“Don’t you feel anything for me?” she asked. “What we had? Isn’t there any of the Stephen I know left?”
The creature pushed Joanna into the car.
“Talk to me. Stephen, if you can hear me, fight it.”
“You’re wasting your time,” the demon said. “Your boyfriend’s dead. And you’ll soon be joining him.”
CHAPTER 29
Lincoln felt strange, slightly buoyant, as though his brain was nestled in cotton wool. He didn’t know what was going on, but he couldn’t snap out of it.
Worse was that he couldn’t see; was surrounded by blackness as though his eyes had been seared out with a red hot poker. Also, he couldn’t hear clearly, the only sound that of distant, incomprehensible chatter.
He fought to try to make his body function, to carry out his commands, but found himself unable to even move. At least not how he wanted, because he realised that he was moving. Walking to be exact, but he had no control over it. The whole process felt strange, and he only had the vaguest sensation of it. Preposterous as it seemed, something had taken control of his limbs.
He concentrated hard, willed himself to wake, to open his eyes, to regain control, but nothing worked. His consciousness was like a prisoner within his own body.
Knowing that despite his missing limb, he still had a powerful physique, his inability to control his body terrified him. As if losing an arm wasn’t bad enough, losing his mind too was more than he could bear.
He felt like screaming, but couldn’t give voice to the emotion, so he withdrew into himself and strained to make sense of the garbled voices.
“So you’ve found her. Well done,” Malachi said as he glared at Joanna.
He walked across the hospital basement towards her, pleased to see that she flinched, her stony expression wavering ever so slightly as he drew close.
“I’m going to enjoy taking your life,” he said.
“Go to hell.”
Malachi narrowed his eyes. She had guts, he would give her that. Hopefully the demon that he implanted within her body wouldn’t retain her backbone. He liked his followers to be subservient. There was only room at the top for one.
“You can’t be that strong if it takes two of your henchmen to keep hold of me,” Joanna said. “Not scared of me are you?”
Malachi scowled. He sensed his followers staring at him. Now was no time to show weakness. “Release her.” He nodded to the two men who had a grip on either side of Joanna.
Once they released their hold, Joanna massaged her arms.
The demon leaned forwards and sneered in her face. “I fear nothing. Especially not a puny human.”
“So what are you then?”
“Darkness incarnate.”
“I can see that.”
He stared at her eyes. “So I believe. It’s not relevant now though. Nobody believed what you told them, and you’re about to be conscripted.”
“Why, what’s it all about?”
“Freedom.”
Joanna frowned.
“We’ve been in purgatory for too long. Now is our time. First there was the stone age, then the ice age, now cometh the dark age.”
“Using what you call puny humans?”
“You are only a shell. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”
“So what happens to the people whose bodies you steal?”
“They die.” He laughed, and a few of his minions laughed too.
“You won’t get away with it.”
“And who is going to stop us?”
“You haven’t even got control of your own human. I’ve seen the man whose body you inhabit. I know he comes through to take back control. You’re different than the others. You’re weak.”
“Not anymore. Now I have the drugs to keep him asleep, I’m afraid he’s gone for good.”
“Mankind isn’t as helpless as you seem to think. People will work it out. And when they do, they’ll find a way to stop you.”
“Oh, now you’re scaring me.” He performed a mock shiver, deriving chuckles from his followers. “Anyway, enough chatter, I’ve got work to do.” He reached out and grabbed her around the throat. “It’s time to relinquish your body to someone more worthy.”
Lincoln strained to understand the conversation. He knew that he was speaking, but couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth.
Taking your life…
Puny humans…
Drugs… asleep…
Relinquish…
He was talking to someone, their voice vaguely familiar. Someone he had spoken to before? Someone he knew?
That’s when he realised who it was. The girl from the station. The girl he met in the hospital.
He felt his arm move up, the fingers tightening around something. Heard a gurgled scream.
Then a plaintive cry. “Help me.”
The girl.
He was strangling her, or rather whatever he had become was.
Enraged, Lincoln concentrated as hard as he could. This was his moment. This was his Waterloo.
Weight lifting had taught him to push his body beyond normal endurance. To enter an almost Zen-like state where he ignored the pain. He centred his consciousness, then focused on operating his fingers.
Nobody was going to make him do something he didn’t want to.
Malachi liked the expression on Joanna’s face as her cheeks turned purple. She gargled, her tongue a bloated slug.
Then his fingers started to open.
Malachi grimaced. What was wrong?
He saw Joanna snatch a gulp of air as the pressure relaxed. Next second, he released his grip and the girl stumbled backwards, hands at her throat to soothe the pain.
“Why have you stopped?” one of his cohorts asked.
Malachi wished he knew. He looked down at his hand, tried to flex the fingers, but they didn’t respond.
Then he realised that his lips were moving, soft grunts coming out as though he was trying to speak. Then the words came. “Let… her… go.” But they were not words that he had summoned.
“Let her go?” one of the other demons asked.
“Yes, let… her go.”
“But she knows too much.”
“Do… as I command.”
“Malachi, what’s going on?”
“Do it.”
The demons parted, allowing Joanna to stagger through them towards the exit. Malachi looked on, helpless to stop her.
Lincoln. It had to be Lincoln. Somehow, he had managed to wrestle control back. But how? It wasn’t possible. Humans were weak, ineffectual creatures.
He saw Joanna pause at the exit and turn around. He nodded, or rather Lincoln did.
“Go,” Lincoln said.
Malachi was unable to react as Lincoln directed his body across the room. Was unable to stop him picking up the screwdriver, and could do nothing as he drove it into one of the pressurised gas tanks.
Then he watched with cold detachment as the boiler flame ignited the gasses in a conflagration resembling Hades. The various metal cylinders erupted in a booming concerto, the ear shattering explosion ripping through the basement, purging everything in its fiery embrace.
CHAPTER 30
No one believed her. They didn’t understand what had happened.
“It’s time for your medication.”
Joanna looked up at the man in the white uniform, two pink pills held out in the palm of his outstretched hand.
“I don’t want any pills,” she snapped.
“It’s not a case of whether you want them. They’re for your own good.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Look, just take the pills, otherwise I will have to make you take them. Your choice.”
She stared at the man’s features. He was probably in his mid-thirties, but he had a tired, bone-weary expression that made him look older, the crow’s-feet around his eyes like miniature sparks of lightning.