Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

the demon spirit is flung out of the car with a terrifying shriek. The henchman’s body, now vacant, slumps against the door.

Ruby stares at her with wide eyes. He jams the hookah pipe into his mouth and sucks furiously. Hillerman swats the tube away, kicks the crystal hookah over, and slams her fist into Ruby’s chest, ejecting vapor from his nostrils with an oof!

“Exorcist!” he wheezes, eyes watering.

“Who’s running the necromancer ring?” she asks calmly.

“I…I know you.”

“Who’s running the necromancy ring?”

“Demon hunter. Banisher. Judge, jury, executioner.”

“Who’s running the necromancy ring?”

“The girl who fought back! That’s what they called you.”

So far, Hillerman hasn’t spared a single glance our way. She seems not at all surprised to find Brenner and me here. And I know why. “She’s your contact?” I ask Brenner. “Of all people, her?”

“It was last minute,” he defends. “Seats opened up for a Tigers game, so she thought of you. It was thoughtful.”

“It was a setup!”

Ruby sneers at Brenner. “Oh, wake up! She played you.”

I nod in agreement. “Thank you! Jay, she used us as bait to get to him!”

Brenner throws his hands out. “You’re taking his side?”

“You’re taking her side!” I clap back. “Way worse!”

“Worse than a demon?”

Ruby laughs. Low and chuckling at first, but then exploding into riotous cackling. “Worse than a demon? Worse than a demon! You mean, you don’t know?” He throws a pointed look at Hillerman, as if to allow her a moment to explain herself.

She returns that inscrutable stare from behind her black shades and repeats, “Who’s running the necromancy ring?”

Ruby erupts with giggles. “Oh, the hypocrisy! Do you suppose any old person can go around expelling demons at whim? See the Deep world? Know our real names? Hear our whispers? Know everything about demons?” He flinches back when Hillerman raises a finger of warning. Ruby’s glee turns to defiance. “Takes one to know one,” he hisses.

My brain reels. Hillerman, a demon? I trade looks with Brenner. He looks skeptical, doesn’t buy it for a second. But I’m not so sure. It would explain a lot about her powers, like Ruby said. But Nick Gorgeous had told me all about Hillerman’s supernatural fetishes—the necklace she wears, with all the teeth from different underworld races. I see it now, draped over her collarbone, dangling eyeteeth of vampires and fangs from shifters. Nick thought she was getting her power from those. At the end of the day, though, we always come right back to the same sticking point: When it comes to the true story behind Agent Hillerman, nobody knows shit.

Ruby gloats. “What now, exorcist? If you try to silence me, it only makes you look more guilty—aaggh!” His entire body shakes violently, as if struck by lightning. Hillerman has spread all five fingers wide, drawing on her exorcist powers. Ruby foams at the mouth, gurgling in pain. Not one, but five different shadow faces emerge from the top of his head. They wail in unison, an unholy, nightmarish sound.

Hillerman closes her hand into a fist. The dark spirits snap back into Ruby’s head, and he slumps back, gasping with relief, eyes rolling. “You’re soft, Ruby,” she taunts. “Arael Moaz was much harder to break, and he was on his deathbed.”

He shudders. “You wouldn’t! With both Arael and me gone, the power void would attract things much worse than us. You know it would.”

“What if I am that worse thing, Ruby?”

Now it’s my turn to shudder. I can believe it. So can Ruby. He’s practically whimpering.

“Say my name,” she says. “If I’m a demon, say my real name.”

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t dare. But there is something in you. I see it in the corners of your eyes.”

It’s the wrong answer. Hillerman raises the one finger again.

“No!” Ruby cries. He throws his hands up to protect himself.

“We know the East Side is trying to form a necro ring. King Paul was their latest attempt. Their latest failure, I should say. Before him, it was Elijah. But they’re just acolytes. Who’s teaching them? Who’s the ringleader?”

Brenner sits forward, interested. These are the same questions he wants answered.

Ruby shakes his head, which shakes his belly. “You’re asking me about necros? What do I want with that business? Death and corpses? Ask me about offshore bank accounts or my hoard of Nintendo Switches. Greed demon, remember?”

“Good. Then you have zero interest in necromancy?”

“Zero.”

“No use for revenants?”

“Zombies? Ew.”

“Perfect. So, you definitely would have declined an audience with a summoner?”

Ruby hesitates. And that’s all Hillerman needs to see. She spreads her fingers wide, zapping Ruby with a blast of stunning power. The shadow creatures burst from his bald dome, clutching and scraping at his face, desperate to remain in his body. While keeping the pressure on with her spread fingers, Hillerman turns to us casually, as if bored with a TV show. “Necros can’t do shit without a demon summoner. Necros animate the body, summoners pull a demon from the Deep to inhabit the body. Gotta have both.”

It’s hard to hear her over the shrieking demons. Ruby’s face has turned a deep red to match the ruby studs on his brow. Through clenched teeth, he rasps an unintelligible word. Hillerman tilts an ear toward his mouth. The demon spirits are nearly free. Only their feet remain inside Ruby’s head. A few more seconds, and they’re gone. “I…did…not…” he grunts. “I didn’t! I didn’t!”

Hillerman makes a fist. The tangle of ghosts are sucked back into Ruby’s body like a retracting tape measure. He sags into the seat, flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat.

Pulling the hookah upright, Hillerman offers him a tube. Ruby takes a greedy pull, pinning her with bulging, wary eyes.

After allowing him a moment to recover, she asks, “Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t decline. When she came to me, I agreed to meet. But I didn’t accept her offer! I swear, I heard her out, is all. A demon summoner, that’s like nobility. You don’t brush them off. Got to show proper respect.”

“A woman?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Ages. Gotta be ten