She stopped moving.
Sam’s mouth stretched impossibly wide, and the screams grew louder, finally penetrating my haze. Loud, agonizing sobs of pain as the tissue around his teeth swelled to twice its normal size and burst through, bleeding as the tooth wrenched free and a cold wind went whistling out into the space. It screamed and raced around the room, unable to break free, unable?—
And then it saw the chimney.
“Go.” I smiled.
The parents were on their feet, and I turned to them. Frank held his wife, shaking her as her head lolled back. “Balban and Agramon, you have failed in your work here. You are no servants of Sonillion, you betrayed her. You have failed and now you will go.”
“You cannot command us.” The croaking voice erupted from Frank’s mouth, loud enough that there was a squeak beside me, shuffling feet. Max and Officer Hernandez were now at the door, looking surprised they’d ended up there. They hadn’t fled the room yet—not yet. But they would soon.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I retorted. “I can command whoever I want.”
“You lie!” The force of the horde before me nearly overwhelmed me, and I took a step back, staggering. In a split second, I realized my mistake. With hasty words I had decoupled myself from divine power, putting myself out there without backup, without patronage. I wasn’t strong enough to do this on my own—not solely on my own. I did require something to stand with me and for me to punch these demons out of the humans they so obsessively held. I was bold and I was prideful, and it was too much, too much! I was empty and alone, and I wouldpay.
But I couldn’t fail. That panic overrode all other. That certainty was true and sure. Mordechai had warned me, over and over again, of the danger of letting a job go unfinished. I could not fail, or these demons would never lose their holdon the Grahams, their disease would only strengthen, Sam eventually falling beneath it, the house, the Bells, the town. Evil, once seeded, once challenged but not defeated, would ripple out like an infection, and it would never,everbe cured.
“Please!” I cried out across the vast emptiness that still filled me—knowing I deserved no help from Mordechai’s spirit or his cabal of chanting men, that I’d be granted no sanction from God or priest. I was doing this all wrong, but it still had to be done! “Please help me!”
A cold wash blew through me then, a howling wind, and I stiffened as I stepped closer to the shrinking humans and the screaming horde, unfamiliar words in a tongue I didn’t know, couldn’t speak but somehow understood, surging up my throat with a tone that was low and snide and…
Achingly familiar.
“She lies?” I challenged silkily, and the screaming stopped, never mind the goggling eyes of the Grahams, their working throats, the straining of their bodies. Perhaps others could hear their howls of pain and horror, but I could not. For me, there was only silence except my own fell words. “She bindsme, doesn’t she? And I have walked this earth since darkness fell. You all have failed. You held domain here for what, seven years? A kingdom could be gained in seven years. A generation destroyed, yet you simply slept after you had bundled Sonillion away. You didn’t break your humans’ minds, you lazy fucks. They broke you. Begone.”
They didn’t ask how, like Sam’s beast had. They also didn’t wait for psalms or smoke or chanting exhortations. Because, with this lie so carefully woven with an inspiration from God only knew where, I was done with props, I was done with them. I lifted my hands and cold wind flowed through the house, blasting into the Grahams, pressing them back against their chairs—their hair lifting, their eyes rolling?—
The creatures left through the least damaging way possible.
But of course, there was still damage.
The mother’s hand slapped against her ear, blood spurting forth. I flinched back, but there was no stopping the blackness that poured out from Mrs. Graham. Emily scrambled away, the fog of her inebriation the only thing that was keeping her in the room, I knew. Not just inebriation, though. It had been a busy afternoon. Max had done more than summon the holy family next door to ground this house, more than cover the chimney. He’d visited his grandma and her morphine drip.
Emily wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Frank’s demon, Agramon, had more of a hold on him than his wife’s did. He thrust Judith away, as she bled and smoked, and whirled on me like a bear.
“You!” he roared.
I roared right back, and this time, it was my voice—only my voice. “Youshotall your horses, Frank. You loved those horses, and you shot them. Their screams, their terrified screams when they saw what was in you, what you’d become. Do you still hear them now? Crying out in the night?”
“Stop it!”
“You stop it. Agramon isn’t that powerful a demon. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I saw something skitter behind his eyes, and I grinned. “That’s right, foul one. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Nooo,” Frank moaned, but I could feel the demon now inside him, twisting and chittering. Wanting to escape, even though Frank’s body was strong, his reach wide. It had been a good run, but it was time for it to end.
“Yes. Through the hand, I think. The nail.”
“Too small,” the beast whimpered, the sound like ripping claws through plaster.
“Cause as much pain as you like,” I shrugged. I heard a gasp behind me and shook my head, remembering I wasn’t alone here. “But if you do, you’ll pay for it. I’ll make sure you pay.”
Frank’s arm jerked as if it was going to come off, bending at an impossible angle. “Don’t incapacitate him,” I barked, and it straightened then, even as it swelled, expanding beneath the sleeve of his shirt, the threads going tight at the seams. Frank’s lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes going wide, terrified, but the swollen mass kept moving down his arm, toward his wrist. When it reached his hand, he spasmed, fingers flailing wide.
“Out, out, out,” I urged. I could feel Emily behind me, struggling back toward awareness. I’d need more time with her, I knew. More time. “Comeon.”
