Demon Hunter Read online

  “Maybe because I didn’t care. Jesus Christ, Goldy, who could hate me so much they’d kill Lisa’s family and pin it on me?”

  Denny raised an eyebrow. “Umm...any number of people could have wanted them dead. It’s not like her father was town mayor, and it’s not like you didn’t steal quite a few girls away from other guys. I can imagine any number of people you’ve pissed off over the years.”

  “Enough to send me here?”

  Denny shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t do it. For a while there, I thought maybe I did. You know, I thought that I’d partied too hard and lost control, but that didn’t happen. I know it didn’t go down that way.” He paused before waving the words away. “Anyway, that’s not even why I called you here.”

  “So, why am I here?”

  “First, just tell me you believe me.”

  Denny inhaled deeply and nodded. “I’ve always thought you were innocent, Q, but that evidence...” she shook her head, “and your unwillingness to fight it...I don’t know. You looked so guilty. The evidence was…damning.”

  Quick nodded slowly. “I understand.”

  “Do you? We all got dragged through your muck for over a year and now you tell me you didn’t do it. Why now, Quick? Why not when you were sitting in the defendant’s chair?”

  Quick stood up and blinked back tears. “When you have nothing but time to think, you see things more clearly, and now that I’m not wrapped up in courtroom proceedings, I know exactly why I’m in here and what it means to our family. I didn’t know before, but I do now, and it’s vital you know as well.”

  “You mean aside from the pain of losing you and suffering through the embarrassment and humiliation?” Denny’s anger surprised even her. “Not to mention what that poor family went through? We all lost something, Q. Every single one of us.”

  “Yeah, I get that, Goldy. Besides all that, there’s so much more to the picture you need to see.” Nodding to the beefy guard that he was done, Quick wiped his eyes. “Listen to me carefully, Goldy. I think you guys might be in danger from whoever did this to Lisa’s family, and though I can’t prove it from in here, I’m pretty sure whoever ran Mom and Dad off the road is the same person. I’m worried for Pure. For you. I needed you to know.”

  Denny opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

  Quick nodded. “I know this is a lot to take in right now. Talk to Mom, Goldy. She’s in there. She knows the truth. You’d never believe me anyway, but talk to Mom. There’s always a way to get to her.”

  “Talk…but that’s impossible.”

  Shaking his head, he stopped when he was almost to the door. “That’s where you’re wrong, Goldy. Nothing is impossible. And pretty soon, you’re going to see just how true that is.”

  With that, Quick walked back through the large metal door, leaving Denny in stunned silence.

  ****

  Denny’s Journal

  The ride home from Atlanta was the longest ride home I’ve ever experienced. Could be due to the fact that I’d missed all the turnoffs for Savannah while my mind was moving at warp speed. I was simultaneously pissed as hell and curious as a blind cat about the visit with my brother. He was so different now––serious and mindful where he was once carefree and careless.

  But there was something else.

  He seemed afraid for us…almost desperately so. I could see it behind his eyes. Something worried him enough to ask me to come see him. I got that…but…

  Talk to Mom?

  Had he lost his marbles in there?

  Our mother had bashed her head against the window when their car was wrecked and she never came out of the coma. She hadn’t spoken in years.

  Years.

  And what did he mean, she knows the truth? What truth? And why did he make it sound as if our parents had been run off the road? It was a car accident. Nothing more, nothing less. Still, for as crazy as he sounded, there was one thing Quick had never done and that was to lie to me.

  Ever.

  When I was six and had asked him about babies, he’d told me where they came from. I’ll never forget him using my G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls to show me how it was done. He showed me that after nine months, Barbie would have a little green plastic army man.

  I believed that story for a very long time until my friend Lauren, who was always smarter than me, discovered the truth in a library book. That girl loved the library. Still did.

  What truth did Quick want me to discover? We were just now finding our legs again after the horrors of the judicial circus. The thought of stirring it up made me nauseous. I couldn’t go through it again. The trial, while terrible, was nothing compared to the sight of Quick slouched down in his chair, giving up before the trial ever started.

  Still, if he felt Pure was in danger, I had to at least follow up on it. I owed my family that much. I’d already lost Sterling to God and Quick to a godless prison. I sure as shit wasn’t letting anything happen to my little sister. Not now, and not ever.

  When I finally made it back to Savannah, I drove to the first person I thought could help me understand what the hell Quick meant.

  Sister Sterling.

  ****

  Sisters of Mercy Convent looked like any other convent in the city. It had brown and gray stone walls, a church, and dormitories for the nuns. Denny’s sister taught ninth grade at St. Vincent’s Academy for Girls—a very swanky Catholic school for Southern divas according to Quick. He’d never been in favor of her taking her vows.

  School let out as Denny pulled up in her Prius. It had been Lauren’s parents’ car, but they’d sold it to Denny for a thousand bucks. They didn’t need the money, and she needed a reliable car.

  “Golden. What a pleasant surprise.” Sister Sterling had resorted to calling everyone by their given names when she turned eighteen, as if that somehow made her more mature. It was one of the more annoying habits of her habit-wearing.

  Denny hugged Sterling briefly. Their physical intimacy had always been slightly awkward—even more so since that day Denny told Sterling she was gay.

  It had been their biggest fight ever. Sterling was convinced that Denny was confused and it was a phase. When Denny told her she’d banged a girl under the bleachers after a basketball game, they never talked about her “phase” again.

  “Do you have a sec?” Denny asked.

  Sister Sterling looked at her watch. “I have a faculty meeting in fifteen minutes.”

  “I only need ten.” Denny sat down in one of the antiquated desks that groaned and squeaked. “I saw Quick today.”

  The color left Sterling’s cheeks. “Why on earth did you do that?”

  “Because he’s my brother. Our brother. Jesus, Sterling, have a little compassion. He’s not some stray cur we sent to the pound.”

  Sterling frowned. “Lower your voice, Golden, and please refrain from—”

  “Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Roger that. Look, Quick asked me to come up. He’s never asked anything of me since he was arrested except to forget about him. I’m not going to do that, so I went because that’s what families do for each other. He said some things that really got me to thinking and I want to run some of it by you.”

  Sterling rose and closed the classroom door. “Such as?”

  “Well...he said he’s been set up by the guy responsible for running Mom and Dad off the road. They weren’t, right? I mean, they were in an accident, right?”

  Sterling folded her hands in front of her and weighed her answer carefully. “Yes, Golden, they were. It was a tragic accident. That’s all. What else did he say?”

  “Don’t you think that’s enough? If he was set up—”

  “Which he wasn’t. Oh, Golden, I know you want to believe Quick is innocent. So do I. But he’s not. And the longer he is in there, the more he is going to sound like the rest of those inmates who constantly declare their innocence. Ninety-nine percent of the men in prison belong there. Quick is no exception no matter
how much you want him to be. You shouldn’t have gone.”

  Denny studied her sister’s face. Sister Sterling’s eyes revealed the same fear Quick’s had. What weren’t they telling her?

  “Then you’re really going to shit a turkey when I tell you that he wants me to…well…to talk to Mom.”

  Sterling’s mouth opened then closed, then opened again. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Nothing about Mom is funny, Sterling.”

  Sterling looked around the room, as if expecting someone else to be there, then she ducked her head, lowered her voice, and whispered, “What. Did. He. Say. Exactly?”

  Denny leaned away from her. Sterling was always intense, but there was something edgy about her. “I just told you.”

  “No. Exactly. Word for word. What exactly did he say?” Sterling’s eyes changed in a heartbeat. Now, they were aflame with an intensity Denny had seldom seen.

  “He made an off-the-cuff comment about someone needing to finish what they started. He said they’d set him up and that maybe Pure was in danger. Something like that.”

  “Then he told you to…to ask Mom.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sterling inhaled deeply. “Well then. Obviously our brother is losing his mind. Maybe he forgot Mom is catatonic.”

  Denny shook her head. “No way. He was calm, lucid, and knew what he was saying.”

  Sterling laid her hands on top of Denny’s. “I know you have always adored Quick, Golden, but sometimes adoration gets in the way of us seeing people how they truly are. We should pray about it.”

  Denny rose. “And sometimes, Sterling, your adoration of Christ gets in the way of you seeing anything clearly.”

  “Golden, that’s not fair.”

  Denny started for the door. “I should have known better than to come to you with this. You and your church turned your back on Quick long ago. I will not do the same.” Denny stormed out of the classroom, hot tears burning her eyes.

  If Sterling wouldn’t help her, she knew someone who would.

  ****

  Denny’s Journal

  I don’t know what I expected, really. When Sterling entered the service of God she’d stopped caring for us.

  Well, not stopped. She had merely shelved us. We were a reminder of a life she’d rather forget—a life run by heathens who never went to church and who seemed to have an overly fond attachment to Halloween. Sterling had never been a happy child, and when she left the house, it was as if a black cloud had lifted. We all felt the utter calm in the house once she was gone.

  Then came Quick’s arrest and subsequent news splash all over Savannah, and even Atlanta. She couldn’t get far enough fast enough away from what the neighbors called the Silver Legacy. Unlike me and Pure, who didn’t give a rat turd what people thought, Sterling did. She hated having people whisper, “What did you expect would happen when children raise themselves?” She always saw Quick’s actions as a failure on her part—as if she should have been able to stave off his inevitable rebellion.

  No one could have.

  Quick had been a handful even as a little boy. I remember watching him throw a claw hammer end-over-end like a tomahawk once when he was playing cowboys and Indians with Richard Russell. When he dared Richard to try it, the kid cocked that hammer over his head and that claw ripped a gash six inches long on his skull. He bled like the proverbial stuck pig. Cried all the way home with blood streaming down his face.

  With Quick, what you saw was what you got. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He sure as hell didn’t have the ability to do what was done to those poor people.

  I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now, but suddenly it seemed like there was more to the Silver Legacy than merely bad luck. I would leave no stone unturned to decipher all the clues to dig us out of that bad luck.

  No stone.

  None.

  ****

  “He said what?” Lauren paused in her re-shelving of books to look at Denny. “Talk to your mom?”

  “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

  Pushing in a tome by Bill Moyers, Lauren turned to Denny. At five-eight, she was shorter than Denny, but so skinny she actually looked taller. Her straight hair hung like a black curtain halfway down her back. Her blue eyes were keen and reflective, and her teeth displayed years of dental incarceration and an abundance of cap work. While not gorgeous, she possessed her own unique style and beauty. She was currently in between boyfriends, having dumped the last one for cheating on her.

  “Den, everything about your family is weird. Your girlfriend is a ghost, for Christ’s sake. You just don’t get any weirder than that.”

  Denny handed Lauren another book. Lauren’s well-connected father had gotten got her a plum job working in the college library—a job she was well-suited for because she read everything she could get her hands on.

  “What if he is innocent?”

  Lauren took the book and re-shelved it. “And what if he isn’t? If he was framed, Den, why is this the first you’ve heard about it?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like...like for the first time Quick is somehow protecting us. I don’t know why, and I don’t know from what, but I am not going to ignore him.”

  “Nor should you. Quick may have belonged on the island of misfit toys, but I never believed he was a stone cold killer. It isn’t in his nature.”

  Denny handed her another book. “You’ve maintained that position all along.”

  “Well? Anyone with half a brain can see that. He’s a trouble-maker, not a killer. So,” Lauren took the book and frowned. The cover had a coffee ring on it. “What are you going to do?”

  “I need to know what you think about the possibility of some sort of hypnosis or something so I can talk to my mom.”

  “Hypnosis? Denny, your mom is catatonic. Comatose. Not there. No amount of hypnosis can wake her up.”

  Denny shook her head. “I’m not suggesting we can wake her up. I’m suggesting we find a way to open the window.”

  “Open the window. I’m sorry love, but you’ve lost me.”

  Denny licked her lips. “Lauren, my lover is a ghost. A ghost. Sure, some of us believe in ghosts and some of us will even admit to having seen one, but I have sex—no—I have mind-blowing sex with one. If I can experience that, then what’s to prevent me from somehow reaching my mom?”

  Lauren stopped shelving books and looked into Denny’s eyes. “We’ve had this conversation before, and I told you there are certain…dangers in playing with those on the razor’s edge of death. The spiritual plane is nothing to mess around with. It is dangerous and there are all sorts of unknowns. But if that’s the route you’re going to take, I’ll do some research, see what I can find out.” Lauran wagged her finger in front of Denny’s face. “You are not, under any circumstances, to try it on your own. As a matter of fact, why don’t you talk to Rush about it? See what she thinks about it.”

  Denny laughed. “No way. You know how she feels about the supernatural. It scares the shit out of her.”

  “Yeah. Only you would fall in love with a scaredy cat ghost.” Lauren grabbed Denny’s hand. “As much as you want to help Quick, you have a life that deserves to be led. Please don’t ignore it trying to save him from himself.”

  “I won’t.”

  Lauren chuffed. “Said the fox in the hen house about not eating the chickens.”

  ****

  The Demons

  This particular demon did not live within a corporeal body like many of the other demons roaming the world. This one was spiritual in nature. It had entered a weak-willed human and controlled it from within. In this instance, an alcoholic woman with a borderline personality was the empty husk the demon had filled.

  There were so many borderline personality types in the United States the Brotherhood of Demons had their choice of virtually any being to wreak havoc with. Chaos proved to be almost too easy in this country where people were self-medicating like children in a candy shop poppin
g this yellow pill or that purple capsule.

  That’s what made this particular possession so incredibly fun and interesting. The damage, while indirect, would have a ripple effect that would extend well beyond the initial contact.

  The ripple effect.

  It was what made evil so successful, and a good demon could affect a great many humans if the ripple effect was a solid one. All it took was one pebble tossed into the lake of human misery and suddenly, dozens found themselves in the path of the wake that would roll over them.

  It was still almost too easy.

  He had his orders, and he would find a way to affect the balance while still keeping the woman in the mix. That was his job with this one. Not to kill her. Not to destroy her. Not to really even touch or bother her at all. Not all demons kill or cause irreparable damage. This particular demon’s goal was to spread havoc and chaos while keeping the sanctity of the shell’s life and livelihood so he could have a return visit.

  All that was required to throw a society into a complete downward spiral was this little white pad the demon was holding. That little white pad was changing this country in more ways than anyone could imagine.

  It was all so incredibly easy for these legal drug pushers and their tiny white pads.

  “Would you like me to write you a prescription for Percocet or Vicodin? If you’re allergic to those, Oxy might be a better choice.” The demon leaned forward, pen poised over the prescription pad.

  “You know, doctor, I think the Oxy would really help my knee.”

  The demon grinned. “One scrip coming right up.”

  ****

  That night, as Denny lay in bed, Rush appeared, hovering just out of reach. She was wearing a letterman’s jacket and a poodle skirt.

  “Where you been?” Denny asked, sitting up on her elbows. The room was semi dark but she could still see Rush.

  “Neighborhood ghost meeting.”

  Denny sat up with her back against the headboard. “Really?”