He frowned at me. "Like you said before, the foreplay is getting tiresome. Just tell me what the f**k you think it was."
"I think they called a demon."
His eyes widened. "A what?"
"A demon," I said.
Henderson just looked at me. "Why?"
"When I crossed the circle, I got that feeling of evil. No matter how monstrous the critter, it doesn't feel the same as something dedicated to evil and no other purpose."
"You see many demons while you're out slaying vampires, Ms. Blake?"
"Once, Captain, just once. It was ... " I stepped out of the circle of power, and I felt better. They'd done their best to hide the traces, but things like this have a tendency to cling. "I was called into a case that they thought was a vampire, but it was demonic possession. The woman ... " I stopped again because I didn't have words for it, or no words that wouldn't seem silly, melodramatic. I tried to tell the story by sticking to the facts. Me and Sergeant Friday.
"The woman had been an ordinary housewife, mother of two. She'd been a diagnosed schizophrenic, Captain. Her particular brand of craziness was almost a multiple personality disorder, but not that clear-cut. She was like the little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good. A model churchgoer, teacher of Sunday school. She canned her own vegetables, sewed doll clothes for her girls. But when she was bad, she slept around, abused the kids, hung the family dog from a tree."
Henderson raised an eyebrow at that. For a cop, it was pure shock. "Why wasn't she in a hospital?"
"Because when she took her medicine, she was the good mother, the good wife. I talked to her when she was 'well,' and she was a very nice person. I saw why the husband tried to hold on to her. It was tragic in the true sense of the word that her own brain chemistry was destroying her life."
"It's sad, but it's not demonic," Henderson said.
"Neighborhood pets were vanishing, showing up drained of blood. I traced it to the woman. Her history of mental illness had raised flags with the cops. So far, just sad, right." I stared off up the hill at the cops and the techs and everyone. They were not looking down the hill. No one wanted to hang around this one. Even if you aren't truly sensitive to the psychic, we all have survival instincts that work better than we do. Everyone would be reluctant on this one, and they wouldn't know why.
"You still with me, Blake?" Henderson asked.
"Sorry. The night we arrested her, two uniforms had had to drag her out of another man's bed, handcuffed. They didn't have another female on site that night, so I rode in back with her. She was loud and boisterous, flirting with the men, being snotty with me. I don't even remember what I said, but I remember the look on her face when she turned to me. We're riding in this dark police car, and as she turns her head to look at me, the hair on my body stood up. There were no glowing eyes, no smell of sulfur, Captain Henderson, but I felt evil rise off of her like some disturbing perfume." I looked at him, and he was scrutinizing my face like he was trying to memorize it. "I don't scare easy, Captain, but for that instant, I was scared. Scared of her, and it showed on my face, and she laughed, and the moment was gone."
"What did you do?"
"I recommended they do an exorcism."
"Did they?" he asked.
"Not the police, but her husband signed the papers for it."
"And?" Henderson said.
"And it worked. If she stays on her medication, the mental illness is under control. The possession didn't cause the schizophrenia."
Henderson nodded. "We all get the lecture in training that mental illness can open a person up to demonic possession, Ms. Blake. It's like PCP but weirder."
"Yeah," I said. "PCP doesn't cause people to levitate."
He frowned at me. "Did you witness the exorcism?"
I shook my head. "I won't talk about it. I especially won't talk about it here and now. Words have power, Captain. Memories have power. I won't play into it."
He nodded. "Are you positive humans didn't do this?"
I shook my head. "They ate her to death. It ate her to death. A person might be able to bite your throat out and do some of this damage, but not all of it."
"If you told me this was a possession, I'd call my chain of command and start looking for a priest; but Blake, do you know how rare overt demonic attacks are?"
"Probably better than you do, Captain. I get called in for all sorts of weird shit."
"Have you ever seen a demon kill a person by straight attack, not trickery?"