Jenna Black: Speak of the Devil

The Taser popped again, the probes latching on and pumping fifty thousand volts into Jessica’s system. Powerful though he might be, Abraham reacted to that Taser shot just like any other demon: He lost control of his host’s body and went completely limp.

Lugh pushed Jessica’s body to the side and sat up while I tried to figure out exactly what had happened. The unknown woman, Abraham’s host, had let go of Jessica’s ankle before Barbie Tasered her. When she’d collapsed, I’d been sure she wasn’t in contact with Jessica. So how the hell had Abraham ended up in Jessica?

He was in Jessica the whole time , Lugh said, and I knew he was right. Jessica had seemed a little… weird. Particularly when she swung at Lugh as if trying to knock the knife away. Yeah, she was supposed to be drugged out of her mind, but she’d still managed to gouge out some skin for evidence. Not a coincidence.

But if Abraham had been in Jessica all along, who was the woman with the gun? Whoever she was, she still lay in a heap on the floor, but her body was wracked with sobs.

“Now that I saved both your ass and your soul,” Barbie said, “do you think you’re ready to level with me?”

Lugh turned to her, though we were both keeping a careful eye on the two Taser victims, just in case. Even in the light of the single candle, I could see the sweat that coated Barbie’s face. Her eyes were squinched almost shut with pain, and her cheekbones stood out in stark relief.

I mentally reviewed everything Barbie had seen and heard, and it was not good news. She’d probably have been able to explain away the inexplicable quickness that had stopped me from stabbing Jessica, but not the strength it had taken for me to throw Jessica across the room, nor the midair acrobatics that had kept me from hitting the wall when Jessica threw me.

We’re screwed , I said to Lugh.

“I’ll get back to you in a moment,” Lugh said to Barbie. He grabbed my cell phone and quickly called Adam.

“What?” Adam said when he answered, sounding groggy and grumpy.

“I need your help, immediately,” he said, then rattled off the address. “Get here yesterday.”

Adam was instantly awake. “What’s going on?”

“Too much to explain. Just get down here. And get Raphael down here, too. We may need his inventive storytelling abilities.”

Adam must have realized he was speaking to Lugh, not me. If it had been me barking orders at him like that, he’d have balked. Instead, he hung up with a promise to be here ASAP.

“What, no ambulance?” Barbie asked.

“Not yet. We’re going to need Adam to be a bit creative about what happened here, so we need him here before anyone else.”

Her gaze was shrewd. “Because you need to hide that you’re somehow still possessed.”

“Among other things.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Lugh looked back and forth between the two Tasered women, and Barbie said, “Oh.”

He crossed the room to her, squatting by her side and dropping his voice to the softest of whispers. “Morgan will explain everything later,” he said.

I will?

“For now, just know that she and I don’t have the typical demon/host relationship.”

Are you sure about this? I asked.

Yes , was his succinct reply.

“When Adam arrives and my strength is no longer required,” he continued, “I will put Morgan back in control. She will no doubt become violently ill again, but that can’t be helped. Please contain your curiosity for now, and go along with whatever story Adam and Raphael—that’s Tommy Brewster’s demon—come up with.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “Deal?”

She managed a smile, though pain was written across her face. “I’d do just about anything to find out the real story behind all this. I’m just dying of curiosity.” She shook Lugh’s hand, and her palm was clammy with sweat. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to pass out now.” And true to her word, her eyelids fluttered, and she slumped to the side. Lugh lowered her gently to the floor.

Then he took the Taser and gave Abraham another jolt, just to make sure he was down for the count. I suggested the unknown woman could use another jolt herself, despite the fact that she was curled up in fetal position and crying.

She wouldn’t have enough control to curl up and cry if she were a demon , Lugh reminded me. As usual, he was right.

Adam arrived in less than fifteen minutes. Lugh quickly took him aside and told him the whole story. Raphael arrived only a couple minutes later, and while Adam shared the story with him, Lugh drove my body over to a corner and sat down.

Are you ready? he asked.

God, no. The idea of going through another three days or more of the hellish sickness was almost enough to make me leave Lugh in control for the rest of my life. Well, no, not really, but you know what I mean.

Then Lugh shifted control back to me, and I was so violently ill I had no idea who said what to who or what exactly happened afterward.

I have only the haziest of memories of the next few days. I know I was in the hospital—The Healing Circle. You’ve got to love the irony. And I know that an exorcist was brought in to the hospital to examine my aura. But I was mercifully unaware of whatever tests may have been performed on me in an effort to figure out why I was so damn sick. All things considered, I was probably a lot less miserable staying in the hospital than I had been when I’d stayed home. After all, they have way better drugs.

I had visitors every day, although I was rarely clearheaded enough to know the difference between dreams and reality. The first time that I woke up and was actually coherent, it was Adam who sat at my bedside. I might have been touched that he cared, only he was really there just to fill me in on the official story about the showdown at the warehouse so I wouldn’t say anything to contradict it.

Apparently, everything had gone down approximately as I remembered it, only it was Tommy Brewster who’d gotten into the nasty fight with the possessed Jessica. He’d come with me to meet Abraham because I was ill, and he’d defended me against the attack, the stress of which had somehow made my illness ten times worse. Jessica had, of course, disputed the story, but since all the other witnesses—even the mystery woman—corroborated it, and since the examination by the exorcist had proven I wasn’t possessed, her claims were dismissed.

I listened to Adam’s version of what happened and decided that even with my meager lying skills, I could pull it off. It was close enough to the truth not to make me squirm too badly. But what I really wanted to know was who the hell the woman with the gun had been. Luckily, Adam was in an expansive mood and was happy to tell me.

“Her name is Susan Harvey,” he said. “She’s an actress. A pretty good one, too, with aspirations of Broadway. She’s also a single mom, and Abraham kidnapped her son. She was ordered to put on the show of a lifetime, and if she failed to convince you, then she’d never see her son again. Ms. Harvey was contrite enough that she needed little persuasion to remember things the way we wanted her to.”

I remembered the nearly hysterical look in her eyes when Lugh had been about to stab Jessica. At the time, I’d interpreted it as Abraham’s excitement at seeing his revenge come to fruition, but the truth was it was unadulterated horror. Despite the fact that she’d held a gun to my head, I felt sorry for her.

“Is her son okay?” I asked, my voice weak and raspy from disuse.

Adam’s lips tightened with displeasure. “For the most part. Jessica had tied him up in her basement. She hadn’t exactly been gentle with him, and she hadn’t bothered to feed him or give him any water while she held him, but the doctors say he’ll make a full recovery.”