“I won’t let you hurt them,” I said. I nodded at Shelby and she took her boyfriend as far from us as the glass jewelry cases on the other side would allow.
“Unless you have a major holy relic on you, Detective Havoc, you can’t stop me.”
“A holy object will be enough,” I said, still staring at the back of his well-cut hair. My gun was still pointed, one-handed and steady.
Shelby and her beau were moving slowly along the far display cases toward the door.
“I’m not a vampire, Detective; you can’t chase me away with crosses.”
“Not that kind of holy object,” I said.
“Ankh, pentagram, Star of David, throw the Qur’an at me, it’s all the same and all just as useless against me now.”
I thought about what he’d said, against him now. What did he mean by that?
“Don’t lose your nerve, Shelby,” Cookson said.
My gaze flicked to them but didn’t actually look away from the man I was aiming at, so it was hard for me to judge what he was talking to her about.
“If you run for the door, I will stop you,” Cookson said.
“Just move slow,” I said, “don’t run. Demons are like big cats, you run, and they will chase you.”
“He doesn’t look like a demon,” she said, but her voice was strained thin. Cookson was right, her nerve was failing; she was going to make a break for the door soon unless she regained control of herself.
“He’s possessed Mark Cookson’s body,” I said.
“It was a fixer-upper,” Cookson said, “but I’ve done wonders with it, don’t you think, Shelby?”
“Ye . . . yes,” she almost stuttered.
“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” I asked.
“Jeff, my name’s Jeff.”
“Keep her calm, Jeff, go slow for the door.”
“I won’t let them leave, Detective, you know that.”
“How are you going to stop us?” Jeff asked.
“I’m going to kill you, Jeff. I’m going to kill you both.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I said.
“How will you protect them from me after you’re dead?”
“You won’t kill me,” I said.
“Oh, I think I will.”
“I know you won’t,” I said.
“Cocky, I like that in a victim. It’s always the confident ones that beg the most at the end.”
I was fighting so my hand didn’t start to shake with the gun held out and aimed. I was either going to have to lower it, change hands, or change to a two-handed grip. I’d wanted to keep one hand free just in case, because I’d shot him in the hospital and hadn’t killed him; of course I hadn’t tried shooting him in the head point-blank, but guns were never the first choice for demon fighting.
Cookson looked completely human now; I was hoping that meant his body was more bullet friendly, but I’d have to shoot him to find out.
“They are too close to the door, Detective. I will not allow them to leave.”
“Are you sure that Mark Cookson’s head is bulletproof?”
“Yes,” he said.
“A hundred percent bulletproof, you’re absolutely sure of that?”
“Yes.” But he sounded a little less certain.
“Because if he dies then you go back to Hell.”
“He’ll go with me.”
“He’ll probably go to Hell, but he won’t be in the same section as a demon that disobeyed the laws of Hell,” I said.
“I have acted within the parameters of the clauses in the treaty that pertain to my kind.”
“You mean the treaty between Heaven and Hell?” I asked.
“What other treaty is there for my kind?”
I couldn’t argue that, so I said, “A little angel told me that you’ve been doing things that aren’t allowed.”
“Heaven is always pissy, but no one in Hell is upset with me, and since that is where I will eventually be cast back into, that is all that matters to me. Heaven can go fuck itself, for I will never see inside its pearly gates.”
I couldn’t argue that with him, so I didn’t try.
“Shelby, don’t!” Jeff yelled.
The demon turned in a blur of speed that no human could match. I pulled the trigger and he’d been so busy turning, he hadn’t tried to dodge the bullet. The bullet hit his shoulder, turning him; he reacted like a human being that had never been shot before, hesitating to act, so that I had time to aim at the back of his head and pull the trigger again. He collapsed face forward to the floor. He didn’t try to catch himself. He just fell. I kept the gun pointed at the body just in case he hopped up and went Just fooling! But as the seconds ticked by, I began to breathe again. Maybe Cookson and his demon weren’t faster than a speeding bullet after all.
Shelby was screaming, and there were men shouting that I could barely hear through the ringing in my ears from shooting the gun without ear protection inside. I moved so my back was to the display cases and I could see the body on the ground and the uniformed officers coming through the door. My backup was here, not exactly in the nick of time, but I’d take it. I raised my shirt to flash my badge and I identified myself as the detective they were supposed to be backing up.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Cookson’s body lay facedown, one arm caught underneath it, the other flung to the side, the legs at odd angles that no actor ever manages on TV. A dead body just falls differently even from an unconscious one, and yet I didn’t believe it. The demon had taken a lot more bullets than this at the hospital and it had barely fazed it. There was blood around the head and shoulder, but not enough. At close range the nine-millimeter bullet should have blown out the other side of the head. There just wasn’t enough damage, but . . . the body lay like it was dead, and then I realized I had a way to be certain without getting close enough to check for a pulse. I tried to see the angel at his back, and it was still there, trapped and screaming for help like someone half trapped in quicksand. Cookson was still alive, or his angel would have been free to escape back to Heaven.
One uniform wanted to check the body, but I said, “He’s alive.” I might have yelled it accidentally as my ears stopped ringing.
“Ambulance is on its way, but shouldn’t we stop the bleeding or something?” Officer Stevens asked.
“Demonic possession, stay clear until we have a priest or a witch to check it for us.”
He went a little paler than his natural skin color, which was damn near pasty. You didn’t meet that many people out here on the West Coast who looked like they’d spent the nonexistent winter indoors. He was probably from back east somewhere. Once I was sure that Mark Cookson wouldn’t get up and kill everyone, including us, I’d ask Stevens about his background and see if my guess was right.
He moved up beside me and aimed his gun at the body, which meant this probably wasn’t his first demonic rodeo. His partner, whose name I didn’t catch, took Shelby and Jeff out the front of the shop and to the sunny day that was still outside waiting.
I’d switched to a two-handed grip at last; I could hold that for a lot longer than the one-handed grip I’d had earlier. I kept my gun aimed at Cookson and waited. His angel screamed and writhed, trying to get away. I let myself lean against the glass cases as the sound of its pain stabbed through me.