Page 19 of The Wickedness of Man

In no universe would I take the word of a demon at face value and trust that she had nothing but the girl’s safety in mind. However, I also had to acknowledge that there was something inside ofmethat simply couldn’t consider putting this woman in danger; even if that meant having to hide her. Even if that meant breaking protocol, as I was already doing.

The Church is going lock me up for the rest of my life before I’ve even finished debriefing Jax, so maybe addingonemore tally to my list of sins wouldn’t make a noticeable difference?

“Goddammit,” I muttered. “Goddammit!”

I was forcing myself not to pace. I was already showing weakness in front of the demon by letting her get me this agitated; this off my own game. I knew better than to do this,but with the girl in my arms, I couldn’t think straight. I agreed with the demon on the matter of getting her to safety—but the question was: Wherewassafety? I didn’t trust the organization as far as I could spit, but if this girl had been afflicted with some kind of demonic influence or possession and later got sick, or died, that would be onme.

“Take her anywhere else—the hospital, a doctor’s office, her home—just don’t take her to the Church,” Dr. Lowe said in a quiet, hushed voice.

I looked down at the girl in my arms.

If I do this, I’m going to get the shit beat out of me.

If I don’t do this, I’m still going to get the shit beat out of me, but maybe with a little less… gusto.

After my long pause, she stepped forward, and in a voice almost too soft to hear said, “…Please.”

There was a command in her tone, but she hadn’t used her power on me; rather, I could sense urgency and fear. I could taste the sour notes of her pleading on my tongue. Succubi didn’t ask favors of those they could command—so why hadn’t she just ordered me to leave the girl and walk away? The longer I stayed, the less I understood. Who was the succubus to the Church—and better still, who was this girl to her?

The thought of this woman being locked in the cells was suddenly sickening to me. I found myself recoiling at the idea of her being there—alone, tormented, beaten… scared, treated like I had been. Like Iwould bein very short order, probably just for stepping foot inside this building.

“Okay, let’s just say I bring her to her house instead of the Church. Do you at least know where she lives?” I asked.

“It hadn’t really… come up in our conversation,” Dr. Lowe said, “but I know where the café her friend owns is?—”

Dr. Lowe staggered backward, clutching her abdomen and reverting back to her human form—that of the buxom blonde I’d been watching for two weeks.

“What th—are you all right?” I asked, before I could help myself.

She panted and leaned heavily against the wall. “They’re here,” she gasped. “They’ve got… holy water—air conditioning?—”

Outside the doors at the end of the darkened portion of the office came the stomp of boots and the low murmur of voices. Home must have gotten the backup over here—much faster than I’d anticipated. At any other time, I would have been glad of it, but… something was wrong about this. About all of it. Holy water into the AC? My team had never gotten approval for anything as fancy as that, which could only mean one thing—this wasn’t an ordinary assignment. An investigator wasdefinitelyinvolved.

“Fuck this,” I said, extending my hand to the doctor. “C’mon. We’re getting out of here.”

“No—take her and… run,” Lowe growled, and this time, therewasan order under her words. I felt my will subjugated; my knees nearly buckled. “Take the stairs at opposite end of this corridor; don’t let your comrades see you. Get her to safety.”

The command washed over me so quickly I had no time to brace for it. I found myself trembling, torn between wanting to follow her command and being unable to leave her side. The conflict must have shown on my face; Lowe’s power faded, just enough that I could breathe on my own; think for myself. She approached me before I could move, however, and pressed her palm against my cheek. I leaned into her hand, closing my eyes as pleasure vibrated from her touch. The sensible part of my brain screamed for me to get away from the demon, but the verymalepart of me suggested I should put the girl down and take the demon.

“No questions. I’ll find you both later and explain everything then,” she whispered, her breathing beginning to sound wet and shallow. “Now go. I’ll hold them until you’re out of my aural reach. After that, it’s on you. Keep Magda safe.”

I didn’t recall making a conscious choice, but I was practically flying down the steps, following the route I’d been shown: A map in my head of the building along with the sensation of where each of my comrades were inside of it. Fifteen men, largely still in the office section, but they’d find the hidden door soon, just as I had. Whatever prayers and incantations they’d brought with them were stronger than the ancient cross at my neck, and the succubus would need her full attention on them. So, as she’d said, it was on me to protect the girl… To protect Magda.

I was outside and in an alleyway three blocks away before gunfire erupted behind me from the office park. I spun, but the urgency Dr. Lowe implanted into my brain made it impossible for me to do anything else but keep going, far away. I should have been there with my fellow agents, but instead, I was carrying an unconscious woman away at the behest of a demon. My thoughts raced. I couldn’t go back to the rented apartment lookout—that was the first place the organization would go. I couldn’t go back to my own home on campus, either, since they’d be there, too.

“Fuck, fuck,” I muttered. I could look through the girl’s purse for an ID, maybe, but only once we got off the streets. “Where do I go now…?”

The same sensation that had filled my head when Lowe’s power had first pushed itself into my brain shoved me toward a multistory condo building about a block ahead on my left. The route information, much like the building map, came shortlyafter. It was the doctor, pushing images into my head, orders. Like an idiot, I just blindly followed the path she’d woven into my brain.

I knew the place she was directing me to—it’d been built a few years ago, but sales had tanked, and now something like eighty percent of the units were empty. There’d been a news piece on it last week I’d watched out of sheer boredom while surveilling the doctor. The part I hadn’t known, however, was that there was a model unit for a partially furnished studio condo on the fifth floor in which the outer key lock was broken, and only the internal deadbolt worked when manually turned from within.

I grit my teeth against the intrusive information, feeling the doctor’s distant instructions coming into my head like some kind of bizarre psychic download.

“I don’t like this at all,” I hissed, but headed for the exact spot, regardless, sticking close along the tree line of a nearby wooded lot to keep as far off the streets as possible.

The last thing I needed was to be arrested while carrying an unconscious girl down the street while also carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, a prepaid debit card for “J. Doe,” and absolutely no valid ID. Once they’d run my fingerprints and found out that I wasn’t listed inanysystem—no birth records, no prints, no name, no identity, I’d get tossed into a dark little prison and have the key thrown away.

Unless someone from the Church found a way to get me out—which would only mean moving from one jail cell to another that was, in all honestly, probably not going to be nearly as nice as the state-owned version.

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