Personal Demon (22 page)

“Is the pain better?” Ivy asked.

He nodded.
But the clown is still dancing. Multiplying and dancing. All around you.
He strained his arms against the manacles, but nothing budged.
The fat clown wants to eat flesh. Fine with me. But not here. Not you.

“Hello, Lilith,” Grandpa finally spoke. “You’re looking lovely. Why did you bring a vampire into my private study?”

There was one chair in the bare prison room. Ivy crawled over to it and sat down, folded her hands primly in her lap. “I am sorry. He shouldn’t have been there. Grandma said you were having visions and that I should ask you about them.”

Dancing clowns, for example. Of course, if there was one thing creepier than demons, Ivy thought it was probably clowns.

Knife clown. Strangling clown. Raping clown. Crack in the old door blood light dripping through one drop on tongue sticky sweet hungry taken temptation hand my hand set on light flooded filled pain light.

“He’ll be coming for me. Replacing me. That’s not a good idea, honey. New demon for old is never good for the balance. Demon princes at war not good for the battleground. You can stop this. It’s up to you.”

Hearing this from Aunt Cate had been bad enough. Now evil wanted the same thing from her as good. Grandma and Grandpa had always wanted her to tap her deeply suppressed power. Now Aunt Cate wanted her to give it a shot as well. Nobody knew which way she’d go. She certainly didn’t. Good. Evil. Shit.

If you fought a demon, destroyed a demon, did you get angel wings, or did you have to replace the demon?

Never mind the vampire in the mix. Except that she minded very much.

“I’m no warrior, Grandpa.”

“You don’t know that yet. You might get eaten,” he added. “If you do, it’s because you’re weak. Blood of mine isn’t weak. Remember that.”

Blood attacking blood. Always. Blood must take blood. Dying for power. Killing for power. Broken necks in
Volkswagens. Knives in the streets. Knives in shadows. Screams in dorm rooms. Brains stuck in brains. Puppet players for fun. Fun and profit. Prophet. Master. Always there will be a master. Beasts within beasts. One beast the strongest. Who?

“Good question,” Ivy said.

She absorbed the words and the sick images, fear, anger, and greed that came with them to take out and study later. She suspected she’d understand some of it if she let herself soak in the nasty mix.

Damn.

The demon against the wall began to scream again. Ivy stood and backed toward the door. This was no time to give her grandpa a peck on the cheek when she said good-bye. Not that it ever was.

Ivy took the elevator back to the first floor. The door was concealed behind tall library shelves that had already been swung back, waiting for her. Her grandmother was seated in a leather chair. The fragile old pages of the book in her lap were illuminated by a glass table lamp designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Brianna put the book down next to the lamp. “Did he say anything useful?”

“I think—” Ivy slowly nodded. “Yeah. He probably did. I’ll work it out.”

“Be careful,” her grandmother said, standing. She went to the desk and returned Ivy’s purse to her. “I will be grateful if you save him from any rivals. His welfare is always my first priority.”

Ivy was aware how carefully her grandmother chose her words. She did the same. “I’ll do my best to—”

“Something else for you.” Her grandmother gave her a small plastic container. There was a grainy white powder inside.

Salt? Meth? Crack?

“Uh—”

“To neutralize your vampire problem. Take a pinch of this for vampires if you think he’s going to taste your blood. It will blend with your demon essence, overshadow it.” She smiled wickedly. “It should pack quite a kick.”

Naked grandfather. Grandma passing out an aph-rodisiac.

“I think I better go.”

“Of course. I’ll have one of the mortal security guards give you a ride home.”

There was no hugging or cheek kissing when saying good-bye to Grandma, either.

W
here’s Ted?”

Jack closed the front door of the house, bowed before his Master, and said, “Hunting. We separated several hours ago.” He held out the bags of groceries in his hands.

“His mind is distracted. He isn’t answering his cell phone, either,” the Master complained. “I need him right now.”

It hurt Jack to hear the way the demon said it. He tried not to be petty, they each had their specific uses for the Master, but there was no way he could stop the jealousy.

“I can look for him. I could—”

“I can’t reach his thoughts. I try touching his mind, and my own fills with bloodlust.” The Master laughed. “I like the feeling, but I don’t want his single-mindedness right now. I want obedience.”

The demon shook his head, smiled, put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Soothed with his warm touch. “I got a telepathic
call from John—a pity he was too stupid not to use a telephone and make himself seem normal. Maybe no one will notice he didn’t ask for his phone call when you show up to bail him out.”

“Bail? He’s been arrested?” Jack was thunderstruck with shock. “We’ve been—”

“Would he be waiting to be bailed out if he were a murder suspect?”

Jack’s heart lightened at this news. “Then what happened?”

The Master tapped his forehead, between the horns that grew with every intake of death energy. “From what I can make out, Dick was pulled in on some sort of trespassing charge. He was wandering along the Des Plaines River, and some scared person called the cops. I love how our work is scaring the city. Love that taste of fear.”

“It is wonderful,” Jack said.

“I need John back. Fetch him for me. You can do this,” he assured Jack. “I trust you most of all.”

Jack glowed with pride of place. He didn’t like being around people, except when killing them. But he would do what was necessary.

“Should I put away the groceries first?” he asked.

I
t’s not like there’s a registry of psychic people living in the area,” Selena replied to Ivy’s suggestion of checking for missing people.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if there were one?” Ivy asked.

Once again she was seated on the steps outside Ariel’s, talking on her cell phone. Dusk was falling, lights were coming on, and she hadn’t yet decided whether she was going inside the vampire lair or not. What did one do with a problem like Christopher Bell—sung to the tune of a song from
The Sound of Music
?

“It has its pros and cons,” Selena said. “There’s got to be several thousand folk in a population area this size that have some mental gifts. But there are plenty who don’t realize it, some who think they’re crazy and are highly medicated because they hear voices.”

“What about doing a census of the ones involved in the magic community? Who aren’t related to us,” Ivy added.

“There are plenty of practitioners involved in secret cult things. Some of those groups are dark, some are posers—and it’s not our job to find them if they don’t want to be found.”

“We might be able to keep them safe from vampires, and demons, if we knew about them.”

“And we might be leading the vamps and demons to them. Besides, there are civil rights issues—”

“Demons don’t believe in civil rights.”

“We do.”

“Yeah. Okay. Got it. But what about just checking up on everyone we know about? I already sent out a text to everyone I know asking them to check in.”

“That’s good. I will do what I can. Did you get anything else?”

Ivy hadn’t actually mentioned visiting her grandparents. One just didn’t talk about them in the family. Especially not to the cop in the family.

“Nothing I can talk about.”

“Ivy, if there’s any evidence you’re keeping—”

“No! I mean I haven’t been able to figure out what any of what I heard means. If it means anything. I swear—and I don’t care what Grandma and Aunt Cate want from me—”

“Each for their own opposite reasons.”

“—I’ll let you know what I find out. And you tell me whatever you find out,” she added. “And don’t pull ‘this is police business’ on me. Not with demons and possession and—”

“Vampires.”

“Don’t put this on me,” Christopher said, suddenly sitting beside Ivy on the stoop. “I’m in town for the sights.” He huddled in his leather jacket. “And the balmy weather.” He took the phone from Ivy. “Hello, Selena. When can you and I get together for a nice chat?”

“Vegas. You want to go to Vegas.” Then Selena hung up on him.

Christopher tossed the phone back to Ivy. He stood and held out a hand to help her up. They went down the stairs and turned right when they reached the sidewalk. “It’s a nice evening.”

“You were just complaining about the weather.”

“Ah, but it is much better weather than when I arrived in town.”

“It seems you arrived in the wrong town,” Ivy said.

“Then you wouldn’t have met me.”

“It’s always about the vampires. What’s that saying you vamps have about the rest of us?
Not my species, not my problem.
”

“I’ve never heard that before. It must be an Americanism.”

“The thing is, you are human, aren’t you?”

“Once upon a time I was human. I became something better.”

“You don’t stop being human! You had parents, family, friends, a life. And some vampire stole you away and ruined your life.”

C
hristopher had several things he wanted to discuss with Ivy, but the personal history of himself or any other vampire was not on the conversational list.

He still said, “I’m having a very nice afterlife. What are you in the mood for for dinner?”

He was in the mood for her.

Stupid, after everything today. She was trouble. She was demon get. He was nursing a hideous headache from pissing off that big very bad mad demon. Her grandfather?

“You’re the one whose species isn’t human.”

The pained look she gave him was a tactile bruise. He didn’t have to be fair or kind. He was a vampire. With a headache.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

They’d been walking along, with his hand firmly circling her wrist. Now he let her go. Ivy instantly turned and walked the other way. He watched the pain bruises smoke swirl around her as she walked along.

He simply couldn’t let her get out of his sight.

He caught up with her and took her hand, twining his fingers with hers. “Three-quarters human is more human than I’ve got in me these day.”

“Indian,” she said. “Just around the corner. And you’re paying.”

Her tone was cold, but at least she wasn’t railing at him. He breathed in the yellow orange red scent of curry. “Lovely.” He smiled down at her. “I know the perfect wine to go with the meal.”

W
hat did he mean by wine with the meal when he didn’t order any wine? He had the waiter bring them tea.

Ivy ordered a lot of food, but when it came all she could manage to eat was a slice of naan. Christopher sat beside her in the booth, trapping her by the wall, and ate her meal as well as his own.

She ignored him, at least she tried, considering how close they were in the seat and the fact that his hand was on her thigh. She held her phone close to her face, reading and typing texts as people checked in. She couldn’t keep Christopher from reading over her shoulder.

“You have an uncle named Crispin?” he finally broke the silence between them.

She gave him a sideways look. “Go ahead, start quoting
Henry V
.”

“Afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Shakespeare. You know the St. Crispin’s Day speech—
we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he who—
” She stopped when she saw how he was smiling at her. “Wait a minute. You just got me, didn’t you?”

He nodded enthusiastically, his grin wider than usual.

Ivy laughed. It felt so good to laugh. The next thing she knew, she was leaning against him, some of the tension easing out of her. Every muscle in her body ached from being wound so tight, she was ready to break.

He still had a headache. She wanted to crawl inside his head and make it better. It was an odd sensation. She was aware of his pain but not actually feeling it. Telepathy, psychic links, whatever, were so strange.

Until a couple of days ago, all of her psychic encounters had been normal. Normal for someone with psychic gifts. She’d been raised in the life. It wasn’t as if she knew what real normal was. She knew mental exercises, meditation techniques, rituals, been trained in controlling and using what she had from birth. She dealt with people who were like her, people she trusted, who trusted her. She’d never thought of herself as greatly talented or powerful, either, even when people who knew about such things told her she was. Until a couple of days ago, her psychic life had been easy, and she hadn’t known it.

Now she was supposed to stop possessed serial killers, and destroy a demon. Witches, good and evil, were counting on her.

And there was this vampire. The one sitting beside her with his arm around her shoulders. The one making her laugh.

“Don’t kill me until after the murders are stopped, okay?” she requested.

“I promise.”

The waiter brought the check. Christopher paid, then
helped her out of the booth and held her coat for her to put on. Very much the gentleman.

“Thank you for a lovely dinner,” she said politely. She kissed him on the cheek. “We both have a lot to do—”

“Oh, come along.”

His hand came around her wrist again. She was getting used to it. A mark of his affection?

Christopher led Ivy back out onto the sidewalk. He began quoting Shakespeare as they walked along, in his thick Northern English accent. His
Hamlet
“To be or not to be” got her giggling.

Unfortunately, her laughter was too close to the edge of hysteria. The release of tension turned into the-edge-of-a-breakdown shaking.

Christopher took her through the arched-brick-and-wrought-iron entrance to a churchyard and sat them down on a bench under a huge old tree, its branches bare as bones this time of year. She managed to stop giggling, but the shaking continued.