Free The Devil You Know by Richard Levesque Page B

Until…”
    “What?”
Marie said sharply. Without meaning to, she pointed her cigarette toward him,
making him flinch.
    “I
don’t know if it happens every time, or with every woman.” He shook his head in
agitation. “But I know a lot of the time, the demons go back. Find them. Have
them again. The women they have down here in town, the incubi go back to where
they live. The ones who’ve been taken out of the mansion…we take them home when
the incubi are done with them. That’s what I was doing Friday night when you
saw me there—what I was going to do with your friend. I didn’t know you’d
be there with her.”
    Marie
raised an eyebrow. She thought of Elise, a sense of alarm rising in her.
Immediately, though, she realized that Elise was safe. No one from the party
knew where she lived. “Why the same women over and over?”
    “I
don’t know.”
    “And
it does the same thing to them afterward?”
    Colin
nodded.
    “What
happens then?”
    He
shrugged pathetically. “I don’t know. It hasn’t been going on long enough to
know. And Julian…doesn’t tell us everything.”
    “Can’t
you ask?”
    He
smiled sheepishly. “You don’t ask Julian. You just…wait till he tells you what
he needs you to know.”
    Marie
shook her head in disgust. She could not understand the hold that Piedmont had
on his followers, but it had been clear on Friday that there was no shortage of
young men willing to hang on his every word. Surely a few would do his bidding
as well. “You’re disgusting!” she said with a sneer.
    Colin
looked at her sharply. “I don’t want to do it!” he hissed. “Don’t you see? But
I can’t go against Julian. None of us can.”
    “Why?
What kind of hold does he have on you?”
    Colin
shook his head. “I can’t explain it. There’s just something…irresistible about
him.”
    Marie
narrowed her eyes. “Are you…in love with him?”
    “No!
It’s not like that. He just…takes care of us. None of us would be anything
without him. He’s helped every one of us make it in this town in one way or
another.”
    She
thought about how Colin had initially described Julian’s followers. “I thought
you were all a bunch of frat boys from USC. Rich men’s sons. What do you need
him for?”
    “Rich
men’s sons who couldn’t find their asses with both hands. Growing up with money
in Hollywood is something of a curse, you know. Everything’s handed to you. You
don’t have to work. You end up a rich idiot with other people telling you how
to spend your money. Except Julian. He was lucky enough to hate his father, and
for the feeling to be mutual. He had to figure it all out by himself. Now he’s
got everything.”
    “More
than he wants?”
    “Maybe.”
    Marie
shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Okay,” she said. “So why now? If
you’re so damned loyal to Julian, why are you betraying him to me? What good
can I do you in all this?”
    He
stared at her for a few seconds, his lower lip trembling. When he spoke again,
tears fell onto his cheeks. “It’s my soul, Marie. When I read from that book
and called those…things. When I cut my arm and helped create their bodies. I
committed sins I don’t know if I can be forgiven for. I don’t want to go to
hell.”
    “That’s
why you were in the church.”
    Colin
nodded. “I need to talk to a priest, and that place is so peaceful. But I was
scared.”
    “And
I scared you more.”
    He
shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it anyway. But then when I saw you the
same night—the woman from the church there at that party trying to help
your friend. I thought it was maybe a sign. God was opening one last door for
me through you.”
    Marie
raised an eyebrow. She had never thought of herself as an instrument of God
before. “It couldn’t have been just a coincidence?”
    “I
choose not to think so. I still have my faith, you see.” He smiled wanly, then
went on. “I was hoping that if I told you everything, maybe you