Blood of the Demon (Kara Gillian 2)

Rachel stiffened, but she kept her arms down by her sides. “You could tell, couldn’t you?” Tension coiled in her voice, and her hands clutched into fists.

“Yes. I could feel it. I could feel what you did.” I kept my gun steady on her, though my voice wasn’t as stable. The memory of the gaping emptiness still left my stomach roiling. “You consumed their essence when you killed all those people.”

“I didn’t want to. I swear! I never wanted it to go so far.” Her voice shook. “But I can’t … can’t stop. I mean, I can. I know I can. I just …” She trailed off, and I could see a shudder run through her.

Like she’s jonesing for a fix. Shit. “How are you doing it?” I asked. I knew it was an innate ability—Rhyzkahl had revealed that much, though the thought that summoning demons and destroying essence might have similar roots was disturbing to me. But right now I was more interested in stalling until I could figure out what to do.

She let out a shaking laugh. “It used to be a little thing I could do. My grandfather died when I was five years old. They brought all of us kids into the room right after he’d drawn his last breath. Horrible to inflict that sort of experience on a kid that young anyway, but for me it was … providence.”

“Because his essence had just been freed,” I said.

I could hear her swallow. “Clinging by a thread to the empty shell. I could see it and feel it, and it felt so damn good. And when I threw myself at the essence, everyone thought I was throwing myself on his body in grief. By the time they lifted me off him, I’d pulled that essence into me.” She turned her head to look at me, eyes haunted and dark. “You always remember your first time, right?”

“I’ve never consumed anyone’s essence,” I retorted. “I wouldn’t know.”

A tremulous smile crossed her face. “It was marvelous. Made me feel so good. I never forgot that feeling. When I got older, I did a lot of volunteer work in hospitals. But I never killed anyone. I always waited … until after it was over.” She paused. “Then I got sick. Breast cancer. I was so scared and desperate, and I was seeing a client at a nursing home …”

“Why bother waiting for them to die, right?” I said.

“He was going to die anyway!” she snarled, but I could see the fear and guilt in her eyes. “It was simple enough to give him a fatal overdose of his heart medicine. And I got better. I … I figured it was like an organ donation. He died just a bit early, and my cancer was gone.”

“But you kept doing pro bono work there,” I countered. That’s it, keep talking. I knew from experience that most people wanted to confess, wanted to tell someone, anyone, what they’d done. I was more than happy to oblige her. Maybe it would give me enough time to figure out a plan. “How many others have died before their time?”

“Only a few.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Only … when I couldn’t bear the hunger anymore.”

“But then you killed Brian,” Ryan said, voice a growl.

She straightened her shoulders and shifted slowly to face us, keeping her hands where we could see them and her eyes on our guns. “Yes, but only because my dear departed husband was a fucking moron and a philandering asshole.” The steel was back in her voice. This wasn’t the addict speaking now. This was the scorned and vengeful wife. “I was willing to tolerate his indiscretions to a point, because being married to a judge was good for my career. But then he got stupid and killed Carol. He was screwing his daughter-in-law.” Her voice dripped with disgust, and I had a hard time not sharing her sentiment toward Harris Roth. “Then he called Davis in a panic—”

“But you were with Davis, having a little revenge affair of your own,” Ryan said.

“It was only fair,” she said, shrugging. “But Davis turned out to be a pathetic whiner. Threatened to go to the police. Moron.”

“But he’d told his wife everything,” I pointed out.

“Another moron,” she said with a derisive sneer. “You know what she wanted from me? She wanted to come back to Beaulac as if nothing had happened. Wanted me to make sure she’d still be ‘accepted.’ Useless bitch. She could have taken me down with one phone call, but she didn’t have the balls.”

I swallowed back a knot of anger. “But why kill Brian?” I demanded. “He never hurt anyone. You couldn’t figure out some other way to cover up Carol’s death?”

Rachel’s lip curled. “I wanted Harris to suffer. I knew that would kill him.” Then her expression shifted to a sad and haunted smile. “Besides, Brian wouldn’t have wanted to live anyway if he’d found out what they’d done.”

“You have a healthy dose of crazy going on in there, lady,” Ryan said.

The look she shot him was pure and glittering hate. “I’m not crazy. I did what I had to do. But …” She took a deep breath as if to steady herself. “But I didn’t realize how much better it was to be right there at the very instant the essence was released, especially when it was … violent. None of it escaped me. I could take nearly all of it. God almighty, but it felt so good.” Her eyes closed in remembered bliss. “I was so strong, felt so perfect. Then when Davis told me he was going to the police—”

“You took care of him too,” I finished for her. “As well as the Galloways, when they were stupid enough to try to blackmail your husband.”

She gave a small shrug. “That was pretty stupid of them.”

“And Ron Burnside,” Ryan said quietly, “the public defender who was going to run against Harris Roth. Did you take care of him too?”

Another shrug. “People die after surgery all the time. Such a tragedy.” But I could see the satisfaction in her eyes.

My thoughts whirled in barely ordered chaos. How are we going to stop her? Is there some way to reverse it? Strip her of the ability? We can’t exactly stick her in handcuffs and put her in jail.

“Why did you come here?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but at this point I needed to get some hint or clue of what to do.

She shifted her gaze to me. “Your aunt. There was nothing there, but she was still alive. I knew she’d been injured during the incident with the Symbol Man, so I decided to find out what was so special about her.” She tilted her head. “I drove past this house every day for two weeks, never quite able to get my nerve up to try to get in and look around.”