Body Surfing

“Well, since my husband’s dead, do you mind finishing what he started? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” But the only attractive women he ever met on the job were the soccer moms who’d just plowed their SUV over some hapless bicyclist. If there were any nymphomaniacs living in Columbia County, they were either preternaturally healthy, or too dumb to remember the number for 911.
    But all that changed when he met Sue Miller—a shrink, goddammit, with a $125,000-a-year salary, a TT convertible and a lingerie collection that filled up two walk-in closets. All of a sudden, middle ageseemed less scary than he’d ever imagined. He’d been carrying a ring around in his pocket for two weeks now, waiting to pop the question. Hell, he could even imagine having a kid with her. The thought of his prenatal rugrat floating in the womb, looking at the head of Daddy’s dick moving in and out of Mommy’s pussy turned him on like crazy .
    Hey, what was the worst that could happen?
     
    Leo had giggled for a good fifteen minutes after he jumped out of Sue Miller and into her boyfriend. After twentysome-odd years of glue, crystal, weed, paint thinner, mushrooms, coke, acid, poppers, peyote, the occasional bottle of Wild Turkey, not to mention pills in every color, shape, size, dosage and combination, Larry’s consciousness was like a cosmic Swiss cheese. Leo kept falling down holes into one drug-soaked memory after another, each progressively stupider than the last. When he finally managed to get control, he noticed that his host’s dick was rock-hard and had blisters on it from sixteen straight hours of fucking. He could feel the Vicodin and Viagra still coursing through his system, and set about cleaning them out. Although he could appreciate the comic as much as anyone, he saw no need to kill Q. while sporting a woody.
    He sat up unsteadily. Sue was sprawled on the floor in her Dirty Nurse outfit, eyes empty, legs V’d out in front of her like a life-sized doll. Her lipstick was smeared around her mouth, which was open in a dazed smile.
    “Sue? Baby? You still with us?”
    Sue’s eyes didn’t focus. She played with the pile of the carpet as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
    “Phlox!” She giggled mischievously.
    When Little Johnny came by to pick him up for their shift an hour later, Leo shot him up with 50 mg of liquid Valium and put him in the deck chair by Sue’s pool. He shot Sue up too, then strapped her to the gurney in the back of the bus and headed for the city. Hecouldn’t possess Sue twice of course, but he figured it would be good to carry a joint with him—the demons’ private term for the body they fucked to get out of the one they were in. He didn’t think Q. was going to be any trouble, but if J.D. Thomas really was Legion, then he might have a couple of tricks up his sleeve.
    Leo certainly hoped so.

16
    L eo.
    The man twitched when Q. said the name. His eyes rolled back in his head for a second. Then he smiled.
    “Whew. Flashback.” He kicked the gate again, not quite as hard as he had before. “That was cool.”
    “I’m calling the cops,” Q. said.
    “Go ahead. I’ll be gone by the time they get here.” He kicked again. “And so will you.”
    Q. ran into the hall, his socks slipping on the marble floor. He recovered his balance and headed for the stairs. There was a lock on his bedroom door. Maybe it would buy him time.
    A crash behind him.
    “I’m coming, Q. And this time I won’t let you go, Jasper or no Jasper.”
    When Q. slipped again it had nothing to do with his socks. Jasper? How did Leo know about Jasper? And what could his dead friend possibly have to do with all this?
    Just as he slammed his bedroom door he heard a distinctly louder crash downstairs, the sproing of metal warping and snapping, followed by the smash of something ceramic falling to the floor.
    Virupaksha. So much for guarding the house.
    Even as Q. turned the lock on his bedroom door, the squeak- squeak-squeak of rubber-soled shoes running across polished marble made him realize it was pointless. This man—he still thought of him as a man, couldn’t bring himself to use the word demon —had just kicked down a steel gate. An inch of oak would be useless against him. Q. looked around his bedroom, but there was nothing in the anonymous chamber besides a chair, the bureau, a half dozen books on a shelf. He was pretty sure that pummeling Larry with the leatherbound works of D.H.