The Demonists Read Online Free PDF

from a maintenance exit.”
    “Are they still camped out there?” John asked wearily.
    “Oh yes,” Stephan answered. “The paparazzi and the institutions they serve continue their voracious pursuit of pain and misery.”
    “Thought they might’ve lost interest by now.”
    “Not a chance,” Stephan said as they entered the service elevator. “The fact that they haven’t been able to talk to you or . . .” He stopped speaking and stared pointedly at the LED display as it counted down the floors.
    John’s lower leg was throbbing again as he leaned on his cane. The longer he was up, the louder his ankle objected. “Where did you say you were parked again?” he asked, breaking the uneasy silence.
    “Just out back,” Stephan said as the doors slid open. “Hopefully Dr. Snider wasn’t planning on using his space or we might be walking farther than we thought,” he continued as they headed out an unwatched side door.
    Stephan’s Audi was right where he’d left it. “Must be a golf day,” the man said, unlocking the car with the push of a button on his key.
    John lowered himself into the soft leather of the front seat as Stephan put his suitcase in the trunk.
    “Need some help?” Stephan asked.
    “I’m good.” John carefully lifted his casted leg and pulled it into the car.
    “Set?”
    “Yeah.”
    Their eyes met as Stephan leaned in to close the passenger door.
    “Thank you,” John said suddenly. “For everything.”
    “No sweat.” John’s personal assistant shrugged as he slammed the door closed and hurried around to the driver’s side.
    Stephan started the car, then sat for a moment as the engine thrummed and Freddy Mercury sang about a Killer Queen over the satellite radio.
    “Are we ready for this?” he asked quietly, not looking at John.
    John’s eyes were locked on the brick wall of the hospital that had been his home for the last several weeks. A small part of him would have liked to go back to his room and accept the painkillers that would send him to that wonderful, womblike place that only narcotics could create.
    But then, what would happen to his wife?
    “I think we have to be ready,” John finally answered his friend with a deep breath, and Stephan backed from the parking space, beginning a journey that both were anticipating and dreading with equal measure.
    The look that John had read as one of sympathy that day so long ago when he first awakened had been exactly that. Something had indeed happened to his wife that Halloween evening, but it wasn’t until he was stronger that anyone had shared the details with him.
    He remembered the doctors prefacing the discussion by saying that her primary injuries were not life-threatening, that he had sustained much worse. And then they had paused, which had made him all the more anxious and angry.
    He’d demanded to know her condition, and they’d finally told him.
    There had been an official investigation into what had happened in the House of Tribulation that Halloween night, and the conclusion had been that a gas leak had caused an explosion that had taken the lives of most of the Spirit Chasers crew. John had said nothing to refute those reports, nor did he correct the doctors when they kept describing his wife’s injuries as caused by the explosion. However, their reports of her actual condition continued to confuse him. They kept telling him that she was stable, yet she remained unconscious. And when the countless tests had been run, and still there was no apparent reason why Theodora Knight Fogg was not awake, they had stopped looking and transferred her to another hospital.
    “Did you call this morning?” Stephan asked, interrupting John’s thoughts.
    “Yeah, no change.”
    Theodora had been sent to the Cho Institute, at the urging of Dr. Franklin Cho, a friend of the family who thought he might be able to help her, so John had agreed to the move. He’d called Dr. Cho at least five times a day since then, each time hearing