Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (34 page)

And somehow, someway, we were going to end this. And soon.

First, I had to find Eric.

He wasn’t at his apartment. Fortunately, neither was Nadia, and I counted that as a blessing even as I feared that Odayne had surfaced again and had gone to her.

I told myself not to believe that.

Eric had to be alone because I needed him to be alone, and I refused to accept any other possibility.

So I stalked through his apartment, trying to think where he would go. If Eric had any semblance of control, he’d go someplace where I could find him. Someplace he had a connection to. The high school. A hotel we’d stayed at. Someplace we’d shared. Someplace where he’d been only Eric and the demon hadn’t yet intruded.

Someplace like the house.

As soon as the thought entered my mind, I knew I was right. Not only was the house standing empty, but I knew it was on his mind. I raced out of his apartment and stumbled blindly to the car, making record time to our old neighborhood. I slammed on the brakes in front of the house, skidding half off the driveway and onto the tidy lawn.

My stomach tightened as I saw that there were no other cars and the house was dark. If he wasn’t there, I was seriously screwed, as I was all out of ideas. But once I got to the front door, I knew that I was right. The realtor’s lockbox had been ripped off the door, and the frame had been busted. The door swung open easily, and I stepped inside, wary.

“Eric?” I called, but heard only silence in response.

I moved through the house, checking the rooms, feeling more and more despondent as I found each room empty.

I didn’t really know despair, though. Not until I got to the bathroom.

Not until I opened the door and found Eric in the bathtub, his slit wrists flowing blood into the inky red water.

“No!”
I cried, and bounded across the room in one gigantic leap. I pulled the drain on the old clawfoot tub and slapped his face, relieved when he blinked at me, then more relieved when I saw his eyes focus. “Shit, Eric. Shit, shit, shit.”

I wore a denim jacket, and now I used my knife to slice it to ribbons, binding his wrists tight to staunch the flow of blood.

“What were you thinking?” I shouted, as tears streamed down my face. “What the hell could you possibly be thinking?”

“Without blood,” he whispered, “the demon will be weak. At least for a while. Time enough for you . . . Time enough for you to fight. And she can’t bind me without blood. The ceremony,” he said. “The ceremony to bind me to Odayne. To speed the process. It requires my blood. Gotta get rid of it. Flush it away. Make it go.”

“No,”
I said again. “Without blood, you die, you stupid, stupid man.”

He was fading on me, and I smacked him hard in the face again, then took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Don’t you dare die on me, Eric. Don’t you dare.”

I checked his wrists again, saw that the bleeding had essentially stopped. The water was out of the tub, and he was shivering now in wet clothes.

“Wait here, and if you even think about taking those ties off your wrists I will kill you with my bare hands the second I get back. Do you understand me?”

He didn’t answer, but his lip curved up, just slightly, as I stood and raced from the room back to the car. I grabbed a couple of Timmy’s blankets along with a package of juice boxes and my workout bag, then practically flew back inside, fearing the worst. But Eric was just how I’d left him, and I started to breathe again once I saw him.

“How long? How long have you been sitting here bleeding?”

“Not long,” he said, his voice weak. “Had to. Allie. I hurt—”

“That wasn’t you,” I said sharply. “That was Odayne.”

“That was me,” he said firmly. “Or it will be soon enough.”

“It damn well will be if you kill yourself,” I said. “Dear God, Eric, you’ll be twined with him forever.”

“But I won’t know, Kate. I won’t know. It’s not consciousness like we have now. I’ve been there, remember? And trust me Kate: I won’t know.”

I closed my eyes. “But I will.”

“I can’t do this,” he said as I started to wrangle him out of his wet clothes. I had a T-shirt and the pants from a
gi
in my bag, and I was determined to get him in dry clothes and out of the bathroom. “I can’t stay like this and risk hurting Allie. Risk hurting you.”

“You won’t,” I said, although I didn’t believe it. I’d been at the theater, after all. And, of course, he knew that.

“Dear God, I almost destroyed her.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “She’s safe and you fought your way back out.”

“This time,” he said. And neither one of us spoke the horrible truth: that it had been close. And if Allie hadn’t had Rita’s Taser, she could well be dead.

“There won’t be a next time,” I said, my voice firm. “We have a plan. We know how to end this.”

He looked at me blankly, then shook his head. “Some things. Some things I’ve been able to keep from him. To hide. I’ve had to fight, because when the demon comes out, he knows. He gets into my head. But there are a few things that I know. Things he won’t let me tell, but still secrets that I keep.”

I shook my head, not understanding. “What secrets? What does the demon know?”

“He doesn’t want me to use it. It would be the end of him.”

My eyes went wide. “The dagger! Eric, you do know where the dagger is? Tell me. Where is it?”

His face contorted in pain, and I saw the scar on his back begin to bulge.

“No,” I cried. “Don’t even think about it. Forget the dagger. We don’t need the dagger. We have another plan.” I swallowed, and held his hands close. “We can get rid of Lilith—do her in forever. And she’s vile, Eric. You know how bad. So that’s a huge thing. Because if we don’t get rid of her, she’s never going to leave us alone. Never going to leave
Allie
alone.”

I waited, expecting him to speak, but he stayed silent.

I hesitated only a moment longer, and then continued. “And although we can’t kill Odayne, we can make him start all over.” I drew in a shaky breath. “It’s going to be hard, but not any harder than this. Not any harder than what you planned to do.” I licked my lips, looked him dead in the eye, and told him the plan to use the ring with Solomon’s Stone.

“So I end up dead,” he said after I had explained. “Dead and still tied to that beast. I thought you said you had a solution.”

“Dammit, Eric, it’s the best solution we can find. The ceremony to unbind you from Odayne has been lost,” I said, resisting the urge to blame him. “But you’ll come back. Odayne’s going to grow inside another body, you know he is. And while he’s growing, you can be searching for a way out. And maybe the next time you can find your way free.”

“Maybe,” he said, his voice harsh, angry. Not that I could blame him. The solution was hardly the best.

“There’s another way,” he said.

“How? If there is, then tell me.”

“Do you love me, Katie?”

My heart hitched. “You know that I do.”

“Then come with me. Take me. Your life and mine.”

I opened my mouth, certain I’d misunderstood him, and just as sure that I hadn’t. “Eric . . . You can’t ask me that. Allie. Timmy.”

“We’re bound, Kate,” he said. “Did you know that they are, too? Odayne and Lilith. She created him for herself. Couldn’t abide the thought of any other male except one she’d rendered on her own. So she created him, breathed life into him. Loved him. Loves me.”

His voice had gone a little singsong, and I shivered. “Eric. Stop.”

“It’s almost poetic.”

“Stop,”
I shouted, and saw with satisfaction that the dreamy look in his eyes cleared. “Don’t talk like this.”

“About their love? Or about ours? I thought you loved me, Katie. I thought we were soul mates.”

“This isn’t something you can ask.”

“Why not? You love me?”

“Of course I do,” I said, tears falling freely.

“Then this is the solution. You know it as well as I do. We’re bound, and we always have been.”

I shook my head, horrified that he’d ask me to take my own life, to toss away what God had given me and sacrifice my children in the process . . .

Although I knew that it had to be the demon talking, I still couldn’t bear it, and I stood up, moved to the far side of the room and watched him with my back against the wall. I tried to speak, tried to tell him how, and tried to tell him why, but I couldn’t find the words. And in the end, I simply stood there, watching him, and slowly shaking my head.

He watched me a moment. “Are you going to die for me, Katie?” he asked, as I watched the scar on his back begin to pulse with life.

I shook my head. “No. And the Eric I know would never ask me to.”

“Funny,” he said. “The Katie I know would never say no.”

“In the safe room
,” I said to Eric. “You have to go in.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t. The pain.”

“You have to,”
I said, feeling close to hysterics. “You know it’s the only way. You’re still weak, the demon will retreat inside, and if you’re in the safe room, it’ll keep him at bay.”

We were back at the mansion, the tension between us thick, and we hardly had the time for a heart-to-heart or to exchange warm fuzzies.

In the end, Eric had agreed to wear the ring. He’d agreed to the plan. And although it broke my heart to know that this was the last night I’d see him on this earth, I comforted myself with the knowledge that he really was Eric. Because only Eric would have made the decision to sacrifice himself for Allie and me. More, I knew Eric was a fighter. He’d find a way out of the ether again, and he wouldn’t give up until his soul was free.

“She’ll come for you, right? She’ll come here? She can find you?”

“She’ll come,” he said. “I told you, they’re bound.”

“Then the safe room makes even more sense. If the demon’s in pain . . .”

I trailed off because there was no need to finish.

“I know,” he said. “I know I have to.” He drew in a breath. “I can do it,” he said, twisting the ring he’d already placed on his finger. “I
have
to do it.”

“I’m right here,” I said, and I think he knew that I meant more than the merely physical.

Since he was still unsteady, he had his arm around my shoulder, his other hand holding his cane. He stumped forward, then stopped when the safe room came into view. The door was open, and Allie was on the floor, peering out as if she’d been keeping vigil, her face streaked with tears.

“Daddy?”

I watched him close his eyes, then hold out his hands for her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She took a step forward, as if ready to run from the room to him, but I stopped her with a curt warning.

“But, Mom!”

“You don’t leave the room,” I said, my eyes going from her to the others. “None of you.” I turned to Eric. “Go on, then.”

He hurried to Allie, his arms held wide, his face revealing a hint of the pain he felt entering the room. He buried it, though, and when she hesitated only a moment before rushing into his arms, the pain on his face evaporated completely, replaced by a wistful sadness that both broke my heart and filled me with relief.

Mindy, I noticed, remained in the far corner, her back to the wall and her eyes never leaving Eric.

Allie stepped back, her eyes on his wrists, bound as they were in strips of denim. “What did you do?” she asked.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “I’d rather die than hurt you,” he said, as more tears spilled down her cheeks.

“This room . . .” His hands clenched into fists, and through the thin, white T-shirt I’d given him, I thought I saw the scar on his back writhe beneath his shirt.

“Eric?” I whispered.

He turned to me, his face tight, his skin pale. He clenched his hands into fists, and there was no denying the struggle going on inside this man. “She’s coming. Dear God, she’s practically here.”

And, yes, she sure as hell was.

It started slowly. So slowly that I thought at first Eric was wrong. That a heavy truck was rumbling up the street. Or that we were feeling the first rumbles of an earthquake.

But trucks couldn’t shake down a mansion, and earthquakes didn’t go on for eternity.

And as we stood there, huddled in the safe room, the world around us began to rumble, the walls of the mansion shaking, and dust filling the air.

Around us, the walls seemed to scream as the foundation and framing were wrenched apart, the power of Lilith cutting a path in front of her, and we watched as the flooring in the kitchen and the hallway leading up to the safe room seemed to split, tiles bursting and flying, the walls cracking and shaking.

I slammed the door to the safe room shut and gestured for everyone to get in the middle of the room. The walls and floor and ceiling had been imbibed with the bones of saints, but that didn’t stop the room itself from shaking as she tore through the rest of the house. And even as the world shook around us, my stomach clenched from the fear I saw on the face of everyone in that room with me.

Everyone, except Eric. There was no fear there. Only despair. And pain.

And then, with one horrible, dusty explosion, the door to the safe room exploded, splinters flying as I shouted for everyone to get back.

Allie jumped immediately, scooping up Timmy with one hand, and grabbing Mindy with the other even as Cutter jerked Laura and Rita to the far wall. Stuart moved to stand beside me, but Eddie hauled him back by the elbows, and I shouted out, crying for him to go, because I couldn’t split my focus by worrying about my husband even while I worried about our plan.

I stood side by side with Eric, my hand clasped tightly in his even as the walls of the safe room began to crack and split.

And still, we hadn’t seen her.