Medium Well (9781101599648) (26 page)

Henderson kicked the lavender out of his way, sending it flying across the floor. He paused for a moment, resting one arm against the sloping ceiling, as if he were catching his breath. “See?” He turned back toward Biddy. “No effect at all.”

“Right,” Biddy sneered, feeling her pulse thump frantically in her throat. “You're a big bad.”

The demon snarled again, raising Henderson's upper lip to show more teeth. He raised his right arm and something flashed overhead. Biddy ducked, pushing Araceli beneath her. There was a crash, and the smell of burning. Biddy raised her head to see a smoldering pile of trash a few feet to her left.

“Don't mess with me, mortal,” the demon growled. “I'm hungry and I'm pissed. Plus, Henderson hasn't been keeping himself in the best of shape. I'm going to wear him out faster than I expected. Then I'll need somebody new.”

Biddy took a deep breath to still her pounding heart. “Oh, very impressive. Of course, if you incinerate us, we won't provide much of a meal.”

The demon's eyes flashed orange behind Henderson's nondescript gray. “I only need one of you, and, frankly, you're beginning to bore me.” His hand raised again, flashing lightning.

As another pile of trash burst into flame, Biddy pushed Araceli toward the staircase. “Come on,” she gasped. “Run.”

“Run?” Araceli's lips trembled. “Run where?”

“Where do you think you're going, Biddy?” the demon called. “You can't get out, and I'm right behind you.”

Downstairs, something crashed against the wall. “Biddy!” a man's voice echoed through the downstairs room. “Where are you?”

Relief and a new terror collided in Biddy's chest.
Danny! Oh crap, Danny, no!
She pushed Araceli down the stairs in front of her, toward the sliver of light that was the open door. Behind her she heard Henderson's ponderous weight lurching across the floor.

“Biddy?” Danny stood at the foot of the stairs.

“No!” Biddy screamed. “Danny, run! Get out quick. The demon . . .”

The door slammed behind them, leaving the downstairs darker than it had been before.

“What the hell?” Danny turned back toward the door for a moment, then grabbed hold of Biddy's arms. “Are you okay? Is Araceli?”

“Run,” Biddy panted, “just run!” She grabbed his hand, pulling him into the shadows behind the support posts.

“Biiidddeeee,” the demon crooned. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Henderson's legs appeared on the staircase, swinging back and forth as the body lurched down the stairs.

“Henderson?” Danny started toward the stairs again, but Biddy caught his arm, dragging him back.

“It's not Henderson,” she hissed. “It just looks like him!” Araceli cowered behind a support post next to her, one hand clamped across her mouth.

Henderson staggered slightly on the stairs, then jerked upright again. “Damned meat puppet,” the demon's voice grumbled. “Come on, Biddy, time's a-wastin'. You know I'm going to win. Come out now and I'll make it quick. Or throw Araceli out if you'd prefer.”

Araceli whimpered, her nails digging into Biddy's hand. “Why is he doing this? What's going on?”

“It's okay,” Biddy murmured, knowing it was one of the least effective lies she'd ever told.

Beside her, Danny stiffened, staring at the thing on the staircase. Biddy gave him a quick headshake:
Stay here, Danny.

“Oh ho!” the demon crowed. “I smell more meat. Something more substantial this time. Want to try your luck, Ramos? Maybe Biddy and her sister can get away while you and I do a little arm wrestling.”

Danny stared back at him, his jaw firming. Biddy tightened her grip on his arm.

“Don't!” she whispered.

“Not so brave after all?” The demon lurched forward. “All your plans have gone down the drain, Ramos. You'll never be able to stop me now. Even if you blow the house to hell and gone.”

Biddy stared at him. “Danny?”

He shook his head. “Later.”

“Come off it, Ramos,” the demon scoffed. “There is no ‘later.' Come on out, Araceli. Let's get it over with!”

Beside her, Araceli whimpered again.
Hang in there, Sis, don't give up yet.

The demon raised Henderson's hand again, but it seemed to take longer this time than it had upstairs. Another fireball flashed in the darkness, smashing against one of the support posts.

Araceli squeaked in terror.

Danny leaned close. “Okay, that's the demon, right?”

Biddy nodded. “The demon possessed Henderson, but he's almost worn him out. Here.” She slid one of her silver rings onto Danny's little finger.

“Silver?”

Biddy nodded again. “Iron works, too. Also steel. I've got some nails in my purse.” She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering her purse sitting at the top of the stairs. “If I still had my purse.”

“Also steel.” Danny stared at the demon, then fumbled in his pockets.

Henderson's shoulders were propped against the wall now for support, his fingertips burned black from the fireballs. “Come out, children, come out and play,” the demon sang. But Henderson's body slumped down further.

“You don't seem very playful to me,” Danny called, pulling something from his pocket. “Henderson doesn't look too good.”

“Henderson was an old fart pretending to be young,” the demon snarled. “They wear out fast. Maybe I'll use you instead. That body of yours should be good for something.”

Biddy closed her eyes, remembering all the things Danny's body was good for. She'd take on the demon herself before she'd let it possess Danny.

“I'll give you time to say good-bye to each other.” The demon's voice sounded higher, more frantic. “You can even decide who goes first. Maybe everybody else could get away while I have my snack.”

Henderson's hand raised again, ponderously, as if it were being pulled up by strings. This time the fireball brought a groan of agony from somewhere deep within Henderson's body.

Biddy smelled burning wood. Another support beam glowed red at the base.

“I'll even . . .” The Henderson demon was panting now. “Even . . .”

Araceli pulled away from her, stumbling, running for the door.

“No!” Biddy screamed.

“No you don't!” the demon cried, lurching toward the bottom of the stairs.

Danny stepped forward and rammed his Swiss Army knife into the center of Henderson's chest.

The screams might have been the demon, but they sounded very human to Biddy. “Oh, Christ,” Biddy moaned. “Shit. Goddamn.”

Henderson's body twisted on the staircase, then crashed to the floor as Araceli pulled the door open and sprinted through.

“Get out!” Danny yelled. “Get out now!”

Biddy grabbed for the doorknob, but it slipped through her fingers, slamming shut again.

“Crap,” Danny whispered. “Not good.”

“Is it gone?” Biddy swallowed hard, willing herself to look back.

“I doubt it.” Danny reached beyond her to jerk again on the doorknob.

“Bidddddeeeeeee, Dannnnnneeeee,” the high-pitched squeal echoed through the room behind her.

“Well, hell.” Biddy sighed.

Chapter 26

Crouching in the darkness with Biddy, Danny could think of a dozen questions he should have asked his mother or Rosie during that frenzied drive from Grey Forest back to King William. Number one on the list would have been “Which is worse, an incarnated demon or a demon in spirit form?”

He glanced down at the thin silver ring Biddy had jammed onto his finger. Somehow it looked too insubstantial to do much good. “Does this mean we're going steady?”

“It means I hope we get out of this alive,” she whispered. “Do you see it?”

He didn't need to ask what “it” was. He shook his head as he peered into the shadows. Two of the support posts glowed red, and he could smell burning trash. “We need to get out of here fast. The door's unlocked.”

“Try it.” She squeezed his arm, moving around him so that he was facing the door again.

He grabbed hold of the deadbolt knob, trying to turn it. Nothing happened. “It's jammed.”

She sighed. “No it isn't. The demon's keeping the door closed. But I don't think he's got enough power to hold onto everything. He was already fading when he lost Henderson.”

He glanced back at Henderson's bloody corpse. That was going to be fun to explain to the cops. Assuming, of course, he ever got the chance. He stared into the shadows near the burning support posts again.

Something moved.

At first, he thought it was smoke—a large black cloud of smoke, rising from the floor. Then it seemed to detach itself and float toward them.

“That's it,” she whispered. “What do we do now?”

“Hungry,” a high, thin voice moaned. “So hungry.”

Danny stared at the hovering cloud as it closed the distance, willing himself not to try to run.

Behind them someone began hammering on the door. “Biddy?” Araceli called. “Biddy, what's happening? Danny's mother is here, too. We're trying to get the door open!”

“Ma, stay back,” Danny yelled. “The demon's got the door blocked.”

Behind them the door shuddered under another blow, and he pulled Biddy to his side.

He could see light flash around the edges of the door a moment before they were enveloped in a cloud of freezing air. He pulled Biddy against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “Hang on.”

The air surrounding them came alive with frigid lightning bolts, like walking through an ice field that had somehow been transferred to the Van Allen radiation belt. Biddy wound her arms around his waist, tucking her head into his shoulder. “You hold on, too,” she whispered.

Sparks popped and crackled on all sides. He bowed his head against her, trying to make the two of them as small as he could while wrapping her in his body heat.

“Danny!” His mother's voice echoed from somewhere behind them. “We're trying! Keep it inside. Don't let it get away!”

Right.
He wasn't sure how he was supposed to do that exactly. Maybe let himself be fried to a crisp by his personal-sized lightning storm. If he could have said anything, he would have told his mother to stay out, but between his chattering teeth and the noise of the crackling electricity, he didn't think she'd be able to hear him.

Biddy moved her mouth nearer to his ear. “The support posts are on fire,” she muttered. “The demon's trying to move us back toward them. I don't think the roof will hold out much longer. If it collapses, then we'll be toast and he'll be free.”

Danny raised his head enough to see that they'd actually moved a few feet from where they'd started—a few feet away from the door and closer to the now-burning support posts.

He pushed his fingertips toward the edge of the force field, then yanked them back. His hand burned. The hairs on his arms stood on end, alive with electricity. “Shit!”

The violence of the electrical storm seemed to increase, lightning striking close to their feet, ricocheting off the walls. The air was alive with sound—crackling, snapping, the hiss of burning wood.

“We've got to break through,” he muttered. “Try to make a run for it to the door. On three.”

She nodded against his chest.

He pressed his lips to her ear. “Just so you know, I love you, Biddy.”

She trembled against his chest. “Good,” she whispered. “Now get us out of here.”

“One,” Danny said between his gritted teeth. “Two . . .”

He took a breath, ready for three, when the air around them suddenly changed. The lightning strikes dropped down to a slight crackling and then to a vague humming.

For a moment the room was silent. The air seemed almost to vibrate with stillness. And then sound filled the spaces around them, a high-pitched wailing shriek, a hundred years of pain and fury exploding in a single scream of rage. Biddy clapped her hands over her ears, huddling closer to his chest.

The silence that followed was so profound that it took Danny a moment to realize the force field was entirely gone. He heard the pounding on the door and the snapping of the burning support posts. He raised his head, peering around the room, looking for the demon in the shadows.

“What happened?” Biddy muttered.

He shook his head, pulling her in staggering steps back toward the door. “Let's just get out of here.”

Faintly, faintly above the popping sounds of the fire, he heard something else, the slightest whisper. It took him a moment to recognize the sound—the swish of a woman's skirt.

He saw her then, in the shadows. Her dress glowed white in the reflected light of the flames. She stood with both arms outstretched, palms pressed toward the darkness, like a woman holding back the sea. The shadows hid her from the shoulders up, but it didn't matter. He knew she wouldn't have a face.

Biddy grabbed his arm, sucking in a breath. “Mrs. Palmer.”

“She's holding it off us for now,” he whispered. “Move.”

The door burst open as they reached it. As they tumbled through, he saw his mother and Araceli, braced side by side against it. He pushed Biddy away, then shoved his mother and Araceli after her down the walk, stumbling back from the acrid smell of burning wood toward the Steadman house.

He had time to turn back once more before he followed, to see the fire leap from support post to support post before the door slammed firmly shut again. He wondered, in the split second as he ran for the drive, whether the force behind it had been the demon or Mrs. Palmer. Or maybe Mr. Black.

Flames shot out of the upper windows now, fed by the trash on both floors. “Call 911,” he barked to his mother. “Hurry. The main house could catch, too.”

His mother fumbled for her phone, while Araceli stared blankly at the carriage house. “Clark?” she croaked. “What happened? Is he . . .”

“He's dead, Araceli.” Biddy put her hand on her sister's arm. “We couldn't have done anything for him. Once the demon got hold of his soul, he was gone.”

“It was my fault for bringing him there.” Araceli began to breathe harder, her chest rising and falling too quickly. “I didn't mean for this to happen. I just wanted . . .” Her voice broke on a sob.

Biddy put her arms around her, rubbing Araceli's back. “It's all right. You didn't know about the demon. Don't think about it now.”

Danny turned to his mother. “Will it get loose if the fire takes out the roof?”

She shook her head grimly. “Not now. If it had been able to collapse the roof before the fire spread, it could have escaped, but fire will consume the demon as it destroys the building. Fire is a demon's natural element.”

Distantly, they heard the sound of sirens approaching, gaining volume the closer they came. “Oh, God,” Araceli wailed. “The carriage house—it's burning up! What do we tell Mr. Petrocelli?”

“Tell him it's a teardown.” Danny sighed. “It always was.”

***

The rest of the afternoon seemed to pass in a series of snapshots. Biddy felt like her brain was on restart. Every once in a while it simply clicked out for a few minutes and then began again.

Snapshot one was the fire trucks arriving. Their hoses crisscrossed the dry lawn of the Steadman house, snaking under the spreading live oaks. Fortunately, there was a fire hydrant handy.

Danny didn't let go of her, even after the police arrived—once they'd gotten the news that a body was still inside the burning building. The story he'd told them had been simple and largely believable. Henderson had lit a cigarette. The match had ignited the trash upstairs. Henderson had gotten trapped while Danny tried to get Araceli and Biddy out. She guessed that not much would remain of Clark Henderson. After all, the demon had used him up long before the fire started.

On Danny's other side, Araceli said nothing, but her eyes looked like frosted glass. “Do you want me to drive you home?” Biddy asked, finally.

Her sister shook her head. “It was my fault,” she whispered. “All my fault. I brought Clark here. And you. If I hadn't wanted to be the best so badly, to beat Danny Ramos . . .” She swallowed hard. “I'll tell Big Al I screwed up. I'll tell him everything was my fault. The fire. What happened to Clark.” Her voice cracked slightly.

“Your fault?” Biddy shook her head. “How is this in any way your fault? It was a demon, Araceli.”

She reached for her, but her sister stepped away. “No. Don't. It doesn't matter what it was up there, I started everything by going there in the first place when I shouldn't have. I'll take responsibility for it. I'll take responsibility for all my mistakes.” She turned back to Biddy again. “You don't want to work in real estate, do you?”

Biddy shook her head slowly.

“I thought not. Go do what you want to do, Sis. I won't stop you. Now I need to go back to the office and talk to Big Al.” She turned toward her BMW, still parked under the live oak where she'd left it, waving off the paramedics' attempt to examine her. Biddy watched her drive away toward the office, to start putting herself on the line.

Technically, Biddy had a gig that night, but she called Skip and told him she'd been in an accident. The guys could play some of their songs without her. Realistically, they wouldn't be as popular, but she knew in her bones she couldn't stand up and sing after what she'd been through, not if she wanted it to sound like anything other than a dirge.

Finally, the carriage house was reduced to four crumbling limestone walls and piles of ashes. Danny stepped closer, still linked to her by the hand he wouldn't let go. Through the opening where the door had once been, they saw a large lump of metal leaning against the far wall. She bit her lip, her heart pounding. “What's that?”

Danny closed his eyes for a moment, then glanced back at her. “The stove.”

Biddy took a deep breath and turned away. Some people from the coroner's office were walking toward the ruin with a gurney.

“Let's go to my place,” she murmured.

A half hour later she lay in the king-size hammock on her back patio, resting a margarita on her chest. Danny lay beside her, still holding her hand. She sighed and took another swallow of tequila and lime.

He glanced at her. “Okay?”

“Not exactly. But maybe better than I was.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “What happened back there at the end? How did we get out?”

He shrugged. “Mrs. Palmer took care of us. As to why or how she could suddenly hold the demon off, I don't know.”

“Why didn't she do that earlier?” Biddy shivered. “Like when Araceli opened the stove?”

“Maybe she couldn't do anything as long as the demon was hiding inside Henderson.”

The late Mr. Henderson.
Biddy pressed her lips together hard.

“Remember what Ma said.” His voice was quiet. “The demon couldn't possess anyone who wasn't already inclined in its direction.”

She shook her head. “Henderson was a dirty old man. But wanting to have a three-way with me and Araceli doesn't seem like a crime that deserved execution.”

“He wanted what?” Danny turned a burning gaze in her direction.

“Relax. I didn't say he got it. Or ever would have.” She sighed. “It just seems so arbitrary. The demon could have chosen to possess Araceli. Or me. Both of us had our weaknesses—the demon did its best to exploit them.”

“My guess is the demon would always go for the body that looked strongest,” Danny mused. “Henderson had lots of moral problems, and he was bigger than either of you. He was the one who was singled out.”

“And Mrs. Palmer stopped it, but we don't know why. And we still don't know who Mr. Black was.” She closed her eyes, leaning her head against his shoulder again.

He shrugged. “He was the coachman, Mrs. Palmer's lover.”

“But we don't know his name. I promised him I'd do my best for him, but I'm not sure I did. I just wish I knew his name.”

He pulled her closer, lacing his fingers through hers. “You did your best, Biddy. He's probably gone now that the carriage house is burned. Along with the demon.”

She licked her lips, staring up at him. “When do you leave?”

He blinked at her. “Leave?”

“For Dallas. Your new job.”

He looked away, tightening his grip on her hand. “There is no new job. I mean, I had an offer a couple of weeks ago, but I turned it down.”

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “What? Why? Why did you tell me that?”

He rubbed his other hand across his forehead. “I was going to destroy the carriage house, burn it down to get rid of the demon. I didn't want you involved. I figured breaking up with you and telling you I was leaving would be the most effective way to do that.”

Biddy considered punching him, but she didn't have the energy. She collapsed back against the hammock again. “That was amazingly stupid. And very, very painful. For both of us, I sincerely hope.”

He sighed. “Right. I figured that out around the time I walked out your door. It just . . . it was the only thing I could come up with. I wasn't thinking clearly, I guess.”