The_Demons_Wife_ARC (30 page)

“Well then,”
she said. “We’re here for a happy occasion.” She held her hand out for each of
them to shake. “My name’s Barbara Moody. This is my assistant, Debbie Powers.
And you are—?”

Claire started
to answer, but Barbara looked at the sheet of paper she was holding and read
aloud, “Ms. Claire McMullen and Samael—” Her mouth twitched like she had a
nervous tick. “Pierson…Mr. Samael Pierson.”

Claire glanced
at Samael when she suddenly realized she didn’t know his last name—if demons
even have last names—Was this something he had made up for the occasion?

Pierson…Claire
Pierson…Yeah, I can get used to that…

“So,” Barbara
said, “if you have the rings—”

A sudden jolt
hit Claire when she realized they had never bought wedding rings. How could she
have forgotten such a simple thing? But then Samael reached into his jacket
pocket and said, “Got ‘em right here.” He held out two matching jeweler’s boxes
and snapped open the tops. The rings glistened brightly as he held them out for
her to see.

Would’ve been
nice if you had told me,
she thought.

“Where did you
get—” she started to say, but then she realized she had to play along with it
and ended by saying, “I knew I could count on you, dear.”

The ceremony
itself was brief and somehow anticlimactic. Throughout her life growing up,
Claire had always imagined that her wedding day would be like something out of
a fairy tale, with flowers and elegant lace dresses…scores if not hundreds of
friends in St. Andrew’s, the big Catholic church she had attended back in
Houlton.

And here she
was, standing in some city bureaucrat’s office, exchanging vows with someone
whose last name she hadn’t even known until a few moments ago.

I am
definitely out of my mind
, she kept thinking as she repeated what the
Justice of the Peace told her to say. The words came out of her mouth as if
someone else was speaking them.

“Then with the
power vested in me by the State of Maine, I now pronounce you husband and
wife,” Barbara said. And then, to Samael, she said, “You may kiss the bride.”

Claire wasn’t
ready for it when Samael swept her into his arms and leaned her backwards. She
let out a squeal before he planted a firm, passionate kiss on her mouth.
Automatically, she slipped her tongue into his mouth, but she caught herself
and made the kiss much shorter than she wanted it to be.

Besides,
Michael was watching, and who knew where he was looking with those reflective
sunglasses.

“Congratulations,”
Barbara said, extending her hand first to Claire and then to Samael to shake.
Claire noticed the sidelong glances the woman kept shooting in Michael’s
direction, and it was no wonder. He did look stunning dressed all in white and
with a beam of sunlight pouring through the office window, lighting him in
glorious silhouette.

The assistant,
Debbie, cheerfully signed as Claire’s witness and then, thanking them for
adding something quite unusual and interesting to her day, went back out into
the lobby to go to work.

Michael
produced a digital camera from his jacket pocket—another surprise for Claire
because she hadn’t thought of that, either—and began taking snapshots of the
bride and groom. After all the handshakes, hugs, and photos, while Claire and
Samael waited for the official documents to be signed and sealed, Claire turned
to her demon husband.

“First thing
we have to do is go to the apartment and check up on Sally.”

She and Samael
were walking toward the door with Michael trailing a few steps behind. Claire
had the distinct impression he was acting more as a bodyguard than best man or
friend. The only concern was: How conspicuous is he? Nearly everyone who saw
him stopped and stared in amazement.

They walked
down the steps of City Hall and over to Samael’s car. Although it was in a
tow-away zone, it was still there. Not even a parking ticket under the
windshield wiper blade. Claire decided to take it as a wedding present.

“The
apartment’s not far,” Claire said. “We can walk if you’d like.”

Samael looked
up the street and then shot a quick glance at Michael as if to ask,
What do
you think?

Michael raised
his shades, his silver eyes glinting in the sun like quicksilver as he scanned
the area.

“The trouble
is,” he said softly as he stepped closer to them, “we don’t know what the
opposition is going to do next.”

His words sent
a dash of chills racing up Claire’s back. In spite of the warm, sunny day, she
shivered.

“You make this
sound like…like
The Godfather
or something,” she said tightly. “It’s
like there’s a rival mob family that’s going to attack us soon, and it’s time
for us to ‘go to the mattresses.’”

It was a poor
joke, and even she didn’t laugh…not after she saw the hard, neutral expression
on both Samael’s and Michael’s faces.

“How serious
is this, really?” she asked, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

Neither Samael
nor Michael spoke for an unnervingly long time. In that time, the tension
inside Claire wound up to an almost unbearable pitch.

“Samael?” She
took hold of his arm above the elbow and shook him. He stared straight back at
her, but for the longest time he still didn’t say a word.

“Samael!”

“There’s no
way of knowing,” he finally said.

As if they had
reached a decision, they started walking up the street toward Congress Street.
Claire had the peculiar feeling they were somehow isolated or protected from
the mundane reality going on all around them, like they were in a transparent
bubble. Cars and trucks and busses whizzed by, belching exhaust fumes into the
air. Pedestrians streamed by in all directions, everyone focused on their own
immediate goals. No conversation. No human contact. Overhead, seagulls whirled
in wide spirals above the city, their harsh cries almost—but not quite—lost in
the hubbub below.

Claire took
Samael’s arm and hugged it. He smiled absently at her, his eyes active…alert
and focused on every passerby. Even though she was worried about Sally and the
unknown dangers she and her husband still faced, she felt suddenly confident.
She chuckled to herself as “Stand by Your Man” began playing in her head.

As they neared
the apartment, Michael slowed his pace until he had dropped back more than
fifty feet behind them. Then, without a word, he veered off down the alleyway
that Claire knew ran behind her old apartment building.

“Oh, God,” she
said, and Samael snapped his head up and looked at her with an expression of
utter panic.

“Where?”

Confused for a
moment by his reaction—his overreaction—she looked at him.  Then she
understood.

“No. No. It’s
not Him,” she said, her voice strained. “It’s just… it feels so weird coming
back here. Like another life.”

They walked up
to the front door, and as she looked up the façade of the building, a powerful
feeling of nostalgia swept over her like a fog bank. Her mind filled with
memories of first moving in here more than six years ago. All of her dreams and
hopes, her disappointments and fears welled up inside her. Although she knew it
was because she was emotional after the wedding—which already felt like a dream
or the memory of a dream—a gnawing worry settled over her heart.

She opened her
purse and took out the key ring. She hadn’t given her keys to the apartment
back to Sally yet, but as she prepared to open the door and go inside, she
suddenly felt like an intruder.

“Maybe call
first?” Samael suggested.

Claire nodded
and took her cell phone from her purse and hit the speed dial for Sally’s
number.

The phone rang
four times until it went to message.

“Still not
answering,” Claire said, suddenly fearing the worst.

“Well, then…”
Samael said.

Before she
moved, though, she looked up and down the sidewalk.

“Where’d
Michael go?” she asked, but Samael shook his head and didn’t answer her. She slipped
the key into the front-door lock, turned it, and—holding her breath until her
chest hurt—pushed the door open.

~ * ~

The old
familiar smell of the entryway—a combination of floor wax, disinfectant, and
wet dog—assailed her nostrils as she swung the door open, stepped inside, and
then shut it behind them. The tightness in her stomach intensified as they
started up the stairway to the third-floor landing. The old wooden stairs
creaked underfoot, the only break in the silence that enveloped them. Claire
felt like she had somehow slipped into an alternate reality where she was part
of—but also frighteningly distant from—what she had taken all her life to be
“reality.”

It’s like I’m
dead…and I’m a ghost wandering through what used to be my life,
she thought
with a shiver. They reached the third-floor landing and started down the long
hallway to the door to what was…that is used to be—

In another
life.

—her
apartment.

She slipped
the apartment key into the lock and turned it. The bolt made a rough grinding
sound as it turned, but before she twisted the doorknob and pushed the door
open, she hesitated.

She couldn’t
get over the unsettling feeling that something was seriously wrong, and she
knew—when she opened that door, she would find out just how wrong it was.

She couldn’t
say what it was or how she knew—not yet, but the building, even the air seemed…

“Too quiet,”
she whispered.

“Huh?” Samael
asked.

She turned to
him again, searching for strength and security in his face.

“This
place…It’s never been this quiet. Someone is always blasting their TV or music
way too loud, or the Andrews’ dog is barking.” She looked around. “This
is…weird.”

She sucked in
a quick breath, held it, and opened the door.

“Sally?” she
called out.

As she waited
for a reply, her eyes took in the sight before her.

“Are we in the
right place?” she whispered to Samael.

At first
glance, it sure seemed they had made a mistake. Claire and Sally had never been
the best of housekeepers, but the entryway and kitchen looked like a tornado had
ripped through it. It wasn’t just a matter of dirty dishes and laundry piled
up. Everything—chairs and tables, pots and pans, clothes and household items
were strewn everywhere. Broken dishes and uprooted plants were scattered on the
upended furniture. The refrigerator door was open, its contents spilled out
onto the floor. The milk had long since curdled, and spoiled fruits and
vegetables and containers of leftovers were furred with mold and crawling with
flies and other insects. The smell of rotting vegetables mixed with a powerful
jolt of rotten eggs made Claire gag as she looked down at a wide puddle of some
dark liquid that had spilled across the floor, forming a rough letter C.

Is that blood
? Claire
wondered as her pulse kicked into high gear. Then she noticed the upended
bottle of Pepsi lying in the debris at the base of the counter by the sink.

“My God,”
Claire whispered, awestruck. She took shallow sips of air and waved her hand in
front of her face to avoid breathing the stench too deeply.

Even on a cold
March day like this, flies were buzzing about and crawling across the garbage
strewn on the floor.

“This is bad,”
Samael said, frowning and looking worried as he took it all in. He appeared to
be maintaining his poise, but his shoulders were hunched as if he expected that
whoever or whatever had done this might still be here, lurking out of
sight…ready to pounce.

“Sally?”
Claire called out again, her voice sounding unusually loud in the deserted
apartment.

No response
except for the buzzing of flies that reminded her of the fur-covered thing that
had once been Mittens which she had found in the shower. Claire was convinced
that, when they went into the living room or bedroom, they’d find Sally—

Dead!

Still waving
her hand in front of her face and gasping for breath, Claire tiptoed through
the debris to the living room doorway. A flickering light—several flickering
lights, in fact—lit up the living room. A wavering pale, orange glow reached
across the floor and painted the doorjamb.

“Sally?” Claire
called again, her voice stronger in spite of her twisting nerves.

She stepped on
something that sounded like she had crushed a bag of potato chips underfoot.
She kept moving forward as she glanced down to see what it was, so when she
raised her head and saw Sally in the living room, she let out a squeal of
surprise.

She was
sitting on the couch, perfectly still and staring down at the floor with a
blank, unblinking gaze. Every available flat surface in the room, it seemed,
held one or more lit candles. Some were on plates; others were stuck in puddles
of melted wax to the surface of the coffee table, chair arms, bookcase shelves,
and the floor. Their flickering orange glow filled the room and cast confused,
wavering shadows. It took a while for Claire’s eyes to adjust.