CHAPTER NINE

I got two shots into the chest before he started to fall. The only sound I could hear after the shots was the blood in my own ears, or maybe it’s something else; whatever the sound is, it’s what’s left after the rest of your hearing goes away for a while.

I saw Paulson out of the corner of my eye rushing toward the room and the wounded, but I shouted at him, not sure he’d hear me, so it was probably more scream than yell: “No! Not yet!”

I glanced at him just enough to see him looking at me with wide eyes. He was pale, but he nodded, letting me know he’d heard me. I went back to staring at the room and the two men on the floor. Cookson’s body had fallen backward against the bed and then slid to the side of it. His pale, thin legs were tangled up in the large hospital gown so I couldn’t see much of his body. The gown was big enough and he was small enough that his breathing might not have been that easy to see. I couldn’t even see if he was bleeding from here; there was already too much blood on the floor from Gonzales. I would have to get up on the target before I could be sure he—it—was dead.

The energy of the wards sat across the open doorway like an invisible sheet except this sheet vibrated with energy, but it wasn’t meant to keep me out. I stepped through and didn’t even hesitate as the warm rush of it passed over my skin. I’d stepped through stronger wards than this on the job; I was still impressed that it had contained the demon.

I stared down my gun at the body. There was blood where the two bullets had entered the body but none out the back. He looked even smaller and less finished from this angle, as if I’d shot a child. I swallowed hard, and my eyes burned, which was stupid. I’d had no choice. I kept the barrel of the gun steady on the body as I pushed it with the toe of my shoe. Why not kneel and check for a pulse? Because if the demon was faking, I didn’t want to be that close to its hands. The body rolled in that boneless, empty way that no living person can fake. I didn’t need to check a pulse to know that Mark Cookson was dead.

“He’s dead, save Gonzales,” I said. I repeated it louder to make sure that Paulson heard me. He and Nurse Prescott came in with another nurse whose name I never got. I moved into the hallway to give them room to work. My part was done; I’d taken a life so they could save one. I prayed that they would be able to save Gonzales, because if he died, too, then it was all for nothing.

I felt movement down the hallway like the brush of angel wings felt before they’re seen. I aimed down the hallway and it was Charleston with his own gun out and pointed at the floor. I aimed my gun in a safe direction as I saw the hospital security in uniform at his back, and uniformed police. The tightness in my gut eased, because with Charleston I knew I had serious backup. The rest of the men and one female uniform were unknowns. You hope every cop you meet is good backup, but you never know until the bad thing happens, and then they either rise or fall.

My hearing was back enough for me to hear Charleston say, “We heard the gunshots. What happened?”

I started to explain, but Paulson and one of the nurses came out with Gonzales on a gurney. He was hooked up to two different IVs and they were moving fast, probably to surgery. The metaphysical floor had a complete operating theater, so if anything went really pear-shaped the hospital could still operate on the rest of the patients with a little less magic in them.

I wanted to ask if he would make it, but the way they were running, they didn’t know yet and doctors won’t lie about that, so I didn’t ask.

“Is that the hostage?” Charleston asked.

I nodded.

“Jesus, that’s Gonzales,” one of the male security guards said.

“Is he going to be all right?” the female security guard asked.

“Did you say there was a demon?” one of the uniformed officers asked.

“It was a possession, not a full manifestation,” I said. I glanced into the room to find Nurse Prescott kneeling beside the body that I’d shot. It was one of the bravest things I’d seen in a long time, her staying in the room where she’d been so terrified.

“What does that mean?”

Charleston looked at him. “Miller, is it? If you don’t know the difference between a possession and a manifestation, then you shouldn’t be up on this floor.”

“We just answered the call for backup, Lieutenant Charleston. Neither of us has ever worked metaphysical detail,” Miller’s partner said, coming to his rescue.

“Possession is a human being ridden by a demon; manifestation is a demon appearing in full corporeal form.”

“Corporeal?” Miller asked.

“It means body,” his partner said.

Prescott looked up as if she felt me looking at her. I smiled and gave her a little salute. She smiled back and nodded. More nurses or orderlies, and a new doctor wheeled a second gurney through the door. One of them hesitated at the wards as if he was more sensitive to them.

“I didn’t think demons could do that, appear on the earthly plane in their actual form,” Miller said.

“Can I take these damn things down?” the orderly asked.

There were nods. Nurse Prescott said, “They trapped the demon just like they were supposed to.” But she stood up and touched the ward; it seemed fitting that she was the one that deactivated them.

Charleston said, “It’s incredibly rare for a demon to have physical form on this plane.”

I added, “They can appear for a few minutes in their true form, but most human imaginations can’t bear the sight of them and will change it from their original form, even if they manage to manifest.”

“What do you mean?” the first security guard asked.

They had the body on the gurney now. Prescott stood near the ward panel, letting them cover what was left of Mark Cookson. The demon was back in Hell safe and sound. He’d left the kid to die, like a rat fleeing a sinking ship.

“Infernals take on the appearances of the human imagination nearest them,” Charleston said.

“What?” Miller asked.

“What he said,” the female security guard said.

“It means they look like what the nearest human thinks they should look like, but they won’t appear in their true Hellish form, not here on Earth, except maybe for a second, then it changes,” I said. I didn’t add that a second could be enough for insanity or death for the human seeing it, but our minds protected us from so much, including demons. If a person could survive that second, then what they thought changed what they saw; demons used it to appear as our worst nightmares, but even that was usually less soul-destroying than the demon’s original form.

“So, they don’t have horns and tentacles and shit?” the male guard asked.

“Only if you think they do,” I said.

“If you see a demon, think really happy thoughts,” Charleston said.

“So, if we thought they looked like a red-skinned Ryan Gosling, that’s what they’d look like?” the female said.

“Fantasize on your own time, Belinda,” the male guard said.

“It’s possible,” I said.

“I’d rather have Ryan Gosling with horns than tentacles,” Miller said.

We all agreed on that as we watched them wheel the remains down the corridor. They were going in the same direction that they’d taken Gonzales except that no one was running. The dead don’t need to rush, they have the rest of eternity to get where they’re going.

The orderly pushing the gurney acted like he’d been stung. He stepped away from the gurney. The man on the other side said, “A little help here.”

“Didn’t you see it?”

“See what?”

I was already moving toward them when I saw the body bag twitch like a fish that wasn’t as dead as you thought.