Night of the Demon: Paranormal Romance (Devon Slaughter Book 2) (7 page)

ZADIE TRAVELED the world, searching for her sire, Inka, and
always,
always
for Devon. The other demons she met were strangers to
her. There were too many cultural differences, and often, a language barrier.

In Europe demons were afraid. Angel soldiers had become
blood thirsty, killing more demons than they captured.

On her knees, Zadie prayed. “Mother Ishtar, whose might no
god approaches. My heart is not glad. My sickness is great. Oh my lady, help me
find the ones I seek, and keep them safe, until we meet again.”

She went back to where she felt most at home—Coffeen
Sanitarium, that glittering castle of madness, where she fed on the potent
dreams of insane humans.   

MUSCLES HAD a name—Jep. He was my roommate, and he was from
L.A. At least, that’s where he’d been made. He’d escaped once, did his time,
and slowly worked his way up to military police, the highest a demon could go
in the current regime. He aspired to be a soldier in the New Army, a
progressive experiment currently underway.

“Why’d they pick you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. We’d had this conversation before. 

 I was headed for the New Army, after assimilation, as the
first (ever) demon recruit. Even in the days when demons aided in missions,
they’d never fought side by side with angels.

The progressives hoped I would pave the way for other demons
to join the New Army. I was supposed prove demon soldiers could be a valuable
asset in the quest to capture wayward demons in the human world. The philosophy
behind the experiment was: It takes one to know one; a two-fold plan. By
raising the standard of life for demons in the realm, escape and recidivism
rates would drop. It was a win win, the progressives argued, sure to tip the
scales in their favor, in the upcoming election.

Conservatives thought handling the demon problem was a lot
simpler. Just clamp down harder. Currently, they held the majority four to
three.

Jep had been appointed my assimilation guide. For him, I was
both an opportunity to earn points, and a sore reminder of what the crime of
his escape had cost him. 

“You really have no idea who sired you?” he said, in a
musing tone.

I lay on my back in my narrow bed.

I had an idea. I didn’t feel like talking about it.

It was after lights out. The rules on the ninth floor
reminded me of camp.

“I heard about it happening,” Jep went on. “But shit. You
figure it’s just urban myth. Don’t you think they know who your sire is? The
archangels? And that’s why they picked you?”

Jep was one of those rare conspiracy theorists who believed
those conspiring knew best.

“Maybe,” I said.

I’d spent the day pretending to study the political history
of the realm, but since I’d come through the portal with my eidetic memory
intact, I didn’t really have to study. The information was all stored away,
ready to be accessed, as needed. 

I wanted to sleep.

I needed to sleep.

I felt on the verge of sleep deprivation, something we’d
been warned about on the first day of assimilation. The signs were hunger (I
couldn’t get enough of the rations), constant fatigue (I slogged around after
Jep who bored me senseless), extreme irritability (I wanted to strangle him)
and, in severe cases, hallucinations (I felt my hands squeezing Jep’s meaty
neck).

The glowing numerals above our door said it was half past
midnight. But the angels controlled daylight and nightfall, so it wasn’t real.
The realm wasn’t the earth, rotating around the sun. It was a giant machine.

Still, time marched on, somehow. You saw it in the stooped
bodies and time-worn faces of the demons. This mystery, the incomprehensible
passing of time, posed a quandary. If I managed to escape, how could I be sure
to get to the 21
^st
century? I figured it was a technology trick. Or
maybe magic.

It bothered me to think of screwing up history by going back
in time. Maybe I’d seen too many episodes of Dr. Who. But not knowing the
future, I wasn’t eager to go there, either.

I just wanted to go home. Fucking Sarah. 

My mind roved.

Jep had gone quiet. I figured he’d talked himself to sleep.

I nodded off, until his voice roused me. “They don’t want a
real soldier,” he said.

Christ.

Was he doing it on purpose? Those deprived of sleep
performed poorly on tests. If I didn’t pass assimilation, he could recommend
himself to take my place as the first demon soldier in the New Army.

But that was paranoid (another sign of sleep deprivation).
It would be bad for Jep if he couldn’t get me through assimilation. Because the
archangels
had
picked me. While Jep didn’t appear to be the sharpest
knife in the drawer, (though who knew, really) he was crafty enough to have
risen up through the system despite his criminal record.

“What they want is a symbol,” Jep said. “A handsome face to
draw the crowds.”

It was the first time he’d said anything remotely critical.
Or remotely interesting.

ONE NIGHT, in early spring, Zadie woke to footsteps in the
corridor outside her room at the sanitarium.

She was tucked under the covers, her limbs heavy from
slumber. When the steps stopped at her door, she bolted upright. Just as she
caught Inka’s scent, the lock snapped and the door swung open.   

“Inka!” she sprung out of bed, overcome with joy to see her
sire, and also, tremulous with fear.

Inka’s eyes locked on hers, before she flew at her. Zadie
threw up her arms in defense, but she was no match for her sire. Inka tossed
Zadie onto the bed with ease and pinned her wrists.

A million questions ping-ponged in Zadie’s mind, the most
important being: Am I in trouble? But Inka laughed and kissed Zadie on both
cheeks. “Are you glad to see me?”

“God, yes.”

“I had a hell of a time finding you. Holed up in here like a
crazy person. Not a very glamourous disguise,” a smile curved at Inka’s lips,
before she settled on the bed; her back against the wall, ankles crossed.

She wore jeans and biker boots, a fashionably distressed
leather jacket. She’d shorn off her long black locks. The cut illuminated the
perfect oval of her face. She oozed sex appeal. 

Zadie sat up, her wrists burning where Inka had gripped
them.

“I heard you made it out,” Inka said. “In good time too.”
She gave Zadie a meaningful glance. “Did you name-drop me in the realm?” Her
eyes shone with expectation.

“Oh
yeah
,” Zadie said. “Of course. Demons worship you
there.”

Inka beamed. The compliment (homage) made her gentle. “I’ve
been searching high and low for you, my darling. To the ends of the earth. I
couldn’t stop until I found you.”

Zadie didn’t believe Inka had spent the whole time searching
for her. She would have appeared long ago, if that were true. And Zadie
realized she held it against Inka, a tiny bit. Inka had abandoned her in
Nicaragua. Thrown Zadie to the angels.

Yet, hadn’t Inka put herself in danger to warn Zadie that night?

Getting captured was Zadie’s own fault. She’d been too
drunk. Drunk from Enid’s energy; her delicious jealousies and unrequited
passion for Devon. Zadie had been high too, high on the idea of putting Enid
out of her misery, once and for all.

I was stupid
.

Inka intuited her thoughts. “That’s right, Zadie. You
screwed the pooch in Nicaragua. In more ways than one.” Her tone was low and
even, but still scathing. Inka’s mood shifted as easily as the wind across the
desert. “Devon almost got away from us,” she said. “Had it not been for
me
.
That is.”

Shame swept over Zadie. She yearned to make Inka proud. Her
duty, as Inka’s offspring, was to reflect Inka’s perfection back at her. Inka
deserved nothing less. She had given Zadie the gift of immortality.

“I have some bad news,” Inka said, after a moment.

Zadie’s stomach churned.

No, not Devon.
Please … in the name of Ishtar
.

“Babylon is gone. Along with the other connections up the
Gulf coast. Demons are going underground. Did you know? Is that why you’re
hiding out in this shithole?”

Zadie went to put a wooden chair under the handle of the
door.

Inka watched her. “What’s with the locks?”

“I don’t want the nurses coming in when I’m sleeping.”

Inka snorted. “
You
need to practice your mind
compulsion, like I taught you.”

Anger coursed through Zadie’s veins.
I’ve had to manage
on my own
. But to Inka, she said, “I missed you.”

I needed you.

“Move the chair, Zadie. Put it back where it belongs.”

Zadie did as she was told.

“Come here, Little One,” Inka patted the bed next to her.
“Everything will be alright now. I’m here.”

Zadie felt warm when Inka called her Little One. She eagerly
crawled into bed, next to Inka.

“Rest your head in my lap,” Inka said. “I have good news
too. Do you want to hear?”

WHEN I sold my grandmother’s house, I took only our personal
things (mine and hers), the cherry cabinet and record player and the piano. I
left the rest of the furniture, and drapes, Oriental rugs, even the downstairs
paintings. They were imitations done by an artful hand, someone my grandmother
knew in Florence, but no one of any significance to me.

Of course, I had to take the paintings Javier had done of my
mother. I wrapped them in velvet and put them in the back seat of the Cadillac,
along with my valise.

I didn’t meet the new owners but I knew they were a family,
a husband and wife with a little girl. In my childhood bedroom, on the four
poster bed, which the real estate agent said the girl had exclaimed over, I
left my most beautiful copy of
Wuthering Heights
. It had pages edged in
gold, a red silk ribbon to mark your place. 

When I pulled the book off the shelf, I found the ribbon on
the illustration depicting Catherine’s confession (to Nelly) of her degrading
love for Heathcliff. “
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the
same
.”

I ran my hand over the glossy page, feeling the most
terrible sadness, as if I
were
Catherine. A tear plopped down. I quickly
rubbed it off, thinking I must have been crying, finally, over selling the
house. I’d been numbed by shock, at first.

But deep down, I knew it was something more. I thought it
had to do with the missing pages in my own memory. Where had I gone those three
days? And whom had I met? Dr. Sinclair was sure I hadn’t left the house. She didn’t
think me capable. She believed fear would have kept me inside, behind locked
doors.

As I drove through the gate for the last time, I felt a
strange kind of quiet inside. I had dreaded this day for so long. And now, it
had come. And gone.

I took one last glance in the rearview mirror. I watched the
black wrought iron gate slowly close.

* * *

Henry was late. He often was and never called to explain
why. Yet, he always arrived, eventually. I knew I should be more relaxed about
these things. After all, I’d been late to our first date. He probably thought
it was no big deal.

So far, I’d kept myself together in front of him. He hadn’t
been exposed to the real depths of my lunacy.

My new apartment was the penthouse in a restored building in
the heart of China Town, the
new uptown
, according to my agent. Movers
had packed my books, records and clothes into boxes, and loaded them into a van
with the cherry cabinet and piano.

The piano was placed by the vista window, according to my
instructions, and the record player stood against the far brick wall. The boxes
were all dumped in the middle of the loft.

I was nearly done unpacking the books. I stood up, stretched
and sidled a glance at my new phone on the bar. It was an Android and though I
claimed not to like it, I was already hooked. The screen was dark. No pulsing
blue light alerted me to any missed calls. Still, I snatched the phone, to
check the log, to make sure.

It was ten to eleven. Henry had said he’d drop by at nine. “
Around
nine,” he’d said.

I went to the window to look out at the glittering lights.
Cars moved up and down Irving Street. Neon signs flashed over seedy bars wedged
between fine restaurants and high end night clubs.

China Town was the oldest part of the city, built in a
neo-Gothic style by the Masons. My favorite building was across the street. It
had stained glass windows and a skylight with a red rose at its center. I had
asked my agent about it. She said it wasn’t for sale. But I found the door ajar
one day, and stole inside.

I stood in the middle of the foyer, turning around, admiring
the artistry of the dark-stained woodwork. I stared up at the Cathedral
ceiling, at the light pouring in through the red glass, and I promised myself
that if the building was ever for sale, I would buy it.

The next day, when I walked past, there was a heavy lock on
the door. And now, just this afternoon, I noticed signs of renovating;
scaffolding at the windows and balconies, a dumpster parked on the street.  

I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of soda. I felt
tired and hyper, at the same time. I opened a box of records but I couldn’t
focus. What in the world was Henry doing? It was Saturday night. He wouldn’t
stand me up to go out with someone else, would he?

I went into the bathroom with its turquoise art-deco tiles,
and mirrored vanity. I brushed my hair until it was shiny. My skin had got
better too, since I didn’t wear so much make-up. I was used to the sight of my
bare eyelashes.

But I felt an urge to line my eyes in coal, to cover my freckles
with white powder, to dress in layers of black lace. I was being pulled by the
waterfront, and Embers. The need was burning inside me, the need to get away
from myself … and the silent phone.

It was past my bed time.

I had to take care of my health.

But I was sliding down, fast, and I hated myself for it. I
didn’t know why I was this way, so afraid to be alone and still, always alone.
I watched the shadows on the walls, listened to the strange muffled sounds from
the busy street below.

The world had taken on a surreal quality; shifting and
looming. I was so caught up, I almost didn’t hear the phone, when it finally
rang.