Jenna Black - The Devil Inside

I hadn’t even finished booting up my computer when someone knocked on my office door.

“Come in,” I called, not fully paying attention yet. I was trying to will my computer to hurry up and get booted. It was past time I upgrade to a new one, but it was such a hassle I kept procrastinating.

My computer was still chugging away when I finally gave up and turned to the doorway. I froze in surprise when I saw Adam White standing there.

Adam is the head of Special Forces, the branch of the police department that deals with rogue demons. Coincidentally, he’s also a demon himself. There are lots of people — including me — who think this is a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. But in some ways, it’s very practical. Adam can take on another demon in hand-to-hand combat and win. That’s not something you can say about us mere mortals.

When he saw he had my attention, he smiled and took a seat in front of my desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He’s quite a treat to the eyes, and he knows it. About six-two and a little over two hundred pounds, all of it sculpted muscle. Short, dark hair that’s almost black, and bedroom eyes that remind me of hot caramel.

Of course, I don’t know why he’s so proud of his appearance. It’s not him that looks so good, it’s his host.

The Spirit Society favors the good-looking to host the Higher Powers, as they call demons. Higher Powers my ass! Demons call themselves demons. They say they predate the Bible by a long way, and that their name for themselves has been corrupted by humans. But the Society has decided “demon” is some kind of ethnic slur. I can’t tell you how many times my mom washed my mouth out with soap for calling them “demons.”

Naturally, since Adam is a demon, I dislike him on principle. He knows that, so I was surprised to see him in my office.

“What can I do for you, Adam?” I asked, sounding wary even to my own ears.

One corner of his mouth lifted into a hint of a grin at my tone, but it dropped quickly. I realized belatedly that he wasn’t a happy camper at the moment. There was a hint of a frown line between his brows, and I might almost have called the look in his eyes “haunted.”

He took a deep breath, as though bracing himself, then held his head up and met my eyes. “I need you to perform an exorcism.”

My jaw dropped, and I was at a loss for words. A rarity for me, let me tell you.

He didn’t seem to need me to say anything just yet. “Did you hear about the attack by God’s Wrath this weekend?”

God’s Wrath is one of the many anti-demon hate groups. Some of them try to battle the Minions of Satan — as they call demons — in the courts, trying to have the Spirit Society outlawed once more. God’s Wrath is more on the militant side. One of their specialties is arson, burning demons and their hosts alive in the Cleansing Fire of God. Yes, when they talk, everything sounds like it has capital letters.

I’d been too self-involved this weekend to read the paper or watch the news, so I didn’t know what God’s little helpers had been up to.

“Do you remember about three weeks ago that fire they set in South Philly?”

I remembered. The fire had killed an upstanding legal demon and his pregnant lover. They’d had another child, a little girl, who was trapped in the house. One of the demon firefighters rescued her, grabbing the child and then jumping from the top of the three-story building to the sidewalk below, taking all the impact with his legs to protect the child he held. That had to hurt. The child had lived, and the demon’s legs had no doubt healed within a few hours.

“I remember,” I said, because Adam was waiting for my answer.

Adam’s face was grim and tight. “The firefighter was Dominic Castello. This weekend, God’s Wrath decided to punish him for rescuing the Spawn of Satan.”

I groaned. I hate demons with the best of them, but even I don’t think it’s a bad thing to rescue a three-year-old girl from a burning building just because her daddy happens to be hosting a demon.

“They wanted to teach him a lesson, not kill him,” Adam continued. “So nine of them ambushed him in front of his house, armed with baseball bats and crowbars.”

I winced in sympathy even as I began to realize where this story was going.

Adam looked miserable. “He was only trying to defend himself.” He met my eyes, a look of earnest entreaty in his own. “We feel pain, you know. We can tolerate it better than humans, but we have our limits.”

“What happened?” I asked softly. But I already knew.

Adam hung his head. “They beat him until he lost control. He went berserk and fought back. Only until he was able to break free and run, but the damage was already done. He killed one, and another is in the hospital on life support.”

I’m not used to sympathizing with the demons, but I was making an exception this time.

Demons don’t have the same rights as humans. According to the law, it doesn’t matter what the extenuating circumstances are. If a demon goes rogue — in other words, is involved in a violent crime — it’s going to be exorcized. Period. And there would be no long, drawn-out trial. Hell, they didn’t even have the right to a lawyer, though some judges let them have one anyway. Certainly there was no jury of their peers.

“So he’s the one you want me to exorcize.”

Adam nodded. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn there was a hint of tears in his eyes.

I’m usually hired by family members, and only when the court-appointed exorcist has already failed. I couldn’t think of another time when a demon had hired me, but it sure looked like that was what was happening here.

“Why are you coming to me?” I asked, then winced at my less-than-tactful tone.

Adam didn’t take offense. “He and I have what you might call a history together. We’ve been friends ever since we came to the Mortal Plain, and our hosts were friends even before that. This is going to be difficult for all of us. We need the exorcism to work smoothly and quickly. And you’re the best there is.”

That made me squirm. “So your host is…aware of what’s going on?”

Adam’s eyes skewered me. “You know he is.”

I looked away. Yeah, I knew. And this was one exorcism I wasn’t too eager to perform.

“Will you do it?” Adam asked.

I sighed. How could I refuse? Dominic Castello was getting one hell of a raw deal. Better to get it over with quickly than to make him suffer. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to thank me, but he managed a little nod of acknowledgment.

The exorcism of Dominic Castello will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Not for any reasons I might have expected. Unlike Lisa Walker, he didn’t fight it. They had him bolted to the table and fitted with a stun belt, just in case, but from the moment I walked into that execution chamber, all I saw was resignation.

Adam came with me, to bear witness and provide moral support. Moral support for Dominic, not me, in case you were wondering.

Dominic was a typical demon host — meaning he was gorgeous. Coarse, wavy hair of Italian black, with large, expressive hazel eyes framed by thick lashes. Not as muscular as some hosts — like, say, Adam — but I’d bet he’d have a wiry strength to him even without his demon’s help.

There wasn’t a mark on Dominic’s body, at least not on what I could see of it. He’d had to do a lot of healing over the last couple of days. He’d turned himself in to Adam after the attack. Adam had taken pictures, which he’d shown me. I could have lived without seeing those pictures.

The containment center guards didn’t much like Adam coming in there with me, but there wasn’t much they could say about it. He outranked all of them. I didn’t like that Adam pulled up a chair and held Dominic’s hand while I laid out my candles. It made Dominic look too much like a victim, and me too much like the villain.