Hell's Rayne (Book 1)

Chapter 32

Possessed or not, I felt I could have the upper hand against Maura, as long as I played things right. I could not free the Whisperer and give her that extra power over me, she had to remain Maura right until the end, and as long as Jesse didn't suddenly wise up and realise that there was something seriously wrong with his mother we might just be able to get away. While still trapped inside of the human vessel that housed it, the Whisperer had all the advantages that a delicately built woman in her sixties might normally have over me. I'd take my chances.

Of course getting rid of the demon that was hunting me would also mean having to kill Jesse's mother, there was no way around it. Kill the vessel and send the demon back to Hell, the alternative didn't bear thinking about. I only hoped that Jesse might eventually be able to understand what had to happen for the sake of us both, but I had a feeling it was going to put some serious strain on our relationship.

“Heather?” As if on cue Jesse managed to drag himself out of the state of shock he'd been frozen in and finally tuned in to the strangeness of the situation around him. “What's going on? We need to....Eric's dead, I killed him....Heather?”

I let my eyes slip away from Maura for a moment, just long enough so that I could turn to Jesse and take in his still pale, sick looking complexion. The pleading in his eyes that echoed his tone of voice. I felt such a pang at the desperate expression he wore, I wanted to comfort him, tell him I would fix things somehow. Not to mention apologise. It was, when it really came down to it, my fault he was even in this situation. Though I had a funny feeling that things were going to get a whole lot worse before they got better.

I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what I was going to say to him, so it was almost a relief when Maura didn't give me the chance.

She rushed at me while I wasn't looking, grabbed me around the waist in a move not uncommonly seen in a game of rugby, and hauled me bodily to the ground. My back hit the concrete, the impact thrusting the air from my lungs, and I gasped, struggling to take in a breath. Somehow I managed to stop my head from cracking down on the ground. I wasn't seeing stars and I didn't black out, but that didn't change the fact that it hurt.

Maura had managed to save herself from the fall by using me to cushion herself – plus I wasn't sure the demon inhabiting her really cared much for the well being of the human skin it was wearing. She wasted no time in mounting the rest of her attack, not giving me any chance to recover or fight back. She clambered on top of me, her weight pinning me to the ground. She was deceptively heavy for a fairly small woman. The maniacal grin still distorted her face and the gleam in her tar pit eyes reflected the glint of the knife in her hand. When had she picked that up?

“Mum, what the hell are you doing?” Jesse yelled and I breathed a quiet word of thanks that I had someone on my side.

It was an unusual feeling to know that someone had my back. Traditionally I worked alone, but in this situation, without some kind of backup, I was pretty sure I'd be dead. It was a unique situation, that was a certainty, and I would be eternally grateful for having Jesse there to come to my aid.

Demon-Maura didn't much care to listen to her son. She shifted the knife in her grip so that the blade was aimed straight down, the point mere inches from my right eye. I wrapped my hands around her slender wrist and used all of the strength I had available to keep her from plunging that rust red, blood covered blade straight into my eye socket.

“Mum!” Jesse yelled again, “seriously, what the fuck are you doing? Get off of her.”

He grabbed his mothers body and forcibly heaved her off of me. I kept one hand still wrapped around her arm that held the knife, and as she rolled to the ground I smashed her hand down hard on the concrete. She cried out in surprise and pain at the attack. I grazed my own fingers raw in the process but put as much force behind my attack as I could. Disarming her was my first priority, and I was satisfied when the knife clattered from her grip, but it gave me an extra jolt of pleasure to feel the delicate bones of her wrist snap beneath my fingers.