“Glorious leader,” he rushed out. “You may call me glorious leader.”
“There’s no way I’m calling you that,” she said, despite the fact that she had already done so, “but enough about your exalted opinion of yourself. I’m here because I killed my parents. I stabbed them to death, or so I’m told.”
He glanced up, watched another of those tremors rock her. Perhaps he should fetch her a blanket.
Fetch her a blanket? Seriously? His frown returned. Her comfort did not concern him. “So you were told? You do not remember?” he asked, remaining in place.
“Oh, I remember.” The bitterness returned to her voice, thicker now. “I watched a creature…a demon do it, tried to stop him, tried to save them, and when I told the authorities what had really happened, I was deemed criminally insane and locked here for the rest of my life.”
Again, he knew she spoke truthfully. Not just because the details she mentioned were typed, scribbled and repeated throughout the pages in the folder—though none of her doctors had believed her—but because he tasted only the rose and bergamot, both fragile, delicate flavors he liked. Odd. He’d never cared for scents or tastes before. They were what they were, and he’d had no preference.
“Why have these demons targeted me?” she asked again. “Why? And just so you know, telling me is the only way to stop me from pestering you about it.”
“That’s not exactly true. I could leave, and then you would not be able to pester me about anything.” Rather than ignore her yet again, however, he decided there was no reason not to give her this information, either. Her reaction interested him.
Fires of hell, but something must be wrong with him. Nothing interested him.
“Sometime before your parents were killed,” he stated, “you invited a demon into your life.”
“No. No way.” Violently she shook her head, tangling those blue-black strands around her temples. “I would never invite one of those things anywhere. Except, maybe, a house-burning party.”
How was she expressing such undeniable doubt about something he had said, with the ring of truth as ripe as ever in his tone? Yes, there were humans who possessed doubts more powerful than that ring, but Annabelle did not fit the type.
“Humans fail to realize how easy demons are to welcome. The negative words you speak, the detestable things you do. Utter a lie, meditate on hate, entertain the urge to commit violence, and you might as well sound the dinner bell.”
“I don’t care what you say. I never welcomed a demon.”
How could he make her understand? “Demons are the equivalent of spiritual deliverymen. Your words and actions can be a request for a package. In other words, a curse. They come to your door, knock. It’s your choice whether or not you open that door and accept. You did.”
“No,” she insisted.
“Have you ever played the Ouija?” he asked, trying to reach her stubborn core from a different angle.
“No.”
“Visited a psychic?”
“No.”
“Cast a spell? Any spell?”
“No, okay? No!”
“Lied, cheated or stolen from a neighbor? Hated someone, anyone? Feared something, anything?”
The next tremor to slide the length of her body proved stronger than the others, locking her jaw, silencing her and rattling the entire bed. By the time she stilled, her anger had drained and she radiated a bleakness that somehow widened the fissure in his chest by the minutest degree.
“I’m done talking to you,” she said quietly.
Meaning yes, she had. He had seen proof of hatred and fear already. “But I am not done talking to you. Spiritually, all of the things I mentioned grant your enemy permission to attack you.”
“But how can a person stop feeling fear?”