Body Surfing

take hostages. She began to track left to pick up a little ground, but she knew she didn’t have much chance. The demon was already more than a hundred yards away. Well out of range of the ancient, tarnished pistol she’d taken from the doctor’s coffee jar. Once he hit open ground he could break into a sprint. He wouldn’t even need a car.
    The demon cut even further to the left. She saw him look back, gauging her position, and suddenly she understood. He wasn’t aiming for the development. He wasn’t actually trying to get away: he was trying to circle back to where they’d started from. Of course! He was trying to protect the girl. Leo’s host. The fledgling’s girlfriend, when he’d been alive.
    For a moment Ileana faltered. In ten years, she’d never seen a demon do anything for the sake of a living being—never once heard of a Mogran putting a mortal’s life ahead of its own. It occurred to her that the fledgling might actually be different. Might be…what? Redeemable? As far as she knew, he hadn’t hurt anyone yet. Who’s to say he ever would?
    But that wasn’t true, she remembered. This was already his second host. Somewhere out there was the first. Mason West. Even if the fledgling hadn’t actually forced him to do anything reprehensible, he’d still taken his body. And he’d exited it, which meant that he’d made him have sex—and he’d do it again, and again, and again. Corporeal larceny. Spiritual rape. That was reason enough to kill him.
    Ileana abruptly broke off the chase. Stopped running, and instead began to sneak as quietly as she could back to the place where she’d shot Leo. With any luck, the fledgling would continue to circle. That would give her time to get to the water before he did. Time to hide. Time to prey on his weakness.
    She just hoped Leo wasn’t planning to do the same thing.

11
    J .D. Thomas heard the first shot over the blasting air conditioner. Weather: yet one more reason why the psychiatrist hated to leave the comfort of his townhouse. Weather, and insects. The demons would pick a virtual swamp to have their tête-à-tête.
    Two more shots sounded close together, suggesting Ileana was firing wildly. No surprise there. The Luger she’d taken was a stumpy, brutish-looking weapon, the mechanism unoiled in who knew how long. He was surprised it hadn’t exploded in her face. Nevertheless, it had served as the perfect place to conceal a tracking device. It was amazing what you could buy on the internet.
    The psychiatrist turned to his passenger. “Do you remember everything I told you?”
    A tiny smile played over Q.’s face. He ran his hands over the tops of his pants as if he were drying his palms. “Yes.”
    The boy’s voice was trusting, as though he were speaking not to the doctor but to a memory. A pleasant memory—a childhood bath or the first bite into a warm tarte tatin . Something sensual but relaxing. The kiss after sex rather than the kiss before.
    “Good. Now, when I say your name, you’re going to wake up. You’ll be aware of everything that’s happened since you let me out of the cell, save for the fact that you’ll have no memory of being hypnotized.”
    The doctor gathered himself. Time to put on the mask again. He took a deep breath, then:
    “Q.!”
    The boy’s head snapped in the doctor’s direction.
    “Were those—?” Q. didn’t finish his question. Instead he pushed the door open and ran from the car. “Jasper! Jasper!”
    Pollen-heavy air flooded the cabin, and the doctor sighed. He leaned over and pulled the door closed, watched Q. run past the huntress’s Prius and the demon’s Sunfire before disappearing into the clouds of swirling insects. When the boy was gone, the doctor leaned over, closed the door, opened the glove compartment. Thank God he’d thought to bring repellent.
     
    Panic raced through Q.’s body, and dread, but also anticipation. Excitement. He was going to see Jasper again! His best friend, his dead friend. The friend that he had killed.
    But emotions weren’t the only things coursing through his veins. Hormones and glucose and various chemicals were also flooding his limbs. All the things Ileana had tried to teach him over the past forty-eight hours seemed to be happening effortlessly. Q.’s body flew over the muddy soil, a good ten feet between each footfall. It must be the context, Q. thought. He always performed better under pressure. And he would not let Ileana kill Jasper. Not till