The Devil You Know (31 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Will
you still like me as a blonde?” Marie joked.

“You
know it, baby,” Tom remarked playfully, his voice a bit broken as it came
through the telephone receiver.

“Oh
good,” she played along. “I’ve got to go into the market for a few things and
then I’ll head home. Shall I get you about ten tomorrow?”

“You
sure we shouldn’t give it a day or two?”

“We
can’t,” she said. “There are only two left. They might already have changed
their appearance or done who knows what else to throw us off the trail. I don’t
expect we’ll be so lucky with these last ones. We at least have to try.”

She
was standing in a phone booth outside the grocery store closest to her house.
It was after six now, and the sun was just setting. Shoppers walked past her
going in and out of the market, and though she was glad for the private glass
door, she still felt compelled to keep her voice down.

“All
right,” Tom said. “You’re the boss. I still think we should give them a day or
two to let them think they’ve thrown us off the trail.”

“And
give them time to get stronger? Make more, even?”

“You’re
right,” Tom conceded. “You’re right. In the morning, then.”

“Yes.
Have a good night.”

“You,
too.”

She
hung up the phone, listened to the clink of coins inside it, and then slid the
glass door open and headed for the store’s doors. She still wore the outfit she
had used to lure the Clark Gable look-alike today and felt self-conscious in
it, hoping she did not look too alluring, especially now that she had dyed her
hair. It had been Tom’s idea, and she had readily agreed. After having seen
Colin Krebs with the incubus at Schwab’s days before, she knew that the next
demon she encountered would have another of Julian’s men with it. That had been
the reason for using the room at the Roosevelt rather than her own home again.
Marie had tried to tell which of the men on Hollywood Boulevard had been
shadowing her and the incubus while she had walked with him to the hotel.
Whoever it had been, he knew what she looked like now and would have reported
to Julian once the demon failed to come out of the hotel. They would be looking
for a woman with auburn hair, wary of her. But it would be a blonde who would
go after the fourth demon.

After
that, she was not sure what she would do—maybe cut her hair short.
Instinct told her, though, that if she succeeded in dispatching a fourth
incubus, Julian would do everything he could to save the fifth and final one,
including confining him to the hilltop mansion and bringing women to it rather
than run the risk of having the creature out and about. Perhaps the final two
demons would switch their appearance, no longer looking like Cary Grant and
James Cagney when they went out tomorrow. If that were the case, she told
herself, she would go back to Colin and persuade, cajole or threaten him into giving
her new information. And if she was really able to kill all five, she told
herself as she walked up and down the grocery aisles, that would still leave
the book of spells and the likelihood that Julian would just conjure more
demons. Marie knew that she would have to approach Colin again about wresting
the book from Julian, but if that failed, she had not ruled out the idea of
setting fire to the Piedmont mansion herself and burning up all the treasures
inside it, both sacred and profane.

But
that was for the future, she told herself as she finished her shopping. For
now, she needed to get home, get out of these clothes and get a good night’s
sleep. She did not like the way the men in the store looked at her—she
was too conscious of their stares, and could feel their eyes on her as she
walked past them, and she was tired of it. She longed for tomorrow morning when
she could take some refuge in Tom’s arms before going back out to find the next
of Julian’s monsters. The way things had been going, she knew that she was not
likely to find the next one right away. She had gone through two fruitless days
of searching between the Erroll Flynn and the Clark Gable creatures, and she
did not relish the days to come, filled with doubts and fears as she knew they’d
be.

On
the drive back to her house, she turned on the radio in her car, and tried to
let the music distract her. The market was not far from her house, and in only
a few minutes she pulled off Melrose and drove up her street, slowing down in
front of her house and parking in her driveway. She nudged her purse as she
reached across the seat for her grocery bags. The purse fell over, and the St.
Lucy cross was among the things that spilled out onto the upholstery. She had
forgotten to put it on again after dispatching the last demon, and it looked
odd sitting there next to her cigarettes and chewing gum. She put everything
else back into her purse and then scooped up the cross and her groceries before
scooting across the seat and getting out of the car. Telling herself she would
put the cross on again when she got inside, she got out of the car and went up
the porch steps. She had kept the radio on in the car, and the lyrics to “Full
Moon and Empty Arms” still played in her head as she went.

Juggling
the grocery bags, she slipped the cross into her pocket so she could more
easily get her key into the lock on the front door. As soon as she got the
front door open, she almost tripped as Murphy raced out between her legs.

“Murphy!”
she said in exasperation, half turning in the doorway to watch the cat
disappear among the bushes. Whenever she came home at night, the first order of
business was always to feed the cat, and for his part, Murphy always let it be
known that he would brook no deviation from routine. Still, she could do
nothing now but let him go, the groceries in her arms growing heavy and needing
to be put away. So she turned back into the house and bumped the door shut with
her hip.

The
house was dark except for the light from the bedroom lamp that she always left
on; she ran the back of one hand along the wall to find the light switch for
the front room. But as she did, she saw a shadow move in the shaft of light
from her bedroom. In the instant before she could shout or turn to run, she
heard a man’s voice call out to her, quiet and raspy but loud enough for her to
hear it say, “Marie?”

The
grocery bags slipped from her hands and landed with a thud on the bare floor of
her entryway. She heard glass break in the paper sacks, but she did not care
what had been lost. Paralyzed, she watched as the shadow neared the hallway and
then saw a man’s form silhouetted in the doorway. She knew before she switched
on the light what she would see. Even so, when the light flooded the front room
and hallway, she feared that she would faint. She could feel herself spinning
and floating though she knew her feet had not left the floor; all reason seemed
to leave her, and her brain struggled to comprehend the information her eyes
were giving it.

It
was Ryan. He looked a little older and a bit haggard. In this light and at this
distance, she could see terrible scars across his throat. Still, he smiled, the
same smile she remembered and carried with her every day.

“Don’t
be scared,” he said, his voice little more than a croak.

“Ryan,”
she whispered. “They said—”

“I
was dead.” He nodded. “I know. They were wrong.”

Which one?
said a voice inside her
head.
Cagney or Grant?
But even as
she told herself that this was how Julian Piedmont had decided to come after
her, that Colin Krebs had betrayed her, and that she should turn and bolt out
the door as swiftly as her cat had, her feet remained nailed to the floor.
They were wrong, they were wrong, they were
wrong,
another voice inside her mind said, a voice she found it impossible
to ignore.

He
was alive. No incubus could mimic Ryan to such a startling degree. As her eyes
examined him—the little arch of his eyebrows, the slight bend in his nose
where he had broken it playing baseball—she saw that it really was Ryan,
really and truly him, down to the mole on his chin and the way bits of his hair
curled down across his forehead. She watched, dumbfounded as he walked toward
her. Paralyzed with amazement, she told herself that this could not be
happening, that it could not be real. And yet, the man approaching her was her
husband, impossible though it seemed.

But
when he put his arms around her and held her tightly, any thought that this
might not really be Ryan evaporated. It was as though he had never left. She
buried her face in his shoulder and let him squeeze her, as she wrapped her
arms around him and told herself she would never let go. Tears surged up from
inside her, and as she sobbed on his shoulder, she kept whispering, “I can’t
believe it. I can’t believe it.”

“Shhh,”
he said, running one hand lightly across the back of her head to comfort her.
“It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay now.”

“But
what,” she began. “How?”

She
lifted her head and turned her face toward his. They kissed, and again she was
overcome with the sense that he was here and real and that the last three years
had all been a horrible dream. Briefly she felt a surge of guilt, remembering
her plans with Tom; but none of that mattered now. Ryan was here.

When
she pulled her lips away from his, he wiped at her tears. “I’m so sorry,
Marie,” he said hoarsely. “The Navy…I don’t know. When our boat got hit, we
were on a Top Secret mission. The Japanese fished the survivors out and kept us
in a prison camp on this little island. There were just four of us and twelve
guards. Our guys…they missed the island, must’ve figured it was too small for
the Japs to bother with. So we were left there. The Japanese didn’t even know
the war was over.” He rubbed at his throat. “We tried to escape, and they
bayoneted me. One of our guys made it out, though, and he brought the troops
back. That was a month ago.”

Marie
had been listening in complete amazement, the tingle of his kiss still on her
lips.

“The
Navy wouldn’t say why,” he went on, “but they insisted it had to be kept out of
the papers. And they wouldn’t let us telegram home until they discharged us.
Something to do with the mission we were on when we got hit. I’m so sorry,
Marie.”

“My
poor baby,” she said, gingerly letting her fingertips play over the scar. “My
God, how I’ve missed you. You don’t know what it was like. And all I wanted was
to talk to you, just one more time.” She laughed and wiped away more tears. “I
can’t believe it’s true.”

Then
he kissed her again, more deeply this time, and she felt the sadness and joy
melt away to be replaced by desire. His arms felt so good around her, his lips
so soft. Even the smell of sweat and the slight scrape of stubble against her
face made her want him more. She thought not at all of Tom Glass or the incubi,
not at all about Jasper or Julian Piedmont, Colin Krebs or Elise, not at all
about anything that had gone on in her life for the last several weeks. She
thought not at all, but was simply overcome with the realization that she was
finally satisfying the longing she had felt for three years, a longing so
desperate that she had walled herself away from it and made herself forget that
it was there. But now it was back with more force than she had ever dreamed
possible. She kissed her husband hungrily and began to push him backwards
toward the bedroom door.

“Oh
Ryan, oh Ryan,” she whispered between kisses and then put her lips back on his
as she felt one of his hands drop down to squeeze her buttocks. Her mind raced
back and forth between what she was feeling here and now and her memories of
all the times they had made love in this same house, on their honeymoon on
Santa Catalina island, on a blanket in the mountains when they had gone for a
picnic. It was all one in her mind as she pulled at his belt to undo his
trousers, and she felt suddenly as though he had never left, the years of loss
and longing undone and restored to her. The joy that welled up in her made her
feel as though she would burst if she didn’t laugh or cry or scream first.

And
then they were in the bedroom and he was unbuttoning her blouse. She had his
belt loosened and then the button on his pants and the zipper. He pulled one
shoulder of her blouse down and slipped the bra strap down her arm, bending to
kiss her breast while kneading the other. Marie moaned and reached into his
pants.

The
light beside the bed was still on, and she wanted to look down and see what she
was doing, but in turning her head to look around him, she caught sight of
their reflection in the vanity mirror against the wall. For a moment, she was
completely disoriented by the image of her previously deceased husband fondling
the breasts of a half-naked blonde woman. The effect was jarring, and in a
flash she remembered the incubi, remembered why she had dyed her hair,
remembered joking with Tom about it from the payphone outside the grocery store
less than an hour ago.

Whipping
her hand out of his pants, she recoiled, suddenly unsure of the man who looked
and smelled and felt like her husband. He had been starting to pull down the
zipper on her skirt when she pulled back. Now he looked at her face, and she
saw complete animal lust in his eyes, unlike anything she had ever seen in
Ryan.

“Don’t
be scared,” he rasped, pulling the zipper all the way down as she tried to pull
away. Startled though she was, Ryan’s gaze and her own sudden fear were not
enough to completely break the spell; there was still something about him,
something too real for it not to be him, incredible though his story was.