“Thanks,” I said with a nod as I moved past him.
“Thank me when you’re back on this side of the door in one piece,” he replied as he gave the door a push.
The barrier thumped closed behind me with the dull finality of a coffin lid slamming shut. I don’t know if it was a product of the eerie sound or simply because I had a very good idea what was coming next, but at that exact moment every hair on my body stood painfully at attention.
Some nightmares are measurably worse than others. In my personal estimation, on a scale of one to ten, the terror sitting across the table from me at this very instant was at the minimum an eleven. Of course, I’ll admit I was biased. After all, she had tried to kill me on more than one occasion. But, she wasn’t the first, and I suspected she also wouldn’t be the last. The thing that truly colored my perception of her was the psychological scarring she had left on my wife. That was my personal line in the sand, and she had crossed it without apology.
The all too familiar thud of my otherworldly headache was continuing to pound out a painful rhythm at the base of my skull. However, the prickling gooseflesh that had accompanied me into the room was finally dying down, not that such turned out to be a true reprieve. One pain had simply faded away only to be replaced by another, that being my intestines twisting into a knot as bile churned deep in my gut. It seemed my body was just full of involuntary responses tied to my current struggle to maintain composure, and apparently it was determined to give them all a chance at an audition. Lucky me.
I tried to ignore the discomfort and focused my attention on the woman opposite me. Even up close and personal, as we were now, Annalise Devereaux’s resemblance to my wife was a full three steps beyond uncanny. The fact that they shared the same father and their mothers had been identical twins made it a bit easier to imagine from a genetic standpoint, but even then the doppelganger effect was still at best a one in a billion occurrence. Extraordinary as it was, they were almost as indistinguishable in physical appearance as their biological mothers had been; and as we had found out through intensely trying circumstances, their DNA was very close to being just as eerily mirror-like.
Still, the carbon copy outward appearance was under the best of circumstances. The past few months spent as a guest of the federal corrections system had been less than kind to Annalise, effectively blurring those similarities in the worst way. Instead of a smooth, ivory complexion, she was tainted with a drawn, grey pallor. Her hair was cropped short, and though apparently clean, its once vibrant auburn was lackluster. Instead of bright, jade-green eyes like my wife’s, hers were dull and lifeless. They were staring at me now from deep, darkly rimmed sockets.
While she was still the spitting image of Felicity, she appeared now as a frail and sickly version of her, which triggered an automatic surge of sympathy deep inside me that was hard to quell. I struggled with the new feeling for a moment, letting out a slow, quiet sigh while closing my eyes. When I reopened them nothing had changed-not that I’d expected such. Still, it was worth a try.
For all intents and purposes, Annalise Devereaux looked drained, both emotionally and physically. She was used up-for lack of a better expression. She appeared as if she’d had no rest at all for untold ages, and while appearances can sometimes be deceiving, this time it was dead on. I also had a better than sneaking suspicion that it was not just the incarceration that had done all of this to her. A good portion of it was due to the parasite she had invited to set up residence in her body.
Miranda.
Unholy wasn’t a word I used often, but in this case it was the perfect descriptor for the brimstone-charred spirit that inhabited my wife’s heretofore unknown half-sister. Miranda was the unfortunately immortal soul of a sadistic murderess from another century, brought back to life in the here and now by proxy-all because the woman sitting in front of me played with magick she didn’t truly understand.
Of course, Annalise’s already well-ingrained proclivities had served to fuel the spirit possession, turning her from a professional dominatrix who already walked a bit close to the edge of unbridled cruelty and into a perverted serial killer in her own right. Truth be told, if I believed in Hell then I would say the two of them were a match forged in its darkest bowels.
But, a trail of mutilated bodies wasn’t the only horror their ethereal union had left in its wake. Felicity and I were the scarred and still bleeding proof of that fact. In the end, that was my primary reason for being here in this room now-to close a final gaping wound and put an end to Miranda, once and for all.
Whether or not that was actually possible remained to be seen.
I shifted in my seat then locked my fingers together and rested my hands on the table in front of me as Annalise continued to stare. Not a single word had been spoken by either of us since she was brought in and handcuffed to a circlet mounted on her side of the metal table. After another languid span of time had passed, I glanced at my empty wrist then remembered my watch was in a personal effects locker on the opposite side of several secure doors. I let out a much more audible sigh than before and then glanced around the room in search of a clock, but I found none. Just bare walls, save for a security camera mounted in an upper corner out of easy reach. Finally, I brought my gaze back to meet hers but remained silent.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could play this game. I knew her muteness was intentional, and in my mind it was a foregone conclusion she would win this staring contest hands down. She was just as stubborn as my wife, which was of no surprise. If genetics played any part whatsoever in such things, she had inherited the family trait honestly. Besides, she also had insanity in her corner, even if it was by proxy. However, even with those almost insurmountable odds stacked against me, I waited, all the while my brain wrestling with my tongue in order to keep it still.
What seemed to be another solid five minutes passed before my grey matter was finally down for the count and I gave in. I slowly shifted in my seat then cleared my throat and said, “You win, Annalise. I’m here, just like you wanted.”
She remained silent and her expressionless stare never left my face.
I waited while several heartbeats thumped out a nervous cadence in my chest. I had questions I desperately wanted to ask, but I knew it was too soon. If I didn’t allow her to open up at her own pace, I’d never learn what I needed to know. And if I showed my cards now, I was fairly certain I would lose any chance of ever finding the answers.
“You’re the one who wanted to talk to me,” I offered. “Remember?”
No change. Not even a flinch. If it weren’t for the intensity of her stare, I would have started wondering if she was even conscious. Of course, I really had no idea exactly who was sitting across the table from me. The body ostensibly belonged to Annalise Devereaux, but for the most part she had relinquished it long ago. Who actually inhabited the flesh and blood shell at this particular moment was anyone’s guess. I had my suspicions that the steadfast gaze was pure Miranda, but I really couldn’t be sure just yet.
Time continued to drag, and the pain inside my skull kept gnawing away at what little patience I still had intact. After another half dozen minutes or so, I purposefully shifted my gaze to the corrections officer in the corner. I was a half second from opening my mouth to tell him I was ready to give up and leave when Annalise’s voice broke the quietude.
I had expected that when she finally spoke, it was likely to be no more than a frail whisper, but what I heard now was far from it. Her comment was direct, and her voice was strong, calm, and even, as she said, “I really do not understand what it is she sees in you.”