she said, putting her feet up on the coffee table. The ghost paced
back and forth in front of her, his long hair streamed behind him as if
floating through water.

“I can’t say why right now, but
you have to be the one,” he said.

Redi leaned forward, took a
drink. “Hmmm, let me take a guess. I’m in so deep that one killing won’t really
affect my, let’s call it, Karma?”

“Actually killing this person is
going to be good for you. Get you one step closer to your true destiny.” He
stopped pacing and sat down again in the air. The dog sat up and raised its
heads. One stared at Redi, the other at the ghost.

“My destiny? What the hell does
that mean?” she asked.

“Hell indeed.” He smiled.

Redi stared at him. “You seem
familiar, but I don’t remember you being one of my hits,” she said, pointing
her cigarette at him.

The dog barked. The ghost glared
at it. “We — uh — worked together. You didn’t kill me.”

“I always work alone,” she said,
narrowing her eyes.

He closed his eyes as if he was
listening to something, and then looked at her, “We have — had a very
special relationship. I can’t say any more about our association at this time.”

“It’s hard to imagine I would
have forgotten you,” Redi said.

“In time you will remember me and
much more. Trauma can make it necessary for the mind to veil certain... events
until the time is right.”

A flash of her stepfather’s face
and the smell of burning flesh made her stomach twist. The thick scar tissue on
her back itched at the memory. “Who is this person that you want killed?” she
asked.

“You’ll get all the details when
you agree to do it,” he said.

Redi looked around the room.
There were more ghosts there than ever before. All people she had killed,
including the occasional dog or cat, pets of her hits that starved to death.
She sighed.

“You’re right, one more dead
person isn’t a big deal,” she said, grounding out the cigarette in a brass
ashtray. “Here’s the thing, I need more incentive if I’m going to add to my
entourage.”

He closed his eyes again and
pressed on his temples with fingers so long they looked like they had an extra
joint.

“Okay,” he said. “I can offer you
revenge against your stepfather.”

She jerked back on the couch.
“He’s dead.”

He waved his hand dismissively.
“I have access to his essence. I can choose to interrupt his eternal suffering
so you can have some quality time with him.”

“You’re more than a ghost, aren’t
you?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Are you the Devil?”

He laughed. “No, but you might
say I’m second-in-command.”

Redi stood up and walked to the
window overlooking her busy street. “Can I have time to think about your
offer?” She turned to face him.

He pressed in close. She held her
ground. A stench of burning flesh surrounded him. “One night.”

She thought for a second that he
was going to kiss her, but he inhaled deeply as though breathing in her scent,
and turned quickly.

The two-headed dog rose and
followed him across the room.

“Sleep well, Redi Thomas.” He
snapped his fingers and all the other ghosts disappeared. He smiled at her,
bowed and sank through the floor with the dog.

She leaned against the wall and
looked at the room, the empty room. It had been so long since she had been
alone here. Perhaps she could sleep without nightmares this one night.

The Gate of Relentless Congruity:

Redi sipped her second cup of
coffee and lit another cigarette. She had one dream last night. The one
recurring train dream she’d had for years. The conductor was a pale, bloated
man with black eyes and a belt of keys. The dream ended as it always did, with
her and the conductor working on her stepfather while he was tied to a table in
one of the train cars.

She smiled at the memory of his
imagined screams.

The talking ghost rose through
the floor with his dog. “We can make him scream together,” he said, sitting
down opposite her. The dog walked over to Redi and sniffed her with its twin
heads, whined and sat on the floor.

Redi thought she heard a whisper
under the dog’s whine, but couldn’t make out the words. “Okay. Who do you want
me to kill?”

Ana Sanchez, the accountant. Redi
should have known it wasn’t going to be a stranger. She had nothing against the
woman, but her feelings or lack of feelings for a hit had never stopped her
from completing a contract in the past.

“I’ll have to leave town, change
identities,” she said. “No one will hire a bodyguard with a dead client.”

“Do what you need, but it must be
done this weekend and — “

“I got it the first time, leave
her body where her family will find it,” she said.

He smiled widely.

“I do this and I get to make him
suffer?” she asked.

“Oh, we don’t have to wait. Your
word is good enough. Let’s take that train ride.” He leaned close to her, his
hand brushed her face. Redi didn’t feel his hand but there was a jolt of scalding
air on her skin. She closed her eyes.

Clanging metal jolted Redi
upright in her seat, her knees bumping against the back of a train seat. The
clink of heavy chains and metal tools jostling against each other sang out from
under the conductor’s long blue coat as he walked down the aisle. His mouth was
a dark wound in a pasty face, his eyes two shadows under the ledge of his cap.

As soon as he left Redi quickly
moved to the exit in front of the car and punched the door panel. She walked
through the opening and took the passageway in two quick jumps. The next car
door wouldn’t open. She looked through its tiny window. A dark curtain blocked
the view.

The conductor was suddenly behind
her. He wrapped his arm around her neck. She kicked and elbowed him but his
steel grip never loosened. He squeezed until she slipped into unconsciousness.

Redi woke strapped to a metal
table under a circle of bright light. A rubber sheet covered her naked body. As
she struggled against the leather straps a familiar voice asked, “Are you so
reluctant to accept your reward?”