Night Call (Book 2): Demon Dei (17 page)

Strange. When they’d clashed at night time, she’d been able to touch his thoughts, even if only lightly. Yet during the day, she was blocked from his mind totally.

He bypassed the city and continued south and finally pulled into a hospital car park.

Ah. Amaya pulled back and soared up again. He was going to see his female friend.

Guilt gnawed at her again. She didn’t like being reminded of what she’d done, so she fled the hospital and swore to pick him up when he left.

I met Ivan on the way up to Erin’s room. He looked tired and worn out, but managed a small smile when the elevator doors opened and revealed me to him.

“Morning,” he said, stepping out.

A couple of people disembarked and others boarded. I drew Ivan to the side and plonked him down in a chair. I had a cup of coffee I’d given in and bought from the machine in the foyer. Handing it over wordlessly, Ivan took it like it was a bar of gold and took a big gulp.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You’ve been here all night?”

“Yeah. She had surgery at about three a.m. Her arm’s going to be okay, but she’ll have a plate in there forever.”

My guts twisted. This was all my fault.

Ivan took a few more sips of coffee. “She said you’d been out at
Geotech and that you’d found something out.”

“Yeah. We know a few things now that we didn’t before.” I wondered what Erin thought I could tell him if she didn’t want him knowing about demons and vampires.

“Erin wouldn’t tell me what.” He peered at me with bloodshot eyes. “You’re not going to tell me either, are you.”

“Not yet. Besides, you’re tired. You aren’t driving home, are you?”

He shook his head. “I’ll go over to the oncology ward to see William, Erin’s husband, then Brad’s picking me up. He’ll drop me home on his way to work.”

“Her husband is here? Does he know she had an accident?”

“No. And she’s made me swear not to tell him. He doesn’t need the added stress,” Ivan added when I cocked an eyebrow. He stood. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll see you later.”

He walked away and I went up to Erin’s room. She was drowsing when I stuck my head in, but woke when I tried to leave.

“Get in here,” she mumbled.

Going in like a kid about to be punished for a prank, I stood at the foot of her bed and hated myself.

She was pale under the deep bruising around her right temple and cheek. There was a cut over her left eye closed with butterfly strips and her right arm was supported in a sling hung from a frame attached to the side of the bed.

“Impressive, huh?”

I did my best to shrug nonchalantly. “I’ve seen better. Hell, I’ve been in better… or should that be worse?”

A little smile flittered across her lips. “Yeah, I guess you have. I only get one op on my arm. How many did you have on your knee?”

“Four. And if anything starts to fall apart again in the future, I’ll be back in there.” I came to her side and sat down in a chair still warm from Ivan. “God, Erin. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She sighed. “You’ve warned me enough I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to help. If I was going to spend my time being scared of every little thing out there, then I would never leave the house.”

“A demon isn’t a ‘little thing’, Erin. It’s a big, bad thing more than capable of killing you.” I waved at her arm and at the hospital around us in general. “You’re just very lucky she didn’t succeed this time.”

Erin quirked an eyebrow. “She? You’re giving it pronouns now?”

“Yeah, kind of happens when you speak to someone face to face.”

Both eyebrows went skyward. “You spoke to it?”

I quickly explained the hunt and results. “So, happily, I don’t believe you’re in any more danger.”

“But you are?”

“Yeah. I gather she’s been bound into this task of killing me. So in a sense, it isn’t her doing the killing. It’s whoever summoned her.”

“That’s a fine point to put on it. When a vampire comes after you, you don’t stop to think that maybe you should target its creator instead, do you?”

“No, but that’s different.”

“How? They’re both inhuman, they’re both intent on killing you.”

“But given a choice, this demon wouldn’t kill me. The vampire would.”

Erin hit me with a pillow. “Idiot. The vampire’s ability to choose was also taken away from it by the monster that created it. One is either as blameless or guilty as the other.”

I took the pillow away from her. “That’s a very hard line to draw.”

And hey, I get the irony. Those very words I’d just uttered had been thrown at me a while back. At the time, I’d fobbed off the accusation, but since then, I’d started to think a bit more about where I stood in the grand scheme of things. Once upon a time, I’d thought all beasties of the supernatural world were B A D without chance of appeal. Some I could tolerate more than others, but when the shit began soaring toward the fan, you either came down as human or not in my books. Now, I had begun to question my methods of classifying monsters. Perhaps some of us… eh, them weren’t as irrevocably monstrous as others.

Erin suffered the line better than I had. She actually took a moment to think about it.

“I meant nothing against you, Matt,” she finally said.

My eye twitched. “I didn’t think you did.”

She gave me a patient look. “Yes, you did.”

Oh my! Look at that subject change coming.

“You saw the demon when she attacked you?” I asked.

Erin considered me for a long moment. “I did. Matt, it’s not human. Not in the least. Sometimes when I look at Mercy, I can see the girl she once was. But that thing last night...” She stopped to gather herself, looking away and taking several deep breaths.

She was scared, but there was something else there as well. Something that went beyond fear and into the realm of doubt.

“Holy water hurt it,” she said.

“Yeah, I thought it might. There’s salt in it and demons don’t like salt.”

“Salt? What about faith, Matt? Couldn’t there be something besides chemistry at work here?”

It was my turn to look away. “Faith is not something I have much faith in.”

“You use Holy water against vampires. We saw a half dozen vampires die the moment they stepped into a church. Why did that happen if not because of the power of God?”

I could feel her gaze boring into the side of my head, as if she could dig her way to the answers.

“I don’t know exactly,” I said honestly. “I was raised Anglican and believed everything I was told about God and religion with all the unquestioning ignorance of children everywhere. But you start to question things when...”

I couldn’t tell her the truth. I know I’m on this whole ‘best policy’ kick but I’d also sworn to uphold the promises I’d made, and before I could go blurting out old mistakes, a small, trembling voice whispered in my memory.

“Don’t tell them,” she said through her tears, her little arms tight around my neck, the smell of blood drowning both of us. “Don’t tell anyone.”

And I hadn’t. I’d taken my punishments and moved on, but that moment, that instant of heartbreaking terror had been the first cut on the threads tying me to my family. You start to question everything you believed when even your parents can’t look at you without flinching.

So, very lamely, I finished with, “When you begin to learn about biology, chemistry and evolution.”

Erin was looking at me like she knew I hadn’t told her everything. But as our gazes met and held, much like the first time we’d been face to face, I knew she wouldn’t press. There were things she kept hidden as well.

But even if she didn’t push for the truth, it didn’t mean the topic was dropped.

“I don’t accept that you haven’t questioned it since,” she said, gentle but determined, a tone she’d honed on damaged, reluctant witnesses during her years in the police force. “After everything you’ve seen and done, you have to start to wonder, surely.”

“Of course I have. Why do I think Holy objects work on vampires? Because people believe they do. They might not fully believe in vampires, but they trust that if they did exist, then crucifixes and Holy water would hurt them. Call it a global psychic effect or call it faith, I just know it works.”

She conceded with a faint nod and a quiet, “As long as it works that’s all that matters.”

Except that it wasn’t. Not for Erin. I was the killer, she was the investigator. Point me at the bad thing and let me loose. Erin wasn’t like that. She asked questions, thought through all angles, upturned rocks and didn’t stop until she’d found all the answers. Anyone else hired to look for me would have stopped when they found me. Erin hadn’t and she’d managed to get past all the bad things I’d done in recent times to find out why. She wouldn’t stop this time either.

I studied the brace holding her arm immobile. Something very similar had been the first thing I’d seen when they woke me up from the induced coma. I remember thinking, ‘Whoa. That means you’re in deep shit, Hawkins,’ and then passing out again.

“The nurse said you hauled yourself out of the car after it fell off the overpass,” I said softly. “With a broken arm and cracked ribs. You got guts, McRea.”

“It was either that or die,” she replied, also looking at the brace. “And I’m not ready for that yet.”

It was as much of an admission as I was ever going to get. When I’d left her six months ago, after being held captive by Veilchen and then escaping vamp-ageddon on top of Mount Coot-tha, she hadn’t been suicidal, but she’d been about as close to it as I’d ever seen. I hadn’t wanted to leave her, but I had a severally wounded vampire in need of protection from the dawn and since the only shelter we had was a church, I had to leave. Erin wouldn’t come with me, wouldn’t let me ensure she would be all right. What I’d never told her was that as soon as I’d tucked Mercy into bed, I’d turned around and gone straight back to that church. All I’d found was a very confused Pastor staring at the broken doors of his church and running a finger through the ashy remains of combusted vampires.

Hearing her assert her vote for continued life was very comforting. Maybe she wasn’t as unwilling to talk to me about these things as she claimed to be.

Some might call it a false sense of security.

They would be right.

“Ivan said your husband is in this hospital as well,” I said. “And that you’re not going to tell him about the accident.”

Her face closed down as fast as the borders of a small African country when the President’s just been relieved of his head. “He doesn’t need to know. He just needs to concentrate on his own health.”

“He has a right to know.”

“What makes you think you have any rights to an opinion on my relationship? It’s nothing to do with you. Keep your nose out of my private life.”

“But it was all fine and dandy for you to go ferreting through my personals, was it? You dug until you’d unearthed all my dirty, dark secrets but when I try to help you, it’s not okay.”

She glared at me. “That was different. It’s my job.”

“Oh, so doing it for money is better than doing it out of pure human kindness? Now I get the secret of life. Thank you, Erin.”

“You can be so irritating.”

“And you can be intensely selfish. No wonder you won’t do anything to help Ivan protect himself.”

All hail Matthew Hawkins, Lord of the Low Blow. Yes, he is unafraid of the truth. He will venture where others wouldn’t dare. Tact? You might want to go next door. We don’t stock that here.

“Fuck it,” I muttered and stood up. “I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t look at her. However she’d taken the comment, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was at the door when she spoke.

“Hawkins.”

“Yes?”

“Tell Ivan whatever you want. If it will help him avoid situations like last night, then tell him whatever you think he needs to know.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“What are you going to do now?”

So much for a hasty, guilty storm out.

“I’m going to get a better demonologist. Someone told me the one I had was more a psychologist.”

And I left.

Back in the car, I took a personal moment to kick myself. With deep insights like that, Erin’s probably correct to refuse my advice or help. I’d probably push her over the edge and wave happily while she plummeted to the rocks.

Eventually, I got myself under control again and made a phone call I should have probably made yesterday. It went straight to message bank.

“Hello. You’ve reached the message bank of,” a bland, American voice said before breaking for a rasping, “Afzal,” then continued with, “They’re unable to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.”

“Call me, Kermit,” I said, as nicely as I could, hung up, waited a couple of minutes and didn’t get a return call.

I dialled, sat through the painful message again and said, “I’m coming over. I don’t care what it is you’re doing that you can’t answer the phone. If you’re not waiting for me I’ll get a bobcat and dig you out.” I paused. “You know I mean it.”

Resisting the urge to up the level of threat, I drove over to Dutton Park Cemetery. Kermit, aka Afzal, was a ghoul. They’re all long, lanky bones and ropey muscles covered in thick skin with a grey-green, decaying motif. Their faces are, well, ghoulish. Thin and cadaverous with a wide, lipless mouth and ears like giant Doritos curling up either side of their head. They’re subterranean dwellers and eat dead things well past their used by date. Cemeteries are like all you can eat buffets for them and that’s why you rarely find them outside of a graveyard. Due to their association with cemeteries, they tended to dress in rotting funeral garb—when they bothered to dress at all. Kermit was a particularly keen example of ghoul fashion most days, despite my vigorous protests.