The Demonists (10 page)

John nodded slowly, having made up his mind.

“Do your job, and reap the benefits . . . that’s all I’m asking. Do your job and be on your way. . . .” Anastos smiled that smile again. “Can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned for season eight.”

John turned his attention back to the task before him, but with a new purpose. He gave the scroll one more look before setting the ancient writing aside, and focusing on the lid of the box, he began the steps.

The words in Aramaic left his mouth in short, staccato bursts. The more he said, the more convinced he became that what he was about to do was right.

The next portion of the taming rite—the immobilizing rite—was something that could actually be seen. As he spoke the words the air around each of the elemental carvings began to swirl, miniature maelstroms of supernatural energy, each containing one elemental spirit.

“You’re doing it, John,” he heard Anastos say from nearby.

And from the corner of his eye, he could see Penderton with his phone, recording the ritual.

John spoke the final words of the rite, and the spheres of energy lifted up and away from the four corners, the Devil trap’s main source of security deactivated.

John could feel all eyes on him, glancing over to the hospital bed, where the young man was sitting up, a disturbing look of euphoria on his simple face. He had to wonder if the poor guy had any idea of the torment he’d experience as the vessel for the entity contained within the box.

And it was an entity of extreme malevolence, John was certain of that. As soon as the elemental restraints were lifted, he could feel the wrongness of it all emanating from the box. It made his skin crawl as if covered with ants, his eyes burn and water as the smell of excrement filled his nose.

“Is there a problem, John?” Anastos asked, appearing at his side yet again.

“The elemental deterrents have been shut down,” John explained, trying not to gag on the foulness leaking from the wooden box. “I’m guessing there are at least four more layers of security—maybe five— to get through before the trap can be opened.”

Anastos glared.

“And you’re not working on those now because of what?” the multimillionaire chided.

“Because what is inside this box wasn’t meant to ever come out again,” John said. “And whatever it is . . . it’s going to stay in there.”

Before Anastos could utter another word, to again threaten John with the safety of his wife or bodily harm, John did something that was incredibly stupid, but something that he knew would get results. He wasn’t entirely sure what kinds of results, but he was certain it would be spectacular.

The Aramaic rite that he’d performed had created a kind of single circuit connecting all four of the elemental spirits.

The circuit was not supposed to be broken, but John did just that.

He stuck his hand between two of the corners, between wind and fire, temporarily interrupting the flow.

Breaking the circuit.

The reaction was explosive.

The wind elemental escaped its confinement with an ear-piercing wail and a gale-force breeze that exploded outward from the Devil trap. John was blown over backward in his chair and slid across the small lab in a shower of broken glass and scientific equipment. He witnessed others taken as well, the furious elemental spirit whipping up tornado-strength winds within the confined space.

And the fire spirit wasn’t much happier.

John managed to find cover under a desk, peering around its corner to watch the elemental spirit exert it fury, appearing as a seething ball of flame, expanding outward like the sun to burn any who dared be present before it.

But wind and fire had never been able to get along, always at odds with each other. The wind elemental turned its anger to the fire, attempting to suck its equally enraged brethren into its swirling vortex. Fire responded in kind, meeting the attack with equal abandon, creating a spinning maelstrom of wind and flame as they fought.

Alarms were sounding, and people were panicking as the room and everybody inside it was caught up in the chaos that John had caused, even as he attempted to make his way toward the exit. He could see that wards had appeared upon the glass walls of the chamber, magickal symbols of containment etched there in case of emergency, to keep whatever might be accidently unleashed from escaping.

The laboratory floor beneath John’s feet started to vibrate, and crack, the heavy tiles pushed upward from the trembling ground. The earth elemental had awakened.

The wind and fire elementals continued their conflict as John struggled to stay on his feet as he ducked and weaved between the flying pieces of burning scientific equipment hurled about in the elementals’ wake.

The sprinkler system triggered, and as the water rained down upon them, John could see the collected puddles begin to form a single, undulating mass on the floor, growing larger and larger as the sprinklers added to it. The water elemental was about to start some trouble as well.

An enormous bubble of clear fluid rolled across the lab, dousing the flaming pieces of debris that littered the floor. John watched in horror as the living water flowed over the faces of Anastos’ lab technicians and scientists, forcing itself into their mouths and noses—into their lungs—drowning them where they cowered.

The glass room had become the personification of chaos, the floor cracking and opening up to swallow those who ran about in panic as fire, wind, and water wreaked havoc upon the tortured environment.

John saw an opportunity and made a dash for the exit. If he could get into the elevator and get up to the ground floor, he might be able to— He recognized the sound of the single gunshot, before realizing that he’d been hit. The bullet entered his left shoulder, spinning him around as he fell through the cube’s doorway to lie in shock on the floor outside the glass-enclosed lab.

He rolled painfully over and was greeted by the sight of a soaking Cyril Anastos standing over him, gun in hand, eyes twinkling.

“What did you do, John?” he yelled above the screams from within the glass room behind him. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I couldn’t set it free,” John said, shaking his head defiantly as he clutched his bleeding shoulder.

“You stupid, stupid bastard,” Anastos growled. “You’ve ruined everything . . . and now your wife is going to suffer for it.”

The mention of Theodora got John’s attention, and he managed to push himself up from the where he’d fallen despite throbbing pain in his shoulder.

Anastos retrieved the tablet from a desk beside him, running his finger over the screen to bring it to life. “Before I kill you I want you to see what Kevin is going to do,” the multimillionaire said with a feral snarl, turning the screen toward John.

And there was very little John could do but watch, watch as Cyril Anastos reached out to the man in Theodora’s room and gave the order.

The command to kill his wife.

“Do it, Kevin,” Anastos’ voice commanded from the phone. “Kill the bitch, and make sure we can see it happen.”

Kevin smiled. He hadn’t been sure he would actually get to kill the woman, and reveled in the pleasant surprise.

“Will do, Mr. Anastos, sir,” he answered cheerily as he stepped toward the bed where Theodora was lying.

He’d been working for Mr. Anastos for the last ten years or so, and had never had a better boss. It was as if his employer had been able to see deep down into his soul, and could tell the kinds of jobs he would be perfect for.

Within the first few weeks of employment, Kevin had enjoyed participating in arson, witness intimidation, and good old-fashioned murder. He knew a good boss when he’d found one, and Mr. Anastos was a keeper.

“All right, sleepyhead,” Kevin said as he pointed his phone at the woman before him. “Why don’t we make this all the more permanent?”

He held the phone with one hand, and with the other slowly moved a hypodermic needle closer to Theodora’s exposed neck. He was sure to move it extra slowly, wanting the woman’s husband to get a good look at what was about to happen. That would teach him to piss off his employer. Served him right.

The tip of the needle was just about to prick the pale flesh of the sleeping woman’s neck when— “Excuse me,” a man said as he opened the door and entered the room. “Have you seen Dr. Fine—”

“No,” Kevin said, quickly putting the hand with the syringe behind his back, not sure how much the man had seen but secretly hoping for another opportunity to kill.

“Or Dr. Howard?”

“No, I really haven’t any idea where—”

“Or the other Dr. Fine?”

“No, they’re not here, and they haven’t been here,” Kevin said, annoyed by the interruption. “Maybe the receptionist upstairs . . .”

The man approached the side of the bed, looking down on the woman as if Kevin hadn’t said a word. “She’s really out, isn’t she? Doesn’t have a clue that you’re not supposed to be in here.”

Kevin reacted instantly. He launched himself at the man, fully prepared to waste some of the drug he was going to use on the woman.

But the man was fast, in one movement stepping to the side and taking hold of Kevin’s arm as he lunged, bending it painfully back, forcing him to drop the needle.

“I found the security guard you knocked unconscious and put in the supply closet,” the stranger said as Kevin struggled to free himself. “Looks like he got off easy. Mild concussion, maybe black eyes, but I think he’ll be all right.”

Kevin managed to free his arm, twisting himself around and bringing his knee up into the man’s stomach.

The man avoided the worst of it, bringing his hands down to slow the thrust.

“But Ms. Knight here,” the man said, driving an elbow into Kevin’s face and knocking him back. “I don’t think she was going to be as lucky.”

Kevin managed to slip the folding knife from his back pocket and snapped open the blade. He lunged at the stranger, and again the man proved faster. He sidestepped Kevin’s dive, then moved in close to deliver a teeth-vibrating blow to the side of Kevin’s face.

But Kevin was not to be outdone. He recovered quickly enough to slash the finely honed blade smoothly across the man’s side. He heard a satisfying hiss of pain as the man stumbled back, looking down at the crimson stain already spreading across his green scrub top. Not wasting any more time, Kevin went at him again, determined that this man would fall.

Despite his injury, the man seemed to be ready again, but Kevin was relentless, slashing with the knife as the man struggled to disarm him. The man was soon covered with multiple gashes that wept freely.
It won’t be long now,
Kevin guessed.

He had to admire this man; he was a good fighter. He couldn’t think of the last time anybody had been able to put up this much of a struggle. It seemed kind of a shame to kill him. If they had met under different circumstances, they have might have been friends.

But now wasn’t the time for friendship.

Their skirmish had taken them across the room to the unconscious woman’s bed. Kevin used his weight to push the man backward against the bedrails, where he lost his balance and fell atop the sleeping woman. Kevin bore down upon his foe, blade ready to part the pale flesh of the man’s neck. Briefly he noted the scarring beneath the stranger’s shirt as the man fiercely struggled. He managed to raise his hand just as Kevin slashed, cutting a bloody line across the taut flesh of the man’s palm. Blood sprayed from the gash, covering the bed and the sleeping woman’s pale face.

Kevin couldn’t help staring at the woman. There was something eerily beautiful about the paleness of her flesh, adorned with the blood of his enemy.

He was taken aback when her eyes suddenly opened, and the corners of her mouth began to twitch. Kevin thought that she was starting to smile at him.

But then he saw the teeth.

There were far more inside her mouth than there should have been.

Griffin Royce had never again wanted to be in this hospital room with the likes of Theodora Knight. His one visit, when Elijah had sent him to confirm the reports of the woman’s condition, had been more than enough.

But here he was, back in the hospital room he’d sworn never to return to, fighting for his life.

He would rather have been chauffeuring Elijah around Romania, but instead he’d been sent back to the States to ensure the safety of the woman whose husband had been caught up in a situation that he hadn’t quite understood.

Griffin had known there was a chance things might get rough, but he had never imagined the extent.

The guy in the room with Fogg’s wife was a killer, there was no doubt about it, and now Griffin had to not only keep the woman alive, but himself as well.

He had considered bringing a gun, but thought that his hand-to-hand skills would have been more than sufficient to handle the likes of anyone sent to harm Mrs. Knight.

Note to self, always bring a gun.
The knife glided across the palm of his hand, opening his skin like a mouth, and he barely felt it. It was the blood spraying from the wound over the face of the woman he was supposed to be protecting that alerted him to the severity of the injury. Jamming the injured hand beneath his armpit to squelch the bleeding, Griffin threw himself backward, rolling over the woman and off the opposite side of the bed.

He quickly jumped to his feet, ready for whatever would come next, or at least he believed himself to be. He watched as his foe stood perfectly still, staring down at the woman he was sent to kill.

And that was when Griffin noticed that she was awake, her mouth widening in an enormous grin, but strangely enough it didn’t stop there. The smile grew wider, and wider, and it appeared as if the woman’s face had been somehow cut in two, and then he saw the teeth.

It was like looking into the grin of a great white shark.

Griffin and the hired killer both saw, and both understood, the severity of the moment, their eyes meeting briefly before— The woman surged up from the bed, her movement so fast that it was a blur. Griffin jumped backward, stopping only when his back hit the wall. He froze, observing his foe’s fate from what he prayed would be a safe distance.