Kelly stared, open mouthed and dumbfounded, unable to respond.
Carrie smiled and though it was a thin smile, there was still a hint of genuineness about it. “That’s okay, you don’t have to answer. I can see in your face that you’re sorry. I get that, I really do. Let’s…let’s get a room and we’ll talk some more.” A cold amusement had slipped into her voice and coldly glittering eyes. “We’ll get it worked out.”
Carrie turned and flipped up her door handle but then turned back to Kelly. “We’re going to the office together. Don’t say a word or I’ll kill the clerk, okay?”
Kelly nodded.
“Okay, you can get out now.”
Kelly turned and fumbled at her door handle, finally getting it to lift. She felt as though she were moving underwater, the very air having grown dense and unforgiving. It was still early and the traffic on the highway was just beginning to build. Could she make it to the highway? If she ran now?
A hard something pushed into her side and Carrie put her lips to Kelly’s ear. She’d gotten around the car so fast! Kelly felt dizzy with fear and disorientation. How did she move so fast in those heels?
“I can read you like a book, honey,” Carrie said in her ear and now her voice was the aging whore, the madam, the worldly wise woman who has seen enough to know…well, everything there was to know about the dirty needs of humans. She pressed the pistol more firmly into Kelly’s side. “Don’t fuck up, honey, you’ll be killing lots more than just yourself if you do. Don’t forget that.”
Kelly nodded and the pistol left her side, but Carrie didn’t. She took Kelly’s hand. She looked at Kelly shyly from beneath her lashes.
“I never held hands with a girl before,” she said, her voice soft and wondering. She giggled. “It feels good,” she said and then her face changed again, from wide eyed wonder to smirking flirt. “Does the rest of you feel this good, honey?”
Kelly felt a fresh ripple of fear and then Carrie was pulling her forward, to the office.
* * *
Thomas had balked at letting a cat into his Mercedes. The anguish on his face was as intense as if someone had told him they were going to rape his mother–maybe more so.
“Its nails will go right through the leather!” he said, grief-stricken, as Sitri jumped from the front seat to the back. Sitri didn’t even spare him a glance, but he did stretch, tearing ten grooves into the padded back seat. Thomas groaned in despair.
“Get in,” the Devil said. He was enjoying the effect Sitri had on Evigan and was glad Sitri had come along. He glanced back to where the cat had stretched itself out across the seat. He thought about giving Sitri a pat on the head, certain the cat part of him would enjoy it, but he was uncertain as to how the Sitri part would react. Probably tear his fingers off. He satisfied himself with a quick nod in Sitri’s direction.
The cat winked.
Thomas was bent over his steering wheel, trying to think. She had stayed somewhere overnight, he was certain of that, and it had to be somewhat close by if she had planned all along on coming back this morning. She had said: “they won’t notice anything at that shithole”; what shithole did she mean? It couldn’t be any of the bed and breakfasts in Princeton proper; they were the antithesis of shitholes.
He felt time slipping through his fingers. He so badly wanted everything the Devil had promised him. So involved was he in the thought of obtaining his fantasies, that it never even occurred to him to wonder what would happen if he couldn’t uphold his end of the bargain.
“Which way did they go?” he asked and the Devil pointed down Nassau Street. “Okay, that way leads to Freegate Township; it’s a little rougher out there. I think we can find them at one of the motels on 206.” Shockingly, he laughed. “At least I hope so! I really want to be President!”
The Devil marveled at the intense self-absorption of this man. He felt the fire of Hell wanting to rise in him, the righteousness of judging this man, the right-ness of it.
A woman ran, screaming, in front of their car.
Thomas braked hard, sending Sitri sliding off the seat and into the wheel well. The Devil threw a hand out, bracing himself against the dashboard.
“Jesus Christ!” Thomas yelled as the woman kept running, almost getting hit by traffic in the opposite lane. Thomas glanced back the way she’d come from. Alden Brother’s…where he’d been last night. Another girl stood on the sidewalk, bent double and vomiting. A man was shouting into his cell phone. A strange sort of coldness drew a line up his back as he remembered the way Carrie had glanced at the waitress. She didn’t think he’d seen, but he had. Wouldn’t that be weird if…
“Let’s go,” the Devil said. “We’re not going to help them.” The Devil knew that what had just occurred was in some way tied to Carrie–he didn’t know how he knew, it was just intuition and piecing together the bits and pieces he could gather from Thomas’ train of thought.
The Devil couldn’t take his eyes from the road ahead of them. The white and yellow lines seemed to glow, rippling and pointing him in the right direction, and he knew he’d find Kelly. But something seemed to be gathering in the air around him, thickening it, and an answering tension was tying his body into cold knots.
He would find Kelly, yes, but would he be in time?
* * *
Carrie pushed Kelly ahead of her into the room. It was dark and Kelly stumbled against the bed, almost falling, but caught herself and stood, looking around.
The clerk hadn’t given Carrie any trouble; he’d seemed as mesmerized by her as a stray mongrel panting after a bitch in heat. He’d not even spared Kelly a glance as Carrie had laid the money down in exchange for the key.
Now Carrie turned on the light and turned to the window, making sure the curtains were tight to each other. The room was ugly; there was no other way to say it. It was decorated–if you could use that term–in brown, olive green, and orange that harkened back to the early seventies. In fact, many of the furnishings, bedspread included, had been here since the seventies. And it showed.
There was one lumpy queen bed, one pilly upholstered chair, one dresser with its ornate veneer peeling away, and a tube television so deep that they’d had to build an opening into the wall to accommodate its enormous backside.
The bedspread was a busy swirl of orange and brown with vines of acid green so vibrant that it almost shimmered. It gave Kelly the uneasy impression that it was moving.
Carrie pressed the gun into her lower back.
“Have a seat on the bed, honey,” she said. “Let’s get some things figured out.”
Kelly did as she was told and all the while her mind ran in frantic circles, trying to figure a way out. She didn’t think anything she said to Carrie was going to make a difference. Carrie was so far out of her mind that she couldn’t even see it with a telescope.
“Scoot your back right up against that headboard, honey, get comfy. I just need to, uh…” Carrie looked at the blank space of the room and then down at herself. “…this might work.”
She wiggled her fingers in under the lace placket where it had split a little from her jeans and tugged. The lace ripped another ten inches down the side. She pulled harder and ripped it right down to her ankle. Then she ripped it clear of the cuff. Now the jeans on her left leg flapped open from her hip to her ankle and when she walked, she flashed a pair of white cotton underwear with a pattern of pink and blue flowers at the waist and leg bands–incongruously innocent, little-girl panties. Then she bent to her right leg and ripped the length of lace from that side, too. Now both legs flared open and she looked as though she wore a wrap skirt but had forgotten half of it.
Coming to the far side of the bed, she told Kelly to put her hands out and she tied her wrists to the post on the headboard. Kelly half sat and half lay, twisted awkwardly. Her hands were pressed together at the level of her shoulders and her legs trailed down the bed. She looked like a praying mermaid.
Carrie drew the chair up to the side of the bed that Kelly faced and she sat, putting her feet on the bed at the bend in Kelly’s waist.
“I’m not gonna shoot you,” Carrie said and she smiled. “I bet you were worried about that, right? Even ugly chicks don’t want to get shot…too fucking messy, right?”
Kelly nodded, tears forming unbidden in her eyes. She clasped her hands and Carrie’s eyes went to them. Genuine unease flitted over her features and then was gone. She leaned forward, dropping her feet to the floor and placed her hand on Kelly’s breast. She stared into Kelly’s eyes.
“This is what they want,” she said, her voice confiding as though she were telling Kelly a secret. “They want to suck and suck and suck you…until you’re dead.” She caressed Kelly’s breast through the fabric of her blouse, her hand cupping and lifting it slightly. Kelly’s tears overflowed the banks of her lids and coursed freely down her cheeks.
“Carrie,” Kelly said, trying to still the tremble in her voice. “Not all of them; they aren’t all like that.”
Kelly’s nipple was pinched roughly and she hissed in a painful breath.
“You don’t know, you don’t know fucking anything, you want my tits, too? Huh? You fucking whore!” Carrie was standing, screaming, her red face thrust into Kelly’s. “You fucking whore! You fucking whore!” Kelly had pulled back as far as her tied hands would allow, but still Carrie came on, leaning over the bed, her hot dragon’s breath a nauseating vapor. Kelly shook and tried to hitch in a breath, but her diaphragm seemed locked. The change was so fast, so alarming, it stunned her. She felt as though she’d put her hand in a live socket.
Someone from the next room banged on the wall in frustration. Kelly drew in a breath to call out, but before she could even get the air in her lungs, Carrie had spun away from the bed, hands clenched into fists, her breath whining in and out in harsh gasps as spittle gathered on her lower lip.
“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU TOO YOU WANT THAT YOU FUCKING SHITHEAP MOTHERFUCKER YOU WANT ME TO COME THE FUCK OVER THERE?” She was the picture of rage. The knocker in the other room fell into silence.
Kelly’s mind felt wiped clean with terror and she could see nothing, think of nothing, save this creature who seemed made entirely of fury.
Carrie turned and her shoulders dropped, her hands unclenched, and she smiled at Kelly. Her face was still red, but even that was fading to a sallow yellow.
“Did I scare you?” Carrie said. She looked at Kelly with interest. Then she laughed.
Kelly knew there was no reasoning to be done with this monster. She knew she was going to die.
Carrie was back across the room in two strides. When she reached the bed, she didn’t stop, she climbed up and crawled across it. Kelly pressed herself back, feeling every bump and knob of the headboard and pulled in a breath to scream. She hadn’t wanted to get anyone else hurt or possibly killed, but her terror at this raging demon was too great. Then Carrie was on her, crawling up her, knees on either side of her waist. Carrie loomed over her, hot hands on Kelly’s throat and Kelly finally screamed but Carrie’s hands pressed and pressed, stopping the scream before it was begun. Slowly but surely, Carrie was cutting off her air. Kelly tried to draw a breath and found she couldn’t–the hands at her throat were too tight. She felt as though sharp knives were slicing up through her esophagus and she tasted blood in the back of her throat. She bucked, bringing her legs up, but Carrie hung on. Kelly bucked again, trying to kick and now Carrie was laughing, her eyes glittering wildly, riding her like a mechanical bull. Kelly’s throat burned and dots of purest black began to swarm her vision. She jerked her arms reflexively and the lace gave a quarter of an inch. A bloom of hope rose sweetly through the haze forming in Kelly’s mind and she yanked her arms again.
In her mind, the lace ripped and she pulled free, rolling Carrie off. She jumped up and ran for the door. It took her forever to get there, but when she did, she dragged it open to blinding white light and she stood, transfixed. She heaved in a deep breath and her throat did not hurt at all, the pain was gone. She looked back into the room, but the room was gone. Carrie was gone. She turned again and now even the door was gone. She turned in a slow circle.
Everything was gone.
Everything was silence and white light.
White light.
White light.
“Hello?” Kelly said.
* * *
The Devil felt a weight settle around him like a lead blanket of despair as Thomas pulled his car in next to Kelly’s. Room 215. The Devil knew Kelly was in room 215; he somehow just knew. But he couldn’t raise himself from this seat. His limbs felt numb. Too heavy. He lifted one arm toward the door handle. His fingers brushed across it and then dropped. Grayish white haze was filling his mind. Cloudy and cold. Like a heavy fog.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The question came to him like a shimmering echo, but flat. Faraway. Unconcerning.
“What the fuck man, are we going in there or not?”
Faraway. Unconcerning.
A hot needle of pain pierced the fog.
The Devil yelled and sat sharply forward, his hand going to the back of his neck. At the same instant, he had a painful, expelling sensation, like sneezing out an elephant, and then his mind cleared. He twisted and Sitri sat, licking the nails on his left paw. They were extended and wickedly sharp.
Sitri glanced at him, yellow eyes cool and considering, then he raised his gaze to the roof of the car. The Devil followed his gaze.
Christina, the Patron, hovered indistinctly, spread across the headliner like transparent honey. Tears coursed down her face and disappeared as they fell. Her eyes were wells of sorrow. She had tried a second time to stay the Devil and had failed.
Thomas was staring at her, wide eyed.
The Devil gritted his teeth at her and twisted the door handle, nearly snapping it off in his haste. He stumbled from the car, nearly fell, and scrambled to the front and the door of 215.
White light was seeping from around the doorframe, seeming to drip and puddle at the base of it. He staggered, blood draining from his face. He hadn’t seen that light in a very long time, the longest time, yet he remembered it…and he knew its purpose.