A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(19)

“You have to focus, boy, you’re taking away our weapons,” the demon said, staring at its hand. There was blood on the fingertips from where it had cut me, but the claws it’d used were just gone.

“I didn’t do that, or the hoof.” The demon said that, too, but the cadence of the voice was different. Mark Cookson wasn’t possessing the demon: They were sharing.

Charleston must have reloaded because he came in and put his gun against the side of the demon’s head and fired point-blank. The demon brushed him away with one big arm, sending him flying. The claws were gone, but it was still dangerous, and I was still pinned under it. If only the damn thing would bleed and take damage from the bullets, I thought. That was what we needed, we needed it to bleed.

Blood dripped down on me as the demon shook its head, and then it shook harder, spraying blood around the hallway. “Why isn’t your blood burning like acid?” it asked.

The next drop of blood that hit my bare stomach sizzled and burned like acid. Someone else screamed, “It’s acid!”

I thought, No it’s not, it’s ordinary human blood, and the next drop that hit me was red and harmless.

The demon looked down at me with its scary movie eyes. “You . . .”

I aimed my last bullet into its eye and thought, I want the bullet to pierce the brain and kill it. That was totally impossible, you couldn’t kill a demon, but maybe we could kill this body.

I squeezed the trigger and the demon rolled off me, moving in a blur so fast that I couldn’t stop the trigger pull and put a bullet in the ceiling where its head had been.

I got to one knee, popping my empty magazine out and reaching for my last spare magazine as I moved. The other two cops were aiming into a hospital room near me. Charleston was lying against the opposite wall where the demon had thrown him. He wasn’t moving, but even as I wondered how badly he was hurt Nurse Prescott was there. I was going to owe that woman flowers or a case of something expensive.

I turned back to the open doorway and the demon that was hiding inside. A woman screamed inside the room. I paused and wished the room would be empty. She screamed again. It had been worth a try. I pressed myself against the wall near the open door and called out, “Discorporate now, you know the priests are on the way.”

“Fuck priests!”

The demon’s voice changed again and said, “Now that’s a great idea.”

The woman screamed words this time. “Don’t touch me!”

I was not going to stay out in the hallway while they raped another woman. I prayed for an idea that would help us save her in time.

I thought, I want the demon to be small and helpless. I pictured something like Mark Cookson except red skinned, but weak. “You cannot work your magic on us without seeing us, Detective.”

I tried to move closer to the door so I could get line of sight. The door shut as I tried to throw myself toward the opening and get one last look at the demon. I wasn’t sure that I could even change it from big to small; that was harder to do to spiritual beings even when they were less solid. Small changes, though, small was easier.

There was a crash of something heavier than a person being thrown against the door. They didn’t have a gun, so I could stand in the doorway without worrying about cover. I pushed on the door; it moved a few inches and then it caught on something solid. I put my shoulder into it, but I couldn’t get it to move more. They’d wedged something in the door.

The woman screamed again.

Miller came over and put his shoulder with mine. We tried kicking it. The door wouldn’t move.

The woman’s scream turned to one word: “No!”

Her fingers found the crack at the edge of the wedged door. “Help me!”

I touched her fingertips, leaning in so I could see that she had brown eyes. Her fingers curled around mine; the opening wasn’t big enough for anything more. I didn’t know why the demon hadn’t dragged her back yet.

“What’s your name?”

“Kate, I’m Kate.”

I held her fingers in mine. “I’m Detective Havelock.”

“Detective what?” she asked. Her eyes looked too big for her face. She looked young and innocent and I wanted to keep her that way.

“Havoc,” I said.

“Havoc, get me out of here, okay?”

“What’s against the door, Kate?”

“The bed.”

“What’s the demon doing?”

Her eyes darted back into the room, then came back to look at me. “Just standing there.”

I didn’t know what the demon was waiting for, and I didn’t want to wait to find out. “Kate, can you move the bed away from the door?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

“Can you try? Please.”

I’d thought she was holding on to me tight, but I’d been wrong, because now she squeezed harder. Her skin paled with the pressure of it.

“I’d have to get closer to it.”

“I’m sorry, Kate, but the bed needs to move so we can get you out.”

“She’s too weak to move the bed.” The demon’s voice held that whining note that was Mark Cookson.

“Will you let her try?” I asked. I didn’t know why he hadn’t hurt her again, but I was going to use it.