The Demonists (27 page)

I
t was their ten-year anniversary and they’d decided to celebrate. They had heard about the Blue Ox in Lynn from a few of their food critic friends and had decided to give it a try.

John sipped from his tumbler of whiskey, carefully watching his wife across the table from him for any signs that things might be turning sour. Between their own productions and the activities of the Coalition, they’d had very little personal time lately, and he wanted to make sure that it wasn’t too much for her.

“What?” she asked over her glass of red wine, as she caught him staring.

“Doing okay?” he asked.

“Doing fine,” she said. “The natives have been put to sleep,” she added, making reference to the demons that remained a part of her.

“How about you?”

He set his glass down. “I’m good,” he said, attempting a smile, attempting to make it seem as though everything really was just fine. Things had been relatively quiet since the Damakus affair, and he was seriously beginning to wonder. There had been some minor investigations: a haunted distillery in Boston, a possible bogart infestation in northern Maine, which had turned out to be raccoons. Odds and ends with a paranormal bent, but nothing that pointed to the level of danger that had been foreshadowed. He found it all a bit unnerving, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

“Even after ten years you haven’t gotten any better at it,” she said. “At what?”

“Lying.”

“And who’s lying?” he asked incredulously.

“There’s that face again,” she said with a laugh that made his heart beat triple time.

She had been doing better with her situation, experts from the Coalition flying in from time to time to offer her pointers on how to continue maintaining total control. She said that they helped her quite a bit, but then there would be the nights when she desperately needed to be alone, and would go down to a special room they’d set up for her in the mansion’s basement. A room that either he or Stephan would lock from the outside when the demons needed to stretch their talons. “Seriously, I’m fine,” he said, and they smiled at each other, each pretending that things were fine. That they had returned to how things used to be.

Their appetizers arrived: a heaping plate of lemon hummus, grilled pita, pickled vegetables, marinated olives, and olive oil. It was delicious, and they made short work of the plate.

Theo brought up anniversaries past, and they laughed with the memories. It was as if they were talking about old friends who had moved away—or died. Although there were laughs, there was a certain sadness to every recollection.

They shared a bottle of wine as they ate their meals. He had the special, which was an amazing rib eye, medium rare, with grilled asparagus and a lobster risotto, and she had the roasted Faroe Island salmon, Sardinian couscous, garlic, sautéed spinach, smoked tomatoes and basil, with lemon.

It was all incredibly delicious, and they both cleaned their plates. They contemplated dessert, but instead decided to sample an after-dinner wine, which was beyond sweet, and pleasant, and was accompanied by a story of the how the grapes were the last of the season, picked at the beginning of winter, with the harvesters wearing special linen gloves to protect the delicateness of the grapes. The wine was outstanding, as was the story that came with it. The manager that night, whose name was Charlie, stopped by the table to see how their evening had been, and they offered nothing but praise.

Then stepping out into the cool evening, they walked arm in arm to their car, neither of them speaking as they headed home to Marblehead.

The house was dark as they approached, Stephan having gone home hours before. They found a vase of flowers waiting for them in the kitchen as they came in, a note attached from Stephan and his husband.

“They’re beautiful,” Theo said, leaning in to sniff one of the flowers. He watched her as she moved, in awe of her, amazed that something so incredibly beautiful could belong to him.

But did she?

She caught him watching her again, but he didn’t look away. Theo smiled at him, and he thought he might’ve caught just the slightest hint of sadness there. He understood, especially on a night like this. They closed up the downstairs for the night, shutting off lights and setting the alarms, and he followed her up the winding staircase to their rooms.

Their rooms.

Since her possession, they hadn’t shared a room, or bed, the Coalition specialists believing it best that she gain a level of control over her situation before . . .

Theo stopped at her door.

“Happy anniversary,” she said to him.

“Happy anniversary,” he responded, leaning in to kiss her. Their lips touched, inflaming memories of other kisses, other anniversaries, of the way things used to be.

John started to pull away, but her arms came up, wrapping themselves around his neck and making the kiss last all the longer. He responded in kind, hungry for something other than an incredible meal.

But he knew that it couldn’t be that way.

He pulled his lips from hers, looking into her dark eyes. There was that sadness again. He wondered if she saw the same in his. “I’ve missed you,” she said so very softly, as if not wanting to be too loud and wake something up.

He kissed her again, not really knowing what to say. He missed her, too, the wife and lover who was the center of his world, the other half of his soul.

But she was gone now—changed.

As if in response to his thoughts, she spoke.

“I’m still here, John,” she said, her eyes wet with emotion. “I’m still here fighting to keep myself above it all, fighting to be who I was—but also who I will be.”

He held her tighter, understanding what she endured every single moment of her existence, willing his strength into her.

“I can’t do it alone, John,” she said. “I can’t win the battle without you.”

And he understood at that moment, more than he’d ever understood anything ever before.

He kissed her then, as he’d kissed her before, all the love and admiration he had for her flowing through his lips and into her. Giving her his strength to fight the darkness that was inside her, lending his light to hers.

And she took his hand, leading him into the darkness of the bedroom.

Their bedroom.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said to him, and he followed.

There was a battle to fight.

A war to win.

Brenna Isabel couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this—
right
. Sitting at her desk, reviewing the file on her latest investigation: a potential case of human sacrifice where it appeared that the bodies had been partially eaten by some sort of animal.

It was the some sort of animal part that had gotten her interest, and she had experts at the Smithsonian examining plaster casts of the bite wounds found on the victims’ remains. So far, everyone claimed to have never seen anything like them before.

She had an energy now that she hadn’t had in years. She guessed that it had something to do with the fact that she was eating better, exercising more, and drinking less.

And getting a decent night’s sleep.

She smiled at the thought of sleeping, believing the act had far more to do with her positive mental state than she cared to believe.

That and the dreams that accompanied it.

It shocked her how powerful dreams could be.

They’d started right after the Damakus abductions case was closed. They were always the same, which was perfectly fine with her.

She was in the cemetery where Ronan was buried, visiting his grave.

The cemetery was always beautiful in the dream, colorful flowers blooming, filling the air with the most fragrant of smells. And while she was admiring the beauty all around her, she could hear it, a baby’s gurgling coo. In the dream she was almost afraid to turn around, expecting there to be nobody there, but she was wrong.

There was . . .

An older woman standing by an ancient oak, holding a baby in her arms.

Brenna knew at once that the baby was her son . . . her lovely Ronan.

And the older woman smiled at her, bouncing the happy baby in her arms.

Brenna went to them, carefully walking between the graves, afraid that they would disappear as if they’d never been there—this was a dream, after all.

But they remained, and the old woman spoke to her. “We just wanted you to know that he’s fine,” she said, looking at the baby adoringly. “Nana won’t let anything happen to him.” Brenna stood there, adoring the sight of him in Nana’s arms. Nana. The older woman called herself Nana.

Brenna closed her eyes as she sat at her desk, remembering her dream.

“May I hold him?” she’d asked the woman.

Then he was with her again, so warm and filled with life in her arms. Brenna held him tight, never wanting to let him go, but knew that she must.

For this was only a dream.

Nana had smiled at her then, taking baby Ronan back from her.

The old woman told her that they would visit again, that all Brenna need do was to go to sleep and think of him.

And dream.

The knock on her door startled her. “Yes?” she called out.

Her boss stuck his head in the doorway. “You got a minute?” he asked.

She got up and followed the man down the hallway between the rows of workstations.

He was talking as he walked, telling her that her special department was about to be teamed up with an international bureau investigating the things that she did, but on a worldwide scale.

She didn’t get a chance to comment before he led her to another office door, telling her that her liaison was inside and that he wanted to meet her.

Agent Brenna Isabel watched as her boss gently knocked upon the door and pushed it open.

“Good luck,” he said, motioning her in, then turning quickly away.

She watched him disappear around the corner, then approached the open door.

“Hello?” she called out, pushing the door wider as she stepped in. The office was as sparse as hers. A figure stood behind the desk, looking out the window.

“Come in, Agent Isabel,” the older gentleman said, slowly turning around to address her.

She was immediately taken aback by the horrible scarring on the left side of his face, wondering what on earth could have done such damage.

He came around the desk, extending his hand.

“My name is Elijah,” he said, taking her hand in a powerful grip.

“And it appears we’re going to be working with each other.”

A KISS BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE,
a Remy Chandler Novel by Thomas E. Sniegoski. Available in print and e-book from Roc.

I
t was an unusually warm mid-September day in Boston. The kind of day that made one forget that the oft-harsh New England winter was on its way, just waiting around the corner, licking its lips and ready to pounce.

Remy Chandler sat in his car at the far end of the Sunbeam Motor Lodge parking lot, sipping his fourth cup of coffee and wishing he had a fifth. He could never have enough coffee. He loved the taste, the smell, the hot feeling as it slid down his throat first thing in the morning; coffee was way up there on his top-ten list of favorite things. A beautiful September day made the list as well. Days like today more than proved he had made the right choice in becoming human.

He reached down and turned up the volume on WBZ News Radio. Escalating violence in the Middle East was once again the headline, the latest attempts for peace shattered.
Big surprise,
Remy thought with a sigh, taking a sip from his coffee cup.
When hasn’t there been violence in that region of the world?
he reflected. For as long as he could remember, the bloodthirsty specter of death and intolerance had hovered over those lands. He had tried to talk with them once, but they used his appearance as yet another excuse to pick up knives and swords and hack one another to bits in the name of God. The private investigator shook his head. That was a long time ago, but it always made him sad to see how little things had changed.

To escape the news, he hit one of the preset buttons on the car’s radio. It was an oldies station; he found it faintly amusing that an “oldie” was a song recorded in the 1950s. Fats Domino was singing about finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill, as Remy took the last swig of coffee and gazed over at the motel.

He’d been working this case for two months, a simple surveillance gig—keep an eye on Peter Mountgomery, copy editor for the Bronson Liturgical Book Company, and husband suspected of infidelity. It wasn’t the most stimulating job, but it did help to pay the bills. Remy spent much of his day drinking coffee, keeping up with
Dilbert,
and maintaining a log of the man’s daily activities and contacts.
Ah, the thrilling life of the private gumshoe,
he thought, eyeing the maroon car parked in a space across the lot. So far, Mountgomery was guilty of nothing more than having lunch with his secretary, but the detective had a sinking feeling that was about to change.

A little after one that afternoon, Remy had followed Peter along the Jamaica Way and into the lot of the Sunbeam Motor Lodge. The man had parked his Ford Taurus in front of one of the rooms, and simply sat with the motor running. Remy had pulled past him and idled on the other side of the parking area, against a fence that separated the motor lodge from an overgrown vacant lot, littered with the rusting remains of cars and household appliances. Someone had tossed a bag of garbage over the fence, where it had burst like an overripe piece of fruit, spilling its contents.

The cries of birds pulled Remy’s attention away from Mountgomery to the trash-strewn lot. He watched as the hungry scavengers swooped down onto the discarded refuse, picking through the rotting scraps, and then climbing back into the air, navigating the sky with graceful ease.

For a sad instant, he remembered what it was like: the sound and the feel of mighty wings pounding the air. Flying was one of the only things he truly missed about his old life.

He turned his attention back to Mountgomery, just in time to see another car pull up alongside the editor’s.
Time to earn my two-fifty plus expenses,
he thought, watching as Peter’s secretary emerged from the vehicle. Then he picked up his camera from the passenger’s seat and began snapping pictures.

The woman stood stiffly beside the driver’s side of her boss’s car, looking nervously about as she waited to be acknowledged, finally reaching out to rap with a knuckle upon the window. The man got out of the car, but the couple said nothing to each other. Mountgomery was dressed in his usual work attire—dark suit, white shirt, and striped tie. He was forty-six years of age but looked older. In a light raincoat over a pretty floral-print dress, the woman appeared to be at least ten years his junior.

The editor carried a blue gym bag that he switched from right hand to left as he locked his car. The two stared at each other briefly, something seeming to pass silently between them, then together walked to room number 35. The secretary searched through her purse as they stood before the door, eventually producing a key attached to a dark green plastic triangle. Remy guessed that she had rented the room earlier, and took four more pictures, an odd feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. The strange sensation grew stronger as the couple entered the room and shut the door behind them.

This was the part of the job Remy disliked most. He would have been perfectly satisfied, as would his client, he was sure, to learn that the husband was completely faithful. Everyone would have been happy; Remy could pay his rent, and Janice Mountgomery could sleep better knowing that her husband was still true to the sacred vows of marriage. Nine out of ten times, though, that wasn’t the case.

Suspecting he’d be a while, the detective turned off his car and shifted in his seat. He reached for a copy of the
Boston Globe
on the passenger’s seat beside him, and had just plucked a pen from his inside coat pocket to begin the crossword puzzle, when he heard the first gunshot.

He was out of the car and halfway across the lot before he even thought about what he was doing. His hearing was good—unnaturally so—and he knew exactly where the sound had come from. He reached the door to room 35, pounding on it with his fist, shouting for Mountgomery to open up. Remy prayed that he was mistaken, that maybe the sound was a car backfire from the busy Jamaica Way, or that some kids in the neighborhood were playing with fireworks left over from the Fourth of July. But deep down he knew otherwise.

A second shot rang out as he brought his heel up and kicked open the door, splintering the frame with the force of the blow. The door swung wide and he entered, keeping his head low, and for the umpteenth time since choosing his profession, questioned his decision not to carry a weapon.

The room was dark and cool, the shades drawn. An air conditioner rattled noisily in the far corner beneath the window; smoke and the smell of spent ammunition hung thick in the air. Mountgomery stood naked beside the double bed, illuminated by the daylight flooding in through the open door. Shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness, the man turned, shaken by the intrusion.

The body of the woman, also nude, lay on the bed atop a dark, checkered bedspread, what appeared to be a Bible clutched in one of her hands. She had been shot once in the forehead and again in the chest. Mountgomery wavered on his bare feet, the gun shaking in his hand at his side. He stared at Remy in the doorway and slowly raised the weapon.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Remy cautioned, his hands held out in front of him. “I’m unarmed.”

He felt a surge of adrenaline flood through his body as he watched the man squint down the barrel of the pistol.
This is what it’s like to be truly alive,
he thought. In the old days, before his renouncement, Remy had never known the thrill of fear; there was no reason to. But now, moments such as this made what he had given up seem almost insignificant.

The man jabbed the gun at Remy and screamed, “Shut the door!” Slowly, Remy did as he was told, never taking his eyes from the gunman.

“It’s not what you think,” Mountgomery began. “Not what you think at all.” He brought the weapon up and scratched at his temple offhandedly with the muzzle. “Who . . . who are you?” the editor stammered, his features twisting in confusion as he thrust the gun toward Remy again. “What are you doing here?” His voice was frantic, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

Hands still raised, Remy cautiously stepped farther into the room. As a general rule, he didn’t like to lie when he had a gun pointed at him. “I’m a private investigator, Mr. Mountgomery,” he said in a soft, calm voice. “Your wife hired me. I’m not going to try anything, okay? Just put the gun down and we’ll talk. Maybe we can figure a way out of this mess. What do you think?”

Mountgomery blinked as if trying to focus. He stumbled slightly to the left, the gun still aimed at Remy. “A way out of this mess,” he repeated, with a giggle. “Nobody’s getting out of this one.”

He glanced at his companion on the bed and began to sob, his voice trembling with emotion. “Did you hear that, Carol? The bitch hired a detective to follow me.”

Mountgomery reached out to the dead woman. But when she didn’t respond, he let his arm flop dejectedly to his side. He looked back at Remy. “Carol was the only one who understood. She listened. She believed me.” Tears of genuine emotion ran down his face. “I wish we’d had more time together,” he said wistfully.

“The bitch at home thought I was crazy. Well, we’ll see how crazy I am when it all turns to shit.” The sadness was turning to anger again. “This is so much harder than I imagined,” he said, his face twisted in pain.

He lowered the gun slightly, and Remy started to move. Instantly, Mountgomery reacted, the weapon suddenly inches from the detective’s face. Obviously, madness had done little to slow his reflexes.

“It started when they opened up my head,” Mountgomery began. “The dreams. At first I thought they were just that, bad dreams, but then I realized they were much more.”

The editor pressed the gun against Remy’s cheek. “I was dreaming about the end of the world, you see. Every night it became clearer—the dreams—more horrible. I don’t want to die like that,” he said, shaking his head, eyes glassy. “And I don’t want the people I love to die like that either.” The man leaned closer to Remy. He smelled of aftershave and a sickly sour sweat. “Are you a religious man?”

If he had not been so caught up in the seriousness of the situation, Remy Chandler would have laughed. “I have certain—beliefs. Yes. What do
you
believe in, Peter?”

Mountgomery swallowed hard. “I believe we’re all going to die horribly. Carol, that was her name.” He jerked his head toward the dead woman on the bed. “Carol Weir. She wanted to be brave, to face the end with me. But she was too good to die that way.”

He smiled forlornly and tightened his grip on the gun. “I would have divorced my wife and married her, but it seemed kind of pointless when we looked at the big picture. This was the nicest thing I could do for her. She thanked me before I . . .”

Mountgomery’s face went wild with the realization of what he had done, and he jammed the barrel of the gun into Remy’s forehead. The muzzle felt warm.

“Would you prefer to die now, or wait until it all goes to Hell?” the editor asked him.

“I’m not ready to make that decision.”

Remy suddenly jerked his head to one side, grabbing the man’s wrist, pushing the gun away from his face. Mountgomery pulled the trigger. A bullet roared from the weapon to bury itself in the worn shag carpet under them.

The two men struggled for the weapon, Mountgomery screaming like a wild animal. But he was stronger than Remy had imagined, and quickly regained control of the pistol, forcing the detective back.

Again, the editor raised his arm and aimed the weapon.

“Don’t you point that thing at me,” Remy snarled, glaring at the madman. “If you want to die, then die. If you want to take the coward’s way out, do it. But don’t you dare try to take me with you.”

Mountgomery seemed taken aback by the detective’s fierce words. He squinted, tilting his head from left to right, as if seeing the man before him for the first time. “Look at you,” he said suddenly, with an odd smile and a small chuckle. “I didn’t even notice until now.” He dropped the weapon to his side.

It was Remy’s turn to be confused. He glanced briefly behind him to be sure no one else had entered the room.

“Are you here for her—for Carol?” Mountgomery continued. “She deserves to be in Heaven. She is—
was
a good person—a very good person.”

“What are you talking about, Peter?” Remy asked. “Why would I be here for Carol? Your wife hired me to—”

Mountgomery guffawed, the strange barking sound cutting Remy off midsentence. “There’s no need to pretend with me,” he said smiling. “I can see what you are.”

A finger of ice ran down Remy’s spine.

With a look of resigned calm, Mountgomery raised the gun and pressed the muzzle beneath the flesh of his chin. “I never imagined I’d be this close to one,” he said, finger tensing on the trigger. “Angels are even more beautiful than they say.”

Remy lunged, but Mountgomery proved faster again. The editor pulled the trigger and the bullet punched through the flesh and bone of his chin and up into his brain, exiting through the top of his head in a spray of crimson. He fell back stiffly onto the bed—atop his true love, twitching wildly as the life drained out of him, and then rolling off the bed to land on the floor. His eyes, wide in death, gazed with frozen fascination at the wing-shaped pattern created by his blood and brains on the ceiling above.

Remy studied the gruesome example of man’s fragile mortality before him, Mountgomery’s final words reverberating through his mind.

I never imagined I’d be this close to one.
He caught his reflection in a mirror over the room’s single dresser and stared hard at himself, searching for cracks in the facade.
Is it possible?
he wondered. Had Peter Mountgomery somehow seen through Remy’s mask of humanity?

Angels are even more beautiful than they say.
Remy looked away from his own image and back to the victims of violence.
How could a case so simple turn into something so ugly?
he asked himself, moving toward the broken door, followed by the words of a man who could see angels and had dreamt of the end of the world.

He stepped quickly into the afternoon sun and almost collided with the Hispanic cleaning woman and her cart of linens. She looked at him and then craned her neck to see around him and into the room. Remy caught the first signs of panic growing in her eyes and reached back for the knob, pulling the door closed. In flawless Spanish he told her not to go into the room, that death had visited those within, and it was not for her to see. The woman nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his as she pushed her cart quickly away.