The demon glanced down at his Rolex. “As much fun as this has been, I must be off. Duty calls.”
“No. Wait. Please.”
The demon slashed the man’s upper thigh. He fell to one knee. “And why is it you all always beg as a last resort? Has that
ever
worked for anyone? Ever?” He ripped another slash across the man’s cheek, causing it to bleed down his face.
Setting the knife down, the demon grabbed him by the hair. Holding his palm out, he caught the warm blood as it dripped off the man’s chin. “It’s a foregone conclusion, my friend.” Taking the gun with his clean hand, the demon grinned. “But putting up a good fight does tend to make it more interesting.”
“It? What
are
you?”
The demon pushed the thug back against the wall, picked up the knife, and started out of the alley.
“I am your worst nightmare.”
***
“H
ello?”
“Goldy, it’s me.”
Only two people in her life called her Goldy––her late father and her trouble-making brother.
“Quick? Are you okay?” It was hard to hear with all the noise in the background.
“Look, I don’t have much time and what I have to say to you needs to be said in person. I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you...can you come to Atlanta tomorrow?”
Denny looked at her calendar. She had two morning classes but if she was going to make it to the prison in time for visiting hours, she’d have to skip going to the nursing home to see her mother.
Denny heaved a sigh and tried to block out the nagging voice of her conscience—Sister Sterling.
A couple of years ago, the day Denny had turned eighteen, Sterling surprised everyone by joining a convent and becoming Sister Sterling. At the time, everyone was shocked (and often dismayed), that she would leave Denny to raise Pure alone in the huge historical home.
At eighteen, Denny could barely raise herself, but Sterling had always been the kind of person who took the high road. Her moral compass had seldom wavered when they were children, and in the absence of their parents, Sterling had spent an inordinate amount of time teaching her three siblings how to comport themselves in the world. Whenever Denny got in trouble at school, Sterling would make her apologize to everyone even if she wasn’t the cause of the problem.
She expected them to behave in a way that was worthy of their parents as well as God. It was as if Sterling had entered the world already an adult, which was fortunate since she was thrust into the role of one much too soon.
When Denny was fifteen, her parents were in a car accident that killed their father and put their mother in a catatonic state from which she never recovered. Sterling stepped in to be parent and guardian to Quick, eighteen; Denny, fifteen; and Pure, eleven. Life insurance enabled them to keep their five thousand square foot historical home in Savannah’s historic North District, but no amount of money could prevent Sterling from joining God’s Army.
It was her voice Denny had in the back of her head as she listened to her brother’s plea.
“I don’t know, Q. You know I see Mom on Thursdays.”
The line was quiet for a bit. Finally, his voice barely above a whisper, Quick said, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important. I’ll never ask you to come see me again. I swear.”
Something in Quick’s voice made Denny ignore Sterling’s voice telling her to run. “Fine. I’ll come out after class. I can probably be there around one.”
“Thank you. Thank you.”
Another long pause.
“How’s prison life, anyway?” Denny picked at a piece of wallpaper that had come loose next to the refrigerator.
“It’s hell. Every day is the same. If the gangs don’t kill you, the monotony will.”
Movement caught Denny’s eye and she turned toward the grand staircase, but she saw no one. “I’m sorry, Q. I really am.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. Just come. I can explain everything then.”
As she hung up, Denny glanced up at the staircase once again, and there she was, sitting in the middle of the step as she always had. Always. Denny couldn’t remember a time when Rush wasn’t there every time she needed her.
The first time she’d seen Rush, Denny had been eight years old. Her dog had been ill and they’d had to put him down. When she came running into the house, she ran up the stairs and right through Rush, who turned and finger-waved, her face looking as sad as Denny felt.
It was the first time Denny had ever seen a ghost. It took her another full year before she drew up the courage to talk to her—a year of watching the ghost sitting on her window seat, sitting on the stairs, sitting by the opulent fireplace. For the longest time, she suspected the ghost was waiting for someone, the way she always looked out windows or watched the door.
Truth was, Rush
had
been waiting. Waiting for Denny. It took several years, but eventually, they became confidantes. Even though Rush was in her twenties and Denny was a little girl, they built a bond, and became better friends the older Denny got.
When Denny turned eighteen, Rushalyn Holbrook told Denny she was in love with her and had been waiting a decade to be able to tell her.
It was the last time she showed restraint.
Now, Rush sat on the steps shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “What on earth are you thinking, baby?” Her long hair rustled like tulle fabric. “You know what happens every time you get sucked in by him.”
Denny walked out of the kitchen and into the family room. While her parents had kept the house’s decor in keeping with the era of the house, Sterling and her other siblings agreed on more modern comfort—a large, half-circular leather sectional and a coffee table made out of a trunk style suitcase with two dozen foreign country stickers all over it. The fireplace was gas and had a fire in it almost three hundred days a year––not because the house was cold, but because Rush liked it. It made her feel less...dead.
Denny flopped onto the couch and waited for Rush to back up to the fireplace like she always did.
“I’m thinking my brother needs to talk to me. It won’t kill me to go see him. I haven’t seen him since the verdict.”
Rush sighed loudly. “Sister Serious was very clear with you and Pure. She told you to
leave him be
. I seldom agree with anything that Bible-thumper says, but this time, she’s spot on. He did the crime, let him do the time. Alone. Solo. The booked him, Dano. Let it be.”
Denny leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “You’ve been watching way too much television.”
Rush shrugged. “What else is there to do? I suppose I could go around haunting people.” Rush laughed, her blond curls bouncing. “It’s so quiet around here now that Pure is busy with high school and Sister Sanctimonious moved out. You’re hardly ever home any more, Boo Boo.” Rush chuckled.
Denny loved the sound of her laughter. It danced across the air like refracting light, and always made her smile. “We can talk about your television viewing habits later. I’m going to go see what Q wants. End of story.”
“But why? What good will it do you to see him like that?”
Denny checked out her nails. She needed an emery board badly. “Guilt, maybe? Sterling and I really didn’t do much to help him out. It’s hard knowing my life is moving on while his is stuck there.”
“Baby, there wasn’t anything
to
do. The evidence was stacked pretty high against him. Your sister was right. Let him rot.”
“He’ll rot no matter what I do. Look. I’ll go and be back before you know it.”
Rush walked over, fading a bit as she left the fireplace. The warmer she was, the easier it was to see her.
“Don’t let him pull you into his web of lies, Den. I know you love him and all, but half the time your ass was in a sling when you were younger, Quick was to blame. Don’t get sucked in again. Don’t let him play you.”
Denny nodded. “I won’t. I promise.”
Rush laid her hand on top of Denny’s. “Be careful, baby. Some promises are harder to keep than others.”
***
T
he demon opened the back door of the small, grey Victorian and walked right in. The galley kitchen needed updating from the green and orange pairing of the seventies.
After opening the refrigerator, he pawed through leftover containers until he found some fried chicken.
“Nothin’ better than cold fried chicken,” he muttered, biting into a piece and tearing the meat from the bone.
As he made his way around the lower level of the house, he ran his finger along the shelves. He stopped to pick up photos of a happily married couple.
“You’ve both seen better days.” He smashed the glass and tossed it on the floor before heading upstairs.
She was in the shower, as he knew she would be. It never ceased to amaze him that humans did not understand that the key to their safety lay in being unpredictable. They never quite mastered the
un
part of that word and, therefore, were easy targets. She was easier than most. Like clockwork, she cheated on her husband of two years every Tuesday and Thursday at the same hotel at the same time.
Every fucking week.
Like she
wanted
to be caught.
Well, the demon had caught her and it had been so easy, he’d still have time to grab a drink and a waitress afterwards.
That was another pleasant surprise when he’d first arrived: how easy human women had become. It was unfortunate that human men were too dim-witted to know which buttons to push or what to do to bag a woman. The demon had discovered how a nicely dressed man in shoes other than sneakers, brandishing a warm smile, could attract women of all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicity.
It was child’s play, really. Look good and they would practically throw themselves at you. Run a comb through your hair and they would spread their legs without question.
After walking into the bathroom, he folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. This assignment had been the easiest by far. Not as satisfying as his last one. No, that kid last week at the bowling alley had put up quite a fight, and it was fun kicking his ass into tomorrow.
Fewer and fewer humans put up a fight these days. They'd become soft. Weak. Lacking the fight in them they once possessed. They’d become beggars unwilling to go the distance.
So lame.
When she opened the shower door and saw him, she started to scream, but he clamped a hand over her mouth before one syllable escaped her lips.
“Shh. Shh. I am not going to hurt you. I need some answers, so if you’ll be so kind as to put on a robe and come with me down to the kitchen, I can be in and out in no time. If, however, you scream or plead for your life, all bets are off...and so is your head. Are we clear?”
She nodded, her blue eyes wide with fear.
“Good. Now, I am going to remove my hand. You get your robe and lead me downstairs.” The demon slowly removed his hand, his eyes never leaving her face.
The woman grabbed her robe from its peg and hastily put it on.
“Good. To the kitchen, then.”
The demon followed her to the kitchen, where she turned, her arms wrapped around herself. “I...I have money.”
The demon put his finger to her mouth. “No begging. This will be over before you know it.” He tossed the bloody knife on the floor, then opened his hand and flung blood all over the cabinets.
“What...what are you doing?”
“Setting the stage, my dear. Do you know how incredibly easy it is to frame a man for murder?”
“M-Murder?”
“Yes. It would seem you are playing in a very dangerous sandbox. You and your boyfriend, of course.”
“Is it my husband? Because I can stop. I don’t need to keep seeing Jasper.”
The demon tilted his head. “Odd though, that you haven’t stopped.” As he removed the gun from his inner pocket, the demon grinned. It was so easy.
“But you said you weren’t going to hurt me.”
Raising the gun, the demon took one step back. “I said I’m not going to
hurt
you. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to
kill
you. From what I understand, it doesn’t really hurt.”
With that, he shot her through the heart.
“Tsk, tsk. And you were such a pretty thing.” He pressed her hand onto the handle of the knife before dropping it and the gun at her feet. “I should have been in Hollywood.”
He walked out of the house, whistling
Born to Be Wild
.
***
D
enny stared at the ceiling and tried to stop thinking about Quick’s murder trial. It had been a horrific experience to have to sit there while the evidence stacked up against him.
Circumstantial evidence was still evidence, and the prosecution had painted Quick out to be an obsessed boyfriend who hated his girlfriend’s parents. The prosecution had even brought up her parents’ death six years ago and how much trouble Quick had been in school right after that.
That had been the worst part: the legal system had used their family tragedy to paint Quick as some sort of lost boy.
Sterling hadn’t allowed Pure to go to the courthouse, but Denny tried to go every day, even against her older sister’s admonishments. Some days, she just didn’t want to go, but she knew if the roles had been reversed, Quick wouldn’t abandon her. Ever. He wasn’t like that. No matter how much trouble she’d gotten into as a kid because of him, he never, not once, turned tail on her.
That didn’t make those long, tedious courtroom days any easier. To sit and look at her brother, who had never harmed an animal, be accused of such an atrocity was unbearable. All those forensic photos were enough to give even the thickest-skinned person nightmares.
“You can only have nightmares if you actually
go to sleep
.”
Denny didn’t need to look over to know that Rush was perched on the foot of her bed.
“You know, he would never ask me to come to the prison unless it was important,” she said.
“His last words to you were what again?”
Denny shook her head. She’d heard those words so often during that trial. “He told me to move on and forget about him.”
“Baby, he got life.
Life
. He wants you to live yours.”