Chapter 11

 

It was a couple more hours before they brought my roommate in. Lula had to be close to fifty. She was short, blond, and fairly skinny, also dressed a little trashy. I had a feeling she was the type who wore lots of bling normally. She was also very chatty. I wondered in passing if it was to put me off my guard.

I tried to think of a way to touch her, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to. She’d been brought in for prostitution. I know, I know, it doesn’t make a person unclean, but it makes you wonder where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing. Of course, I wondered the same thing about Zyriel these days. I wasn’t sure angels, even fallen angels, would be subject to the same sorts of diseases humans are. Could he pass them on even if he wasn’t susceptible to them himself? Thank God it didn’t matter anymore.

“Whatcha reading?” Lula asked me when I tried to stick my nose back in my book in an effort to escape her chatty Cathy imitation.

“Chuck Wendig book.”

She sat on the edge of her bunk with one leg crossed over the other, folded hands on her bouncing knee. “I don’t know him. Is he the author or the character?”

“Author.”

“Ah, see, me? I’m more of a Janet Evanovich or Nora Roberts fan. I like the action and the romance. Uh huh, when I was a kid, it was all about Phyllis Whitney and Danielle Steele, but my tastes have gotten more sophisticated since then.” She snapped her gum.

I looked down at my reading. My mother had always said if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

“Mind if I smoke?” she asked, looking around as if to pick up her purse.

“They let you have your lighter in here?” I asked in surprise. What else had they let in?

She tittered. “Oh, silly me, you’re right, they confiscated that.” She sighed. “Along with everything else.” Her hands fluttered to her neck then rubbed together. “I feel half naked without my rings and necklaces.”

Was she on some kind of drugs, legal or illegal?

“I haven’t been in a prison this small since Roanoke, but it never lasts. Buster gets me out, and we go on our merry way.”

I wondered if Buster was her pimp. I couldn’t resist asking. “Who’s Buster?”

“Oh, Buster, he’s my... well, sort of my sugar daddy. We don’t see each other often, but when he calls, I come a running, and when I call, he comes a running. I’m a free spirit, and my Buster likes me that way.”

I studied her a little closer. Wasn’t she pushing it to be doing what she did? “Lula. Please don’t take this the wrong way, aren’t you getting a little old to be a prostitute?”

Her eyes got wide, and she laughed. “Oh my, where’d you get an idea like that? I’m no prostitute.”

Shoot. Well, she was being pretty nice about it. “Oh, the guard said.”

“Well, yes, that’s what they booked me on, but I’m not a prostitute, it was just a misunderstanding. I read palms and the undercover police officer I approached, because he looked interesting, misunderstood my offer. I’m just a friendly and gregarious person so, naturally, there can be little misunderstandings like this when I’m plying my trade not in a traditional setting. I hold no malice. It will all get sorted out in the end, I will be vindicated.”

She grinned and snapped her gum again. “So, what’s a nice young woman like you in here for?”

I smiled crookedly. “It was a misunderstanding of sorts for me too. I was driving home and came around a curve. A man stepped out in front of my car. It was too late to stop, and he died. Now, because we were on opposite sides of a political issue, the arresting officer is determined to railroad me for vehicular manslaughter.”

Lula made a tsk-ing sound. “Oh my, I’m so sorry, honey. That sounds just awful. I can tell just sitting here talking with you that you would never do such a thing on purpose. I’m sensitive to vibrations like that.” She nodded vigorously.

“Thanks, Lula. Can I call you as a character witness?” I joked.

“Absolutely. Say, how about I read your palm for free? Just to pass the time, you know? I’d read your tarot cards, but they confiscated my deck along with my purse.”

Well, there you go. If she was a demon, I could find out right now.

“Okay, sure, why not?” I agreed. I marked my place in the book and set it down, then slid to the edge of my bunk and sat with my feet on the floor.

Lula joined me on the edge of my bunk, and we sat turned slightly toward each other as she took my right hand in hers. I got an immediate impression of laughter, loud, long, and brassy. To tell the truth, it was downright grating, but I’d gotten better at controlling this gift of mine, so I didn’t dig any deeper and tried to close off the connection. It wasn’t perfect, I could still hear the laughter, but it was distant.

“Okay, now this is your life line.” Her mouth popped open in an ‘oh’ of surprise. “Huh, it’s broken into three segments. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.”

Playing dumb, I replied, “I wonder what it could mean?”

She furrowed her brow in concentration. “Well, it could simply mean there are three distinct phases to your life. It could also mean you’ll be reborn or be in a bad accident where they’ll have to resuscitate you.”

It sounded awful, but she said it in a matter-of-fact way that was kind of cheerful.

“And here’s your love line. Oooh la la, sister. You got it going on. There is a man, and he is wildly devoted to you. Your love line is long and wide.” She looked up at me. “You have one of the most unusual and interesting palms I think I’ve ever read.”

I’d think she was handing me a line except for the fact it was probably true.

They brought dinner in to us - turkey and gravy microwave dinner in a tray with mashed potatoes, dressing, a carrot/pea/green bean combo, and an apple dessert with a little crumble topping. It was edible. I don’t think they were worried about us throwing food around like you see in prison cafeterias because they left us alone with the obligatory spork.

“I’ll be back for the trays in twenty minutes,” the guard said as he stepped out and relocked the door.

We sat on the bunks and ate in companionable silence.

“Not bad,” Lula finally said. “I’ve had way worse, mostly in bigger prisons where they have an institutional kitchen.”

I wanted to ask how often she ended up in prisons. I just took a bite of mashed potatoes instead. She was good company to keep my mind off my current situation. I just hoped she didn’t find herself in the middle of something if one of the guards came after me. I didn’t know what I could do to protect her. I was just a human with some special extras when it came to fighting demons. If someone started shooting, there wasn’t much I could do, short of stepping in front of her.

The lights went out at nine o’clock, and we settled down for the night. I couldn’t get my mind to shut down. I startled and strained at every sound to discern what it was, in between tossing and turning. If somebody was going to come after me, nighttime would be the most likely time.

I turned over in the bed, not daring to even cover up with the blanket in case someone or something attacked. Who could get to me? Anyone like Zyriel could appear in the cell with no trouble. On the other hand, could a demon possess Lula so I wouldn’t know it until it was too late? Then there were the guards. Perhaps I should try to stay awake, but how was I supposed to keep going without sleep? The hearing wasn’t until Friday. That was two nights away. Should I just say my prayers, go to sleep, and hope nothing happened during the night? Trust somehow that the big guy upstairs would keep me safe? Didn’t the admonition say, “God helps those who help themselves?”

Shit. I turned over and faced the center of the small cell. Lula’s breathing was deep and even in the darkness. I missed Matt. I missed Shanda, but I knew Matt would take good care of her. I wondered how Jen was doing. Shit. I couldn’t do anything for her from here. If she was getting any sleep with her injuries, it was probably sedated sleep. I hoped the anointing the priest had done afforded her some protection from the possibility of demon attacks. It was a Catholic run hospital too.

Sometime after midnight, I woke and realized I’d been dreaming. I was almost sorry to wake up. In my dream, Matt lay on the prison bunk with me, snuggled up.

I felt comforted but unnerved that I’d fallen asleep at all. Then I heard a light footfall, and the steps stopped right outside my cell. I had the skin-crawling sensation something malevolent was watching me. I didn’t move, but I strained to see who it might be in the slight glow coming from the emergency lights down the hall.

There came the scrape of a key in the door of the cell. I tensed. Friend or foe? Should I yell for the guard, or just sit up and let the interloper know they’d been seen? I didn’t have anything but the element of surprise to defend myself with.

As focused as I was on the figure coming into the cell, I didn’t notice what was happening a few feet away. Suddenly, a preternaturally spry Lula jumped across me, coming to a rest against the wall and yanking me against her, her legs wrapping around my waist like a gymnast, her hands pressed against the sides of my head. She hissed. “Stop there, or I’ll make her brain bleed out her ears.”

The figure stopped moving, and I knew it was Matt.

Lula laughed maniacally. “A twofer. The two little angel soul mates that were born human to defy my master. Won’t he be proud of me?”

I grabbed on to Lula’s arm and saw fires burning. She definitely was a demon, and not even just a human being possessed by a demon. “What the hell?” I said.

Lula torqued my head painfully. “You think I was born yesterday? I’ve learned a trick or two over the last six centuries on how to hide who I am. I am a child of the first ones. Try anything and I melt your brains.”

Matt finally spoke. “Lula. She’s one of the children of a fallen angel and a human.”

“That’s right, lover boy. I’m not mortal, and I have my own agenda. Lucifer is going to be so happy when I deliver the two of you to him.”

My heart pounded so hard in my chest that my fingers tingled. Was she going to kill us? Somehow take us back to the underworld? How would she get us to her master? I didn’t think I’d like the answer.

“We’ve only got ten minutes more if we’re going to get out of here,” Matt said, low and urgent.

I didn’t know what he expected me to do about it. “I’m kind of tied up here. Maybe not literally, but pretty well.”

“You’re not going anywhere, except where I tell you to,” Lula snarled. She let go of me with one hand and held it up. “Adventia avagadrum.”

A pitch black spot, darker even than the night, appeared in the center of the wall where she pointed. A breeze grew to a sucking wind as the hole expanded in diameter.

As soon as she had released me and started speaking, Matt grabbed my forearm and yanked, hard. I grabbed Lula’s arm, then said a few of my own choice words.

Lula’s words grew into a shriek as her leg began to glow yellow then red as it burned beneath my hand, and Matt yanked me away from her at the same time. A blinding light flashed, and water drops splattered over me. He had come prepared. I heard hissing behind me as Lula shrieked even louder. Matt propelled me toward the cell door. Then he latched on to Lula and threw her toward the portal she had opened. She tumbled through, and it closed behind her with a sucking sound.

“Boy, is she gonna be pissed,” I said.

A dry chuckle came from Matt in the sudden quiet. One hand slid up my jaw and held me as he pressed his lips to mine, then he turned and pushed me out the cell door. “Hurry, we don’t have much time. The guard has got to have heard that even if he’s at the other end of the building.”

Okay then. I moved quickly but cautiously, straining my senses to listen for people.

“Right,” Matt said.

I turned to my right and moved down the hallway. Glancing into the other cell as I passed it, I saw the glittering eyes of the other jailed person. I thought I’d heard he was a drug dealer. He turned over on his bunk and faced the wall, his message clear: I’m staying out of this.

Matt took my hand and passed me in the hall to lead since he knew the way. The warmth of his skin reassured me, easing some of the apprehension that sat on my chest. If I thought of it one way, it was almost fun, like a game. We were breaking out of jail.

Reality was bleaker. We were breaking out of jail to keep me safe. That meant we were on the run and didn’t know who to trust. Plus, the cops had guns and thought I was the bad guy, possibly even a murderer. With any luck, they would think Lula took off too, not that we’d done something to her.

We went through a door and descended some stairs, then stepped out into a brightly lit hall. I realized Matt had on a dark hoodie, concealing his hair and face. There were offices behind glass windows here, but most were empty at this time of night. We heard someone whistling down the hall, and Matt tried some door knobs, but they were all locked. He tugged me to a run. We were nearly out the back door when I heard the guard behind us. “Stop! Halt or I’ll shoot!”

Matt pushed me in front of him. I hit the door running, praying the push bar worked to open it, and they didn’t keep it locked because it was a prison. I heard a shot behind me as I stepped out into a dimly lit parking area. Another shot. Matt grunted, but didn’t stop. In fact, he moved faster, sweeping me along behind parked cars, and through to a side street. The guard had either fallen behind or stopped his pursuit. I assumed he had paused to call for reinforcements and secure the building again.

Matt tugged me along through an alleyway and led me to a small, forest green car I didn’t recognize. “Get in.”

We got into the car. He jammed the key in the ignition, and it roared to life. He pulled away from the curb and zoomed down the street, took a left, then slowed to a sedate pace. Matt’s breathing was more labored than I would have expected from him. “Change of plans,” he said in a strained voice. “Which way to the vet clinic?”