Death's Hand (17 page)

One of the demons clawed its way up his slacks until it stretched tall, almost up to his chest. Its fingers ran over his cheeks, his jaw, his nose.

The other demons jerked on his legs. James lost balance and his knees struck the carpet. The fiends made slurping, hungry noises deep in their throats, staring at him like a slab of meat.

Claws slid down his neck, catching on the hem of his shirt with a ripping sound. His chest was suddenly cold. His shirt had been torn open in one long line down the center, baring his chest and stomach.

He felt the sharp press of teeth against his hip and gave a shout.

“What are you doing?”

The other door opened. His heart leapt when he saw a feminine figure enter—but it wasn’t Elise. The newcomer was swathed in a long jacket and a formless skirt. The fact he couldn’t make out her face, or even her body type, didn’t disturb James so much as the feeling of sheer
power
that poured off of her.

It wasn’t the normal power that James got from other witches, like those in his coven. This feeling was unmistakably
evil
.

The witch drew a knife from behind her back.

“Oh,” James said.

She touched the blade to his skin, and after that, all he could do was scream.

“No!”

Elise threw herself against the door. Locked.

Something scuffled behind her, and she spun, dagger raised for a blow. But the fiends had dispersed—gone from the hall as quickly as they had arrived in the first place. They had what they wanted, and it wasn’t Elise.

The air shifted, and motion from a fiend she had killed caught her eye. Blood dribbled sluggishly out of the slit on its neck. And then… something changed.

In her biology for non-majors college class, Elise had watched a time lapse video of a decaying rabbit. Its skin had rippled and exploded with maggots, the flesh disappearing as tiny fragments were carried off by numerous insects. The decay of the fiend was similar—one moment, it was whole and complete, and the next, its skin crumpled and peeled and flaked off, baring bone that burned away as well.

She watched, stunned, as invisible flame spread from the brands down its back and devoured the entire body, leaving nothing but dust.

Only very strong master demons could destroy its minions after they died.

And it had her aspis.

He screamed on the other side of the wall.

“James!” she yelled. She shook the doorknob again, harder. “James!”

She took a step back and threw all her strength into a single kick. Her blow landed beside the doorknob.
Crack
.

His screaming grew strangled. She kicked again.

The door was made of heavy oak. It barely shook.

“Shit,” she muttered. The room number, mounted on a gold placard beside the door, said
6B
. If there was a 6B, there must have been a 6A.

She left James’s screams and scanned the map on the wall, trying to make sense of it in the dark. Finding the red dot marking her position, she traced the hall around the building.

6A. There was another door in the opposite hall.

Elise ran. Her feet pounded against linoleum, each step a clap of thunder.

James’s screams suddenly silenced.

She skid around the corner and almost lost her balance, catching herself on a door. 6A. Elise tried the doorknob, and it turned smoothly.

She threw the door open, ready for a fight—but she was met by an empty room.

The embalming room was dark and windowless. Every surface was tiled or clean steel, from the table affixed to the wall to the sinks and ceiling. A sign read, “Danger: Formaldehyde Irritant and Potential Cancer Hazard. Authorized Personnel Only.” A row of locked refrigerators for bodies lined the wall, and a pump sat on a desk next to the table with liters and gallons measured on the side of its barrel.

Elise picked her way through the shattered debris of the embalming fluids. The scent made her gag. She covered her mouth to keep from vomiting as she rounded the table.

Her breath caught in her throat. “James...”

He was slumped in the corner, limbs twisted like a ragdoll. James’s shirt was torn open to reveal his torso. Elise didn’t need much light to recognize the black smears staining his chest: blood.

She felt his neck for a pulse. His throat pulsed in a slow, weak rhythm under her fingers.

“Thank God,” she murmured, pushing his shirt aside to examine the wounds.

Someone had begun to skin a patch of James’s stomach over his solar plexus, but it wasn’t a random, messy job. The looping lines were deliberate and strangely neat. The knife must have been incredibly sharp.

Elise recognized that knife work. She still had the scar on her chest. “Oh, James,” she said, brushing his bangs out of his closed eyes.

Something moved.

Her gaze snapped over. A shape snuck out from behind the door Elise had left open.

Launching to her feet, she barreled into the intruder. The person screamed in a woman’s voice. She gripped a short stone staff, dirty with blood and mud, and there was a pentacle charm on her bracelet.

It was a human—not a demon at all.

“Help!” she cried before Elise could smother her mouth.

She slammed the woman’s hand into the wall until she cried out. Her fingers lost their grip, and the stone hit the floor.

Hands buried themselves in Elise’s jacket and ripped her away.

She sprawled to the ground, catching a brief glimpse of a fiend as it pushed at the witch’s legs. The jacket flared behind her as they ran from the room. Elise scrambled to the doorway in time to see the exit swing shut behind them.

Elise hesitated, casting a glance at James. She couldn’t chase them without leaving her partner behind.

“God
damn
it,” she swore. James made a sound of pain, and Elise dropped to her knees at his side. “We need to get you out of here before someone shows up.” His eyes half-opened at her voice, and she gave him a tight smile. “Come on. I’ll help you up.”

She lifted him carefully under the arms. He gave a weak attempt at getting his feet under him... and then went slack.

He was unconscious.

XII

The door to James’s bedroom banged open.

Elise rushed through the doorway with James draped over her shoulders. She tried to roll him onto the bed gently, but he slipped and hit the mattress hard. He made a small pain noise in his sleepy delirium.

“Sorry,” she said. James didn’t react to her apology.

She cut his shirt open along the sleeves and tugged it out from underneath him, chucking it in the trash. The bandages she had packed over his wound in the car had already soaked through with blood.

Elise searched through James’s desk drawers for gauze and bandages, returning once she located them amongst a secret stash of Milk Duds. Blood welled up in the cuts as soon as they were bared to the air as though he had been sliced open anew.

She had suffered enough wounds to know that a little cutting shouldn’t have knocked James out, nor should it have bled so much. Poison, or magic? Either was trouble.

Summoning first aid experience from the musty corners of her memory, Elise bandaged him carefully. Her gaze wandered to the phone on the bedside table as she worked. She couldn’t call Stephanie. Even though the doctor would be all too happy to nurse James back to health, she would have questions Elise didn’t want to answer.

But she couldn’t give him the help he needed herself.

Muttering a terse prayer, she called Stephanie on James’s cell phone. “James,” the doctor breathed on the other end. “It’s about time you called me.”

“This is Elise.”

“Oh. Really. What are you doing calling from his number at this time of night?”

“He’s hurt. He might be poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Stephanie’s voice sharpened. “Why are you wasting your time calling me? Hang up and call the poison control center, he needs—”

“We can’t call anyone, go to the hospital, or attract any attention,” Elise snapped. “He needs you. Are you going to come help him or what?”

“What are you doing, you stupid bitch? Call an ambulance! I’ll meet you at the emergency room.”

She counted slowly to ten, and then said, “Stephanie. I’m not messing around.”

“What happened?”

Elise glanced at her prone partner. His face was ashen gray. “James is unconscious but breathing fine. He’s bleeding from a shallow wound on his chest. I would guess that he’s stable for the moment.”

She cursed. “You did this to him, didn’t you?”

“Now isn’t the time for blame.”

The doctor gave a disgusted sigh. “You’re going to have to call someone else anyway. I was volunteered to take the directors to Sacramento International, so I’m still at least two hours away. If you care about him at all, you’ll get proper medical attention.”

“We have to wait for you.” A grimace, and she added, “Please.” She choked out the last word with no small amount of pain, but it made Stephanie pause. There was silence for a long moment. When the doctor spoke again, the venom had left her tone.

“If he dies…”

“I would care a hell of a lot more than you do. James needs to be looked at, and I can’t do it myself.”

“Make sure the wound is clean and well-wrapped. Two hours. Less if I rush.”

“Then rush.”

Elise hung up and sat back. She hoped she was right in trusting Stephanie. But… who would have known that Elise and James would exorcise Lucinde and get the “Sorrows” message?

The people in the coven might. They were the only ones who knew James was connected with an exorcist. But if Elise couldn’t trust the other witches, she could be in even worse trouble than she suspected.

Elise studied James’s room. What if Ann or Morrighan had left some kind of trap? She scanned the dark walls, watching closely for a telltale glimmer of eyes staring back.

James’s bedroom was too small for anyone to hide in it. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and not an inch of space was wasted. His bed rested atop several archivist boxes, each lovingly packed with texts that were too valuable to see the light of day. His headboard was stacked with shelving, too. The only free space was in front of the window where his altar stood. A statuette of the Goddess leaned against the right side of the window frame, mirrored by the Horned God to the left.

Elise sank into the worn chair at his desk and swiveled around so she could see James. A yawn caught in her throat.

Ignoring her body’s demands for sleep, she withdrew the short stone staff from her jacket pocket. It felt heavier than it should have been at only twelve inches long, as though it was lead instead of rock. Elise rubbed her thumb on the surface, scrubbing away some of the dirt to reveal demonic runes.

The stone was cool under her hand, sucking her body heat deep into its core. The staff felt unmistakably alive.

And evil.

Elise cleared off space on James’s desk, which was covered in notebooks with his precise handwriting and illustrations of sigils. Some of it was for the annual almanac his coven published, but some of it looked like fresh spellwork. Several were weighted down with crystals, collecting their energy for later use. She set the stone staff somewhere it didn’t touch anything else.

James made a small noise again. His skin shone with sweat, and pain twisted his face into a grimace.

“Are you awake?” she whispered, sitting beside him.

He didn’t move.

She let out a long, slow breath, letting her hand fall to his chest above the bandage. Sweat soaked through the material, and dots of blood were seeping through as well.

His eyes fluttered open. “Elise,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

“You’re the one that got carved up by a big bad witch. Don’t waste your strength worrying about me.” He moved like he was going to sit up, but she held him down. It wasn’t as much of a struggle as it should have been. “I’m here. Nothing will get you.” He mumbled softly. “Nothing will get you,” Elise said again, mostly as an affirmation to herself.

She sunk down lower on the bed beside him, rested her cheek against his upper arm, and laid her hand over his heart. The beat was slow. He sounded so… weak.

Elise could hear her own heart in her chest, beating strong. She wanted his heart to beat like hers. She wished so hard for a moment she almost convinced herself she could keep him alive on willpower alone.

He stroked her hair weakly. “It’s okay,” he said, and it was such a lie that she had to smile.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s okay.”

His hand slipped over hers when she sat up. “Stay.”

“James…”

“Stay, Elise,” he repeated, more strongly this time.

She didn’t want to argue with him. The weight of her fatigue was too convincing. Whether or not Elise had time to take a nap, she was failing her battle against sleep. And why not? Stephanie was still two hours away.

Elise kicked her shoes off the side of the bed and rested beside James.

The air was heavy and still, but she didn’t dare open a window to let it cool. His heart thumped its steady pace under her hand, and his shallow breaths marked out a rhythm like water rushing up the sand before sucking into the ocean again.