The Devil You Know (8 page)

Rebecca Berger, dressed more conservatively in jeans and a warm pullover, stood in the doorway. Her hair was again in a ponytail. She stared at me shrewdly. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.

I looked her over. “You seem a bit more coherent than you were yesterday, Mrs. Berger.”

“You don’t need to be in here. Get out.”

“I’m here to help your daughter.”

“I don’t need your help, Profane and Wicked Prince.”

I stopped and stared at Mrs. Berger carefully. It was entirely possible that she had spoken to Zanita in the last few moments, but I seriously doubted that Zanita would have been able to convince her employer of anything as outlandish as I in so short a time. “Well, well, well,” I said. “The gloves come off.” I shrugged my shoulders and tried to “feel” her out, but Rebecca’s aura was blanked. That is, she felt human to me. Muffled. It’s possible for certain creatures to hide their natures from me, especially if they know who I am.

I’m the son of an archangel, but I’m hardly perfect.

I set the Book of Shadows down on the bed. “Who are you?” I asked in the Divine language, the language of the angels. It was the same language that Malach favored. The one that sounded like you were simultaneously clearing your throat and trying to summon Cthulhu up from R’lyeh. Seriously, I don’t know what’s divine or angelic about it; it always reminds me of someone speaking German with strep throat.

Rebecca Berger looked at me carefully. “Why should I tell the Prince of Air my name, that he may hold dominion over me?”

“You will tell me your name because it is my birthright to ask.”

Rebecca, or the thing
inside
of Rebecca, considered me. I was getting just a little sick of being called fancy Biblical names, but I watched her speak. Just like interviewing suspects, how a demonically controlled person speaks is just as important as what they say. I’ve seen a lot of demonic possession over the years. The thing that always gets me is how nearly perfect it is.
Nearly
being the important word here. Almost invariably, the person under the influence of possession speaks languages and utilizes syntaxes unknown to them. After all, they’re merely a demon’s poppet. Its voice-piece. To put it another way, they operate like a badly pirated movie where the visual and audio are working just a hair out of synch.

Rebecca’s synch was very good. Her voice was neutral, non-threatening. Absolutely non-demonic, except for the words she used. She’d either been possessed a very long time, or she was faking it. Either way, she
would
speak to me. She
would
answer my questions.

The demonic hosts are under my dominion.

“Tell me who you are,” I said. As I spoke, I made eye contact with her and held her even gaze. There were no pyrotechnics involved in the spell, nothing very exciting or dramatic. From the outside it just looked like a silly staring match between two grown people. But I did reach out and capture her. The creature, whatever it was, was mine for the moment. I could feel it wriggling inside of Rebecca Berger’s body like a fish caught out of water. It was a piece of her, but also a piece
apart
from her. If it was of demonic origin, it would be forced to obey me, regardless of its status or age. If it was something else, it would likely break my hold on it very quickly. “Who are you?” I again demanded. I moved closer to Rebecca and extended my hand as if I might touch her.

When I was almost upon her, she smiled. It was an old, ugly smile. “Beast,” she told me. “I
know
you.”

“Lovely. Is that supposed to impress me?”

“Man of Sin. Son of Perdition. Your father calls.”

“I don’t take his calls anymore.” Yes, I can be a total asshole to demons. It’s even a little bit fun.

“You,” she said. “You are the Dragon in the Pit. You are the man who will swallow the moon . . . ”

“That’s rather melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“He burns.”

“Who burns?” I said.

“Peter. He burns.”

I felt my stomach lurch at the words. The thing inside Rebecca moved, slithering around like a wet snake. I knew it was full of lies. I knew it would try and deceive me. But that realization didn’t make things any easier. I calmed myself, though I felt my hands shaking. I clenched them both into fists. They felt hot. “You lie.”

“I know.”

“You know nothing. You deceive.”

“He burns, Nicky. He lives on in the bottomless pit.”

“No,” I said. “He doesn’t. He was a good man.”

“He cries, Nicky. He cries in hell. Who has put him there?”

“You’re nothing but a lying cunt of a demon.”

“You don’t eat right, Nick,” Rebecca Berger said in Peter’s voice.

I stopped only a few paces away from Rebecca as the world swirled around me in a surreal spectacle of light and colors. That was something that Peter had said to me on the last day of his life. Those were the words he’d spoken in the car the morning before he’d died. We’d stopped for coffee and donuts and I’d bitched about how clichéd it all was. Then Peter laughed and invited me downtown to his mom’s for dinner that night. She was making eggplant parmesan. She had been heating it in the oven when I arrived to tell her about Peter.

I looked deep into the depths of Rebecca’s eyes and saw only more depths. “They fuck him, Nicky,” she said sweetly, smiling. She blinked, and the thing inside of her moved again. “The demons fuck him, Nicky, every day, all day. And he
screams
for you…”

I felt a rush of heat all through my body. I hadn’t realized I’d moved. Suddenly I was standing over Rebecca, my arms raised as if to strike her. Rebecca was on the floor at my feet, cowering, her arms over her head, rocking violently back and forth and screaming in a way that made every hair on my body stand at rigid attention.

Everything happened fast after that. Within seconds, I heard footsteps thumping on the carpeted stairs, and I could see Thom Berger’s bald palate rising up past the spindles of the banister as he raced toward us. He was shouting for his wife while Rebecca screamed on and on, hysterically, like a machine with no end.

I instinctively backed away as first Thom, then Ben, burst through the doorway of the bedroom. I backed until I hit the wall, the cross, and then jerked reflexively away before it could burn its way into my back. Their eyes settled on Rebecca, then on me as if I had done something to her, something hideous and depraved. Ben immediately moved between me and Rebecca like a referee. Thom rushed to Rebecca’s side on the floor and gathered her into his arms. She began to writhe, then scream again, her entire body electric with terror. He hushed her. She looked up. She saw me. She screamed louder still and clawed at his back. Thom turned to Ben, his face contorted with an almost inhuman rage and shouted, “Get him out of here!”

Ben swiveled on his heels and I felt his hand latch onto my arm like a snake biting down. His face was pallid. I had never seen a black man so pale in all my life. “Get
out
, Nick.
Now
.” His voice wasn’t angry, not yet, but the timber was deep and resonating. He showed his gleaming white teeth like a dog about to bite. “Back to the cruiser.”

I knew I was done. Just like I knew Ben wasn’t going to require my services here any longer. I yanked my arm loose and stomped from the room while Rebecca Berger writhed in her husband’s arms and screamed hysterically about her lost Cassie and how the Devil had taken her away.

Devil, indeed.

I spent the latter part of the day and the early part of the evening down at the Blackwater Police Department.
They put me in their very small interrogation room with a cooling cup of untouched coffee, and left me sitting there for over two hours. The building is small, about the size of a doublewide trailer. It sort of looks like one too. There’s one chief, one sergeant, one detective, and four officers. I know them all. The interrogation room doesn’t have fancy two-way mirrors or insulated walls. It has a folding table and two folding chairs. Blackwater isn’t exactly gangland Chicago. I could hear the officers talking and joking just outside. But I was told not to move until Sheriff Oswell arrived. I wasn’t sure what they would do to me if I tried to leave. Maybe revoke my library card?

Ben banged in at about a quarter to six. I expected angry. I got livid. “Nick, what the fuck?” he yelled at me. The activity in the other room immediately went on hiatus. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Then Ben seemed to catch himself, snorted a deep breath through his nose, and said in a lower voice, “I could cite your ass right
now
.”

I leaned on the table and said, “For what? I never touched her, Ben.”

“Thom Berger called the chief to complain. He wants to sue the department. He said you wanted to hit his wife.”

“I did
not
hit his wife,” I said as evenly as possible. “I’m sure he took her to Emergency. They’ll confirm I never laid a hand on her.”

He pointed a savage finger at me. “You made me look like an ass, Nick!” He stomped around the room while he got his temper back under control. I waited patiently. Then he asked, “What did you say to her to make her go off like that?”

“Nothing.” I felt a twinge. Lying to the police wasn’t something that sat well with me. That was called Obstruction of Justice. It was also called being a shitty cop. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You accused her of doing away with her own kid, didn’t you?”

“No.” Not a lie.

“What were you doing in the Bergers’ bedroom?”

“Looking for clues.”

“You were supposed to be looking through the girl’s bedroom, doing your hoodoo. You’re not a cop, Nick. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“She did it.”

Ben stopped ranting and stomping and looked at me. “Did she confess to something?”

“No. But I know she did it. She’s not insane. She’s faking.”

Ben leaned over the folding table, gritting his teeth. “The paramedics said she may have suffered a stroke, Nick. You don’t fake a stroke.”

“She may have suffered a stroke because her body was under extreme duress.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think Rebecca Berger is possessed.”

Ben glared at me. For one moment Ben almost looked like he wanted to believe me. It was like a miniature war going on between his practical and spiritual sides. In the end, his practical side won out. “You’re done here, Nick. Get the fuck out. And if I see you anywhere
near
the Bergers, I will put your ass in jail personally.”

“The prodigal son returns,” Morgana said when I finally stepped into the shop at nightfall. She was selling a pair of college kids some books on magic. “I thought you’d never get back.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m back.”

Morgana stared at me a long, hard moment. “You are. Could you take the shop until closing? Anton is coming by to pick me up tonight. I’m speaking to his coven about crystal magic.”

I slid my arms out of my blazer and crumpled it up. Strangely, I felt sore all over, like I’d taken some knocks in a bar fight or something. And tired. I did not want to watch the shop until closing. Unfortunately, I had no choice. One of the college girls started checking me out, being pretty obvious about it. I glared at her until she looked away.

“Are you all right?” Morgana asked me after the college bunnies had left the store.

I smiled, emptily. “Of course,” I answered, assuming my place behind the counter.