Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (10 page)

“Impressive,” said Gage. “I didn’t think of that. Burns the shit out of demons, but seems like I read somewhere about it being a barrier to other stuff.”

“Read?” I whispered. “They have books about magic philosophy?” Gage shrugged, as if that were too stupid a question to answer.

I tiptoed down the hall, checking each office. The first three were empty. Just the trappings of corporate culture: Desks, copy paper, uncomfortable chairs. The fourth office was different. A man and a woman, naked from the waist down, lay dead on top of the desk. The woman lay on her back, her face turned toward the door, a look of surprise frozen there. The man was lying face-down, his features buried in her bleach-blonde hair. There had only been one shotgun blast, like the Dark didn’t even care anymore if they died. He hadn’t tampered with their bodies.

“Christ,” said Gage. “Look, they were married. They’re wearing rings.”

“I doubt they were married to each other,” I said. “Married people rarely get it on in their office after everyone’s gone home.”

“Little Miss Sunshine,” said Gage.

We stopped at the sound of wailing. It was a sort of hysterical sound, and morphed into laughter, and then screaming. It was muffled, like it was coming from behind a closed door.

“He’s losing it,” I said. “You sure you know what to do?”

“Positive,” he said.

We followed the noise. It felt like fingernails on your spinal cord. It changed from sobbing to laughing to high-pitched screaming and back to laughing again. We got to the last door in the hall. It was closed.

“Put some salt in front of it,” whispered Gage. I did. I held the bag in my left hand, the gun in my right. Gage reached out and turned the knob and the door swung open.

Gage was muttering something under his breath, some strange words my ears couldn’t make out. I edged into the room, Makarov first. There was a body in the middle of the room, a woman’s body with the handle of a knife sticking out of her chest. Blood had spread from the wound, seeping through her button-up shirt, glaring red against the white fabric. Her face was looking at the ceiling, and she had been gorgeous, with dark, liquid eyes and full lips. Her dark hair was fanned out behind her and a man was petting it. The sounds we had been following were coming from him. He wore a janitor’s uniform, blue with a name tag that said
Philip Morales.
He looked at me when he finally noticed me, his pitiful face haggard and tear-stained. His eyes screwed up into a glare and he started to growl, but seemed to give up halfway and began wailing again. He looked down at the woman.

“Why has he done this?” said a voice next to me. I jumped and swung the gun around. It was the spirit of the woman lying on the ground. Her face was not the usual face of grief or loss, but of genuine confusion. She looked at the man keening over her body. As he shook, a crucifix came untucked from his collar. It glinted in the light. “He has never hurt anyone before,” said the ghost of the woman. I aimed the gun back at the man.

“Do you know him?” I said.

“He’s my brother,” she said. “Why did he kill me? What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s not your brother,” I said. “It’s a bad thing inside your brother.” Gage came in from the doorway at last, still whispering. The book was open in front of him and the words seem to tumble from his lips, and try as I might I couldn’t make out the sounds. It was a jumble of sounds my brain couldn’t decipher. It was a confusing sensation.

The Dark looked up in its borrowed body. It saw Gage and something between relief and hate dawned on its face. It screamed and crumpled forward. “It hurts,” it hissed. “Disgusting.” It stood up. “End this.”

“Stop,” I said, leveling the gun at him.

“Do it,” it said, taking a step toward me. “If I die in this body I will go back to the pit. The pit is dark and deep. No killing there. But no feelings either. And no Abaddon now.”

“Don’t kill him,” said the woman’s ghost next to me. “That’s not him, his eyes are funny. He’s got the devil in him.”

Gage was still talking in the weird language. It was like white noise. He was almost unrecognizable. He was a large man, but he seemed enormous now. There was something radiating from him that made him appear larger than anything I had ever seen. His hair was on edge and there was a crackle in the air. The book vibrated.

“What is he doing?” said the woman.

“Helping your brother,” I said. I turned back to the Dark. “You said Abaddon. What do you mean?”

“Guards the pits, doesn’t he?” said the Dark. “Gone now. Poof. Into the world.” He smiled suddenly. “I need a new ride,” he said. “Bet you don’t feel it like these others. No sadness, no grief.” He spat these last words. “Just pain and anger. Delicious.”

“I’m just a good actress,” I said. “Think you could get to me before I shot you?”

“Think you could shoot me before I got to you?” he said. He took a step toward me. It was an odd, shaky step and reminded me of something. It dragged its other leg behind it like the body was a puppet. I’d seen that walk before. On Bailey, my father’s guard.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said. Of course my father was involved. It had his style written all over it. But why would he loose this thing on the world and then deny it? There had to be a bigger reason.

“Not him, dearie,” said Philip Morales, taking another wonky step toward me. “I see her, you know. She’s whispering in your ear. She’s…” He grabbed his head like he was trying to pull it off, laughing like a maniac. “Why is she still here?” he screamed. He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “It’s your fault,” he said. “You’re the reason. This feeling is killing me.”

He took a step and jumped, like a panther pouncing on its prey towards me. His body rose in the leap, jumping impossibly high through the air, and stopped a foot in front of me. He struggled as if held there by an invisible hand. I looked over and saw Gage’s hand aimed at the man, energy crackling all around us, and Gage was still talking, his lips moving, but only a scrambled transmission coming out of them. He gasped, but kept talking through it, the jumbled words coming through little cries of pain.

“No,” said the Dark through clenched teeth. “I won’t let him go. I’ll claw at his insides until— Gah!” He let out a groan and fell to the ground, his eyes rolling up into his head. Or, rather, his body fell to the floor. I looked in amazement at the Dark, the real Dark, hanging suspended in midair. I could finally see it for what it really was.

It was small. I was shocked at how small the thing was. It writhed in front of me like a wild animal caught in a trap, trying so hard to reach me. It had a snout that was pointed at the top, small eyes, and teeth half the size of its head. It was, indeed, dark and I saw why it was so named. It was also semi-transparent, moving like smoke and even I had to squint to look at it in the meager light.

“Oh my God,” said the ghost. “Is he dead? Can you see if he’s dead?”

“He’s not dead,” I said.

“Niki,” gasped Gage. “Do you see it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t you?”

“No,” he said, coughing. “Course not. Just pour the salt around it, okay? Can you do that, sis?”

I was shocked at how weak Gage was. He seemed about to fall over. I remembered what he had said about magic. About how you feel everything you do. What was it like for him to rip this little parasite out of Philip Morales? I couldn’t even imagine. I hurriedly poured the last of the salt into a circle around where the Dark hovered, the thing hissing and trying to stretch its clawed arms out to reach me.

Morales was stirring, and I hooked my arms under his and dragged him away, propping him against a corner. He opened his eyes, looking around wildly. They landed on the dead girl in the middle of the room. Gage barely registered with him. He crawled over to his sister’s body. I heard him start to cry, and there was eerily no difference between the sounds the Dark had been making and Philip Morales’s noises of grief.

I turned to Gage, who appeared to be doing something new. I don’t know how I could tell, but this spell was different. The feeling of electricity in the air had changed to something that felt darker somehow, and sparks erupted around him that seemed to be the opposite of light. The noises coming from his mouth, though I still couldn’t understand them, had taken on a darker tone as well. And not just the tone was darker. As I tried to make out the syllables as I had with the first spell, I had to put my hand to my ears and let out a gasp at the pain the words caused. I felt wetness and my hand came away with a smear of blood. I covered my ears with my palms so I wouldn’t hear. I could still hear the screaming, though. Not just of the Dark, but Gage was screaming too, in between breaths, in between saying the words, he would let out strangled cries, and I was amazed he was still on his feet. I wanted to go to him, to hold him up, to help him, but something told me that if I did I would ruin everything. I watched with my hands over my ears as the Dark fell to the ground. There was a deep rumbling underneath our feet. The Dark rammed itself against an invisible barrier all around it, and I realized with some relief that it was the salt that was keeping it there.

I looked up to see that Morales was saying something to me. He was crying. I took my hands off my ears.

“Please, you have to help me,” he said. “My sister. She can’t be dead.” I shook my head. I didn’t know what else to say. Morales stood up. “Stop pointing that gun and help me,” he screamed. His face contorted from tears to anger. “Help me. You have to. Look at her.” He took a step toward me, reminding me of the Dark when it used his body. Grief sometimes seemed perilously close to derangement in my opinion. He came toward me, his arms out. “If you just look at her, you’ll understand.” He was almost to the ring of salt, where the Dark he couldn’t see was trapped.

“Wait,” I said. “There’s something happening here that you don’t understand,” I said. “Please, don’t come any closer.” His foot was inches from the circle. I didn’t know why the salt was effective, but it seemed pretty clear that if Morales disturbed that circle, something bad was going to happen.

“Help me,” he said, taking another step. His foot was touching the circle. I moved the gun so I was pointing it at him.

“No!” said the woman’s ghost. “What are you doing? I thought you would help him.”

“Back up,” I said to Morales. “Don’t come any closer to me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, his voice manic. He had no idea what he was doing, I realized. He would not listen to reason. “I just want you to look at her. Maybe you can help her.”

“Do you see the gun?” I said. “Back. Up.”

But Philip Morales didn’t back up. He kept right on going, plowing through the circle of salt I had felt so relieved about a moment before. In a flurry that only I could see, the Dark spun around once, maybe in joy or giddiness, or maybe because it was confused and didn’t know what to do with itself. It rose into the air, lighting to its feet without a sound. It grinned at me, its sharp teeth gray in its gray face, its gray fingernails clenching and unclenching. It was still for a moment, seeming to reside in a long moment of anticipation. Then it was on me before I could do anything.

The pain was horrifying. I felt the thickness of it throwing itself down my throat and nostrils, and thought I would vomit. Then I felt its claws or its teeth or both, slashing and scritching its way down inside my body. I screamed and gagged at the same time. I heard the sound of a gun and then everything went dark.

I don’t know how long it went on but the next thing I heard was the sound of Gage screaming. I opened my eyes and the world swam into view with a sickening crispness. Gage was still screaming, and as I took in my surroundings, I could see why. If he really could feel everything that was doing, every act of magic that he was casting, then Bobby Gage was finding out just exactly how it felt to be sucked down into Hell. The Dark was screaming too, but I was kind of glad. I didn’t see the ghost of the girl, though I could see her body. There was another one there, too, and I realized with a nauseating feeling of dread that it was Philip Morales. He was dead too, a bullet hole in his forehead.

I didn’t know how Bobby was holding the Dark there. I knew he couldn’t see it, yet it was paralyzed where it stood. The floor opened up underneath it, opened not into the 28
^th
floor beneath us, but into darkness so black it was like light turned inside out. It was a darkness that made my eyes ache and my mind feel what must be the edge of madness. The Dark screamed again, like a thing being tortured, and then everything was silent. It was all gone. The Dark, the crack in the floor, the screaming. All of it. All that was left were two dead bodies, a broken circle of salt, and my partner lying on the floor several feet from me, groaning.

I tried to summon the energy to get up, but it just wasn’t there. I pulled myself over to Gage on my hands and knees and fell on top of him, exhausted, my head on his mountain of a chest. He was unconscious, but otherwise unharmed.

There were footsteps from the hall, and then a familiar silhouette filled the door, a long coat and rumpled, curly hair. “Eli,” I said, too exhausted to feel any shame whatsoever at how relieved I sounded.

“Niki,” he said, kneeling down next to me. “What the hell happened here?”

“How’d you find me?” I said. “Car?”

He nodded. “GPS. Plus we got about a thousand calls about this place. Are you all right?”