Free The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper Page A

place . What I mean—” I start, then try to think of a palatable fiction. Decide on the truth instead. “I mean I’m not sure we’re safe.”
    I don’t intend to frighten her. And she isn’t frightened. Her face shows something else I can’t quite read. Something like resolve. The grimace that shows a willingness to take on a fight.
    Whatever it is, it’s my fault. What the hell was I thinking , saying that?
    The answer is it wasn’t me who said it. It’s the thing that’s followed me here. A being other than Tess or me in the room with us.
    “Pack your things,” I say. “I’ve got a couple calls to make.”
    M AYBE IT IS THE FOCUS REQUIRED IN THUMBING MY I P HONE, CALLING the airlines, finding a flight that leaves that night (getting lucky with Alitalia to London, then British Airways to New York). Or maybe it’s just a matter of bringing some distance between myself and the man at 3627. Either way, I feel almost instantly better. The breeze through the open doors cools the sweat on my neck, my stomach calmed. Even more welcome, the dark thoughts that plagued my return journey on the vaporetto have retreated, leaving me more buoyant than I can remember feeling for the last few weeks. Has the day been weird? Sure. A conspiracy cooked up in the underworld? Not too damn likely.
    So what to do about the video camera? When I’m done on the phone I spot it on the coffee table. The eye of its lens staring at me. Inside the machine is the man in the room. His gnashings and flailings. But also the cities and numbers. The lifeless voice. My father.
    I consider leaving it there but quickly pack it instead, burying it under my socks as though concealing it might render its contents impotent. I’m too addled at the moment to say how I know this, but the documentation it contains may be important. Not that I will ever view its contents again. But the academic in me—the archivist, the enlightened opposer to the destruction of historical record—doesn’t like the idea of it disappearing. In the manner of any text, it may have something crucial to say that isn’t evident on the first reading.
    I zip up my suitcase. Comb fingers through damp hair.
    Good-bye, gloriously expensive hotel suite. Good-bye, magnificent Chiesa della Salute, postcard-framed by the window. Good-bye, Venice. I won’t be coming back. And when the next plague comes, go ahead and build another church. Whether they cure the sick or not, they’re certainly beautiful.
    “Tess? Time to go, honey.”
    I roll the suitcase to the living room, expecting to find Tess there. She isn’t, though her bag is. The handle extended but the case lying on its back on the floor, as though abandoned.
    “Tess?”
    Check her room. Both bathrooms. Open the suite’s door and go outside to stand in the empty hallway.
    “Tess!”
    The living room window. Doors open wide, the curtains coaxing in the hot breeze.
    I run to the balcony, look over the side. Below, the arrivals and departures of the hotel’s dock. But no commotion. No Tess.
    Call the front desk. That’s what I should do. Have hotel staff look everywhere at the same time. The police, too. If she left the hotel it would take no time at all to become lost in the city’s maze.
    Don’t just run around. Think . I have to put the next steps in the right order. What I do now will decide everything—
    She’s on the roof.
    O’Brien’s voice interrupts again. Except this time it’s not my imagined O’Brien, but somehow the real thing. My friend here with me.
    Il Settimo Cielo. Go, David. Go now .
    Even as I’m running out the door and taking the stairs up to the seventh floor, I’m wondering if this voice, among all the others of this day, can be believed. It could be a lie. Maybe everything I heard in the room at 3627 was a lie.
    But this one is true.
    I run out onto the patio restaurant atop the hotel, and there she is. My daughter standing on the edge of the roof. Meeting my eyes alone through the crowd