Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) (21 page)

He was also, we finally realized, demonically possessed.

 • • • 

Max, Quinn, Lucky, and I entered the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, in the dead of night, the time when people are quiet and spirits are restless.

We had not brought Nelli with us, because there was no way she would fail to attract attention, and our plan required discretion.

We had also not told the Chens what we were doing. This whole business had already caused considerable stress, trouble, damage, and expense to their family business. Since there was a possibility we’d get arrested for what we were about to do here, we decided not to involve any of them in this.

“I’m just not very comfortable with this,” said Quinn. “I really think we should take a little more time to
plan—”

“We haven’t got more time,” I snapped. “We’ve got to exorcise this thing now, before it gets any more of a foothold in Lopez’s body!”

While I had gone home to sleep after Lopez was declared out of danger, Quinn had gone to Max’s place to ask for help getting rid of his attached demon before any more people got hurt—or any more corpses walked and drooled and cackled. In his sleep-deprived stress over his partner’s shooting, he had forgotten about Nelli—until he entered the bookstore and saw her trotting toward him.

But rather than attack him, or even growl and snarl a little for form’s sake at the demon that haunted him, Nelli had greeted him like a long lost friend, fawned on him, and asked him for a belly rub—something she only requested of her favorite people.

Max followed up with some experiments that quickly confirmed his hypothesis that Nelli’s behavior indicated that Quinn was now demon-free.

Which led to an obvious, inescapable conclusion.

“That entity was too strong to just give up or get lost when it abandoned Danny’s body,” I said as we made our way along hospital corridors now, heading toward Lopez’s room. “If it didn’t reattach to you, then where did it go? To the fresh body lying
right there
. Someone who was dead, but just barely.”

“Someone who could be revived,” said Max.

“Who
was
revived,” I said. “Lopez died at the scene. His heart stopped. For a couple of minutes, probably. Long enough for a strong demon to enter that ‘empty house.’”

“So
that’s
how it intended to ‘live again’ even though it can only possess a dead body,” Lucky said, impressed by the circle of life and death.

“Well, it’s not taking over Lopez’s life,” I said firmly. “We’re banishing this thing tonight.”

When we reached the unit where Lopez was being treated, Quinn flashed his badge and informed the desk staff that he was Detective Lopez’s partner, and we were an undercover unit assigned to protect the wounded cop. “We have reliable information that an associate of the dead shooter has made threats to ‘finish the job.’ I hope to receive confirmation by morning that the would-be assailant has been taken into custody. Until then, I am in charge of security for Detective Lopez.”

As we went down the corridor to Lopez’s room, I said to Quinn, “You’re sweating. Try not to sweat.”

“This is not a very good plan,” he said unhappily.

Precisely because a gang leader had tried to murder Lopez two nights ago, there were two cops on guard outside his door. They knew Quinn and had no problem with his asking them to let three “specialists” into his partner’s room for a while. He didn’t explain what that meant, and they didn’t ask.

Once Max, Lucky, and I were inside the hospital room, Max used a veiling spell on the door. From the corridor, this room would appear perfectly normal, even if exorcising a strong and opportunistic demon got a little messy.

Based on the ancient accounts Max had found of a demon that possessed the dead in search of one who could live again, we had brought a variety of supplies. Christian symbolism had not worked during the previous exorcism, so now we had a whole collection of traditional ancient amulets and lucky charms with us. The key weapon in our arsenal, though, was the enormous water pistol I had smuggled into the hospital. I removed it from my daypack while Max completed the veiling spell on the door.

Quinn stayed outside the room, partly to discourage people from entering while we were here, but mostly because there was a risk that the demon would reattach to him if he were present during the ritual.

When I looked at Lopez lying on his hospital bed, my heart contracted. He looked much better than the last time I had seen him, but far from well. He lay perfectly still, unaware of our presence, with many tubes and devices keeping him stable. It would be a long time, I could see, before he was really whole and well again.

And then? What about us?

Well, we would see. What was important now was that he was alive—and that he
must
be freed of the demon which had quietly slid into his body when he briefly vacated it two nights ago.

“Are we ready?” Max asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, hoisting my water pistol. We had practiced this a dozen times at the bookstore tonight, to make sure I knew exactly what to do. Precision would be important here.

“Let’s get this done,” said Lucky. “The boss sent a text saying he wants to see me before the night is over.”

“Very well,” said Max. “You know what to do.”

Max gingerly unrolled an ancient scroll, cleared his throat, and started chanting a three-thousand-year-old exorcism ritual—the one which, he believed based on his research, had last worked effectively on this entity.

While Max did that, Lucky started placing various ancient charms all around Lopez on the bed, creating a circle of positive energy.

I raised my water pistol, took aim at a blank wall, and pressed the trigger to start painting a steady stream of archaic Aramaic symbols high above our heads. Rather than holy water, we were using an elixir recommended by the ancients, made of two parts red wine blessed by a wizard and one part . . . the blood of a mystical familiar. (Nelli had been squeamish but cooperative.)

If this worked, the amulets and chanting would draw the demon out of Lopez, and the enchanted red symbols on the wall would suck the demon out of this dimension and send it back to one where it could do less damage. It might well venture into our dimension again, but hopefully not in our lifetime—nor even Max’s.

As Max’s chanting rose in volume, tension filled the room—that age-old, never-ending tension between Good and Evil, a battle in which Max had long played a central role and in which I try to play my part. I became aware of heat coming from the bed, and I sensed a golden glow. I paused in my water pistol painting long enough to turn my head and glance at Lopez. To my astonishment, his unconscious body was floating about six inches above the mattress, and he was covered in glowing flames.

“Madre di Dio . . .”
Lucky crossed himself. “Were you expecting this?”

A putrescent green fog rose from Lopez’s body, writhing up through the flames that covered his flesh, and we heard a bitter, angry, wailing protest. The demonic entity which had briefly possessed him now twisted, fought, and clung, trying to stay with Lopez . . . but the mysterious power which was hidden so deeply inside him that even
he
didn’t seem to know about it pushed the entity back out again, aided by Max’s chanting. It fought to keep this foul thing from taking over his body, his mind, his life—and this fiery power which did not want to be ruled by anyone else.

After one last howl of rage over its thwarted ambitions, the foggy green entity floated up toward the wine- and blood-red symbols I had pistol-painted on the wall. It writhed like a ball of battling snakes for a few moments, and then it was sucked into the ancient lettering in a hissing, bubbling mist of spattering green and yellow and red—and disappeared.

I turned to the burning bed, wondering what to do about the patient. Before I could ask, though, the flames subsided and sank back into his skin, and his body floated back down to the mattress. He looked better, I thought—healthier, more like a guy who was definitely going to live. But I was worried that all this activity might have jostled or dislodged the bewildering profusion of tubes that seemed to be keeping him stable.

“We should get out of here and let the medical staff tend to him,” I said.

Lucky nodded. “Sickrooms always kind of give me the willies, you know?”

Max made a few gestures, spoke some words, and blew some sparkling lavender-colored powder at the doorway, and the veiling spell was lifted. I was about to put my pistol back into my daypack when a woman’s voice made me freeze in my tracks.

“What in the name of God is going on here?”

I looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway next to Quinn, who was grimacing at me. She was in her sixties and still beautiful, with long-lashed blue eyes, neatly coiffed red hair, and a trim figure.

“Mrs. Lopez,” I said weakly. “How were the Galapagos Islands?”

“Heaven help us,” she said, recognizing me. “It’s the deranged elf.”

“Oh, you remember me?” We had met before.

She entered the hospital room, saw the messy red graffiti high up on the wall that I had painted with my water pistol, and turned to look at me. “I don’t even want to know,” she said. “Just leave. Leave now. Leave without speaking.”

I glanced at Max and Lucky, and I decided that this was an occasion where swift retreat was the best strategy.

So I turned and walked rapidly down the corridor, intending to exit the hospital before anyone had time to start asking questions about what we’d been doing.

Trotting behind me, Quinn said, “I don’t think his mother likes you.”

“No wonder they made you a detective,” I said.

It remained to be seen whether or not Mrs. Lopez’s opinion of me was even relevant. After all, right before dying, being possessed, coming back to life, and being exorcised, her son had broken up with me.
Again.

I supposed we’d just have to wait and see how well it stuck this time . . .

W
hen Max’s canine familiar Nelli decided to lunge for Detective Quinn in
The Misfortune Cookie
, I was as surprised as Esther. Quinn seemed like such a normal guy to me.
Damn.
Now I was going to have to rethink the character and plant little hints that something was Not Right about him . . .

Until I realized, no, that was what made Nelli’s reaction surprising and made me interested in pursuing the matter: Quinn’s apparent normalcy.

Not every unexpected twist or detour works out well when I’m writing. In fact, I wind up deleting most of them. But in Nelli’s unexpected reaction to Quinn, I realized that I had the start of my next book.

On the other hand, I was as clueless as Esther about what caused Nelli’s behavior. And since I’m nominally in charge here, I have to figure out these things or the book doesn’t get written. So after finishing
The Misfortune Cookie
, I cast around for a while, testing and discarding various theories about why Quinn offended Nelli’s keen mystical instincts.

By chance, I also happened to be researching paranormal phenomena and ghost hunting at the time. I participated in several investigations, one of them in a particularly notorious location—Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a honky-tonk in Kentucky that’s considered one of the most haunted places in the country and which has appeared on numerous TV programs.

It was during the investigation at Bobby Mackey’s that I first heard about demon attachment and oppression. Although I am a confirmed skeptic, despite being a fantasy writer, some of the accounts related to me in that shadowy, atmospheric place during the dead of night made a strong enough impression on me that I kept jumping out of my skin in my own (cheery,
un
atmospheric) home for the next few nights.

So I pulled all the demonology tomes off the shelves in the “Max and Esther” section of my personal research library and started reading. By the time I had gotten through several volumes, I’d finally figured out what was “wrong” about Quinn.

So here’s a shout-out to Dan Smith, author of
Ghosts of Bobby Mackey’s Music World
. He’s the paranormal investigator who first introduced me to the concept of demon attachment.

I’m also grateful to the various people who took time to answer my questions for this novel about inflicting, treating, and recovering from gunshot wounds. Thanks to my fellow writers with medical backgrounds: Laurie Grant, Victoria Houseman, Scarlet Wilson, and Dianne Drake. And many thanks to Howard R. Bromley, MD, who was very generous with his time and thorough in his answers.

Special thanks to Dr. Ginger Bell, the medical director for the Cincinnati SWAT team, who was a valuable resource and patiently answered my many questions. I was introduced to her by Captain Douglas Wiesman, Training Section Commander of the Cincinnati Police Department.

I met Captain Wiesman when I enrolled in my local Citizens Police Academy in an attempt to learn more about the world that Lopez and Quinn inhabit. It was an excellent course with many eye-opening lectures and some exciting hands-on experience, and I encourage anyone who’s interested in learning more about police work to look for a Citizens Police Academy in their region.

It goes without saying (so now witness me saying it) that any mistakes, inaccuracies, embellishments, liberties, or double negatives in the text are strictly my own.

As usual, I offer thanks and praise to the team at DAW Books, still the best publishing house I’ve ever worked with. In particular, my thanks to editor and publisher Betsy Wollheim, and to managing editor Joshua Starr, who is indeed a star. I hail the genius of Dan Dos Santos, the artist who’s created yet another fabulous book cover for this series.

With this particular demon vanquished, Esther Diamond, her friends, and her nemeses will return soon for their next mystical misadventure when they enter a place of unmatched, unbounded, unmitigated Evil: Wall Street.

—Laura Resnick