The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) (22 page)

Nara raised an eyebrow at the manager, who was staring at Shane with what appeared to be disbelief. “He’s mine. Isn’t there a dark room here with irons where I can keep him?”

“Y-Yes,” Liza stammered, “right below my office.”

Nara motioned for the driver to go. “Are you staring at my transitor?”

She shook her head.

Nara raised an eyebrow. “Well, don’t look at him again. He is here to be punished. As. Are. You.”

The demon shrank back against the door of her office.

Nara laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, dear. I’m sure we’ll get your heart in the right place before I leave. I’ll be sleeping in your room, by the way.” The driver had returned from the lower level and stood, his arms crossed, as if waiting for his next instruction. “Go get my luggage and put it in her quarters.”

“But where—”

“I hope you’ll enjoy your new accommodations. Wait,” she said to the driver, “before you go out, put her next to Shane and make sure they are both chained.”

The demon was on Liza in an instant. Nara sauntered into the office and put her feet up on the desk, while listening to Liza scream as she was dragged down the stairs.

Damn—I love my job
.

Chapter 18

Calise had been holed up in her apartment for three days without sleep. She repeatedly told her mother she picked up a nasty bug in Costa Rica, and to leave the soup she insisted on bringing, outside her apartment door.

Squeezing her eyes shut, the thoughts and images rapid fired again through her mind:
I should have told Lucas—How does he deal with this?—Crimson eyes—This is really happening—Razor-sharp teeth—this is the truth I wanted…demons walk among us.

Maybe a psychiatrist could prescribe an antidote to her condition. She would have welcomed the fear from ten impending hurricanes to avoid seeing one more red-eyed demon.

This is insane! But Ray wasn’t a hallucination—I’m a seer—of demons!

How would a doctor react to her “medical condition?” She couldn’t shake the chill she’d felt since the demon Ray came into the pharmacy. She hadn’t showered in three days. She pulled the blanket higher and burrowed deeper into the recesses of her couch, trying to compose herself.
I’m the same person I was before I left for Costa Rica. Just more…observant.
But everything was different.

She rolled off the couch, hopped in her car, and drove to the doctor’s office. She sat in her car for an hour and sank herself deep into the gray fabric bucket seat of the car she loved. Her mother said anything with rear wheel drive was not sensible, so although she couldn’t afford a V8, T-tops, or even leather, she had purchased an off-the-lot red sports car for her first car. When she switched on the radio, David Bowie’s “Changes”
came on.

Changes, indeed.

The medical parking lot was busy with patients and employees. A train whistled as it lollygagged its way downtown. Rubbing her upper arms, she couldn’t be sure whether she was cold or scared, or both. The baby blue sky reminded her of the ocean and Lucas. She closed her eyes to let the sun warm her peeling and chapped face.
Note to self, invest in expensive moisturizer. Something French that starts with “Le—.”

She couldn’t even smile at her own joke while walking to the building. She hesitated for a moment before she opened the door to look up at the sky again. It was blue,
baby
blue. Calise had gotten lazy about taking birth control in Costa Rica because her schedule was thrown off. She’d now finished a three-day course of antibiotics. As a pharmacist, she warned patients that antibiotics decreased the effectiveness of birth control. And she never told Lucas that after they were together and she went to the bathroom, she was pretty sure the condom had broken. Now she was late…

And headed to see a shrink…

The waiting room had flesh tone colored walls sparsely scattered with pictures of waterfalls. Classical music was piped in. Calise chewed her lip and tapped her foot. A middle-aged woman with unkempt hair was muttering to herself and counting invisible objects on her fingers two chairs down.

“Calise Rowe,” a nurse with a clipboard and crisp white shirt announced.

Startled back to the moment, she hopped up and followed the woman to a comfortable looking office with fake leather chairs. The nurse motioned to a chair. “So, what brings you to see Dr. Rogers today, Miss Rowe?”

Her eyes stung. For three days she could barely close her eyes because simple darkness no longer lived behind her lids. Instead evil darkness reigned there—images, faces, hideous bodies, glowing red eyes. She cleared her throat. “When I close my eyes, I’m seeing certain images. I can’t sleep and I think I need—need some help from a professional.” Her eyelids twitched. “Maybe I’m depressed, have insomnia, or ate something wrong. I was just on vacation.” Would drugs dull the hallucinations? Dropping her head, tears welled up in her eyes and her cheeks grew hot. “I promised him that I could handle this, that I was ready—but I was wrong. I’m so ashamed.”

“There, there, dear. The doctor can help you. He helps everyone.”

She heard the door click shut as the nurse left her alone in the room, dripping tears onto her jeans. Knives of pain shot through her skull from the headache caused by lack of sleep and the effort to resist blinking. The smell of alcohol wipes and piped in music did nothing to calm her nerves. She was supposed to return to work later today. Maybe a quick prescription and she could still show up.

Who am I kidding? Maybe I never should have gone to Costa Rica.

Lucas’s face came into focus; she saw again his strong features, him holding her during the storm, kissing her good-bye.

Good-bye. If she never saw him again, then she had only begged to have this fate foisted onto her.

Two raps on the door and the doctor entered. She wiped her eyes and blinked slowly, still staring at the floor. Turning her head, she saw his penny loafers that led to pressed tan slacks. When she blinked a second time, the same legs were naked and scaly with three claws on the end of each appendage. Her breath caught in her throat.

She lifted her head warily, willing the image to go away.

His lab coat had a nametag on the left, and he was carrying a notebook. When she blinked, his shriveled skeleton was bare and she could see a black heart beating through a rib cage that dripped puss and blood. His hands matched his clawed feet, and he was carrying a platter with worms on it.

No,
brains.

Heart pounding, she began to hyperventilate.

She finally looked at his face. With her eyes open, he looked like a bald man with a small nose, drooping glasses, and a tight grin. She blinked slowly and saw pointed teeth, red eyes, and a skinless head that revealed his brain that pulsed and throbbed to match her heartbeat.

Her head whipped forward, and she vomited. “I’m not well. I’ll reschedule,” she managed, her eyes on the tile floor.

The door clicked shut and the lock engaged. Heels clicked across the tiles until she could see his penny loafers in front of her. “Nonsense.”

She reached for her purse and rose to her feet averting her eyes from the enemy. “I’m sorry—this was a mistake. I’m fine. I need to go now.”

“Sit down, Miss Rowe. We’re just getting started.”

She dashed for the door and tried the lock. Nothing. “Help! Let me out of here!” she screamed, pounding on the door.

“The door is locked from the outside and no one can hear you. Why are you so scared? My nurse tells me you’ve been having visions. That’s my specialty. What kind of visions?”

“Stay the fuck away from me. I’m not having visions. I have a virus.” She pushed her hand over her heart and forced herself to take a long breath as she stared at the wood panels of the locked door. “Now, if you’ll please open the door, I’ll be on my way.” She forced her voice to exude calm.

“Fine. But first, turn around and tell me what you see, Ms. Rowe.”

Her eyes wide and burning with the need to blink, she turned to face him. “Nothing,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Is that so?” The man pushed his glasses up, then opened his mouth. A forked tongue exited his mouth, snaked its way across the room, and landed on her cheek. He flicked it up and down.

It was like a razor cutting her flesh. Calise picked a spot on the wall and stared at it, trying to endure the torture. Lucas’s voice rang out in her head, “Center yourself. Ignore their illusions. Never expose yourself.” Her whole body shook. Blood ran from her cheek. “Stop it. Please.”

His tongue slid back in his mouth. “Stop what?” He flashed a black-gummed, shark-toothed smile.

“Just let me out and I’ll be happy to reschedule.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He lifted his notebook and held it out to her and Calise involuntarily blinked. Coils of brains swam around her arms, pinning her to the wall; they filled her mouth until she gagged. “You are obviously a danger to yourself and others. Can you sign here please?”

She stayed still, watching him.

“Oh, all tied up. I guess I’ll just have to sign the paperwork to commit you myself—involuntarily.”

She moaned and shook her head violently.

“I love to play with seers. Great fun.”

****

Lucas and Carmen huddled at a back table of the restaurant, recounting the incident yet again.

“Thank God, Alejandro came for us.” he said, re-bandaging a cut on Carmen’s head and helping to adjust the make-shift sling for her left shoulder. “Whose side is Anna on, anyway?”

He poured them both a generous splash of tequila on the rocks then went back to grab some beer as a chaser. He finally sat down with two icepacks for himself, one for each side of his still bruised face. “What really happened back there?”

Carmen reached with a grimace into her apron pocket. She carefully extracted what looked like a tooth and laid it on the table.

He leaned in closer.

“It’s a thorn,” Carmen explained. “It was imbedded in Christ’s head. Nicodemus kept it. He kept three, actually. I’ve used this one five times. Because it carries the blood of Christ himself on it, it offers a demon something precious,
redemption.
Nara prevented her father from reentering heaven as an angel. I could feel that Abaddon was choosing to ascend when she broke through and told him about Ronwe. In a few more seconds, he would have been gone.”

Lucas fell back into his chair. “
Redemption
! Don’t you think this would have been good information to share with me
before now?”
he huffed in annoyance. “So, there are different levels of power for the different artifacts? Mine killed Ronwe, and yours would have saved Abaddon?”

Carmen moaned a little as she reclined in her chair after finishing her tequila. “The thorn is a very powerful offering, a gift most demons can’t easily refuse. You shoving the bit of the cross in her mouth, well, that was just creating balance. We are not the judge and jury, Lucas. You did what you had to do to be alive and sitting next to me right now.”

“Nara will never stop hunting me. Besides, that transitor is Cali’s old boyfriend, and he saw us together. Tell me what to do, Tía,” he begged.

She covered his hands with hers and squeezed tenderly. “You must tell Cali everything and try to protect her. She isn’t safe until Nara’s dead. Go to her.”

He went back to his hut where Stogey lay waiting for him on his bed. After re-bandaging his arm, he cuddled up with the animal, stroking the dog’s head and scratching his ears. “Hey, Cali needs a good guard dog. How do you feel about airplanes?” Stogey barked and wagged his tail.

Thoughts hummed in his head and before he knew it, he put pen to paper and wrote Cali a note. Tomorrow he would stamp it and drop it in the mail. He would leave for the States as soon as he could. But first, he had someone else to say goodbye to.

****

Calise awoke strapped to a gurney in a white padded cell. Her mind was a fog.

The demon staring over her held a syringe. “Answer my questions like a good little girl, and I won’t be forced to give you this. Have you always been a seer?”

She shook her head.

“How long?”

“Since the trip.”

“What trip?”

“Costa Rica.”

“Did you meet other seers on this trip?”

She nodded.

“What are their names?”

The drugs had calmed her, to the demon’s detriment. She saw him for what he was, but didn’t care. Better be dead than give up Lucas.

“Answer me.”

The brains wiggled around inside what should have been covered by his skull.
So this is why people abuse prescription medications…

“Answer me, now! Names!” He shook the bed violently, and Calise heard a snap. Her arm restraints were pulled right off the table.

Words from Lucas flooded her mind:
Never be frightened. Hold it and think of me if you are ever scared or in danger. Do you promise me?
Calise reached for the necklace with her right hand and closed her eyes while the demon roared and held down her left arm to inject her with the syringe.

A loud pop stopped the demon. Calise saw a familiar and startled face behind the demon. Her college roommate and best friend, Ellen, stood by the door of the room.

“El—Ellen?” Calise stammered.

Encased in a blinding white glow like a shooting star, Ellen charged the demon. The blinding lights slammed against one wall, then the next. Calise caught fragments of fists, claws, snarls, and yells. Before she’d blinked three times, there was silence.

“Sweet Jesus, Cal. Are you all right?” Ellen appeared in her field of vision, glowing as if the sun shone behind her like a giant halo. Her long blond hair shimmered with sparkles, her skin was dewy, and her make-up looked like a professional had airbrushed it.

Ugh, this is why all the boys fawned over her in college.

“You’re not a demon.” Calise was mesmerized by her true beauty.

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Never have been. Never will be. We need to get you out of here.” She unstrapped her legs and helped her best friend to her feet.

The golden hue of radiance around her made Ellen look stunning. Calise’s eyes trailed down and found her flawless model body covered in professional yet tailored clothes. She wore a tight tan skirt and tucked in white button down with pumps that showcased her legs. “Wow, you’re glowing.” She couldn’t stop herself from taking Ellen in, again and again.