Night of the Demon: Paranormal Romance (Devon Slaughter Book 2) (9 page)

THE LIBRARY was the best place on the ninth floor, and the
most unpopular. You hardly ever ran into anyone there. It was plush and
inviting; no windows, just rows and rows of books, tables with lamps and
comfortable chairs.

Jep said most of the books were imported from the human
world. “They come in by the truckload,” he told me. It was just a figure of
speech. There were no trucks in the realm. The realm seemed to be designed
after the human world in many ways, but only to a certain aesthetic point. Angels
liked beauty.

I didn't ask to use the computer. I browsed books instead.
My plan was to pick a hefty one and settle in to read. Maybe I couldn't outrun
Jep but I could out-read him.  

He was almost finished with his realm rag which wasn't
unlike rags in the human world—spoon-fed politics and gossip.

I found the perfect tome and dropped it on the table.

“What the hell is that?”

“
Moby Dick
,” I said, pulling out a chair.

“Are you shitting me? Read the cliff notes, dude.” He eyed
the book with disbelief. “You ought to bench press that fucker.”

“Yeah, I know. This version has a sequel.”

His eyebrows shot up. “That's just wrong.”

“Don't you think
Moby Dick
begged for a sequel? The
end was a real buzz kill.”

Jep shook his head. “If you got your jollies from
anything
in the original
Moby Dick
, there's no hope for you.” He went back to his
magazine.

Curious, I flipped to Part Two, written by an angel scholar.
I wondered how many of the imported books had been doctored or embellished.

Like I figured, Jep soon got restless. “Need a power bar?”
he said.

“Yeah.”

A light came into his eyes at the thought of a trip to the
mess hall. He stood up and stretched. There was a chance that, relieved of my
company, he might scoot upstairs and grab a real meal in the cafeteria, where I
wasn’t allowed until I passed assimilation.

“Hey, I’d better get online and study for that Poli-Sci
exam,” I said, like I just thought of it. “Mind logging me in?”

Old Jep, God love him
. His eyes narrowed. “Nah,
better wait ‘til I get back.”  

I guess the muscles in his brain were as strong as the rest
of him.

“Sure,” I turned another page of
Moby Dick
,
extended
.

When he’d gone, I cast a glance around. I’d thought quite a
bit about possible ways to lift and copy Jep’s fingerprints but I simply didn’t
have any useful tools at my disposal … to do
anything
, let alone
something so complicated.

The library contained only books and sleek computers I
couldn’t use on my own. The truth was, the celestial internet would probably be
of no use to me. Angels weren’t stupid.

The idea of discovering some smidgen of a clue that might
spring me from the prison of my personal hell was just a pipe dream, maybe even
a way to occupy my restless mind, a way to distract myself from the worry over
what would happen next

When I heard movement behind me, I turned, expecting to see
Jep with a handful of power bars, and maybe a green drink. Nutrition on the
ninth floor was an exact (and disgusting) science.

But I didn’t find Jep, I found Claudia, coming down the
steps.

She waved, like a princess in a parade. A dark princess. She
wore black, the color of an assimilated demon; black dress, black tights,
sturdy black shoes, even a black cap that was too small to contain her
dreadlocks. 

“Surprise,” she slipped into a chair on the other side of
the table and grabbed both my hands. I let her, though it felt strange, as if
we were old friends, when we’d barely met.

She glanced past me, toward the door, then released my hands
and took off her cap. “Gross, right?”

She was the opposite of gross. Her eyes were so luminous,
her lashes so long, her lips so red, it was hard to believe she wasn’t wearing
make-up. But demons weren’t allowed to adorn themselves, so I assumed she
wasn’t.

“Did they spare you the dungeon?” I said.

“
Hell
no. What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you
learned anything yet? Do the crime, do the time. And take your lickings.”

“Lickings? Did they
beat
you?” I looked for signs of
bruising but most of her flesh was covered.

“I got whipped a few times. On my back.”

My mind spun. “What—is that … legal?”

“Legal? You’re such a cutie.” 

“But—”

 “You’re still in the brainwashing phase, aren’t you? All
that crap they teach you about laws. Constitution this and constitution that,
blah
… the covenant of the archangels. Surely, you didn’t think any of it was for
your benefit? Go back and read the fine print. See if you can find a single
right for demons. News flash. You’re not a citizen in the realm any more than a
dog is a citizen in the good ole U.S. of A. Angels created demons to
serve
them. Simple as that.”

Despite my fears, or maybe because of them, I’d wanted to
believe I had a chance, if I stayed. I’d even held onto the idea I’d be part of
a cause, a cog in the wheel of change.

But say I made it in the New Army? What if I became a symbol
for the progressive movement? What was the point, in the end? An all-expense
paid trip to the human world to kill my own kind?

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Claudia said. I heard the sadness in
her voice. “I’ll get you through. Don’t worry. There are ways to have fun and I
know them all.”

“Fun?”

“Enjoyment out of life. Whatever you call it.” But her
sparkle had faded. I’d depressed her.

“So. What’s with the hat?” I said.

She rewarded me with a wan smile. “I’m a maid in a very
grand house.” 

ZADIE TOSSED and turned on the California King in her suite.
Sunlight glared through the crack in the black-out curtains.

It was late when she and Inka had come back from the desert
and stumbled into the casino. There’d been no time to visit Devon’s building
but the information on that small slip of paper tore through Zadie’s dreams.

Ruby Rain … Ruby
. 

The girl was alive and this is what tortured Zadie, as she
tried to find a comfortable spot on the mattress. She pictured Ruby as a more
beautiful version of herself, which, in reality, was impossible. The girl was
only human.

She woke out of sorts.

Inka roused her early, pulling back the covers. “Come. Put
on your party dress. We’ve got things to do and a
certain
person to
see.”

Twilight streaked the sky purple and gray, as they drove
across the bridge. Lights sparkled on the water. Traffic was jammed up, as
humans made their way home from work or out to dinner.

“You’re a real buzz kill, Zadie,” Inka said. “I wish you’d
snap out of it. It’s good we know about the girl. You can thank me later. When
you pull your head out of your ass.”

“I’ll thank you when she’s dead.”

“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your pretty little face.
We can have plenty of fun torturing her, but we are not going to kill her. No,
no,
no
. We are going to use her to lure Devon out of wherever he is
hiding.”

Zadie drove, her knuckles white, as she gripped the steering
wheel. “You think the girl is that important to Devon?”

Inka was quiet.

“You really don’t think the angels … you know, slayed
Devon?” Zadie said.

“Listen. If you were to be stabbed in the heart with a
wooden stake, Ishtar forbid, I would know. I would feel it in my bones the
exact moment
your
bones crumbled to ash. It is the same with Devon. You
are both my progeny. He is not dead.”

Zadie slowed. There was a snarl in the middle of the bridge.
A van had stalled in the outer lane. The man behind them honked. Zadie stuck
her arm out the window and raised her middle finger. She had half a mind to rip
the idiot from his car and throw him off the bridge. Humans had no idea how
thin a line they walked. Or drove, in this case.

“But … but do you think he was
captured
?” she said.

“The northern portal is no longer a viable escape route. It
hasn’t been used for centuries. This is the last place the angels will come.”

Traffic moved again and Zadie turned right off the bridge,
toward China Town.

“I have the sense Devon is quite well,” Inka went on, her
voice full of arrogance. “Wherever he is. You must trust my instincts. This
human girl is our only link to Devon. We cannot kill her. Yet.”

A part of Zadie trusted Inka but another part of her
believed her bond with Devon was stronger than Inka’s. She disagreed with
Inka’s
sense
of Devon’s well-being. Something was very wrong, or Devon
would be with them now. Of course, Zadie also wanted to get rid of the human
girl, whose existence she considered a personal affront. 

“Turn left at the stoplight,” Inka said. “Onto Irving.”

It was the oldest part of the city. The buildings were made
of stone and brick. Windows were lit in a homey way. The street lights were
imitation gas lamps, Victorian era. The neighborhood had been gentrified, and
high end European cars were parked on the street. Potted flowers decorated
windowsills and porches.

“There it is. 1975 Irving. Pull over, Zadie. Oh, I see a
spot. Park in front of the dumpster.”

The building was unoccupied but workers had been there
during the day. It was being remodeled. A heavy lock hung on the door. Zadie
broke it and hurled it off the porch, into the bushes.

Inside, they left footprints in the dust from the recent
construction. They went through all the rooms and Zadie became morose. Devon’s
presence was everywhere. “He hasn’t been gone long,” she said, despair caving
inside her. How had she missed him? 

“He’s coming back,” Inka said.

“Who’s having the renovations done?” Zadie’s tone was
clipped.

“We’ll see soon enough. Come here.”

They were upstairs and Inka stood in front of one of the
long rectangular windows facing the street. Zadie sidled next to her.

“There she is,” Inka pointed. “Ruby Rain. See her playing
the piano?”

Zadie frowned. Something cold pressed against her heart.
“Are you sure that’s her?”

“Yes.”

“She isn’t even beautiful,” Zadie said.  

“She’s a scrawny thing,” Inka agreed. “But you were scrawny
too. As a human. I think it must be what our Devon likes. Human frailty. Ruby
will be frail indeed. By the time we’re done with her.” 

ON MONDAY, Melissa Wong came to see me during lunch. “You
always hide out in here,” she said. “I never see you in the lounge, or even in
the library. What gives?”

I shrugged. “Trust me, no one misses my presence.”

“Not even Henry?” she winked.

I smiled. Wong was on the nosy side, but I couldn’t help but
like her. As I’d got to know her better, I saw that no matter what, she meant
well. She was a bubbly kind of person who said whatever came to her. I was in
no position to condemn her for being clumsy on occasion.

She carried a folder and opened it to pull out a shiny piece
of paper, which she held up. “Ta-dah.”

I grabbed it from her. “Oh!”

It was a poster, featuring nine black umbrellas under red
(ruby) raindrops. The lettering was austere and Gothic. 

Nine Girls

Nine Stories

TEAM RAIN

9-midnight

Downtown Café

Saturday

Open Mic

“It’s gorgeous,” I looked for the artist’s signature and
found it in the corner, a red rose. My breath caught.
Scarlet
.

A vision lit up in my mind; stars across the sky, the desert
cool and glistening. It was a view I must have glimpsed from Coffeen. The sanitarium
was on the edge of the desert. I used to look out from the top floor, at night,
when I couldn’t sleep.

Loneliness engulfed me.

It was as if I'd already met my soul, and loved and lost.
But it was only a feeling of emptiness, I realized. Not a memory, but regret,
the difference between Henry and the one I had yet to meet.

Catherine had felt the same about Heathcliff who was not the
man she would marry. That man, she said, was as different from Heathcliff “
as
a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire
.”

Grief threatened to rip open inside me. I knew if I let
myself shed a single tear, I might never stop crying.

I envisioned my tears as red as the raindrops on the poster.

“Ruby, what’s wrong?”

I laid the paper down, and stared at a spot on my desk. One
look at Wong, and I would lose it.

But she wouldn’t let me be. I was aware of her getting up.
She smelled like French perfume, something light, and floral. She was behind
me. Her arms came around my neck. “Oh, Ruby, I’m so sorry,” she said, into my
hair.

She had done it, unleashed my sorrow.

Tears coursed down my face, unstoppable. I choked on them. I
gasped tiny breaths. 

“What is it, Ruby? What
is
it?” Wong’s voice
trembled. She stroked my hair.

I thought of Henry’s insensitive hands, his face above mine,
as he thrust himself into me. At the time, it had felt only fumbling and
awkward. Not so much a disappointment, as unexpected, the opposite of what I’d
fantasized a million times.

But in this moment, it seemed a horror, like a scar exposed in
the unforgiving glare of the sun. 

* * *

I clenched the steering wheel as I descended into the
dungeon of the parking garage.

It took four turns to get to my space. I didn’t like the
number four, with its hard lines and sharp points. Maybe because my grandmother
and mother and I had always been three. Any fourth person who had come into our
lives got eliminated. One way or another. And the number three just
looked
friendlier. Two smiles, one on top of another.

But counting things for good luck was superstitious. Not to
mention OCD.

I steered my car around and around. With each turn, I went
deeper underground. I tried not to think about the fact that there was no way
out should the random, strange and tragic happen.

No matter what Dr. Sinclair said, the random, strange and
tragic
did
happen. Therefore, it had to happen to someone. Why should I
imagine that someone wouldn’t be me?

At last, I arrived at my space marked by a silver name plate
on the burnished concrete wall. Pulling in gave me a surge of pleasure.

I lived here. On my own. In charge.

The universe unfolds as it should
.

I sat in the silence and took a moment to enjoy the curve of
the letters on my plaque—R. Rain.

It’s all going to be okay
.

And then I heard (and felt beneath my seat) the thump of
bass coming from an encroaching car.

Above me, tires squealed around every corner.

The car got closer. The music got louder.

I snatched my bag from the seat and debated whether or not I
had time to get my valise too. I didn’t want to leave it behind but I couldn’t
lug a suitcase full of books up twelve flights of stairs.

I should make a bee-line for the elevator, I thought. Because
that is life. You have to do what you have to do, even when you don’t like it.

I debated too long, standing there, next to my Cadillac .

The on-coming car raced around the last corner, a giant
white SUV—Cadillac Escalade. Bass pounded from its dark interior and went
straight through me, electrifying and hypnotic at the same time.

I stared, frozen, as the car came straight at me.
Unbelievably, it slowed, as if
I
was the destination.

The driver’s tinted window slid down.

Hip hop music spilled out.

The tragic headline flashed across my mind:
Ill-Fated
School Teacher in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.

“Hell-
lo
,” the driver surprised me by being a woman.
A beautiful woman with white blonde hair wisping around her heart-shaped face.
She looked a little ragged; no make-up, hair mussed. Her golden eyes had a wild
glean. Yet her smile struck heat into my belly.

I had the absurd thought that she could save me from
something. I got a crazy idea to hop into her car, obnoxious music and all, and
ride away with her somewhere. Anywhere. 

And I also realized she could be the doom I’d been desperately
trying to avoid all my life. I reached behind me for the handle of my car.

She made a movement and the music faded. “Sweet ride,” she
said.

A face, framed by short black hair, peeped around her from
the passenger side. “Come here,” the woman said. “Come on, I want to show you
something. Don’t be afraid.” She leaned across the blonde’s lap.

Against my will, I stepped closer.

She had huge, dark eyes. Her full lips were painted red. She
lifted a pipe to her lush mouth with hands that were surprisingly large (nails
sharp, like blood red talons) and blew a puff of smoke at me. The smell
reminded me of the pot my college roommate had smoked, only sweeter and more
cloying.

I stepped back. They laughed.

“Want to party?” the blonde said.

I blinked. A strange heaviness came over me, like my limbs
had thickened. Still, I managed to shake my head.

The blonde lifted a brown bottle. “Maybe you prefer to
drink?” She held the bottle out to me, through the window. “Try it,” she said.
“It’s just a little Spanish Fly. To make you feel good.”

My heart fluttered. I shook my head again.

She took a swig and tossed her head, as if to show me how
good she felt. 

“You’re missing out,” the dark one said.

Now, I nodded. I figured I probably was.

I couldn’t make my mouth form words. My mind raced but my
body was slow to respond. 

The music came back on, even louder. The SUV roared off.

I sank against my car, thinking I had narrowly escaped.

Some part of me wished I hadn’t.

Some part of me wanted to be whisked away into the night. 

Later, in bed, I tossed and turned. My dream was darkly
beautiful, caught somewhere between my greatest fantasy and my worst nightmare.
I dreamed I drank from the bottle. I said
yes
.

I climbed into the white Escalade—a chariot come to take me
home.

We drove down by the river, along the waterfront. Music
filled the car; hip-hop and reggae, rock, pop, opera and classical. We drove
with the radio station in constant flux.

We drove across the bridge. Starlight danced on the water. 

Plumes of red smoke billowed on the horizon.

The color red floated into the car and lit the blonde’s hair. 

I lost my sense of direction. We stopped somewhere. I didn’t
know where. I wasn’t afraid. I took nips of Spanish Fly. 

We were walking toward a
Pabst Blue Ribbon
sign.
Black water flowed under creaking boards. Music and voices spun around me. I
moved to the music. Bodies writhed on a dance floor. 

I was caught by strong arms.

“Ruby …
Ruby
…” someone whispered into my hair.

I couldn’t see him.

I held onto him; my arms looped around his neck, my cheek
pressed against his sweater. 

I wanted him.

I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything. 

He was my soul.

* * *

I woke, tangled in my sheets. The sweetest scent wafted from
my skin. I pulled the blankets tighter around me, like a cocoon. I yearned to
go back to that glittering dreamland. And never wake up again.