“I was hoping you’d ask us,” Hilary said.
“There’s nothing we can do here right now,” Tony said.
Joshua dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Good. That’s settled. Now have you gotten a hotel room for the night?”
“Not yet,” Tony said.
“You’re welcome to stay at my place,” Joshua said.
Hilary smiled prettily. “That’s very kind. But we don’t want to impose on you.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing.”
“But you weren’t expecting us, and we–”
“Young lady,” Joshua said impatiently, “do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had house guests? More than three years. And do you know why I haven’t had any house guests in three years? Because I didn’t invite anyone to stay with me, that’s why. I am not a particularly gregarious man. I don’t issue invitations lightly. If I felt that you and Tony would be a burden–or, worst of all, boring–I wouldn’t have invited you, either. Now let’s not waste a lot of time being overly polite. You need a room. I have a room. Are you going to stay at my place or not?”
Tony laughed, and Hilary grinned at Joshua. She said, “Thank you for asking us. We’d be delighted.”
“Good,” Joshua said.
“I like your style,” she told him.
“Most people think I’m a grump.”
“But a nice grump.”
Joshua found a smile of his own. “Thank you. I think I’ll have that engraved on my tombstone. ‘Here lies Joshua Rhinehart, a nice grump.'”
As they were leaving the office, the telephone rang, and Joshua went back to his desk. Dr. Nicholas Rudge was calling from San Francisco.
***
Bruno Frye was still on top of the woman, pinning her to the mattress, one muscular arm across her throat.
She gagged and fought for breath. Her face was red, dark, twisted in agony.
She excited him.
“Don’t fight me, Mother. Don’t fight me like this. You know it’s useless. You know I’ll win in the end.”
She writhed under his superior weight and strength. She tried to arch her back and roll to one side, and when she failed to throw him off, she was shaken by violent involuntary muscle spasms as her body reacted to the growing interruption in her air supply and in the supply of blood to her brain. At last, she seemed to realize she would never be able to get free of him, that she had absolutely no hope of escape, and so she went limp in defeat.
Convinced that the woman had surrendered spiritually as well as physically, Frye lifted his arm from her bruised throat. He raised up on his knees, taking his weight off her.
She put her hands to her neck. She gagged and coughed uncontrollably.
In a frenzy now, his heart pounding, blood roaring in his ears, aching with need, Frye got up, stood beside the bed, stripped off his clothes, threw them on top of the dresser, out of the way.
He looked down at his erection. The sight of it thrilled him. The steeliness of it. The size of it. The angry color.
He climbed onto the bed again.
She was docile now. Her eyes had a vacant look.
He ripped off her pale yellow panties and positioned himself between her slim legs. Saliva drooled out of his mouth. Dripped on her breasts.
He thrust into her. He thrust his demon staff all the way into her. Growling like an animal. Stabbed her with his demonic penis. He stabbed and stabbed her, until his semen flowered within her.
He pictured the milky fluid. Pictured it flowering from him, deep inside of her.
He thought of blood blossoming from a wound. Red petals spreading from a deep knife wound.
Both thoughts wildly excited him: semen and blood.
He didn’t go soft.
Sweating, grunting, slobbering, he made thrust after thrust after thrust. Into her. Into. In.
Later, he would use the knife.
***
Joshua Rhinehart flipped a switch on his desk phone, putting the call from Dr. Nicholas Rudge on the conference speaker, so that Tony and Hilary could hear the conversation.
“I tried your home number first,” Rudge said. “I didn’t expect you to be at the office at this hour.”