The Devil You Know (37 page)

When
she finished the prayer, she was suddenly left with nothing but dust on her
fingers and a cloak that had fallen to her feet. She turned to Tom again and he
held her close for a long time.

Finally,
he said, “What about the priest?”

Marie
looked up at him, surprised. “You think he survived the fall?” she asked.

“There’s
the pool. If he landed in it…”

“Maybe,
but it’s an awfully long drop. And I don’t think the pool’s very deep.” She
thought about it for a moment, then added, “And even if he did survive, with
that thing in him, he’ll likely be completely out of his mind. He was its
master, but now the slave’s inside him.”

Tom
nodded toward the inferno that had been the Piedmont mansion. “Either way, I’m
not going down there to find out. If he did die, though, what about the
succubus?”

“She
probably left the body when it died. She could still be around here.”

“Should
we try to kill it?”

Marie
shook her head. “I’ve had enough. Spirits like these, they’re usually bound to
a person or a location. Now this one has neither. It will probably just
languish up here and fade away, especially if there’s no one left to believe in
her.”

Tom
nodded. Then he looked toward the wall around the property and said, “We need
to get out of here, Marie. I can hear sirens coming down below.”

She
nodded and let him lead her away. When Julian’s followers fled the house, they
had shed their robes on the ground and driven away in panic, leaving the iron
gates open now for Tom and Marie to walk through. On the other side, Marie’s
car still sat beside the wall, and just behind it was Colin’s black Lincoln. As
she and Tom slid into her Chevrolet, Marie wondered what the coroner would
conclude from the burned bodies and the bullet wounds and the priest by the
pool with all the broken glass around him. And moments later, when the Chevy’s
engine rumbled itself awake, she realized she had never noticed what a good
sound it was. She wrapped her arm around Tom’s and rested her head on his
shoulder as he made a U-turn on the narrow road and turned the car back toward
Hollywood.

Chapter Thirty

The
sign on the window had recently been redone; it now read “Sunset Books” in
large letters that curved in a half circle to suggest the setting sun. Below
that were the words “New and Used” and below that “Specializing in the Occult.”
Inside, the store looked much as Jasper had left it, with stacks of books on
the floor beside the crowded shelves and the most expensive ones under glass in
the display case beside the cash register. A magazine rack had been added; on
it were displayed the latest issues of
Amazing
Stories
,
Fantastic Adventures
,
Startling Stories
, and
Weird Tales
. The rack added to the
clutter, but in some ways the store was getting neater. Tom had used part of
his inheritance to rent the vacant store next door, and the landlord had
consented to have a door cut in the wall to connect the two spaces. Rows of
shelves lined the extension; Tom and Marie had spent the last month moving most
of Jasper’s precious private collection from the house to the new section of
the store. They knew he would have hated to sell the books, but they weren’t
doing anyone any good gathering dust with Jasper gone, and he at least would
have been pleased to know their sale would help Tom and Marie for a long time
to come.

The
weather had warmed up by July with no more nights of rolling fog or mornings of
dew and drizzle. Marie sat behind the counter, grateful for the electric fan
that blew on her. The store’s front door was propped open with an old
dictionary, and the back door that led to the alley was also open. A weak
little breeze blew into the store. On the glass countertop beside her, Murphy
sat contentedly on his haunches, his eyes half closed and his tail wrapped
around him. He paid no attention as Marie turned the pages of the manuscript in
her hands, a pencil tucked behind one ear.

The story, which she had titled “The Devil’s in the Details,” was
based loosely on what had gone on with the incubi. Writing it had been
therapeutic. During the months since the fire at Julian’s estate, she had spent
many nights with very little sleep. It didn’t matter if she was home alone or
spending the night with Tom; she would drift off and then fall into the worst,
most vivid nightmares she could remember having. In some, she wandered through
hills similar to the ones around Julian’s house. Coming across the burned ruins
of a mansion with an empty pool behind it, she would be overcome with the
feeling that the very bushes were alive and watching her, charged with a
negative energy that wanted nothing more than to suck the life out of her.
Sometimes, the dream went so far as to include the bushes and trees advancing
on her, tendrils reaching out and curling up her ankles before she would awake
in a cold sweat and be unable to fall back to sleep.

Reading
or playing solitaire had done no good. She had been on the verge of asking Tom
for some of his pills when she decided to try turning to her typewriter—when
she was alone—or a tablet and pencil when she was with Tom. At first, she
had just written her thoughts, keeping a nighttime journal, but soon she had
begun toying with the idea of writing a story. After years of reading pulpy
adventures and thrillers, she had found that she could write well and with
ease. Gratefully, she found that she could write a while and then close her
eyes again to sleep through the rest of the night. After several weeks like
this, the dreams still plagued her, but the story had come along well, and if
she had to sacrifice a bit of sleep and calm to produce it, she was willing to
pay the price for now.

In
the weeks after the fire, she had combed the newspapers for references to
Julian Piedmont’s demise, but the stories had generally focused on the tragedy
of the young mogul’s death and the ensuing power struggles at his studio.
Though Marie had checked every Los Angeles paper diligently, there had been no
mention of Father Joe—nothing about his body being found by the pool, or
about him being discovered as a survivor. Uncertainty over the priest’s fate
made Marie uneasy, and she feared that she and Tom had acted foolishly the
night of the fire when they had decided not to venture down to the pool to be
sure he was dead. There was nothing for it now, though, she had come to
realize, and as the months had passed, she had slowly begun to feel less
apprehensive about the priest and the demon he had carried away.

She
still wore the St. Lucy cross around her neck. When she had gone back to the
church to clear her things from the office, she had been tempted to offer the
cross to the new pastor, but had decided against it. The church had been
repaired and painted, and though no one knew what had happened to Father Joe,
there was a sense that order had been restored. Marie knew that the new priest
didn’t need the relic from St. Lucy in order to lead his flock; he would likely
have just sent the little cross to the diocese where it would have been kept
safely in storage, never doing anyone any good. On her way out of the chapel
for the last time, Marie had knelt before the statue of St. Lucy, thinking
about the martyr’s lost eyes, gouged out by frustrated Roman soldiers. It made
her think of the other abuses all the victims of the incubi had endured, and
she remembered how Jasper had said that St. Lucy could still see without her
eyes. Maybe the incubi hadn’t taken everything from their victims, she thought,
but they had certainly taken enough.

Elise’s
mother had come for her in May, signing her out of the hospital at Camarillo
and taking her home to Nebraska. Marie had gone with Elise’s mother to sign her
out of the institution and help get her ready to go home. She had visited a few
times since the night of the fire at Piedmont’s, and had always hoped for some
sign of recovery, imagining that the part of Elise that Malliol had taken was
able to return to its body once the demon was dispatched. But there was never
as much as a glimmer of recognition from Elise, and Marie had been left to hold
dear the memory of how Elise had finally overtaken the demon and spoken with
her one last time.

Now
she pulled the pencil from behind her ear to make a small correction in the
manuscript. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up,
expecting a customer to have come in. A smile spread across her face when she
saw Tom standing in the doorway of the store. “Hey, good lookin’,” he said.

“Hey.”
She set the pencil down and came around the counter to give him a kiss.

“How’s
business been today?”

“A
little slow. It’s okay, though. We’ll start advertising once all the stock is
sorted.”

“We’ll
need to work a few Sundays to get it all done,” he said.

“I
suppose.” Marie hated the idea of working on Sundays, but she knew there was no
way around it for now. Tom had traded the old Dodge for a second-hand Indian, and
the pair had lately spent every Sunday riding through the mountains or along
the beach. Marie thrilled at the feeling of wrapping her arms around Tom and
feeling the wind whip her clothing and hair as he pushed the old motorcycle to
its limits. If getting the store completely up and running meant sacrificing a
few of those Sundays, she would do it, but reluctantly.

“How’s
the story coming?” he asked, nodding toward the little stack of pages on the
counter.

“Good.”
She smiled.

“Ready
to let me read it?”

“I
think so.”

“Ready
to send it off?” he pressed.

She
let out her breath and said, “Soon,” with understated confidence. She nodded
toward the magazine rack and all the vivid colors and lurid images on the
covers of the pulps. “I just have to decide which one to send it to first.”

“What
do you mean, ‘first’?” he joked. “It’ll sell straightaway. I know it.”

“We’ll
see.”

Tom
reached out to pet the cat. “So if it’s slow,” he said, “what say you close up
early and take a ride with me? We could take Sunset out to the palisades and
watch the sun go down.”

She
had to think about it for only a moment. “All right,” she said. In no time, the
register was emptied and the safe in the office was locked; the fan and lights
were turned off, and Marie scooped up Murphy while Tom flipped the “Open” sign
in the window to “Closed.”

“You
parked by me?” Marie asked. When Tom nodded, she said, “Just follow me home so
I can drop the old man here, and then we’ll go.”

She
pulled the door shut and locked it, hugging the cat to her bosom with her other
arm. Tom leaned against the building and bent his head close to hers. “So then we’ll
come back later…?”

She
smiled wickedly at him. “If you’re a good boy.”

“Mmm.
I think I can do that.” As they stepped away from the door, Tom paused for a
moment to consider the new sign on the window. “You sure about the sign?” he
asked.

“What
about it? I think it’s clever.”

He
shook his head. “Not the ‘Sunset’ part. The occult stuff.” He pointed at the
words. “You put that up and you’re liable to get some pretty strange characters
coming in here.”

Marie
considered the sign for only a moment, touched by his concern. Then with a
shrug, she leaned into his broad chest and said, “I think we can handle ‘em.”

* * * * * * * *

Author’s Note

Thanks
for reading
The Devil You Know
. I
hope you enjoyed the book as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. This book has
a rather convoluted history; it started as a science fiction story about
parasitic shape-shifting aliens who took on the appearance of good looking
leading men, seducing young women in 1940s Hollywood and using their bodies as
hosts for their offspring. In that first version, Marie was a secretary for a
private investigator and Tom was an LAPD detective. As you’ve seen, the book
changed an awful lot by the time it reached its final form, and as challenging
as the process was, it was also a lot of fun to watch the story develop.

As an independent novelist, it’s both
challenging and rewarding to get my books into the hands of readers, and I’m
glad this book found its way into yours. If you enjoyed it, would you do me a
favor and post a review to Amazon? There are a lot of books out there, and
readers’ reviews and recommendations are some of the best ways to help a book
get noticed. You can post your Amazon review
here
. I would be most grateful if you did.

I’d also love to hear from you, so feel
free to get in touch through my
Facebook
page or the Contact page at my
website
.

You can also sign up for my
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promotions, and giveaways.

Starting on the next page, I’ve included
a Sneak Peek of my novel
Take Back Tomorrow
, another noir story but this
one is science fiction rather than paranormal fantasy. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks again for reading.
Best wishes,

Richard Levesque