O’Toole House Chapter 15
Amelia looked completely worn out when they got back to headquarters a little while later. “Just tell me what he said,” she told Gabriella and Bradley as they shrugged off their coats.
Gabriella played the tape for her, wincing again at each new detail Nick Bana provided. Amelia’s face was set in anger and exhaustion as the recording ended. “He completely changed the case with this,” she said dully. “It was the house, and cleaning it could have been enough. But what the fuck do we do about a demon deal?”
She buried her face in her hands for a second, just long enough for Gabriella to get concerned. But then Amelia sat back up. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I can’t…I can’t call James. I fucked up and brought work stuff to him while he was still here. I thought he’d want to know and it made things worse. Even if I knew that he’d know what to do, he’s not healthy enough.”
“I know we all hate him right now,” Gabriella said. “But what about McGovern?”
“He wouldn’t know a demon if it tore out his fucking throat,” Bradley said.
Amelia was thinking, drumming her fingers on her knee as she looked around the room in a move unsettlingly close to the habit James had picked up over the past year. “We can’t just pass the whole thing on to Father McEnerney, he’s so busy now that they’re basically having him just come in for the actual exorcism while the teams get everything set.”
How were there that many demons in New England alone? Gabriella wasn’t about to ask that question herself, but she knew it was going to haunt her tonight.
Amelia took out her phone. “Fuck it,” she muttered as she dialled, then waited for the call to connect.
“Hey you!”
Gabriella recognized the cheerful, throaty voice on the other end of the line, but couldn’t quite place her. “Hey, Rosa,” Amelia said.
Oh, Rosa. Rosa as in, Amelia’s very likely unrequited love she’d forced herself to move on from. Or, at least not-interested-enough-to-make-the-first-move, unrequited love. But Amelia’s face didn’t betray any emotion. “Can I get some advice from you?” she asked.
“Of course,” Rosa said. “Are you doing okay? I heard you’re acting captain, I was going to call and check in. I hope you and James are both alright.”
“We are,” Amelia lied. Her face betrayed her now. She might have been able to hide the agony from anyone else, but Gabriella saw it clearly and she knew Bradley could too. “Listen, can I run this case by you? Our client’s husband brought in some new information a week and a half in and I have no idea what to do.”
That last bit came out through a laugh that was almost a sob. “Of course,” Rosa said again, the brightness in her voice fading. “Yeah, tell me everything.”
For a second, Amelia looked like she might, in fact, spill everything. “You guys should head out,” she said to Gabriella and Bradley. “Go get some rest.”
Gabriella was done for the night, but Bradley wasn’t. Still, they both left her alone, moving toward the back bedroom as Amelia went into James’s office.
“Are you going home?” Bradley asked.
“No, I want to get some of that room clear. It’s getting close to done.”
“After?”
Gabriella shrugged. “Graham’s home tonight, so I’m not taking their couch. So maybe I’ll go home. I guess if it’s attached to Nick Bana, it’s a little less scary?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you going home tonight?”
“I’m on the overnight with Madelyn.”
Great, he was on a thirty-six hour shift. “Try and rest during it?” she suggested, as though he actually would.
Despite Gabriella’s best intentions, she ended up sleeping in the pink bedroom that night for a few hours between her own shifts.
***
When Gabriella’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number the next day, she braced herself for whatever bullshit was coming her way next. She’d slept four hours in the pink bedroom, then left to run a few errands she’d been putting off. This had involved a couple trips home to collect and return laundry and she had hoped that maybe it would be less scary in the daylight. But all it did was link Nick Bana, the O’Toole House, and her own little apartment more firmly in her brain.
And that both scared Gabriella and pissed her off. She didn’t want to sleep at work and she wasn’t going to spend every night at James’s house when Graham wasn’t there. So they needed to finish this so she could enjoy having a little privacy again.
But now she was walking back up the stairs with an iced coffee from the bad Dunkin Donuts in her hand as she answered the call. “Gabriella McManus,” she greeted.
“Gabriella, it’s Sarah Bana.”
If Gabriella felt tired, it was nothing compared to the bone-deep weariness in Sarah’s voice. “Sarah,” Gabriella said gently. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nick told me everything.”
Oh. Oh fuck. Not that it was her responsibility to do anything, but Gabriella suddenly felt a little guilty that she’d known before the man’s wife did.
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said. “If I’d known, I never would have let you waste your time in the house.”
“No,” Gabriella said as she got up to the living room. “No, it’s alright. It’s part of the investigation. It’s not your fault. How’s Melissa?”
“She’s alright,” Sarah said. “We’re at my mother’s house. I left Nick. I can’t…that’s too much. It’s too big of a lie.”
Gabriella wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t sure what to say. Was “I’m sorry,” appropriate from the people who were trying to break your husband’s demon deal that you just found out about?
“I feel guilty because I know this is what he was trying to avoid,” Sarah said. “And he made the deal for us, technically.”
“No, he made the deal for a hypothetical future family,” Gabriella corrected. “That’s not your problem.”
Bradley was at his usual station and he looked up curiously as Gabriella paced the living room, condensation from her coffee dripping off of her hand. “The demon is connected to him,” Gabriella said. “Not the house. But we’re not certain that the house is completely empty, so I need you and Melissa to stay away for a little while longer.”
“We’re not leaving my mother’s until it’s safe.”
Like, at all? Or did she just mean leaving to go back to the house? Either way, Gabriella had to keep up her professional boundaries, even if she sometimes sucked at it. “Bradley and I will keep you updated,” Gabriella said.
“He let Melissa get hurt.”
“I know,” Gabriella said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Can you save Nick?”
No, she was way too tired to do this right now. “We’re doing everything we can,” Gabriella said. “I promise.”
That would have to be good enough and she could tell from the silence that Sarah understood that. “Thank you,” she said. “Take care.”
“You too.”
Gabriella hung up. “Fuck me,” she muttered.
“This’ll take your mind off it,” Bradley said, pushing a case file toward her.
Strange animals spotted in a nearby cemetery. They ate flowers and seemed capable of passing through headstones, but were stopped by the iron cemetery gates.
“What the…” she started, flipping through the case file.
“That’s your project this morning.”
He was right, it was certainly a good distraction from the O’Toole House and Nick Bana.
***
Amelia and Gabriella were on the overnight shift that night. It had been quiet, at least for the past few hours. Now it was about midnight and Gabriella was watching comms while scanning her email. Amelia chatted with Riley on speaker phone while she organized a mountain of paperwork. Gabriella had offered to help with that, but Amelia refused.
“Any updates to submit for the Bana case for today?” Amelia asked, chewing the end of her pen as she peered down at the form in front of her on the coffee table.
“Nothing beyond Sarah’s personal update, but I’m feeling a little better about it,” Gabriella said. “Father McEnerney is going to call me back when he gets out of his latest demon house tomorrow morning. So I’ll buy him a coffee and we can just make a plan.”
“He’ll definitely want to meet with Nick Bana, and not just to kill Nick himself. Rosa recommended a full history with an exorcist before doing anything else,” Amelia said. “When they had a situation like this, there were these little details that ended up being a big fucking deal. Like the guy had technically been married and-”
“When were you hanging out with Rosa?” Riley asked from Amelia’s phone, which sat beside the report form she was filling out.
Gabriella looked away from her email as the air suddenly grew a little tenser in the room. “I called her for help on this case,” Amelia said, glancing uncertainly over at Gabriella. “A demon deal was too big for me to just try to figure out here. I’ve been captain for about three weeks, I needed to ask someone with experience.”
“And it had to be Rosa?” Riley asked. “That’s a coincidence.”
“What’s a coincidence?” Amelia asked.
Riley sighed. “It’s just that…you haven’t spoken to Rosa in months and now that you’re a captain and she’s a captain, you had to go to her?”
“I know her,” Amelia said, her voice shaking a little as Gabriella considered whether she should get involved here. “I trust her judgment on these things and she was right. She-”
“Why didn’t you call here and talk to Connie then?” Riley interrupted. “Or-or Raquel in Middlesex? Or any of the other captains you know? Connie knows about demons. You could have easily just asked her.”
Amelia’s whole body was trembling now and Gabriella moved out of her seat, silently coming over to the couch to sit beside her. “What are you accusing me of?” Amelia asked.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Riley snapped, and Gabriella knew it was a lie.
Any other lovers spat and Gabriella might duck out of the room to give them privacy. But this was work related, specifically her case. And more importantly, the way that Amelia was shaking and wiping frantically at her eyes had Gabriella concerned.
“It’s just that you were in love with her, you couldn’t be with her, and you claimed you moved on,” Riley explained in a voice hot with frustration. “And now that you theoretically could, you go to her instead of anybody else. And I’m not supposed to read anything into that? I know you’re busy and I know you’re overwhelmed, but the fact is that you suddenly want Rosa there. So how the hell am I supposed to react to that?”
“I don’t want Rosa!” Amelia yelled suddenly. “I want James! I want James to be here and I want to ask him what to do! But I can’t have James!”
She took a ragged breath. “I can’t bring any of this to him because he’s so hurt and it’ll hurt him more. And if I can’t have James, I just want someone I know. And who’s been doing this a while and knows about demons and knows why I can’t go to James! And that’s Rosa! That’s it! That’s the only reason!”
Then she broke down sobbing so abruptly that Gabriella jumped. Amelia covered her face, her shoulders shaking as she cried. There was a beat of silence on the phone as Gabriella moved toward her.
“Amelia,” Riley said. “Babe, I-”
“Hey, Riley?” Gabriella said. “This is Gabriella, I’m Amelia’s coworker. I’m going to hang up the phone now. It’s okay, I have her.”
“Okay,” Riley said shakily. “Should I come over there?”
Gabriella had no idea, but Amelia shook her head, still crying. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got her.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley said.
“I’ll…we’ll talk later? Or, um-”
She wasn’t going to promise anything on Amelia’s behalf. “Yeah,” Riley said softly before Gabriella had to come up with something.
Gabriella disconnected the call and moved closer to Amelia, pulling her into a hug. Amelia collapsed into her, nearly knocking Gabriella over. “It’s alright,” Gabriella whispered as Amelia sobbed into her shoulder.
“He said he’d help me with the demon house,” Amelia said between sobs. “She was controlling him and he’d just tried to kill me. But he was still him too, and he offered to help me with this case.”
Gabriella shivered. She had nothing to say in response, but Amelia didn’t seem to be looking for anything from her. They stayed there for a few minutes longer until Amelia gradually quieted. “I’m sorry,” she whispered after a moment of silence, her voice muffled by Gabriella’s shoulder.
“Don’t be,” Gabriella said. “She was wrong.”
“It didn’t occur to me that she’d be upset,” Amelia said, sitting up and pushing her hair out of her face. “I literally didn’t even think about it.”
“It was unreasonable for her to get mad,” Gabriella said.
“It was?”
“I think so. Did you, like, try to seduce Rosa over the phone when you called?”
Amelia laughed slightly as she wiped her face with her sleeve. “No.”
“No?” Gabriella prompted with a smile. “No flirting over the demon deal dropped in your lap? No candles and sweet nothings as blood drips down the walls of this demon-infested house?”
Amelia laughed again, though she sounded like she was still on the verge of tears. “You sound like James,” she said.
“He’s been teasing me my whole life, I had to pick up some of it.”
Amelia smiled, but her face was blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like hell. “Go take a break,” Gabriella said.
“I’m fine.”
“Please?”
Amelia bit her lip, then nodded. She got up without another word, going into James’s dark office and lying down on the couch.
Gabriella took out her phone and opened her text conversation with James. The last one from him had been a couple days before the wellness fair, when he texted her to ask about a case. The rest were all her, stacked one after the other with no response from him.
She sent one more.
GABRIELLA
I love you
Gabriella went back toward the gray bedroom as soon as she got to work. It was becoming almost horrifically routine by now after several days of James suffering through the antidote sequence. By this point he might have been in treatment longer than he was poisoned, though she couldn’t say that for sure. They still didn’t know what method was used to infect him or when it happened.
When she got back there, Amelia was sitting on the side of the bed. James was asleep, which was still a relief because he was still either delirious, desperately apologetic, or both when he was awake. And for once, the nightmares didn’t seem so bad. He seemed like he was just asleep. Like maybe he’d stayed here for the night after a long, totally ordinary shift.
Amelia sat next to him, stroking Fang, who was purring against his side. The old cat was bonelessly content snuggled in on the bed, her eyes closed as Amelia ran her fingers through the silky fur.
“Hi,” Gabriella said softly.
Amelia smiled. It reflected the past several days and Gabriella was tempted to tell her to go take a break. But she wasn’t sure Amelia would listen to her.
“She’s not scared anymore,” Amelia whispered.
Gabriella came further into the room. Fang lifted her head so that Amelia could scratch under her chin, the top of her skull nuzzling against James’s motionless body.
“Did you notice how she was scared of him?” Amelia asked, her voice still soft. “I didn’t make the connection, but she knew something was wrong.”
Gabriella remembered the way that Fang had bolted when he got to work the other morning. He’d been grumpy and distracted and she’d been concerned, but dismissed it as hopefully just a bad night. But no, someone had poisoned him and taken control of his mind. And none of them had any idea, including James.
Except for Fang.
“She should be captain,” Amelia said.
Fang seemed utterly disinterested in the promotion. And Amelia reluctantly stopped petting her and stood up. “He’s doing pretty well,” she said. “He’s done with the antidotes, so now we just have to wait until he wakes up.”
That didn’t look like it was happening anytime soon, and by now Gabriella was afraid of how he’d be when this was all done. Amelia reached for Madelyn’s phone where it was sitting on the bedside table and turned the NASA podcast she’d found for him back on, the polished narrator now describing the Apollo 11’s time on the moon. Her own phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket to answer as she hurried out of the room.
Gabriella stood next to the bed and looked down at James. He looked completely normal, his dirty-blond hair tangled on the pillow and his face relaxed. Maybe she could hope he’d bounce back quickly after all. She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, then pet Fang and left the room to let them sleep.
