Madisonville Murder, Part 9
Half a Demon Is Better Than a Whole One
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Faced by irrefutable proof that Virginia was a demon, Gavin and I should have leaped into action—or at least gotten the hell out of the office. Instead, we froze. Despite indicators I shouldn’t have ignored, I’d been caught totally by surprise.
“It’s not what you think!” yelled Virginia. She turned to the shadowy demon in the chair and pointed a finger at him. “Begone!”
“I don’t take orders from you,” said the demon in his hissing voice. “And the master will—”
Before the demon could finish, a burst of red energy shot from Virginia’s fingers and wrapped itself around him like a net. He struggled, but he couldn’t immediately break free.
“He’s physical enough to be affected by your bat,” Virginia told Gavin. He glanced at me, and I nodded, though I still wasn’t sure what was happening. Did demons fight each other? Maybe. Was Virginia’s side better than the shadowy one’s? Damned if I knew!
Gavin took a good swing, and Virginia had been right. The bat hit the demon’s head with a satisfying thud, and the demon screamed. Two more blows, and the creature vanished with a final shriek, after which Virginia let her magical net dissipate.
“Three strikes and you’re out,” said Gavin, but the usual humor was missing from his voice. He eyed Virginia with undisguised suspicion, though he didn’t raise his bat to her. Red eyes aside, she looked much more human than the demon he’d just vanquished. I couldn’t blame him for not immediately attacking her, even though it might have been the smart move.
Virginia blinked, and her eyes returned to their normal blue. “I’m not exactly a demon. I’ll explain everything, but we have to get out of here. That little weasel you just vanquished will be back with more powerful demons.”
I felt a little jolt like an earthquake aftershock—or some force rising from the ground beneath us. Virginia could be trying to trick us, but we couldn’t risk ignoring her warning until we knew for sure.
We raced out to the car and jumped into it as fast as we could. Virginia pulled away from the curb and drove like the proverbial bat out of hell. Luckily, we were in a quiet residential neighborhood without much traffic, especially late at night. But I wouldn’t have complained too much even under other circumstances.
She slowed a little once we were back in the commercial district, and there was a bit more traffic.
“We need to go some place with a lot of people around,” said Virginia. “As you probably know, demons aren’t likely to attack in a setting where their activities might be witnessed.”
“We’re not going any further with you until you explain yourself,” said Gavin.
Virginia sighed, but she didn’t immediately answer.
“Stop the car!” said Gavin, his body tensing as if he’d open the door and throw himself out if he had to. I might have felt the same way, but I couldn’t help wondering why Virginia hadn’t attacked us back at Dr. Curtis’s office if she really meant us any harm.
“There’s a little traffic here, but not many open businesses at this hour. If I drop you off here, you’ll likely be attacked in the next five minutes.”
Gavin’s hand reached for the door handle.
Virginia’s eyes were on the road, but she stiffened as if she knew what he was doing.
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll take you back to the diner. Your cars are there, anyway. We have a little talk in the parking lot. If you don’t like what you hear, I’ll leave. If I manage to convince you I’m not a threat, we’ll find a safer place.”
“All right,” said Gavin grudgingly. We both sat in anxious silence for the rest of trip, which fortunately was only about two minutes. As soon as we arrived, Gavin flew out of the car. I followed, somewhat more slowly. Virginia came out last, moving slowly and deliberately as if trying to avoid seeming threatening in any way.
I glanced through the closest window into the diner. The dinner rush was over, but there were still a fair number of customers—the late-night-snack crowd, as I called them. If Virginia did try some kind of attack on us, she’d have to do it with at least a dozen pairs of eyes on her. But if she was telling us the truth, those same pairs of eyes might be enough to prevent a demonic attack.
“We’re waiting,” said Gavin. With potential viewers in mind, he’d slid the baseball bat back up the arm of his jacket—but not very far up.
“First, I’m not a demon. Gavin, test me with your cross.”
Gavin took the silver cross from around his neck and touched her hand with it. Nothing happened. Virginia didn’t even twitch.
“That doesn’t explain why your eyes glowed red, though,” he said, putting his cross back on. “And what we have see of your magic looks red, too.”
‘That’s because of my…family background. I’m a cambion.”
“A half demon?” I asked. “I thought those only existed in folktales.”
“Two years ago, you would have said the same about pacts with the Devil,” said Gavin slowly. “But assuming you are a cambion, Virginia, how do we know you’re on our side?”
“Cambions aren’t automatically evil,” she replied. “We have souls the same way human beings do. And I was raised by my human mother, who didn’t realize that she was in a relationship with a demon until she was already pregnant by him.”
“Demons aren’t usually good at impersonating humans for a long periods,” I said.
“The higher level ones are better at it,” said Virginia. “Anyway, my mother didn’t ask what his demon name was, and I have no interest in knowing, either. But I did do a little research on my…heritage, such as it is.”
I could hear a hint of shame in her voice.
“You can’t help who your father was,” I said.
“I know that,” she said. “Intellectually. But my emotions still haven’t gotten that memo. In any case, the medieval stories I could find about cambions, like Robert the Devil and Sir Gowther, involved a mother unable to have children asking Satan for help.” She looked into my eyes. “You know what asking for Satan’s help is like, I think.”
“I did it by accident,” I said quickly. “But yes, I do have some idea what it’s like. I wouldn’t blame your mother—”
“Like Merlin’s mother, mine didn’t ask for Satan’s help. The Devil had some reason for trying to produce a cambion. I don’t know what it was and don’t want to know. Anyway, my mother followed the example of Merlin’s mother—she baptized me as soon after birth as she could, gave me a proper religious upbringing, did everything she could to keep my demon half at bay. With her help, I developed the mental discipline to resist temptation.
“Even Robert and Sir Gowther, without the kind of help I had, eventually became good—if their stories are more than just folktales, as I suspect. Is it too hard to believe that I could follow a righteous path if they could?”
“No, it isn’t,” Gavin replied. “But isn’t using demonic magic dangerous?”
Virginia nodded. “If I use it too much, yes. Power is always tempting. But I have discipline not to use it unless I must. And my mother had a little magic of her own. It was more like what would have been called natural magic during the Renaissance—the ability to invoke some of the forces inherent in nature. That’s the same way you handle your herbs.” She looked right at the spot where the bag containing my rowan bark-dill seed mixture was hidden beneath my shirt.
“I don’t have any magic,” I said.
Virginia raised an eyebrow. “I feel some coming from the herbs you’re wearing. Perhaps your herbalist or one of the suppliers has a little magic. It’s subtle but definitely there.”
The thought made me uncomfortable, though I wasn’t sure why. I’d shed my skepticism on so many subjects. If Virginia could be a half demon, why couldn’t there be magic involved in some part of my herbal supply chain? It really wasn’t that much of a stretch. Still, the idea made my uneasy.
Life would be a lot easier if I could see magic myself. Instead, I was blind to supernatural forces, whether they were helpful or harmful. Only intense magic or magic the caster wanted to be seen was visible to me. I had to rely on…people like Virginia to get more information. The story she told us could be true, but my ability to verify the details was limited.
“Well, you have two choices,” said Virginia. “You can doubt me. I wouldn’t blame you. In that case, I’ll leave you alone. Or you could accept that I’m trying to help. In that case, I’ll do my best to keep Dr. Curtis from hurting anyone else.”
“And Cynthia?” I asked.
“There’s nothing we can do for her. I don’t have anything approaching the magic we’d need to find a secure way to communicate with her, much less get her out of Hell. I don’t know if anyone has that kind of power except God Himself.”
I tried not to show how much those words stabbed me like daggers right through the heart. I didn’t even want to lose Cynthia, who I’d never known. But if I couldn’t save Amanda—no, I refused to abandon hope just yet.
“What do we do about Curtis?” asked Gavin. I’d been standing there, lost in my own thoughts, longer than I realized.
“Something is going on in that office,” said Virginia. “Satan wouldn’t have have a demon keeping watch if there was nothing of any importance there that we could find. But getting in again will be difficult. Most demonic spells that are traps or security systems aren’t triggered by demons, so I figured I could get us in by camouflaging us as demons. But I wasn’t counting on a demon actually being there. Now that we’ve been caught breaking in, whatever protections the office has will be increased substantially.”
“We need to strike in a different way,” I said. “Do something Satan and his minions aren’t expecting.”
“Like what?” asked Gavin.
“A demon can obviously see through Virginia’s camouflage. But what about someone who has made a pact with Satan? Could Dr. Curtis be fooled into thinking we were demons?”
“That depends on what he sold his soul to get,” said Virginia. “If it was something involving supernatural power, he can probably perceive magic. But if it was something more mundane—wealth, for example—then I doubt he can see through my camouflage better than any other mortal.”
“Why didn’t we notice the camouflage you used in the office?” asked Gavin.
“I targeted it outward so that you and Chris wouldn’t be distracted.” Virginia held up her right hand, which momentarily became a claw, razor-sharp and gleaming in the parking lot’s lights. “See? You perceived my hand as a claw, even though it hadn’t really changed. Usually, someone would have to have some kind of magic to see through that type of illusion.”
“Then if Curtis hasn’t bargaining his way to supernatural power, he can be fooled,” I said. “It’s worth a try.”
“What are you thinking about doing?” asked Gavin.
“Virginia disguised as a demon can lure Dr. Curtis to us. Once we have him, we guilt him or threaten him into confessing what he’s done.”
To my surprise, Gavin chuckled. “We aren’t exactly the most threatening duo imaginable. And if Curtis thinks he’s protected by Satan, he might easily call our bluff. Then what? It’s not as if we’re going to murder the man. And we don’t have any evidence that would hold up in court, so going to the police would be pointless.”
“Guilt might be an easier way,” said Virginia. “And if Curtis doesn’t have supernatural abilities, I have other possible disguises than demonic ones. An angel might convince him to repent.”
“You can do that?” I asked. It was difficult to visualize a half demon making a convincing angel.
“I can if the conditions are right. When Shakespeare wrote, ‘the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape,’ he was more insightful than he knew.
“This is going to be risky, though. Curtis’s home is probably also being monitored. I’ll have to go in alone.”
“Unacceptable,” said Gavin.
Virginia smiled. “Now that you know my secret, you also know I’m capable of taking care of myself. If some major demon is lurking around, I can make a quick exit. It will be harder if I have to look after the two of you. Anyway, the illusion work I need to do will be delicate and hard to expand to include you. If you want this plan to succeed, you have to let me make the conditions as favorable as possible. Likely, we’ll only get one shot at this.”
“What if you get into trouble?” I asked.
“I won’t,” she said. The confidence in those words was more than I’d had in my entire life. “But if it will make you feel better, I can arrange for you to see and hear what I do, so you’ll know that I’m safe.”
“We have to be close enough to do something if you get into trouble.”
She looked at me as if she didn’t quite know what to make of me. “If I’m in real trouble, there won’t be anything you can do.”
Gavin and I both argued with her, but she wouldn’t budge. In the end, we pretended to give in, but we both knew that we wouldn’t let her go into danger completely unattended.
I’d expected being connected to her senses was going to be an elaborate process, but all she had to do was put her hands on my head for a minute. I felt a tingling, and then I could switch between my own perceptions and hers. Moving between two points of view like that made me dizzy at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
She told us to stay at the diner while she hunted down Dr. Curtis’s home, which she was pretty sure she could do by sniffing out demonic energy.
“After all, how many people in one small town could have sold their souls to Satan?” she asked right before she left us.
Given my own experience, I was pretty sure she was being overly optimistic, but I nodded as if I agreed and said good-bye.
As soon as she was out of sight, we got into Gavin’s car. He was going to drive, and I was going to navigate. Having access to her point of view made her surprisingly easy to track. I was surprised she hadn’t thought of that herself.
We didn’t have to tail her to know where she was, which made the process even easier. That was especially helpful as she had to search most of Madisonville to locate Dr. Curtis’s house—which turned out to be only a couple blocks from his practice.
We parked a block away and waited. Virginia darkened the streetlights and any other nearby light sources, much as she had done around the office. Then she walked toward the house, a stylish two-story that looked a lot like my parents’ place, maybe even a little better. The landscaping reminded me of one of those old-time formal gardens, only on a smaller scale. This garden looked as if every leaf, every blossom, every blade of grass had been arranged into the most visual pleasing arrangement possible. The effect was so striking that it made me wonder if there were a hedge maze in the back yard.
Virginia looked down at herself to show me she had made herself invisible. But I also saw traces of a red glow around where her body would be—demonic energy to fool any security precautions. Flickers of similar red energy were visible when she looked at the house, but whether those were evidence of security precautions or just residue from demonic activities, I couldn’t tell.
Virginia moved silently to the front door and unlocked it the same way she had unlocked the door at the clinic. She pulled it open, walked in, and closed it quietly behind her.
The first floor of the house was dark, but as in the office, Virginia had no difficulty seeing. I caught more traces of red that shouldn’t have been there. Otherwise, the interior looked normal, though a little upscale for the neighborhood.
The furniture and carpeting all looked brand new, and over the ornamental fireplace hung a family portrait—a recent one, to judge by the way the doctor looked in it. Standing to his left was his wife, who looked as if she had strolled out of a high-fashion catalog. She looked younger than he was, leading me to wonder whether he had sold his soul for money or for her.
Standing to the doctor’s right in the portrait was a fourteen-year-old boy—his son, no doubt. He looked out of the portrait with a mischievous grin, just waiting for the sitting to be over so that he could get back to whatever adolescent high jinks he had planned. I couldn’t help grinning in response. His father might be evil, but the kid reminded me of myself at that age more than anything else. I hoped he wouldn’t get caught in his father’s downfall.
Virginia moved toward the stairway, but she stopped when she heard noise near the top of it.
Someone was coming down the stairs slowly and quietly. My guess was someone trying not to wake everyone else while pursuing a midnight snack.
Virginia wasn’t taking chances, though. She stay completely still, near enough to the door that she could escape if a sudden threat emerged.
When I saw that Curtis’s son was the one coming down the stairs, I realized I’d been holding my breath and exhaled. But my relief faded as Virginia’s eyes focused on him, and I saw the truth.
Superficially, he looked as he did in the portrait, except that his hair was mussed from sleep, and he was wearing Star Trek pajamas that under any normal circumstance would have caused me to snicker.
But beneath those pajamas, right where his heart was, the unmistakable red of demonic energy glowed. Worse, it fluctuated in a rhythm that was too much like a heartbeat to be coincidental.
Though he still looked about the same as he had in the portrait—a healthy, fourteen-year-old—the longer Virginia looked at him, the more differences I could see, presumably hidden beneath some kind of illusion.
His skin was pale as milk, and his eyes were the eyes of a corpse.
I grabbed Gavin’s arm hard enough to bruise him.
To say our plan had hit a major snag would be the understatement of the century.
Now I knew what Dr. Curtis had sold his soul for—and why he would never break that deal.
Madisonville Murder is related to the Soul Salvager trilogy. (The action falls between the prologue and chapter one of the first book.)
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