The Others 03: The Demon You Know Read online

  "Oh, wow," he heard Carly breathe from somewhere behind him. "I don't think Abby lives here anymore.”

  She lived there all right, but at the moment there was someone else answering her doorbell. And judging by the first words out of its mouth, Rule had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly who it was.

  "Lou.”

  The figure who had been Abby leaned forward, the whites of her eyes glittering eerily and emptily in the room's mellow light.

  "Don't be mad, Rule. I swear I wasn't planning on messing with any humans. I swear it." Just like Abby had gone missing from her eyes, Rule couldn't hear her in the voice, either. The low, androgynous whine sounded nothing like the light, feminine, faintly panicked tone he'd heard before he called forth the fiend in her. "I was minding my own business when a bunch of humans decided to attack the Other kid I'd hitched a ride with. They were gonna be trouble, I could tell. So I dove into the nearest hiding place I could find. I didn't know she was gonna be a human!”

  Rule didn't buy it. "You knew the woman was not Other, Lou. Even you are not stupid enough to make that mistake. The girl's humanity all but glows from her.”

  "But-but—”

  "And even if you had not seen it, you sure as hell should have smelled it." Rule leaned farther forward, following the recoiling body until he pressed nearly nose-to-nose with it. The fiend tried to sink back into the chair, but it had only so far it could go. "She smells like cotton candy, Lou. Do you know many Other women who smell like human confectioneries?”

  The bite of sulfur in the air suddenly sharpened, and Rule felt the fiend's rising discomfort. "I—I—I didn't stop to think, Rule. I was…too freaked out. I thought those thugs were gonna kill me!”

  Rule snorted. "You are a fiend, Lou. You cannot die like that, and you and I both know it. Now tell me the truth.”

  Tess shifted behind them. "Rule, maybe you should back off a little. That position Abby's in right now is looking pretty uncomfortable.”

  With her back and limbs arched and twisted in ways only a human contortionist could probably think of, Rule figured Tess might be right. But at least Abby couldn't feel anything just then, and he needed to get some information before he let Lou slink back into the woman's subconscious.

  "She will be fine. She will not even remember this when she wakes." Rule braced his hands on the arms of the chair to either side of Abby's body and poured on the menace. "Tell me what is going on, Lou. Why did you disappear? What are you doing Above?”

  "I can't telllll youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”

  The fingers on Rule's free hand itched to wrap around the fiend's neck. They even twitched on the arm of the chair, digging into the leather the way they longed to dig into Lou. But Rule couldn't move them. He saw too clearly that the only neck available belonged to Abby, no matter whose voice was coming from it just then. The sweet, warm scent of her reminded him with every breath that if he tried to hurt Lou, he'd end up hurting Abby by default.

  Something deep inside him balked at the very idea.

  Instead, he remained close, leaning in until the fiend had to feel his power seeping through the human skin that clothed it. "You do not have a choice, Louamides," Rule growled. "I command you to tell me what you are running from.”

  The figure in the chair quivered like a whipped puppy, a long, humming whimper vibrating from somewhere inside like an alarm buzzer. Rule could hear the others in the room shifting restlessly behind him, but he ignored them. He knew this fiend, knew its name, knew its weaknesses. It would never be able to hold out against Rule, for which he was grateful. The sooner he got the information he needed, the sooner he could bring Abby back to the forefront of her own mind.

  "Louamides Asgarumel, I command you to answer my questions!”

  "Uzkiel!" the fiend wailed. "Uzkiel and his minions hunt for me. I had to get away from them. Uzkiel knows I have the solus spell, and he'll kill me to get it. He got suspicious about me. He knew someone in his company was passing you information and he guessed it was me. He sent me to fetch the spell as a test, but I didn't know what it was. If I give it to him, it'll kill me; and if I don't, he'll kill me. I had to hide. I knew being Above would make it harder for him to find me, so I hitched a ride on the first summoning I heard, and I've been here ever since. But I was laying low! I was staying in the Others. I wasn't making waves, I swear. If it hadn't been for those lousy riots, no one would ever have known I was here. I promise!”

  Rule didn't think the figure had drawn breath during that entire speech. It spoke so fast, Rule was amazed it didn't trip on its borrowed tongue. When it finally skidded to a stop, Rule felt almost dizzy from the speed.

  The uneasiness he felt came from something entirely different.

  Behind him, Rafael stepped forward, casting a long shadow across Rule, the chair, and the panting, quaking fiend curled up inside Abby Baker's contorted form.

  "Did any of that make sense to you?" the Felix asked softly.

  Rule looked up into glittering green eyes and jerked his head once in affirmation. "Unfortunately, yes."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Abby struggled back to awareness through a layer of dense, sticky confusion, as if whatever was inside her had filled her head with warm caramel while she'd been someplace else. It wasn't painful, but it wasn't very pleasant, either. She forced her eyelids open against the weight that seemed to have them glued in place and frowned up at the circle of faces peering down on her.

  "What happened?" she croaked, frown deepening. And why did she sound like Tom Waits after a bad case of laryngitis? "Did you find out what you wanted to know?”

  She watched while Rafael De Santos switched his gaze from her face to Rule's and back again. "I think the answer to that may turn out to be rather subjective, my dear.”

  "What do you mean?”

  "In his mysterious feline way," Tess said, "my husband is trying to say that we got answers to a bunch of questions and had time to hash them out while you were unconscious. But I'm not sure anyone actually likes those answers.”

  Abby felt her stomach clench. "So you were right. I really am possessed.”

  Carly nodded vigorously. "That's a big ten-four.”

  The clenching turned into something resembling what happened at a taffy pull. It pulled and twisted and folded and then started the process all over again. Abby's skin, too, felt different. Tight, buzzing. Oversensitive, as if something had been crawling on it and the sensory memory still lingered behind.

  Her hand went instinctively to her throat and grasped her cross. The warmth of the metal and stone, the familiar weight and shape of the necklace, comforted her, just like it always had.

  She frowned. Exactly like it always had. It didn't burn or scar her. It didn't feel any different than it had on the first day she'd clasped it around her neck. Even that vague feeling of being watched she'd had earlier had settled down. Maybe this demonic possession thing was just a mistake.

  "I wonder if it could have been a kind of hypnotic suggestion thing," she ventured, her voice hopeful in her own ears. "You know, I bought into the possession story, so when you all started asking me questions, my subconscious just filled in the answers it thought you wanted. After all, I'm wearing a cross. I should be protected from demons and vampires and all that stuff.”

  Even before she'd gotten the explanation out, Abby could see five heads shaking in firm unison.

  "No such luck," Samantha said, looking genuinely sympathetic. "Remember what Tess said before about the whole 'bupkes' thing? I'm afraid it's really real. It's a possession.”

  Abby let her head thump back against the chair back. Actually, she didn't so much let it happen as she was unable to stop it. It was spinning so fast and so crazily, she figured she should be grateful it was still attached. She just couldn't decide if it spun because of the shock or the possession.

  How on earth was any of this possible?

  "A demon," she murmured, staring at the ceiling, her head shaking slowly. "I'm possessed by
a demon.”

  "It is not a demon," the demon growled. "It is a fiend.”

  Abby tilted her head enough to look at the scowling man who stood at the foot of her chair. "So you've said. A number of times. You seem to like making that distinction.”

  "It's an important one where he comes from," Tess broke in as the muscle in the side of Rule's jaw jumped and clenched. "You see, most of what those of us who grew up in this reality have learned about demons is apparently wrong. What we call demons the demons call fiends. The demons themselves aren't inherently evil. Who knew?”

  Abby blinked. "You're arguing semantics with me? This is my soul at stake!”

  "Your soul is in no danger. At least not from me, nor from Louamides," Rule said.

  "Louamides?”

  "That is the name of the fiend.”

  "Whatever. You're a demon. Forgive me if I have trouble taking your word for it." Abby glared at Rule, and the tightening of her facial muscles felt like a vise squeezing shut around her head. She massaged a temple with her fingertips and let her eyes close against the ache. "Look, this is all a little much for me to take in at the moment. You might say it's been a pretty eventful day.”

  The crawling sensation on her skin became less of a memory and more of an actual real-time sensation. Her eyes popped open and she glanced down at her arms before her gaze settled on Tess, who seemed one of the most reasonable of the apparent authority figures in the group surrounding her. "How about you do whatever it is you need to do to get this demon— excuse me, to get this fiend—out of me, so I can go home and go back to being a normal human being?”

  Pushing herself out of her chair, she took a minute to roll her shoulders against the tension that had built up there. Nearly every muscle in her body felt tense and stretched, but her shoulders and neck seemed to carry the bulk of it. She needed a massage that would stretch into the next century. It felt like she'd been doing some kind of calisthenics while she'd been unconscious.

  Maybe she had been. She hated the feeling of having done things and said things she couldn't remember. Even if it hadn't really been her doing and saying them, it had been her body. She should have remembered it.

  The silence finally brought her stretch to an abrupt stop with her arms above her head and her shoulders somewhere up near her ears.

  No one in the room said a word. They just stood there and looked at one another. Meaningfully.

  The taffy pull resumed work in her stomach. In double time.

  "What is it? What's wrong?" she demanded.

  "It's not quite as simple as that, Abby." Tess exchanged glances with her husband and with Rule. Glances Abby's stomach interpreted as fuel for the taffy machine. "There's a lot to consider—”

  "Fine. Consider it after I've been exorcised." Abby locked gazes with the witch and forced herself not to flinch or rub her hands over the creeping skin of her arms. "Right now, I want this thing out of me.”

  "Unfortunately, we have to think about more than—”

  "I don't care! Get it out of me! If you can't do it, I'll find someone else who will!”

  Her plan involved whirling on one dignified heel and stalking with perfect power and poise out the door of the club and into the door of the nearest Catholic church, but things didn't work out quite that way. Par for the course, really.

  She managed about half a step before the demon stepped in front of her, blocking her path more effectively than a police barricade. She dodged to the side, but he moved faster and shot out a hand to grasp her upper arm.

  "I cannot let you do that.”

  Her snort all but echoed in the sudden quiet of the room. "I don't remember asking permission." She tugged ineffectually at her arm, but Rule's grip only tightened.

  "I noticed. But even had you done so, such permission would be denied.”

  Words Abby had never imagined thinking, let alone speaking, surged to the tip of her tongue, intending to tell him what he could do with his arrogant, dictatorial attitude. She knew they would earn her a mammoth amount of penance at her next confession, but oh how she imagined they'd be worth it.

  "Abby, we're not trying to order you around. We're trying to protect you," Tess said, stepping forward and placing her hand over Rule's on the other woman's arm. "You didn't hear all the details of the situation. It's not safe for you to go wandering around the city on your own. Not while Lou is still with you.”

  "Fine. Point taken. Get whatever it is out of me, and I'll be perfectly safe.”

  Her pointed glare earned a matching scowl from Rule and a hasty exchange of uncomfortable glances among the room's other occupants.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "We cannot remove the fiend from you at the moment. It is impossible," Rule decreed.

  Abby's stomach took another ride on the new roller coaster in her gut. "You mean, it's stuck?”

  "I wouldn't have put it quite that way," Tess pursed her lips, "but I suppose it's not an inaccurate assessment. We tried to perform a sort of exorcism on you, and it didn't work.”

  Suddenly the sound of Abby's heartbeat seemed to be the loudest thing in the room. "You mean I'll have this thing inside me forever? For the rest of my life? Isn't there a way to pass it on to someone else, like it got passed on to me? There has to be a way.”

  She looked frantically around the room, her pleading gaze resting for a moment on Samantha, who made a noise of distress and stroked a hand down Abby's other arm.

  "It's not permanent," the Lupine soothed. "In a few days, Tess will come up with a spell that will work in place of the exorcism and you can go right back to normal. But for now, we're going to have to focus on the other part of the situation.”

  The demon beside them snarled.

  Tess shot Samantha a glare. "You're not helping, Sam.”

  Abby tried to wrap her mind around what she'd just heard and felt a headache coming on like a freight train. "What are you talking about? What situation? If you think there's a way to get rid of this fiend, you need to find it now! I want it out of me!”

  A sharp jerk broke the demon's hold on her. Her eyes wide and nervous, she backed away from the others—the Others!—until her knees bumped into the edge of an armchair. Samantha stared guiltily at the floor, while Tess watched Abby with her mouth compressed into a flat line. The demon had his dark, fathomless eyes fixed on her, his expression hard and uncompromising.

  "Right now, you only need to concern yourself with one name. Uzkiel.”

  A shudder ran down her spine with such force, Abby felt her feet shift from the floor. The name meant nothing to her, but it must have meant something to whatever lurked inside her.

  God, she hated having feelings that didn't belong to her!

  "Who is Uzkiel?" she demanded, stuffing down the bile of fear that rose in her throat when she spoke the name.

  Rule sighed. "This is not a simple story. Nor is it brief. You really should sit.”

  Abby took one look at the enveloping wing chair behind her and repressed a snort. Instead she stepped over to a plush ottoman—gritting her teeth when the wall of Others moved with her—and perched on the edge. At least the footstool didn't have a back. She could always jump off the other side if worse came to worst.

  "OK, tell me what's going on.”

  Rule settled his imposing frame into a seat facing her and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs. "The first thing you must understand is that the human conception of what you call 'demons' is, as Tess told you earlier, very wrong. Demons have existed since long before your kind became aware of your God. In those days, we were called daimon and we were the messengers between the worlds.”

  "Between what worlds?”

  "All of them. Surely you have realized by now that more exists in the universe than this single reality." He raised an eyebrow, but Abby just pursed her lips and nodded for him to continue. She had no earthly idea what she'd realized over the last few hours, let alone the last few weeks. "We carried news and messages betwe
en all living creatures, until the Fae declared war on us.”

  Tess dragged her husband to sit beside her on the sofa near Rule and made a rude noise. "You're lucky neither Fiona nor Luc is here to take exception to your POV, pal.”

  Abby had no idea who Tess was talking about, so she ignored her. "The Fae? You mean faeries?" She tried to imagine a squadron of fluttering little Tinkerbells attacking an army of figures like Rule and nearly laughed out loud.

  "As I said, more exists than what you might think you know. In any event, the war between the Fae and my kind lasted nearly a thousand years," he continued. "Eventually, the treaties signed between us banished the demons to the Below where we have lived in exile ever since.”

  "I thought you said before that everything I knew about demons was 'bupkes'? That sounds a lot like the battle between Lucifer and God's angels to me.”

  Rafael gave a shout of laughter that echoed around the room. "My apologies," he chuckled when his wife hit him in the chest. "It was simply the idea of anyone mistaking the Fae for 'God's angels.' The idea is too amusing." He snickered. "You will understand when you meet Fiona. Trust me.”

  Abby had no intention of broadening her acquaintance in the Other world, but she held her tongue. She needed the information more than she needed to make a point right now.

  Rule's mouth had curved into a half smile at Rafael's reaction to her opinion. "I am familiar with the story, but believe me, the reality was much different. The Fae are no angels, and before we descended to the Below, my kind were no devils.”

  "But they are now? I thought you all tried to tell me that demons aren't evil.”

  "We are not. We are not so different from humans: some good, some bad, and some mostly indifferent. But there are some among us who did not deal well with our exile." His dark eyes caught hers. "The world Below is very different from this one, with forces at work for both the light and the dark. Those trapped Below who have been warped by the dark are very similar to what humans have come to know as demons. We call them fiends. There are fiends who have given completely over to the dark, but you may rest assured that Louamides is not one of them. He is a minor entity. You will not find yourself burdened with the curses of evil. You are not damned and will not feel the ill of it.”