The_Demons_Wife_ARC (26 page)

She sighed and
shook her head.

“Well, don’t
fall asleep yet,” Samael said. “You have to keep your eyes open. Know who it
is.”

“Who?” Claire
asked as an icy jolt speared her gut.

His comment
removed any doubt. This was all real. As crazy as the events of last night
seemed, Samael had just validated all the danger and fear she had been through—and
still had to go.

The threat was
real.

“Can you tell
me?”

“Not over the
phone.”

“Okay,” she
said, not satisfied but accepting it.

She started to
chuckle, amused to realize how they were talking in clipped sentences like they
were spies on a secret mission or something, but then she realized the
seriousness of what was going on here.

Samael’s life
and hers—maybe even their souls—were in jeopardy.

 “So…” Her
throat caught, and she had to clear it before she could continue. “So what do I
do? How much danger am I really in?”

“Hard to tell,
but I think you’ll be fine. Just don’t talk to anyone…and certainly don’t go
off alone with anyone.”

“Don’t worry
about that, but am I…?”

She didn’t
dare finish the sentence, but she knew that Samael knew what she had been about
to ask.

Is there a
chance I could get hurt or killed?

“You’ll be
fine. None of them can do anything to you except maybe frighten you. But they
can’t harm you, per se.”

“Per se, huh?”

“I’m
absolutely positive. There are…certain guidelines and restrictions. It’s too
complicated to get into right now.”

Claire was
about to say something when she happened to look up and see the old man,
staring down the length of the bus aisle, looking directly at her. Her breath
caught as if she’d been sucker punched. When she met the old man’s steady
stare, he didn’t blink or turn away. He kept staring at her, his eyes shining
with a pale light.

“I think I see
him,” she whispered into the phone.

The old man
leaned further out into the aisle all the while keeping his gaze fixed on
Claire. She sank further into the corner of the seat, wishing she could disappear,
but he didn’t look away.

Don’t get
up…Don’t start coming toward me…I’ll scream…I swear to God I will.

“See who?”

“There’s an
old man on the bus,” she whispered. “And he’s—watching me. It’s really creepy.”

“Has he said
anything to you?”

“No…not unless
he said something in the bus terminal this morning when I first noticed him
then, but I was…I don’t remember if we spoke or not. I don’t think so.”

“Don’t say a
word to him. No matter what he says. Even if it’s to tell him to leave you
alone. If you feel at all threatened, say something to the bus driver—”

“How do I know
I can trust him?”

There was a
slight pause, then Samael continued: “Then start yelling for help or something
crazy to draw attention. He—we can’t bear the scrutiny of large groups of
people. We mostly have to keep it on the D.L.”

Claire
chuckled to hear him use the slang for “down low.”

But her
amusement rapidly faded when she realized that the old man—if he was the
demon—was between her and the bus driver…and the exits. If he came back here…if
he forced a confrontation, she would be trapped.

“You got
that?” Samael said. “Don’t talk to him.” His voice sounded faint with distance,
and Claire was all too aware of the miles and miles that separated them.

Even once she
was back with Samael, how could she know for sure she was safe?

“He’s freaking
me out.”

“What’s he
doing?”

Claire shifted
up so she could see over the empty seat in front of her. Sure enough, the old
man was still turned around in his seat and staring back at her. He never
blinked. Claire couldn’t see his eyes clearly, but she was positive they didn’t
have ordinary pupils. She was sure she could see golden, catlike ovals. She
wondered if someone like, say, the stoners, noticed what he was doing. Would
they react, or was this an illusion designed specifically to creep her out?

“He just…keeps
staring at me,” she said. The tightness in her throat made her voice sound
funny.

“Then ignore
him. He can’t do anything to you.”

“Are you
sure?”

“Yes! I’m
sure,” Samael said, sounding like he was getting a little bit impatient with
her.

“Well he sure
as fuck is getting on my nerves.”

“Just look out
the window. Ignore him. Read. Enjoy the trip as much as you can. It’ll be over
before you know it.”

You could say
that about life
,
she thought, and she chuckled grimly.

She wanted to
convince herself that—demon or not—the old man was a harmless old coot. She
snuggled down in her seat and stared at the back of the seat in front of her.

Samael said,
“Call me if you have to.”

“I will…for
sure.”

In the short
pause when neither of them spoke, Claire could feel her heart being stretched a
couple of hundred miles down Interstate 95.

“I love you,”
she said as tears filmed her eyes.

“I love you,
too, Claire, and I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Bye-bye.”

Before Samael
said anything else, her phone beeped three times. The battery was almost
drained.

“I gotta hang
up,” she said. “My battery’s gonna die. I’ll call you when I get to Portland.”

“Or if there’s
any trouble.”

“Right. If
there’s any trouble,” she said, but then realized that if there was any
trouble, she was on her own here.

“Love you.”

The phone
beeped again, three times.

“Gotta go.”

“Love you,
too,” he said before she quickly killed the call.

As she slid
her phone back into her purse, the feeling of abandonment was absolute.

I am on my
own!

The old man’s
gaze was still boring through the bus seat in front of her, still fixed on her.
She was tempted to make a scene and go up to the front of the bus to complain
to the driver. Maybe she could have the old man removed from the bus as a
potential danger or something, but she decided just to let things be.

Like Samael
said—stay low…don’t speak with anybody…and try to enjoy the long bus ride.

“As if…”

~ * ~

Claire awoke
with a start.

Sunlight was
flickering through a stand of pine trees on a hillside, creating a weird, old-time
movie effect. For a panicked second or two, she was disoriented and didn’t know
where she was.

Then it all
came back: the cold night, her panicked hike through the woods, the wandering
and the nervousness—no, the outright panic she experienced even after she got
onto the bus. She had been at a crisis level for more than twelve straight
hours, now, and no amount of dozing was going to replenish her strength.

She sighed, rubbed
her eyes, and then sat straight up, looking to see if the old man was still
turned around and looking at her.

To her shock,
he was not there.

A quick glance
around the bus confirmed that he hadn’t changed seats so, unless he was in the
restroom, he must have gotten off—

Or disappeared
, she thought
with a shiver.
The way the demon I thought was Samael had.

What if he’s
sitting right there beside me—invisible—and watching me, relishing my fear and
paranoia?

Had the bus
stopped while she was asleep, and he had gotten off?

She couldn’t
have slept through that, could she?

She looked
around at the passengers but couldn’t be sure if anyone else was now gone or if
there were any new passengers. Her mind was slow and hazy with sleep, but it
worried her that she might have slept through a stopover. With a sudden surge
of panic, she clutched her purse and then opened it, making sure her wallet,
cell phone, and other valuables were still there.

They were, so
she relaxed a bit.

When she
cleared her throat, it felt like it was plugged up with dried mucous.

Had she slept
with her mouth hanging open and drooling…like some idiot?

She tried to
find the strength to get up and move to the front of the bus. For some reason,
she thought she might be safer up there.

Where the Hell
are we, anyway?
She wondered?

When she
looked out at the highway, all she saw was the gray asphalt strip slipping by
and the seemingly endless stretch of pine forest. That’s all there ever was to
see on this godforsaken part of the Interstate. Years ago, she had heard that a
famous travel magazine had designated I-95 in Maine as one of the ten most
scenic highways in the US.

As if
, she thought.
They must not have driven this far north.

And like she
had so many times before, she wished these tedious miles could somehow
magically melt away.

 She was still
wondering about the old man and where he had gone to. It was entirely possible
that while she was asleep, the bus had stopped—maybe even in Bangor, if they
were already that far south—and he had gotten off. She was working to accept
that was what had happened when the door on the bathroom beside her clicked.
The sound hit her ears like a gunshot. She looked up and saw the old man
exiting.

A lance of ice
ran through her, and she couldn’t help but gape at him.

Instead of
returning to his seat, he braced himself with one hand on the wall, the other
on the back of a seat, and stared down at her. Up close, Claire was positive
she saw a golden glint in his catlike eyes, but she turned away quickly and
stared out the side window.

The muffled
thumping of her pulse in her neck was painful.

Claire watched
his pale reflection in the window—

At least he
has a reflection.

 She wanted to
turn to him and challenge him, but she remembered Samael’s warning not to speak
to or even look at him. Still, she couldn’t ignore his reflection that loomed
in the bus window with the pine trees flickering by.

“You seem
lonely and frightened,” the old man said. His voice had a mellifluous
tone—soothing, trusting…“Where are you headed, child?”

Claire
continued to ignore him and kept her gaze fixed on the scenery. She was running
through her options. She could get up, push past him without saying a word, and
sit up front directly behind the driver. If her cell phone hadn’t been dead,
she could call someone—who? The police?…Samael?…the bus company?—and report
that he was harassing her.

Maybe she
should reach into her purse and pretend to grab something—a gun or a can of
pepper spray—and hope the old man recognized the threat and backed off.

But if she did
that, she’d be the one who ended up in trouble and probably get arrested at the
next stop for terrorist activities or whatever. Maybe they’d even have a squad
of police cruisers pull the bus over and arrest her on the highway like they
did to a guy a few years ago in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

“If yah want,
we could talk about whatever’s bothering yah.”

His voice was
still laced with honey smoothness, but she detected a wicked edge lurking like
a hidden serpent underneath it. She kept staring straight out the bus window
until her eyes hurt. The bus was in the passing lane, and she jolted with
surprise when she saw a car, speeding up on the right side until it was beside
the bus, directly outside her window, keeping pace.

“No way,” she
said. Her breath steamed the bus window, obscuring her view.

It was
Samael’s black Mercedes!

And Samael was
driving! In spite of the cold day, the windows were rolled down, and she could
see him clearly.

A surge of
desperate hope filled her.

She stared
down at him, but he was staring at the road ahead as if he didn’t know she was
there. Claire had no idea where they were. She hadn’t seen a road sign for the
longest time, and she wondered how he could have gotten this far north so fast,
turned around, and found her bus, heading south.

“Samael,” she
whispered, tapping furiously on the window with her forefinger. For a moment,
she forgot all about the old man in the aisle beside her. She clenched her
right hand into a fist and started banging harder on the window.

As if he can
hear me…

“Samael!” 

She kept
knocking, harder, until a passenger—not the old man—shouted, “Hey! Yah wanna
keep it down back there? I’m trying to sleep here!”