Bone Gods

“What’s this regarding?”
    “Gerald LaVey,” Pete said. “He was admitted…” Another Connor trick. Human beings were inclined to fill in relevant information. The nurse didn’t bite.
    “If you’re a copper or a social worker, let’s see some ID and I’ll see about getting someone up here to unlock him.”
    “Look,” Pete said. “I need to see him. What’s it going to cost me?”
    The nurse regarded Pete as if she were something slimy and still moving that the woman had stepped in. “It’s gonna cost you a trip to the local station now.” She picked up the phone and punched an extension.
    Pete reached out and slammed her finger on the disconnect button. The nurse jerked the phone from her. “Oi! How dare you?”
    “I’m sorry,” Pete told her, stepping back and holding her hands up. “I’m very, very sorry.”
    “You should be,” the nurse said. “And you’re gonna be sorrier when I get your arse hauled off to jail.”
    “My dear woman.” Belial appeared at Pete’s shoulder, as if out of thin air. “I assure you that our intentions toward your patient benefit you as well as him.” He reached out and put his hand over the nurse’s, as she grabbed for the telephone receiver again. “It’s all right,” Belial told her, thumb stroking across the woman’s knuckles. “I know. I know the bills aren’t being paid, even though you’ve been working shifts back to back. I know about young Ned and his trouble at school, about those boys who held him down and took photos down his pants and posted them all over the net.” Belial leaned in. Pete watched as the nurse’s face went slack. “I know that every day since your husband left, you think about walking into this place with his skeet rifle and doing as many as you can before you cram a handful of those pills you feed the crazies down your gullet.”
    The nurse stared at Belial, her jaw slack. One tear worked its way down her face, running into the furrow next to her nose. Her lips worked, lax and rubbery, and a pathetic sound came from her throat.
    “I know how to make it all go away,” Belial said. “I think you do, too.”
    Pete wanted to move, to tell Belial to stop, but she felt as rooted as the nurse. The demon’s power wasn’t like being touched by cold—it simply curled up and lived in her mind, as if it had always been there, whispering to her. It was like sinking under with a handful of the pills Belial had talked about. Warm, soft, a slowing heartbeat, and a flow of euphoria that made everything around Pete—the smell of the ward and the screams of the patients and the ding of the PA—matter very little.
    Belial cut his eyes to her and mouthed Go.
    “Don’t hurt her,” Pete said. She backed up a step, which lessened the thrall of Belial’s power, but not enough to completely stem the tide of fascination. She wanted him to speak to her, to touch her and read her like he was reading the nurse.
    “I want you to do it right now,” Belial said, ignoring Pete completely. “Get up and do it.”
    The nurse stood, gathered her purse and coat from behind her desk, and left the ward without a backward look. Pete watched her go, until the doors swished shut behind her ample rear.
    “What did you do?” she said. Belial took up a seat behind the desk, putting his feet up.
    “Convinced her she wants to be somewhere else. She’s going to go out there, empty her checking account, buy a ticket to Leeds, and look up the girl she was in love with at university. Of course, that one’s married with two girls and actually straight, but it’ll keep her out of our business.”
    Pete snatched the charge list away from him and ran her finger down to Gerard LaVey. “You’re enjoying this.”
    “Of course I am.” Belial laced his fingers behind his head. “People are so simple most of the time. Give them permission to do what they really like and they behave like animals, blood running in the streets.”
    Pete threw the charge list back at him and grabbed up the nurse’s keycard, going to the third locked room on the ward. She swiped the card and waited for the slow progress of the electronic door.
    Jack’s room was bereft of furniture, except for a steel bedframe propped on end against the far wall. He sat in the center of the painted cement, naked, knees drawn up to his chest. “There you are,” Pete said softly. She made a move to step inside, but Jack spoke.
    “Don’t come in.”
    Pete glanced around the