Possess

Undermeyer screamed. He launched himself out of the chair. “We are done. Release us!”
    “Um, okay,” Bridget said. What was she supposed to do now? “I release you?”
    The guards were on him in a second. The first grabbed him in a choke hold from behind, while the second removed a syringe from his pocket and approached Undermeyer from the front. But demoniacs weren’t subdued that easily, a fact Bridget had witnessed firsthand.
    Undermeyer leaned back, pulling both feet off the floor, and landed a ferocious kick to the chest of the approaching guard. Then he threw his body forward, rolling the other guard over his back. Dazed from the speed of the attack, the guard couldn’t recover fast enough. Undermeyer kneed him in the jaw with a crack so loud Bridget could hear it through the staticky speakers.
    Undermeyer threw himself against the double-paned window. “Release us! Release us!” Again and again, as if he was trying to puncture the glass with his skull. Gashes appeared on his head, blood poured down his face. “Release us! Release us!”
    Bridget flattened her hand against the glass. She could feel their desperation, their longing to be released. But how? What did she need to do?
    She remembered the doll possessed by Penemuel, its hand stuck through the glass trying to reach her. Reach her! That’s what happened. She had touched the doll. That was the release.
    “I need to get in there.”
    “What?” Matt grabbed her arm.
    “Let me go!” Bridget shook him loose and yanked open the door. The nurse loitering outside didn’t have time to react before she pulled open the door of Undermeyer’s room.
    “What the hell are you doing?” the nurse roared.
    At the sound of the door opening, Undermeyer stopped throwing himself against the window. “Yes,” he hissed.
    He lurched toward her, but the guard who still lay on the ground nearby had regained consciousness. He lunged at Undermeyer’s feet and tripped him.
    “Please!” Undermeyer begged.
    Bridget tried to reach him, but a dozen hands were on her at once.
    “What the hell?” a guard yelled. He had an arm around her waist.
    “Stop!” Bridget screamed. “Let me go!” She had to release the demons trapped inside Milton Undermeyer. That was their pact, the deal they had made to deliver the message to her father. She had to fulfill it.
    “Release us!” Undermeyer cried.
    Bridget stretched out her arm, desperate to touch Milton Undermeyer, but it was too late. The nurse had gotten the syringe into Undermeyer’s leg, and he was already falling into unconsciousness. As the guards hauled her away, the last image she saw was the black, pleading eyes of Milton Undermeyer as they fluttered closed.

Twenty-Six
    “B RIDGET, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING back there?” Matt’s face was red as he backed her up against the side of his truck.
    “I don’t . . .”
    “I don’t know” was what she meant to say, but she did know. She knew exactly what she was doing, but how could she explain it to him?
    “You were hearing things that weren’t there. Just like last night.”
    Bridget laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Oh, they were there.”
    Matt grabbed her by her shoulders, his eyes wild. “You had a conversation with something no one else could hear. And you sounded weird, like it wasn’t really you.”
    “Yeah?” He was right, sort of. In the presence of the demons she felt different. “What did I sound like?”
    Matt straightened up, his brows low over his hazel eyes as he tried to put it into words. “Your voice was deep and booming, like someone else was speaking through you. It scared the hell out of me, actually.”
    Bridget smiled. That was kind of sweet.
    “Stop laughing, Bridget!”
    “I wasn’t laughing. I just, well . . . no one’s mentioned that before.”
    “This has happened before ?”
    “Um . . .” Bridget swallowed hard. Of course it had happened before. Each time she encountered the demons, the feeling of power grew stronger, more tangible. And worse—Bridget found she was enjoying it.
    Matt took a step back and ran a hand through his hair. “What’s going on?” he repeated.
    She hadn’t told anyone other than Monsignor Renault, and that was only because he confronted her. Maybe it was time to share what had been going on. After all that Matt had already seen, he was the perfect confidant.
    “Can we get something to eat?” Bridget said.
    “Huh?”
    Bridget pantomimed putting something into her mouth and