Charlaine Harris - An Apple for the Creature

“My mother was dying, and I had to go to her, to be with her. . . . I knew that it wouldn’t be long, that I was going to say good-bye to her. She was the last of my family, my brother and sister had been gone for nearly two years. . . . We were all that was left, Momma and me . . . and Petey.”

The little dog appeared briefly in the mass of shadow again.

“I’d never had children, so Petey was my child . . . my baby.” She was wringing her hands faster now, more violently, as if trying rub them clean of some stubborn stain.

“Momma was in the hospital and I knew that Petey wouldn’t be allowed there. . . . I needed a place for him to stay, where somebody would take care of him until I got back.”

Patricia clenched her fists and strode toward Jackie hanging in the air, to confront the trainer.

“This woman . . . this cold-hearted bitch promised to take care of my baby, swore to me that she’d look after him . . . and she lied.”

Remy saw that Jackie’s eyes were now open, a tentacle of darkness wrapped tightly around her throat.

“No,” Jackie managed, her voice nothing more than a tortured whisper. “It . . . It was . . . accident.”

Patricia shook her fists at the woman. “Don’t you dare say that,” she hissed, the flush of her cheeks showing through the heavy makeup. “Don’t you dare!”

The Bad Hour flowed tighter about Jackie, bending her limbs in impossible ways, threatening to break her into pieces.

“I trusted you,” Patricia shrieked. “I trusted you and you killed my Petey.”

Jackie struggled pathetically in the grip of nightmare.

“So . . . sorry . . .”

“No,” Patricia bellowed, turning her gaze from the woman. “It’s too late for that. . . . You did what you did and you have to pay. . . . I have to pay.”

The older woman seemed to grow smaller, collapsing in upon herself.

The Bad Hour reached out again with one of its limbs of shadow, touching the woman as if lending her some of its strength, feeding her anger.

“I know the story she told, I’ve heard it over and over again inside my head, but it doesn’t matter one little bit.” Patricia studied the trainer hanging helplessly before her. “You weren’t looking out for him. . . . You weren’t being careful, and you let him get out of his crate, and he was so scared. . . .”

Patricia became overcome with emotion, choking back her tears as she again recollected what had led them all to this.

“He . . . He was probably looking for me . . . wondering where I had gone . . . why I had left him in this . . . place. . . .” She dropped to her knees, weak from grief. “So scared that he didn’t even think of the road outside . . . of the cars. . . .”

Patricia stared at her balled fists; they were trembling with fury.

“You told me that he was dead when you found him, that the car that struck him hadn’t even stopped. . . .”

She looked at Remy then, and he saw in her eyes the depths of her sadness, of a grief so strong that a monster such as the Bad Hour could have feasted upon it for centuries.

“Can you imagine hearing that?” she asked him. “Hearing that about your baby?”

Remy couldn’t imagine it, and the Seraphim fought harder, surging to escape the prison of flesh, blood, muscle, and bone that had kept it locked away for centuries.

The Bad Hour was growing, feeding off all the emotion in the room. This was its power, to feed upon the anger, to use it to grow its strength. There was no wonder why it hadn’t yet dealt with Jackie, Patricia’s emotions still so very raw . . . so strong.

So delicious.

“I tried to get past it, but I couldn’t. . . . I kept imagining him there, lying in the road, wondering why I had left him as he died.” She was sobbing now, the grief completely overwhelming her as it had continued to do since Petey’s death.

And the Bad Hour grew stronger, taking the little form of Petey, stoking the fires of her grief.

Patricia suddenly went quiet, wiping the tears from her face as she carefully rose from her knees.

“And now we’ve come to this,” she said, seeming more in control. “At first I was afraid . . . scared of what I had called up. . . . I tried to warn you with a note that it was coming, so that you could prepare. . . . I think I did it more for myself, hoping that it might satisfy my anger, my hunger for revenge if you knew something was coming . . . but it did the opposite and made me want to see you suffer all the more.”

Patricia stared at her adversary, with dark, cold eyes. There was a piece of the Bad Hour behind those eyes, of that Remy had no doubt.

“How should we do this?” the woman then asked. “How do I make you pay for your sins? Do I let Petey drag you out into the street so that you can be hit by a car and die there alone . . . or do I let it just rip you apart while I watch?”

The Bad Hour seethed, writhing in anticipation, feeding off the woman’s escalating fury. This was what it had been waiting for, and though it had savored her tears and rage, this was what it was all about.

The coup de grace.

Remy felt as if his skin were on fire, the Seraphim bubbling just below the surface. The Bad Hour’s influence was still upon him, but he had to try to stop this . . . to halt what was about to happen.

“And if you do this,” Remy asked, still managing to hold on to the leash that kept the power of Heaven inside him in check. “If you toss her in the street to be hit . . . or rip her apart . . . what then?”

Patricia seemed confused by the question, the darkness in her eyes temporarily fleeing. “She’ll have paid for what she did to my baby . . . to me.”

“But then what?” Remy asked. “Petey will still be gone. . . . The grief will still be as real.”

The Bad Hour did not like what he was saying. A mass of solidified shadow whipped out from its boiling mass to strike him savagely to the floor. It took all that Remy had to maintain his grip upon his divine nature, to retain his humanity in the moment.

“You’ll still have to deal with the guilt that you’re carrying,” he told her, lifting his face to look at her.

The old woman seemed startled.

“My guilt?” she asked incredulously. “Why would I have any guilt? It was she who . . .”

“You left your baby,” Remy said, rising, hoping to weaken the Bad Hour’s hold upon her, to redirect some of that anguish and rage upon her.

“I had no choice!” Patricia bleated, the tears starting to flow again. “My mother was dying and I couldn’t . . .”

“Your mother was your major concern,” Remy said, regaining a slight bit of control over the angelic essence roused to anger by the demonic spirit. “Petey had to come second.”

“But I loved him,” the woman sobbed.

“I never said that you didn’t,” Remy told her. “But a decision had to be made, and you made it.”

“I couldn’t take him with me. . . . I was staying at the hospital just in case . . . for when the time came,” Patricia said, remembering.

“You made a decision to have somebody else care for Petey,” Remy said, driving the point home.

“She had excellent references,” Patricia said. “I even called some of the people to ask about how their dogs were treated.”

“You did everything you could to be sure that Petey would be cared for,” Remy said.

“I did.”

“But something happened,” Remy stressed. “Something horrible.”

“She killed him!” Patricia screamed, and the miasma of darkness that was the Bad Hour seemed to grow even larger, starting to engulf the still struggling Jackie Kinney as she was hanging in the air. The dog trainer fought against the living shadow as it attempted to flow into her mouth and nose.