Authors: SM Reine
“The summit is your problem, not mine.”
“Sure, but they’ve taken over Silver Wells. There’s also going be a lot of traffic through the state for the next few months. The travel licenses between Hell and Earth have been sold out and demons are starting to move in.”
Elise and James exchanged glances. “Do you have a list of the summit participants?”
“My friend on the board gave me one. I can email it to you. Long story short, there might be some folk who recognize you. If you want to stay out of trouble, you better be careful.”
Elise massaged her temple. “Great. Thanks.”
“Leticia wants to talk to you. Here you go.”
She talked with McIntyre’s wife for a few minutes. Leticia chatted about Dana, their first child, and the names they were planning for the second one, due around Thanksgiving.
When she couldn’t tolerate any more family gossip, Elise said, “I’m going to get going. Tell Lucas thanks.”
“We’re thrilled to help,” Leticia said. “You haven’t visited us in years. Promise you’ll come down soon so we can catch up?”
“Of course. Talk to you later.” Elise handed James the phone. “I’ll visit them as soon as Hell throws us a pizza party. Did you call McIntyre, or did he call you?”
“He called me. He doesn’t have your number anymore.”
“That’s not an accident. I don’t want anything to do with this. And you should have told me you were going to have the witches over during breakfast.” She barely refrained from remarking on Stephanie’s shoes.
James frowned. “I hoped you would come with us today.”
“Nobody else needs to know that I’m a kopis and exorcist. The Ramirezes are bad enough.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Elise…”
“I’m going to the office to do some work.”
“Are you angry about Stephanie?” he asked. She left the room without responding, but he followed. “Won’t you at least eat something before you go?”
Elise grabbed a piece of bacon off a plate on the counter and bit off the end. The witches were all standing in the living room now, and they pretended not to notice that James and Elise were obviously arguing.
“Feel free to call me when you finish if you’re not too busy fucking around,” she said, tearing her sweater off the hook by the door.
She slammed the door shut behind her.
VII
E
ven though it
was drizzling again, Augustin Ramirez was waiting outside when James and arrived with the coven. The umbrella on his deck’s dining set was folded down. Raindrops rippled in a tall glass of amber liquor.
He lifted his head from his hands when they approached. “What took you so long?” he asked.
Stephanie didn’t bother hiding her severe frown. “We needed to confirm your daughter’s health condition, since you wouldn’t cooperate with us. Where is she now?”
Augustin waved vaguely at the front door of the house.
“Can we go in?” James asked.
The lawyer nodded and let his head drop on his folded arms. Ann was the first through the door, hurrying inside as though she was allergic to rain. Morrighan followed, holding her bag of supplies over her head as a makeshift umbrella.
James hesitated by Augustin. “Has anything changed?”
“Why can’t you people just leave us alone?” Augustin asked without looking up. “We were fine two weeks ago. Lucinde had a ballet recital. She was fine.”
It was hard to get angry when he looked so pathetic. “Hopefully we can leave you alone very soon, Mr. Ramirez,” James said. “This shouldn’t take long. Would you please come inside with us? The weather is only going to get worse.”
Augustin didn’t move.
James went inside to find the other three witches clustered near the front door, huddled together for support. He couldn’t blame them—the house had been miserable when he first visited, but it had gotten worse. The air was freezing. It smelled stale. Every window was closed and the lights were turned off.
And they could hear screaming.
All of them turned to look at the stairs. Something heavy was banged against the floor, and each thud made the wall photos bounce and rattle. One had already fallen off its nail and shattered on the steps.
That noise didn’t sound like it came out of the lungs of a little girl. It didn’t sound like it came from a human at all.
“I’m going to check on Lucinde,” Stephanie said, but she didn’t go for the stairs. Instead, she slid back until she could grab James’s hand with clammy fingers.
A slip of paper on the mantle caught his eye. It was Elise’s business card. James slipped it into his pocket, hoping nobody would notice, but Ann was watching.
“Where’s Marisa?” she asked.
“She’s most likely upstairs with her daughter.” James took a deep breath and straightened his back. “Right. Let’s get this done. Morrighan and Ann, bring out the smudges. I’ll find somewhere to cast the circle.”
His orders were enough to get everyone moving. They broke apart. Stephanie crept upstairs while Morrighan began removing things from her duffle bag. “Think we can open the windows and stuff?” she asked. “Everything in here now is doused with negative energy. It’s horrible.”
“Hold onto that thought. We should speak to Marisa first,” he said.
Stephanie reappeared on the landing almost as soon as she left. “James?”
He joined her upstairs. The air felt heavier in the hallway, like James was moving through thick, murky water. He had to struggle to breathe.
“What’s wrong?”
Stephanie pointed. He peered down the dark hall to see a shadowy form huddled against Lucinde’s door. Marisa.
James kneeled beside her. Her eyes were puffy and her nail polish had been chipped off until there were only a few flakes left. She hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s getting worse,” she whispered. He could barely hear her over the screaming and pounding.
“We’re going to cleanse your house of all these negative energies and drive out whatever is hurting your daughter.” He didn’t speak with any conviction. He wished that Elise would have come.
When James moved to stand, she grabbed his arm, holding him in place. “You don’t understand. It’s not supposed to get worse. She’s supposed to get better.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
Marisa’s chin quivered. “She’s going to die.”
“Nobody is going to die. We’re going to open the curtains and windows. All right?”
“No! You can’t do that! You’ll hurt her, and she’s already…” Her chest hitched. “She’s already in so much pain. This isn’t supposed to happen. She’s supposed to get
better
.”
James didn’t realize Stephanie was standing behind him until she spoke. “I should check on your daughter.”
Marisa shook her head. “She’s out of control.”
“I’m used to difficult patients.”
He cut off Stephanie with a slash of his hand. “This isn’t the time. Will you help us with the ritual, Marisa?”
She shook her head. A line of white rimmed her lips.
When they returned to Ann and Morrighan, they were parting the curtains and throwing open the windows. They had already positioned censers in every doorway. The smell of white sage drifted through the air. Lucinde screamed louder.
James did a quick search of the rooms downstairs and decided to cast the circle in the kitchen, where a ring of salt would be the easiest to clean up. It was also positioned directly beneath Lucinde’s room.
He and Stephanie lit candles, laid out stones on each of the cardinal directions, and called the other witches into the kitchen without closing the circle. He handed each of them photocopies of the ritual. “You three should stay down here within the protection of the circle,” he said. “Focus on the incantation.”
“What are you going to do?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Ann paled. “Is that a good idea?”
He didn’t think it was, but James smiled and nodded anyway. “Of course. You can begin the ritual as soon as I’m gone.”
Stephanie sealed the circle behind him. The three women began chanting together. James could have spoken it along with them without glancing at the Book of Shadows—he had written the ritual himself, and they had used it before to great success.
Of course, they had never had to cleanse anything as horrible as Lucinde before, either.
With every step he took toward the locked bedroom, James became more and more certain that the ritual would be ineffective. The idea of using traditional magic against whatever had seized the house seemed ridiculous. It was like waving a cardboard sword at a dragon.
Marisa had vanished from the hallway upstairs. A cold fist clenched in his chest.
And Lucinde suddenly fell silent.
He froze for a moment, heart pounding. He strained to hear something within her room—a hint of motion, or a whimper. But there was nothing.
Her door was unlocked. He pushed it open.
His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. The portable swamp cooler was on its side. Something dark was on the white bed sheets—something wet.
And the little girl was crouched in the center of it.
She grinned. Her teeth were stained red.
“Lucinde?” James asked. He wasn’t speaking to Augustin Ramirez’s daughter. He dropped his voice, hand tight on the doorknob. “What are you?”
“I am the cold kiss of Death,” she rasped. “And you’re next, James Faulkner.”
She leaped off the bed with a shriek, hands extended.
He jumped back and slammed the door shut. Her body thumped into the other side. The wood groaned and the entire house shuddered from the impact.
Downstairs, the witches weren’t chanting anymore.
“I told you, she’s going to die,” Marisa whispered. James spun to see her wavering in her doorway. He thought her hands looked bloody, too, but the vision cleared when he blinked. She was clean.
Lucinde was screaming again.
“What happened?” Stephanie asked when he came downstairs. All the candles had gone out, but there was no other indication anything had changed.
“Pack up. We can’t do anything,” James said grimly.
“What are you going to do?” Ann asked as Morrighan grabbed a broom and began to sweep up the salt. James didn’t know how to respond.
Elise was wrong. Lucinde was definitely possessed.
Augustin didn’t look up when they left the front door. Stephanie was dragging her feet, reluctant to leave without checking on Lucinde, but James kept a firm grip on her arm so she couldn’t go back. He had seen possessions leap between people before.
“I’m going to return with reinforcements,” James told Augustin while the other witches loaded the car. “I’m sorry.”
The lawyer stood silently, went inside, and locked the door. By the time they pulled away, all the windows and curtains were shut again.
VIII
T
he parking lot
outside Elise’s office was empty when she arrived, so she didn’t have to hide the stack of unusual books she carried into her office: The Infernal Lexicon and Hume’s Almanac, both of which were large, leather-bound texts that could hardly pass as light reading.
She shut her office door with a hip bump and settled in to reread the list McIntyre had sent her. Elise recognized many of the demons without looking them up; her father had drilled her on many of them as a child. The shedu had no interest in the dead, nor did Aquiel and his kin, and she marked them off. Those too weak to command fiends were also immediately crossed out. She halved the list in minutes.
Even after her eliminations, hundreds remained. It could take days to check them all.
Considering the alternative was following James around while he tried to relive his glorious youth of saving people, she decided she would much rather have the tedium. Elise started a pot of coffee, found a notebook, and began to work.
For hours, she searched. Elise immersed herself in the lore of Hell as shadows crept across her office floor, filling and refilling her mug. She covered an entire notebook page with writing. Then another. And another. Outside, the clouds moved in, and the sun inched toward the mountains. By the time she started on her third pot of coffee, her handwriting looked more like a series of tiny, angry slashes than language.
After a while, her attention wandered. Demons were boring. Elise had recently downloaded a book on ethereal lore, so she started researching the names of the angelic attendants instead. A single angel could match a thousand demons in power, but their snobbish attitudes meant they seldom lowered themselves to visiting the earthen planes.
Ethereal mythology was much more interesting than that of their infernal counterparts. A couple big names were going to the summit. Gabriel himself would make an appearance.
She read his section in her book, then scanned up to the Metaraon—the voice of God. There was an engraving of his face, unmerciful and cold. It gave her chills.
Elise had read his chapter before. He hired architects to construct seven angelic cities on Earth. There weren’t any left—the angels abandoned them in centuries past. But there were supposed to be ruins left in some places.
In fact, they said angelic ruins were buried deep below the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Elise stared at the Metaraon’s face and drummed a pen against her desk.
The ruins should have prevented most demons from possessing anyone nearby. It wouldn’t be any minor lord stealing bodies and attacking Lucinde. Whatever it was had to be huge.
Her door opened, and Elise’s hand dropped to a hidden dagger. The visitor came in back-first, but she recognized his broad shoulders and dirty shoes.
“Knock, knock,” Anthony said. He cradled two large coffees and a brown bag to his chest, and he set them on the edge of her desk with a smile. “What are you doing?”
“Anthony,” Elise said, flipping over her notebook and sliding it on top of the Infernal Lexicon. “Hey. I’m just doing some work.”
A smile played at the corners of his lips. His hair was extra tousled, his t-shirt wrinkled, and there was an oily hand print on his jeans. “Secret work?”
“No.” She didn’t try to sound convincing, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Betty told me you were working on the weekend,” Anthony said, offering one of the coffees to her. “I thought you might need some energy…but I can see that’s not really a problem.” Dirty mugs were scattered around her office, and a new pot was percolating on her filing cabinet.