The_Demons_Wife_ARC (8 page)

Samael laughed
and shook his head.

“I didn’t,” he
said without missing a beat. “I was guessing it was your roommate. I know she
snuck in when you—when we were asleep, and I know she doesn’t like me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…Really.”
He was still smiling…but the smile didn’t look quite so friendly now. His
tongue was no longer visible, but his teeth were exposed, making small
indentations on his bottom lip. “Yeah…because she wanted me to pick her instead
of you.”

Pick me?... That
sounds ominous…What did you pick me for
?

A shiver ran
up both of her arms to the nape of her neck. She was about to confront him on
this whole “picking me” thing when her phone started ringing again.

“If that’s
your mother, she’s persistent. I’ve got to give her that,” Samael said, but
Claire experienced a cold hollowness in the pit of her stomach when she saw on
the Caller ID that it wasn’t her mother.

It was a
number she didn’t recognize. If it was the student loan company calling again…

“Hello,” she
said after snapping the phone up off the counter.

“Yes, hello.
This is Boyd Harris at the District Attorney’s Office. Is this Claire
McMullen?”

Claire's eyes
widened and she flashed a look at Samael. For some reason, she was suddenly
convinced something had gone wrong, and she was in trouble with the police.

“Yes,
this…this is she,” she replied, irritated by the tremor in her voice.

“Ms.
McMullen,” Harris continued. “I’ve got a…a rather unusual situation here,
regarding your case.”

He paused, and
in the pause, Claire had time to say, “What is it?” while her nerves tightened.

“The man we
arrested last night, Ron LaPierre, the person who allegedly assaulted you—”

Allegedly?

“—has asked if
you’d be willing to come down to the police station and talk to him.”

“Me? Talk to
him? Are you—?” She gulped dry air that felt like a hot coal lodged in her
throat. “Why would I want to talk to him? Isn’t it, like, illegal or
something?”

“It’s not
typical, for sure,” Mr. Harris said, “but it’s not unprecedented.”

Claire
considered for a few pulsebeats and then asked, “Well, do you think I should?”

“Your call,
but I wouldn’t advise it. No point to it. He says he’s innocent, so anything
you say to him could hurt the case against him. At this point, the evidence
against him doesn’t look good…for him.”

Claire noticed
that, as she spoke into the phone, Samael kept shifting in his chair. Maybe he
was sitting on his tail and couldn’t get comfortable. She wondered if his
hearing was sharp enough so he could hear both sides of the conversation. 

“You want to
speak with him, you can do it. You might want to have your lawyer with you, if
you got one. ‘Course I or someone from the DA’s office would have to be there,
too.” Harris paused, took a breath, and then said, “But—again, I wouldn’t
advise it.”

“No,” Claire
said quickly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, either…not a good idea at all.”

The
conversation was bringing back last night’s events so fast they rushed over her
like a dark tide, filling her with unfathomable dread. Her breathing was
hitching hard now, and her body was shaking as if she were facing an Arctic
blast. The sound of her pulse was heavy in her ears; her neck and wrists ached
with dull pain. When she looked at Samael, he was hiding his smile behind his
hand.

Is he enjoying
this…what this is doing to me?
She wondered.

“It’s just,”
Harris continued, unaware of Claire’s reaction, “he insisted that you speak to
him. He says he didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do…”
She couldn’t finish the thought.

“He says it
wasn’t him…that he was there, but he has no memory of attacking or trying to
hurt you.”

“But you—you
caught him doing it.”

“He says he
wants to apologize.”

“Which implies
that he did do it.”

“Look. I’m
just doing what he asked…throwing it out there so you’d know. That’s all.”

“Yes. I…Thank
you.”

Claire had no
idea what to make of it. Why would she want to speak to or even see the man who
had tried to rape her?

She wanted to ask
Harris more questions, to find out exactly what her assailant had said and why
he thought speaking with her would do any good. Maybe get her sympathy and try
to get her to drop the charges. She watched as Samael got up from the table
and, without a backward glance at her, sauntered down the hallway, back to the
bedroom.

Is he
recharged and ready to go at it again?
She wondered. In spite of what she
was dealing with here, a deep warmth throbbed in her lower belly, and she
smiled. 

Am I ready to
go again?

She suddenly
had grave doubts about what she was doing—not about the rape charges, but with
Samael. As impossible as it seemed…as impossible as it was, she knew in her
soul that she should have absolutely nothing more to do with a demon, no matter
how charming and attractive he might appear…That was the operant word here:

Appear.

And it
certainly didn’t matter how good he was with his tail!

“I—I
appreciate your call, Mr.—”

“Harris.”

“Mr. Harris.”

She ended the
call, noticing the emptiness inside her without Samael in the same room where
she could see him. She considered for a moment—

Why would Mr.
Harris from the DA’s office be calling in the first place if it wasn’t
advisable for her to talk to LaPierre?

This was just
weird!

Why stir
things up like this?

Why not just
let things take their course?

She had no
doubt that she would experience psychic echoes from last night’s events for a
long time to come, and she wondered—and worried—that over time, things would
get worse instead of better.

It certainly
didn’t help to have someone from the DA’s office suggest something as foolish
as going to visit her “alleged” assailant in prison.

She hadn’t
even known his name until just now—Ron LaPierre.

She told
herself that she honestly didn’t care to see or hear from him or even think
about him ever again. The trial—if it came to that, and she had to
testify—would be ordeal enough to sit through. Some women may want to face
their attacker and ask him, simply, why? 

But not her.

Mr. Ron LaPierre
could rot in jail from now until the end of time, for all she cared.

She walked
down the hallway to her bedroom. All she wanted to think about was how
incredible it felt to be wrapped up in Samael’s embrace and experience the
thrills that coursed through her body when he penetrated her with his tail.

After this
call, she was more than ready to start in again.

“Are you...?”
she started to say, but her question died on her lips when she saw that Samael
wasn’t in the bedroom.

“Samael?”

The lighting
in the room was dim. No wonder. Samael liked it that way even on a bright,
sunny March day. She looked carefully at the bed to make sure he wasn’t under
the covers, but the rumpled bed sheets couldn’t have hidden him. After looking
all around to make sure she wasn’t missing him in the dim light, she assumed
that he was in the bathroom.

But then a
thought hit her—

He doesn’t
have to urinate…How could he…without a penis?

And then
another thought struck her.

Does he also
not have an anus?...Does he ever have to excrete?

“This is getting
too weird,” she mumbled to herself as she walked out of the bedroom and down
the far end of the hall to the closed bathroom door. She rapped on the door
with her knuckles, a few quick taps.

“You in
there?” she called out.

No answer.

“Samael?”

Again, she
knocked, and again…

No answer.

Bracing
herself, she reached down and clasped the doorknob. The brass knob was slick in
her hand. She turned it slowly until the latch clicked; then she pushed the
door open a crack and peered inside. When she saw that he wasn’t sitting on the
toilet, she swung the door all the way open.

The bathroom
was empty.

But the shower
curtain was drawn.

Is he in
there?…Getting ready to take a shower?…Or maybe hiding…planning to jump out and
give me a scare?

She entered
the bathroom cautiously, approaching the closed shower curtain. The linoleum
floor was damp, and her bare feet squeaked on it. Her body was tense, and she
told herself she was ready for anything as she got ready to slide the shower
curtain open. Her hand wavered only slightly as she gripped the plastic edge,
balling it up in her fist.

Holding her
breath, she mentally counted to three and then ran the shower curtain open.

The sound of
the plastic rings sliding along the metal bar set her teeth on edge, but when she
saw what was inside, she realized that she wasn’t ready for anything…

Because
there…in the tub…was…something.

“What the…”
she muttered, so shocked at first that she didn’t realize that the
thing—whatever it was—was moving.

Only then did
she hear the faint buzzing sounds coming from it. At least she assumed the
sounds were coming from it. Once she keyed into the sound, it rose steadily in
volume…a loud buzzing sound of…

Bees…or flies.

The lighting
in the bathroom was never that good, even at noon with the ceiling light on, so
she leaned forward and stared at the thing on the floor of the shower.

That’s when
she realized it really was moving…a writhing ball of…something…something that
was so rotten it was swarming with flies. She leaned closer, and the pungent
stench of decaying meat hit her like a body blow to the stomach.

“What in the
name of…”

At first she
thought someone might have dropped a piece of steak or hamburger or something
in the shower where it had rotted and drawn flies.

But that
didn’t make sense.

And where did
all these flies come from?

It was March.
The apartment windows were closed tight. They might have been wintering in the
attic or maybe in one of the other tenants’ apartments, but how did they get in
here?

Her initial
panic began to subside only to be replaced with a wave of nausea as she watched
the houseflies crawling over the rotting thing. It was the size of a meatloaf,
and tufts of slimy fur poked through the red and black flesh. She knew it
couldn’t have been, but it looked like it had been here for days…maybe weeks.
Her stomach lurched, and the joints of her jaw started to ache.

She knew what
was coming next.

Holding her
breath and trying not to inhale that rancid smell, she let go of the shower
curtain and backed away from the tub. After a few steps back, she pivoted on
her heel and dropped to her knees. Clasping both sides of the toilet bowl, she
leaned her head down just in time before her stomach heaved.

The first hot
blast of vomit hit the water in the toilet bowl so hard it splashed back into
her face. But she ignored that as her stomach convulsed several times, and more
streams of vomit shot from her mouth. The joints of her jaw were throbbing now,
and the sick stench of vomit made her want to heave all the more until there
was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

Behind her,
she was aware of activity. Her first thought was that Samael—wherever he had
been—had heard her getting sick and come to help her. She wanted to look up to
see if he was standing there behind her, but she couldn’t stop vomiting.

Through her
sickness, though, she realized that it might not be Samael behind her. The
buzzing sound of the flies grew unbearably loud, and when her stomach finally
settled enough for her to turn and look, she was amazed to see a cloud of
houseflies flying in a swirling tornado-like formation, moving behind the
shower stall and banging into it hard enough to make the plastic jump.

Her throat was
burning as she covered her mouth with the flat of her hand to block the scream
that threatened to burst from her.  She watched in mute horror as the cloud of
flies—there had to be hundreds…or thousands of them—rose to the bathroom
ceiling in a dark, whirling mass.

Claire wanted
to cry out for help, but she knew she was alone in the apartment.  She could
feel it, and a cold fist tightened in her gut.

Samael had
deserted her.

Again.

Whimpering
softly, she lunged for the door and yanked it open. By now, the buzzing sound
was as loud as the crackling burr of a chainsaw, and as she staggered out into
the hallway, she fully expected the flies to swarm over her like a heavy cloud.
All too clearly, she could imagine flies crawling into her mouth and nose and
ears, buzzing and chewing her like she was already dead flesh. Nearly blind
with panic, she yanked the bathroom door closed behind her and took a few
unsteady steps down the hallway until she stumbled over her own feet and fell.