“How long have you been inside Mark?”
“A direct question, really, Detective? As if.” The look on his face was eloquent and a strange mix of the demon’s “personality” and Mark’s, just as the sentence seemed a mix of them both. Was it the boy fighting back or another sign that the demon was contaminated with humanity? Though saying the college student was contaminating the demon sounded backward and made me wonder what habits Mark had already picked up from his Infernal infestation. But I’d worry about that later, after I figured out a way to stop the demon from hurting anyone else without having to kill Mark.
Paulson’s voice answered from a little farther down the hallway. “His parents found him passed out on his old bedroom floor at home. He’d showered but left bloodstained clothes. That’s when they called the ambulance. Does that help you get a timeline?”
“He’s been on academic probation for a semester, so the demon has been in him for about three months, maybe a little longer.”
“Guesses are free,” the demon called out in a singsong voice.
I thought things were going well; all I had to do was keep the demon interested in talking to me until Charleston and the rest of my backup finished climbing up the twenty flights of stairs. The lieutenant was in good shape, he’d be here soon. The demon was contained. I got my phone out and hit the button for Charleston to let him know what he was about to walk into, but I heard a groan, and it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Paulson.
The demon turned its head and looked to the side of the room I couldn’t see. “Oh, you’re not dead yet, my bad,” the demon said, and walked out of my line of sight toward what had to be Gonzales.
I called out, “Alive he’s a hostage, and you have something to negotiate with; dead he’s just collateral damage.”
The demon’s deep voice sounded pleasant, happy, as it said, “The wound closed around the needle, let’s fix that.”
I yelled, “Don’t touch him!” As if the demon would give a damn. Charleston was on my phone yelling, “Havoc, Havoc, what’s happening?”
“Demon possession with violence, one hostage. Mark Cookson is the possessed.” Then I had to hang up, because I might need my hands free for my gun, or wrestling demons, whichever came first.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mark Cookson’s fragile-looking body dragged the much larger Gonzales into sight of the door. The bigger man was holding his hand against the side of his neck, trying to stop fresh blood that was welling crimson around his fingers. He was a nurse, he knew how to hold pressure on a wound; that meant that the wound wasn’t going to be stopped by just the pressure of a hand. We had minutes to get him more medical help or he was going to bleed to death in front of us. Heaven help us.
A look of hatred snarled across Cookson’s face. “I guess I don’t need muscles after all.” He lifted the nurse upward by a handful of his uniform. It made the blood pump faster and cut off his air. The only thing that saved him was the cloth tearing so that Gonzales fell back to the floor, gasping for air and choking, but this time there was blood on his lips. What had the demon done to him to make him cough blood?
Paulson said, “Let me save him.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the demon. The demon replied first. “Why should I let you save him?”
“He has a family.”
Mark’s face gave him a look of almost pity. “You really don’t understand what I am, do you, Doctor?”
“You can’t appeal to his better nature, Doctor; demons don’t have one,” I said.
“Mark, if you’re in there, Gonzales’s son is only eight. Do you want him to grow up without a father?” The comment showed he’d been paying attention while I talked to the kid. He’d noticed what I’d noticed—that Mark seemed to still be in there.
“We don’t care,” the demon said.
Then the body kept talking. “Of course, he has a family, he’s tall and good looking, exotic. I bet he dated around and fucked everything in sight before he married someone beautiful.” The voice was still deeper than the thin body, but the tone and whine of the words didn’t sound the same. Mark was in there all right, but he wasn’t a sympathetic ear. Heaven help Gonzales.
“Let me treat his wound and then you’ll have two hostages,” Paulson said.
“Sure,” demonic Mark said.
“The more the merrier, Doctor, just cross the wards and come on in,” the demon said. The fact that they were using the same body to talk didn’t seem to faze the doctor any more than it did me. Apparently, we’d both seen similar shows before.
“No, Doctor,” I said.
“I will not tell his wife and child that I stood here and watched him die and did nothing.”
Gonzales’s eyes fluttered, his hand slipping away from his wound as he passed out from blood loss. We were out of time. I looked down the barrel of my FN 509 and steadied my breath. Things seemed to slow down as if I had all the time in the world to aim at center body mass. The hospital gown was too baggy around him to aim anywhere else, and I wasn’t confident enough for a head shot. The head moves a lot more than the chest.
Paulson didn’t beg for Mark Cookson’s life this time.
Demon Mark said, “You wouldn’t shoot an innocent college kid.”
I didn’t bother to answer because there was nothing left to say. I didn’t even look up at his face as I aimed at his chest. I just squeezed the trigger. The demon couldn’t pass the wards, but bullets could.
CHAPTER NINE
I got two shots into the chest before he started to fall. The only sound I could hear after the shots was the blood in my own ears, or maybe it’s something else; whatever the sound is, it’s what’s left after the rest of your hearing goes away for a while.
I saw Paulson out of the corner of my eye rushing toward the room and the wounded, but I shouted at him, not sure he’d hear me, so it was probably more scream than yell: “No! Not yet!”
I glanced at him just enough to see him looking at me with wide eyes. He was pale, but he nodded, letting me know he’d heard me. I went back to staring at the room and the two men on the floor. Cookson’s body had fallen backward against the bed and then slid to the side of it. His pale, thin legs were tangled up in the large hospital gown so I couldn’t see much of his body. The gown was big enough and he was small enough that his breathing might not have been that easy to see. I couldn’t even see if he was bleeding from here; there was already too much blood on the floor from Gonzales. I would have to get up on the target before I could be sure he—it—was dead.
The energy of the wards sat across the open doorway like an invisible sheet except this sheet vibrated with energy, but it wasn’t meant to keep me out. I stepped through and didn’t even hesitate as the warm rush of it passed over my skin. I’d stepped through stronger wards than this on the job; I was still impressed that it had contained the demon.
I stared down my gun at the body. There was blood where the two bullets had entered the body but none out the back. He looked even smaller and less finished from this angle, as if I’d shot a child. I swallowed hard, and my eyes burned, which was stupid. I’d had no choice. I kept the barrel of the gun steady on the body as I pushed it with the toe of my shoe. Why not kneel and check for a pulse? Because if the demon was faking, I didn’t want to be that close to its hands. The body rolled in that boneless, empty way that no living person can fake. I didn’t need to check a pulse to know that Mark Cookson was dead.