“I’ll take things from here,” she said with a smile. Yup, my poker face was working as well as ever.
“We’ll talk again tomorrow,” Claudia continued, her eyes misting with tears. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you, how I can ever—”
I held up my hand to cut her off, even more uncomfortable now. “Please. I just did what I thought was right. No thanks are necessary.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but then one of the girls pulled on the leg of her tracksuit, demanding attention.
“We’ll talk again tomorrow,” Claudia repeated, then sat on the bed and gathered both children into her arms again.
Not if I could help it, though I wasn’t sure it was possible. Surely we’d have to get our stories straight! A frown puckered my face.
“Um, what about the bodies in the basement?” I asked.
“Your friend said he’d take care of everything,” she responded without even looking at me, her attention riveted on the girls.
I had no idea how Raphael planned to “take care of everything,” but it was clear Claudia wasn’t inclined to discuss it just now, so I backed out of the room and closed the door softly behind me.
I made my way downstairs just as Raphael emerged from the basement. He held up his car keys.
“I’m going to pull my car into the garage. We’ll have to see if we can fit all the bodies into the trunk.”
I looked at him skeptically. These were all demon hosts we were talking about, which meant none of them was exactly tiny. “I don’t know if we could fit two of them in the trunk, much less three.”
Raphael shrugged. “We’ll take two cars if we have to. I’ve got a key to Claudia’s Mercedes.” His gaze darted to something behind me, and his eyes widened.
Because I still didn’t trust Raphael, I had the feeling I was falling for the oldest trick in the book when I looked over my shoulder. But I wasn’t. Devon Brewster III was descending the stairs, fully clothed, his hair showing no signs of having encountered a pillow, his eyes too clear to be those of a man under the influence of a sleeping pill.
“Mr. Brewster?” I asked. “Claudia said you were asleep.” And if you weren’t asleep, why are you coming downstairs instead of hugging your children and helping your wife put them to bed?
Brewster smiled, but it wasn’t a nice expression. “My wife is mistaken. In many things.”
Belatedly, I saw the Taser he’d been concealing by holding it slightly behind his leg.
“Get down!” Raphael bellowed, and for once, I followed orders without hesitation. I was about halfway between Brewster and Raphael, and from my vantage point on the floor, I had a decent view of the showdown.
Raphael drew his gun as Brewster raised the Taser. Raphael was just a hair faster, and for the second time tonight, the sound of a gunshot split the air. The bullet slammed into Brewster’s forehead. There was a squirt of blood as a small, circular hole appeared right in the center of his forehead. He grunted in pain, but didn’t immediately crumple to the floor as he should have.
Brewster blinked a couple of times. From upstairs, I could hear the renewed screams of the children, and I hoped like hell that Claudia was staying up there with them, protecting them. Surely she wasn’t the kind of heroic fool who would come running toward the sound of gunshots!
I was still waiting for Brewster to collapse, but he just stood there blinking. Raphael, still pointing the gun in Brewster’s direction, reached my side and hauled me to my feet. Neither one of us took our eyes off of Brewster, and we both gasped when the edges of that hole in his forehead pulled toward each other and then knitted together.
“Oh shit,” Raphael said, which I thought was the understatement of the century.
Raphael got off another perfect shot, but this time Brewster didn’t let a little thing like a bullet wound to his head distract him. The Taser popped, the probes digging squarely into Raphael’s chest. Raphael went down with a choked cry of pain.
Brewster and I faced each other. He ejected the cartridge from his Taser, but didn’t seem to have another one handy. Not that that would be much of an inconvenience for him. I’m sure he Tasered Raphael because he wanted to preserve Tommy’s precious body. He had no reason to do the same for me. He also didn’t need a weapon to break me in half, so I couldn’t take any comfort from the fact that his Taser was empty.
Pain stabbed through my eye. Lugh, trying to take control again.
Wait, I ordered him. Imagine, me giving orders to the demon king!
But—
Wait, I repeated. I’ll let you in if I need you, but I’d rather keep you hidden if I don’t.
He could have tried the same argument Raphael had used on me in the car, could have tried to convince me that if I waited until I needed him, it would be too late. But that argument didn’t fly, and he must have known it. If I could voluntarily let him in right this moment, then I could voluntarily let him in when I determined once and for all that I needed him.
Brewster took a couple of steps down the stairs. I could still hear the children crying, and I realized that whatever was going to happen, I had to get Brewster out of this house before Claudia couldn’t stand it anymore and had to investigate. Or before Brewster realized he could use those kids as hostages against me, just as his “friends” had.
So, I did what many would agree was the most sensible thing at a time like this: I ran like hell.
Demons have superhuman strength and agility, and they’re able to control their host’s bodies well enough to run with great efficiency. However, the human body has its limits, and an experienced human runner can actually outrun a demon in an untrained body, for a time, at least.
I wasn’t a trained runner, but I was naturally athletic and had long legs, so I was out the front door with a bit of a lead. My lead improved when Brewster made an ill-advised attempt to tackle me. I dodged and pulled farther ahead when he belly-flopped onto the driveway.
Raphael had the car keys, so if I was going to escape Brewster, I was going to have to do it on foot. I briefly wondered if I was better off trying to attract attention by going for the main road and flagging down passing cars, or avoiding attention by running through darkened backyards.
I didn’t know what Brewster’s story was, didn’t know how he’d come to be possessed, didn’t know why he’d been able to heal a bullet wound to the head as if it were no more than a minor inconvenience, but I didn’t want to risk innocent passersby being hurt by him in a fight, so I chose the darkened backyard option.
Being past the Main Line, we weren’t in the city proper, but we weren’t exactly in the country, either, so there was plenty of light to see by, even in the semi-wooded backyards of the wealthy.
I sprinted across a beautifully maintained lawn that could have been plucked straight from the fairway of a golf course, and had just enough light to see and jump over the croquet wicket that jutted from the grass. Behind me, I could hear Brewster’s heavy footfalls as he relentlessly pursued.
The coast ahead of me looked pretty clear for a stretch, so I diverted a little of my attention to grabbing and arming my Taser. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a spare cartridge on me, but the Taser could still work like a stun gun if this came down to hand-to-hand combat. I didn’t really want Brewster to get close enough to me for me to use the Taser, but though I could outrun him in the short term, his demon would give him more stamina than I had on my own.
Let me in, Lugh urged.
Not yet, I said again. I trusted you enough to leave you in control before. Now it’s your turn to trust me.
I didn’t think he liked it much, but Lugh didn’t try to take over by force.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Brewster was catching up. I guess I was starting to slow down, though I was still running as fast as I could. My breath burned in my throat and chest, and my heart slammed against my rib cage.