The Devil You Know (24 page)

Apparently
aware of this, Laura laughed and began to squirm out from under Marie. The
movement brought Marie back to her senses for a moment. She slammed her fist
down onto the other woman’s face, splitting her lip. Laura cried out and began to
thrash under Marie, who struck her again and again until she lay still.

“God
damn it,” Marie muttered as she climbed off of Laura. Her hand throbbed
horribly, but the drug in her system made her not care about the pain. She got
unsteadily to her feet and picked up the candle from the end table. On the
floor, she saw the spent syrette that Laura had poked her with, the little
plastic tube that had contained the drug now squeezed empty. There were bound
to be more of them in the apartment, but that was of little concern to her now.

Moving
deliberately, she went around the dressing screen and found a naked man tied to
Laura’s bed. Thick ropes held his arms and legs with solid knots, the other
ends tied to the fold-down legs of the bed. He appeared to be asleep, but even
so Marie approached him cautiously, holding the candle near his face to reveal
the incubus who looked like Cary Grant. She could not help noticing how
handsome he was, and looking over his nude body was a revelation. Whether it
was Julian Piedmont’s guidance in how to shape the body or just the perfection
of the spell Colin Krebs had cast, Marie did not know, nor did it matter; all
she saw was a perfect specimen—tall and broad-chested with well defined
muscles all across his body.

When
he suddenly stirred, she took a step back and cursed herself for failing to
bring her notes from home. Whatever Laura had injected her with now made
Jasper’s exorcism prayer a vague memory. The intoxication seemed not to be
getting any worse, which she was thankful for, and she surmised that Laura might
not have had the chance to give her the full dose. Sober or not, though, she
knew she had to do something while the thing before her was still knocked out.

The
second candle was burning on a small dresser beside the bed, and Marie set the
candle she carried beside it. Then she took a deep breath. “I cast you out,”
she said haltingly, holding a palm over the thing’s chest. Her voice seemed to
come from far away, and she still felt dizzy. She shook her head, trying to
clear her thoughts. “I cast you out,” she repeated a little more certain of
herself, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the—”

The
incubus opened its eyes and stared at her. “Who the hell are you?” he said, his
voice more slurred than hers. “What the hell is going on?”

Marie
felt powerless, watching as the man on the bed struggled against the ropes.
Then in an instant a new clarity came into his eyes; it was as though every
trace of drugs in his system had suddenly vanished. Where he had looked strong
and vibrant while unconscious, now the figure on the bed looked like a
demi-god. If Marie had had any doubts about the truth of Colin’s story or the
true nature of the men from Piedmont’s, what he did next erased those thoughts
forever. As she began trying to say the exorcism prayer again, he said, “Cut
that shit out,” his voice now clear, his tongue no longer slowed by the drug.
In the same instant, his hands were freed from the ropes. One second he was
bound, and the next he was loose, and in the moment of his liberation, Marie
could have sworn that she saw his hands elongate to slip out of the knots.

Her
mouth dropped open, and she took a step back as the demon sat up on the bed. He
looked at her not with confusion or annoyance now, but with a blend of anger
and desire. With the same momentary shift in his anatomy, he freed his feet and
leaped from the bed, clearing the space between himself and Marie before she
could even see that he was moving. The thing’s penis had been flaccid while he
lay tied to the bed, but now it, too, had come to life, and Marie had no doubt
as to his intentions.

With
the same fury that she had fought off Laura’s attack, she swung a fist at the
creature’s face, but his reflexes were faster, and he effortlessly grabbed her
wrist and held her forearm in the air for a moment before twisting it down. Marie
tried to steady herself to kick him, but he was pushing her backwards, toward
the wall, and she felt herself beginning to lose her balance. He reached one
hand out to the collar of her blouse and ripped it downward, the cloth tearing
easily in his grip.

Then,
as her fury was giving itself over to panic, Marie saw a change in his expression,
a sudden look of alarm, his eyes focused on her chest. For a second, she
thought his crazed look meant a heightened lust in the creature, but it was
fear he looked at her with, not desire. And then she understood: the monster
had seen the cross Jasper had given her. She had worn it every day since, its
leather thong long enough for her to conceal it beneath her clothing. Now she
realized it might save her, and the panic she’d been on the verge of moments
before turned to hope.

For
a second, the demon’s expression changed to one of amusement, as though he
realized that a simple wooden cross could not do him any harm, but when Marie
quickly grabbed it and pressed it against his wrist, the monster let out a
shout and instantly let go of her arm.

“Bitch!”
he spat out as he backed away toward the bed.

Acting
only on instinct, Marie advanced on him, holding the cross before her like a
shield. “I cast you out!” she began again, but was once more stopped, this time
by a blow from the side that knocked her to the ground. It took a second to
realize that Laura had regained consciousness and bolted across the room to
stop Marie from further damaging her lover.

When
Laura tackled her, Marie hit the floor hard, knocking her head against it. For
a few seconds the already darkened room grew dimmer, and she thought that she
was about to pass out, Laura Tremaine still lying on top of her where the pair
had fallen. Then she felt Laura starting to get off of her; at the same time,
the sensation of slipping into unconsciousness left her. Instead of passing
out, she held onto her attacker, trying to lock her arms around the other woman
to keep her from getting away. Then she sensed movement above her, and saw that
the incubus was scrambling to get up from the bed where he had fallen when
Laura attacked. For a moment, he stood over the two struggling women, and then
he turned and ran from the apartment, still nude.

“No!”
Laura shrieked, and with an effort that surprised Marie she jerked herself free
of Marie’s grip and tore out of the apartment after him.

Breathing
hard, Marie lay on the floor for several seconds, almost overcome with disgust.
She had been an idiot to fall into such a trap, she told herself. If she had
only thought to bring her notes with her, she could have said the exorcism
prayer, and the demon would be gone. As it was, he was no doubt racing back to
Julian’s now with his crazy lover chasing after him. Marie hoped that a naked
man wouldn’t get too far on the streets of Hollywood, but she also knew now
that he could change his shape, if only a little, and she would not have been
surprised to learn that he had transformed himself into a dog or a coyote—anything
that could move through the night without clothing and not draw attention to
itself.

Sitting
up, she tried to check herself for damage. She felt sore where Laura had
crashed into her, and her hand still ached from punching Laura in the face, but
she seemed otherwise all right. Pulling the torn flap of her blouse up and
across her chest, she slowly got to her feet, still feeling unsteady. The
adrenaline coursing through her must have counteracted some of the drug, but
not enough to leave her feeling completely sober. She let herself get used to
being on two feet again and then turned on a lamp. Blowing out the candles, she
took a moment to look around the apartment now that she was alone in it.

It
was impossible to know how long Laura Tremaine had held the thing captive here,
but Marie surmised that it could not have been long. She found eight spent
syrettes in a wastebasket by the bed along with two empty cans of beans. A pot
with some beans still in it sat on a hotplate across the room, and Marie
imagined Laura feeding the thing in its stupor. There was no other food in the
apartment, though, and the two would have needed to eat more if they had both
been here for long. Marie doubted that Laura would have left to get more to eat
with her prize still in the room and unattended. She supposed that Laura could
have been able to have sex with the incubus in its drugged state, but she would
have needed to keep administering drugs to have prevented it from slipping out
of its bonds as it had done when Marie had approached. What the foolish woman
could have had for long range plans, Marie could not guess; all she knew for
sure was that she had somehow been intended as part of those plans, perhaps as
a sacrifice or an offering to appease the monster and keep it here, well
supplied with women.

She
shook her head as she went slowly toward the door, deliberately placing her
feet as she went and bending slowly to retrieve her purse from the floor.
Nothing about this was rational, she thought, and it occurred to her that
perhaps Laura’s brand of insanity and Elise’s were just variations on each
other. It was as though the demons left just pieces of the women behind when
they were finished with them. The part of Laura it had left was still able to
function physically, but her mind was shattered.

When
she got into the hallway, she thought she saw movement from the doorway of Mrs.
Thomas’ apartment, as though the door had been open just a sliver and now
closed all the way once someone had entered the hall.
Party’s over, Mrs. Thomas
, Marie thought.
Go back to bed
. She pulled Laura Tremaine’s door closed behind her
and made her way out to the street. The hill looked incredibly steep now, and
she was sorry she had parked so far up it. With a sigh, she started walking,
sure that she looked drunk as she weaved her way toward her car. She would sit
in it and maybe sleep until the dizziness left her altogether and then drive
home, wishing all the while that she could have Tom sitting beside her as the
night drew on into morning.

Chapter Twenty-Two

This must be what it’s
like when humans lose their minds
, thought Malliol as he stood trembling beside the
large potted fern near the entrance to the Brown Derby. Big cars with their
headlights blazing drove up and down the street, some slowing near the
restaurant as drivers and passengers gawked to see if someone famous were
coming or going. When they saw Malliol, many pointed, but he turned his gaze to
the ground and waited for them to second-guess themselves and move on.

The
only thing that stifled the voices now was intoxication. He had just had eight
Gibsons in the Derby while watching the beautifully dressed women walk back and
forth past his seat. He found it a relief when he saw they had escorts, since
the accompanied ones were safe from him. More importantly, he was safe from
them; they would never end up in his head the way all the others had. There
were dozens of them now, and he feared they were taking over.

At
times, he forgot who he was or why he was here. An attractive, single woman
would approach him, saying he looked like Cagney, and rather than take the
opportunity to start a conversation that would get her into bed, he would stare
blankly at her, more focused on the women in his mind, who seemed more real
than the flesh and blood ones in his grasp.

He
still needed the bodies of living women, still needed to join with them and
draw their energy into himself, but he could get by on fewer conquests now. And
these days he chose his victims not based on their looks or their bodies or on
how delicious it would be to corrupt them, but rather on how much he thought he
would be able to stand them joining the rest of the chorus.

More
often than not, they replayed memories from their former lives or recited their
portion of conversations they’d had in the past. This was quite aggravating
because it was all so disjointed, completely without context for Malliol. And
when there were several dozen of these that he could hear distinctly at the
same time, it was more than he could stand. This was his normal state of
affairs, eased only by drink.

Sometimes,
though, one of the women would assert herself, her voice rising above the
others, and she would seem to be looking through Malliol’s eyes, questioning
how she had gotten here, what she was doing chasing after other women, why her
hands touched them so, and how in the world she had gotten a penis. There were
three or four of these who seemed to rise up most often, making him feel like he
was sinking into a whirlpool, watching helplessly as the circle of light that
was his sanity shrank further and further away. This was when Malliol drank the
most.

He
lived in fear of having such an episode around one of his compatriots or during
the wee hours of the night when he and the others felt most compelled to be
back at the mansion. If they found out, they would cast him out. He knew it. To
keep them from finding out, he had to at least act like he was prowling for
women, but he spent most of each day just trying to hide—from his
desires, from the other incubi, and from the women he had already consumed.

Earlier
today, he had tried going to a movie, and for a while it had worked. He had sat
in the dark and watched the story, amused at the petty dramas the humans found
so fascinating. No one in the audience could know that he shook most of the
time, nor could they know when he was finding himself overtaken by one of his
past victims. By the time the same double-bill had started for the third time, he
had been unable to stand it any more and had gone to the Derby to drink and
possibly find a woman to satisfy his growing urge.

It
was almost midnight, and he stood outside the restaurant, wondering if he
should try to find a prostitute. It would be unsatisfying; however, nothing had
actually satisfied him in quite some time. But then three women walked past
him, the doors of the Derby closing behind them as they came out onto the
street. They were chattering in French.
Tourists
,
Malliol thought.

Their
words meant nothing to him, and all he could think about was how nice it would
be to have voices in another language inside his head. One of these women would
suit his needs just fine this evening, but he would have all three of them if
need be.

He
fell into step behind them, assuming they were heading toward one of the nicer
hotels for the night. He hoped they liked James Cagney. It would make things so
much easier.