The Demon Within Read online

  Denny deleted the message.

  “Okay is such a relative term, don’t you think, Rush?” Turning off her phone’s ringer, Denny waited in the dark as she had for the last twenty-one nights.

  Waiting for them to come.

  ****

  Gwen’s Journal

  I must be cursed with more than the infamous Silver Legacy. Robert accepted a position at the University of Savannah. Savannah, of all places! That’s like taking an asthma patient and putting a tent up in the middle of a field of Timothy grass. What was he thinking? I saw the look of joy in his face and didn’t have the courage to shoot him down.

  Robert is very excited. We went to Savannah years ago for a romantic weekend. Other than a few ghosts and a crazed palm reader, it seemed bereft of the evil I now contend with, but we were young and in love, and evil was the last thing on our minds.

  I hold no false hopes that it will remain that way.

  Savannah is nothing if not a bastion of paranormal activity, and I’m sure it will find me soon enough. I can only hope my children can find a happy place there. God, at least it will be warm. The wind chill factor in Chicago scares even some demons away. I can only hope they overwinter in Florida and not Georgia.

  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

  ****

  When Denny woke up, she was sitting in the recliner, her weapons still on her lap. The vibration of her cell between her legs woke her up. It was her little sister, Pure, but by the time Denny clicked the answer button, it had gone to voicemail.

  To keep Pure relatively safe over the summer break, Denny had sent her to their aunt and cousin’s house in California. After a particularly nasty demon’s attempt to use Pure as a pawn to get to Denny, she felt sending her little sister away was the wisest move.

  The demons erroneously believed that because Denny was new to demon hunting, she would be easy prey…that she would leave her family unprotected.

  Oh, how wrong they’d been.

  She had wiped up the floor with them, crushing their leader and threatening them with the worst possible deaths if they bothered her or her family again

  Slowly getting out of the recliner, Denny put Fouet and Epee back in the inner pockets of her specially-made leather vest she now wore practically everywhere she went. She’d been attacked once three weeks ago when she didn’t have her weapons with her.

  She would not make that mistake again.

  Opening the cavernous refrigerator, Denny stood staring at the minimal items occupying the vast space. Two bottles of water, a carton of eggs, mustard, and a half-empty bottle of olives sat in abject loneliness. The state of the refrigerator was an apt symbol for the emptiness of Denny’s life.

  She polished off the olives before showering, changing her clothes and brushing her teeth.

  When she closed the medicine cabinet, she gazed at herself a long time. Her five foot ten inch frame had lost a great deal of weight this past month and her hollow cheeks were indicative of the minimal food she’d eaten. Her green eyes, one of her better features, were sunken deep in her face, the dark circles underneath them a testimony to her lack of sleep. Instead of their typical emerald green, they were darker, more intense. Angry.

  Very angry.

  And rightfully so.

  Her life had stopped being her own and it didn’t look like she was going to be getting it back any time in the near future.

  She’d taken to wearing a baseball cap and had cut her brown tresses in a short, boyish style after one demon had grabbed her hair and bashed her face into a door. Her hair had to go.

  Lightly fingering a scar bisecting her eyebrow, Denny marveled that it was, so far, the only real wound she’d received from the chain blade. It had clipped her on the rebound when she was first learning from Ames how to be the hunter. She had other wounds, of course, but had only tasted the bite of the whip once. Ames had been surprised and impressed by that fact.

  Ames Walker.

  He had stopped calling her after that first week and sent her a card.

  The old ways of the South still lived. If you sent someone a message, snail mail was still the vehicle of choice. Quaint, but not very efficient.

  That letter, among a growing pile of others, lay unopened on the dining room table. As much as she respected him as a tutor, she would not be guilted into ceasing her hunt. This was something she had to do for herself—for her family, and she didn’t need to explain that to anyone.

  Anyone, that is, except for the woman who was now using her own key to open the front door.

  It was Sister Sterling, nun’s habit and all.

  “I wish you wouldn’t barge in here like that. You don’t live here anymore.” Denny’s voice was flat and cold from the top of the stairs. “Especially wearing that god awful outfit.”

  Sterling stopped two steps inside the door, her eyes panning the room in disapproval. “You won’t answer my calls. You don’t reply to emails, and you’ve not responded to one text I’ve sent. I’ve stopped by several times and left—”

  “What is it you want, Sterling?” Slowly walking back down the stairs, Denny turned into the kitchen and grabbed her coffee pot.

  Sterling’s sharp blue eyes took in the layers of dust on the furniture, the unopened mail, the half-eaten containers of Chinese food on the coffee table. The air smelled musky and of sour milk. “To check in on my MIA little sister. What on earth has happened to you, Golden? Have you looked around you? Seen how you are living? It’s disgusting in here.” She walked over to a window and opened it up. When she moved on to open a second window, Denny came behind her and closed the first one.

  “Golden…” Sterling’s penchant for using Denny’s full name always made her cringe—as if that habit were too tight on Sterling’s head and made her forget who she really was: the sibling who had run to the Church to avoid the legacy. “You’ve never lived like a slob. What on earth is going on with you?”

  Denny shrugged as she walked into the kitchen and filled the coffee maker with water. Caffeine was now her fuel of choice. Actually, it was her only fuel. Food and her just didn’t get along any more.

  “Victor came by to see me,” Sterling said to Denny’s back. “He’s very worried. Says he’s only spoken to you once in the past few weeks. He says you’ve dropped out of school. Is that true? Have you dropped out of school?”

  Placing the little plastic cup filled with ground coffee in the Keurig, Denny slowly turned, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned against the sink. “Again, none of your concern. You made it clear when you left that we were on our own. You don’t get a vote.”

  Sterling closed the gap, her eagle’s eyes never leaving Denny’s face. “Golden, look at you.” She spread her arms out. “Look at this house. You...you need help. You need—”

  “Help? Oh, that’s rich coming from a woman hiding behind the habit. What I need, Sister, is for you and everyone else to leave me the fuck alone.”

  “Golden, what...what happened to you? You send Pure away without even a conversation with me and now you live like…like…some homeless person. Look at this place. Have you lost your mind?”

  Denny waved the question away with her hand. “Just doing what you didn’t have the guts to do. This legacy? The one you didn’t want? The one you ran away from? This is my world now. Saints, angels, God, and nuns have no place in it. None. Don’t judge me for living the life meant for you.”

  “Is this how you plan on living when Pure returns? In squalor?”

  “I’m not so sure she will.”

  This blow struck hardest. “What are you saying? You can’t mean—”

  “Can and will if I don’t think she’s safe. You may be the oldest, Sterling, but I’m the one taking care of Pure. Me. Unless and until I feel Savannah is safe for her, she’ll stay in California.”

  “She’ll never agree to that. Her friends, her family is here.”

  Denny pulled a mug from the many in the sink. It had a zombie on the side and in
red lettering read Not until I’ve had my coffee. “We’ll see.” Placing the mug under the spout, she turned the Keurig on.

  “Golden, please don’t do this.”

  “Do what?” She faced Sterling now. “Not be what I am? Is that what you want, because it’s too late for that, Sterling. Too fucking late. I am what I’ll be until I die. I am this.” Denny locked eyes with her sister and let the Hanta’s red eyes glow.

  Covering her mouth, Sterling stumbled backwards into the formal dining room. “Oh, Golden...I’m...I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t need your pity, Sterling. I need you to walk away. Go back to the relative safety of the church and leave me be. I know what I’m doing.”

  Backing toward the door, Sterling stared hard at her. “Do you? Does doing all of this also prevent you from seeing Mom? Princess says you’ve not been to see Mom in two weeks.”

  Denny made shooing motions with her hands. “Take your Catholic guilt and go. Mom knows why I don’t come see her. She gets it.”

  Taking a note out of her sleeve, Sterling set it on the arm of the divan. “At least let your friends know you’re...alive. They’re worried. And rightly so. Remember there are those who love you and don’t deserve to be shut out. Pull yourself together, Golden, before it’s too late.”

  As Sterling turned to leave, Denny muttered under her breath, “What makes you think it isn’t?”

  ****

  Gwen’s Journal

  My hopes of a semi-normal, peaceful existence in Savannah are not to be. First, off, we bought the Holbrook House for a song because it was run down, needed updating, and Robert fell in love with it.

  Ghost and all.

  Yes, that’s right. I wanted to be free from supernatural dangers and my husband not only brought us to Savannah, he bought a haunted house.

  You know, you just have to love a man who knows you’re possessed and loves you anyway. I hope you girls find a man like your father—especially you, Golden. I know you’ll be the one to inherit our somewhat accursed legacy. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Sterling is far too self-righteous, even for a teenager, and your brother—well, I doubt he’ll be able to get out of his own way. What a little monster he’s turning out to be! The only way Pure will inherit the legacy is if, Goddess forbid, something happens to you all.

  Nevertheless...to find someone who can help shoulder the burden is a gift worth waiting for and one I wish often for my girls.

  So...let me tell you more about our resident ghost—Rushalyn Holbrook. She has taken a shine to eight-year-old Golden, spending hours watching her. If Denny sees her, I cannot tell. I struggled with the telling of it, but Robert insists that the girls find their own way around the paranormal pathways of Savannah. Easy words for a man who doesn’t hunt demons or see ghosts.

  So far, Rushalyn doesn’t speak to me or anyone else that I can tell, but she’s not haunting us either. She just watches us with a winsome look on her youthful face as if observing us live our lives reminds her of what it was like. I can’t even imagine how sorrowful her life is now just watching it pass by. Seems like a fate worse than death.

  I’ve asked around town about the house being haunted, but most folks prefer discussing the older, more well-known ghosts in the area, so I’ve let it go. Robert doesn’t want me digging around town trying to find information on a ghost people might not wish to talk about. I know what I see and that’s all that matters.

  For now.

  I can’t be entirely positive, but I think that demon who was hunting me in Chicago is back. I wouldn’t normally have noticed except that this fiend walks with a decided limp. It was the limp that caught my eye. I’ll have to keep both eyes on that one. Whatever it is he wants can’t be good, and I need to make sure he stays the hell away from my children.

  The kids have settled in and made good friends. Denny came home with a bloody nose and a fat lip, compliments of some bully who had called a poor little black boy a fag. While she didn’t know what it meant, she knew it was bad and wrestled the bully the ground.

  She lost that fight. Her first of many, I’m afraid. She’s a fighter, that girl. It’s how I know the Hanta will choose her. She doesn’t care for bullies or people who are mean to others and has no problems saying as much.

  My dear sweet, Golden. She was born with a Dudley Do-Right chin and a very clear idea of what’s right and wrong. I can only hope it won’t be her undoing.

  ****

  Denny’s Journal

  I stared down at the words flowing in my mother’s beautiful script, remembering tackling that jerk who had called Victor a fag. At eight years old, Victor did not know he would become one, but that hadn’t mattered to me. He was the first kid to invite me to play foursquare—a game I was brilliant at.

  We’d been close friends ever since.

  So why hadn’t I read his letter yet?

  Turning it over in my head, I felt the weight of it.

  I knew why.

  Victor was the conscience I seemed to have misplaced. He was that ray of light that could guide me back to my path. If I opened the letter, I’d have to deal with feelings I didn’t want to feel right now—emotions I had stuffed a month ago when I understood what had happened to me—to my mother—to my dad—to all of us.

  We were a legacy family of demon hunters, and though I’d yet to read enough to know why or how, I knew one thing: if the demon inside me could free my brother from a life sentence in prison, the whys and hows no longer mattered.

  It was that simple.

  Nothing else mattered, which was why I dropped out of school. I didn’t have time to give a shit about Rhetoric and Communication or American History Before the Civil War. I was waging my own war every night on the battlefield of evil. How could I expect anyone else to understand?

  My mother hit the jackpot when she met my dad. He had known what she was and not only loved her through it, but started a family with her. He accepted her for who she was. Accepted, loved, respected, and understood. I seriously doubted I would be so lucky. Besides, in the end, he literally loved her to death.

  How fair was that?

  Looking down at Victor’s letter in my hand, I set it unopened on my roll-top desk.

  Loving me to death was simply not an option.

  ****

  Denny sat in an uncomfortable leather chair across from Reese Oakmont, a stately redhead with impeccable taste in high-end fashion that was classy without screaming expensive.

  Reese opened a thick file with Quick’s name on it with perfectly nails that sported a new French manicure. She wore no jewelry save a pair of simple silver hoop earrings. Her deep red hair hung loosely on her shoulders like she had just stepped from a shampoo commercial.

  If the sheer weight of her stature didn’t grab your attention, her keen blue eyes would. There were times after their first meeting when Denny felt as if Reese had been looking through her.

  Intense was an understatement.

  Like her office was intense. Intense and stark, with only perfectly lined bookshelves along the wall and three of the exact same leather chairs. There was no warmth in this office…it was almost as if she decorated with the idea that she didn’t want to give her clients hope.

  Denny appreciated that. She knew you could not live life on the meager crumbs of hope.

  “Thank you for stopping in, Denny,” Reese said, taking her glasses off and holding them in her hand. She was doing it again.

  That look. It was the same look Sterling often gave Denny. “Are you on a special diet or something?”

  Denny shook her head. She didn’t think the Demonic Spirit Diet would be met with the humor in which it was intended. “No. I’ve just been really busy. What did you find out?”

  Reese held her gaze a little longer than necessary. “Last week I told you I was going to dig around Quick’s relationship with Lisa and see what all of her friends thought of them and their relationship. That should help build the case that he didn’t kill her or her
family.”

  “That sounds easy enough.”

  Reese shook her head. “No one wants to discuss anything with me and most have lawyered up already. Somebody clearly got to them and told them to keep mum.”

  “Damn it. Without anyone to corroborate the status of their rel—”

  Reese held her hand up. “I found one.”

  The lightness of hope filled Denny’s chest. Leaning forward, she said, “You’re kidding.”

  “Problem is, he’s in the nuthouse babbling away about ghosts and evil spirits. His real name isn’t the same one on record. Whatever is wrong with him has him scared to death.”

  Denny rose. “Then let’s go scare him some more.”

  “Denny, please sit down. It will not help your brother’s case for you to go crashing the party before it’s even started. Let me do my job.”

  Reese’s job was being one of the top private investigators in the South. She had successfully recovered a twelve-year-old girl who had gone missing for a decade and the case had been colder than stone cold. She’d built her reputation on that case and had had many well-reported successes since.

  Denny sat back down.

  “Thank you. Now, what’s most disconcerting to me are all the pieces of evidence his attorney seemed to skip over. His deposition is seriously incomplete, the neighborhood wasn’t canvassed nearly enough for witnesses to the comings and goings, and the confession is so incredibly forced that it is clearly bogus.”

  This brought Denny to the edge of her seat. “Evidence has been skipped over?”

  Reese put her glasses back on and flipped over a couple of pages. “Yes. I don’t know how or why there wasn’t a mistrial declared immediately, but there are gaping holes that you could have driven a truck through. Could have, but didn’t.”

  “And if you find that missing evidence?”

  Reese took her glasses off once more. “It’s not a matter of finding it, Denny. It’s a matter of making all the pieces fit together. He just—” Reese’s voice trailed off.