Demonized Read Online Free PDF

comparison to these shady, rundown establishments with their grimy windows and lurid, pink neon signs. I wondered if Baxter would be pleased to know his fiancée had picked a nice strip club to work in.
    I pulled the car up to the curb outside a shop called, redundantly, Sex, and left Mutt panting and drooling on the back seat, while I slunk inside. I felt like I should pull my collar up and duck my chin to avoid attracting attention. Then I remembered I was in a fucking porn shop and decided there was no point being coy about it.
    The most enormous dildos I’d ever seen lined the walls, and I paused for a second to gape at them. If I ever met a girl who could fit one of those up her quivering passage, I wasn’t fucking her. I was putting her out of her misery.
    They displayed the generic, light bondage section in the corner: nipple clamps, handcuffs, and whips. The smell of fake leather just about masked the smell of dust and mildew hanging around the store. I wandered past the bondage gear to the counter, where a skinny boy arranged tubes of lubricant by color. He glanced up at me with massive apathy.
    I slapped my wallet down on the counter. “I need the sickest porn you’ve got,” I told him. “Anything along the lines of Two Girls, One Cup will do fine.”
    The apathy melted away. “Planning a big night in, huh?” He leered, moving out from behind the counter to lead me to the DVDs.
    “Yeah, I’m gonna masturbate till my cock drops off.” Inside my head, the Voice squealed in glee at the thought.
    * * * *
    An hour later, I was watching Japanese girls fuck each other with dead Koi carps, while a man dressed as a bunny rabbit shoved one of those enormous dildos up one of the girls’ ass. According to my friendly neighborhood porn salesman, this was the tamest of the stack of DVDs he’d sold me.
    The Voice loved it—both the twisted nature of the film and my reaction to it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a man. I like sex, from what I remember of it. I like porn. I just like my porn to be a little less...freaky . Watching this shit, I was pretty sure I’d never get a hard-on again, and my stomach-lurching nausea pleased the Voice to no end. It soaked up my disgust, feeding on it as happily as it had fed on the sight of Rhian’s corpse. Since I didn’t plan to go around finding dead bodies for the Voice to giggle over, the porn was a good enough substitute, at least until the exorcism.
    “ You won’t get rid of me ,” the Voice said confidently. “ I’ll be with you until the bitter end. Drink, suicide, gun in the mouth... However you choose to go, I’ll be there, watching.”
    “ Watch your porn and shut up,” I told it. Mutt, sprawled on the floor at my feet, glanced up with a whine. “You too,” I told him.
    I’d moved onto a daddy-daughter-horse incest fest when my phone rang. I jumped, and Mutt barked. I flipped open the cell to see Anna’s name flashing on the screen. Shit . I’d said I’d call her after speaking to Baxter. I answered with a sigh. “Hey, Detective Radcliffe. How’s life?’”
    “It’s been better,” she said. “How are you, Banning?”
    “I’m sitting watching horse porn at four in the afternoon. How do you think I am?”
    “I don’t want to know.” She sniffed. “Did you speak to your client yet?”
    “Yeah. He’s asked me to look further into Rhian’s case, find out how she ended up at Hush.” I paused the DVD, freezing on an especially nasty image to keep the Voice quiet. “He gave me the go-ahead to talk to you, too, so I guess we should get together.”
    “Great,” she said, sounding a lot more relieved than I expected. “I’m actually going down to Hush tonight to interview the manager. You can come with me.”
    “Is this a date, detective?”
    “Would you really take me to a sleazy strip club for a date, Banning?”
    “Sure. I like to show a girl what I expect from her.” I glanced at my TV screen and rethought that comment. “What time are