Read My Demon for Free Online Page B

Becky transformed into a mannequin again, and for half a second, Alex wished she could. Then there wouldn’t be questions.
    The preacher-man had attracted a crowd. They stood outside The Closet, waiting for more police, or maybe to see if Aggie would pick the zealot up by the scruff, and forcibly remove him. They chatted and pointed, sniggered and gawped. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Alex wondered. There was a small space sandwiched between the preacher’s amp and the wall. She headed for this, and crept silently past.
    With only two steps before Alex found freedom, the preacher-man spun around, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shouted into his microphone, “You are unclean, child!” He paused for a second, as if surprised by his own words. Then he said, “You have the mark of Satan on your soul. Be wary how you tread for yours is a well-worn path.”
    Alex wrenched clean of his grasp. The man fell silent, one arm raised, a finger pointed at her heart.
    He dropped the hand with the microphone away from his mouth, and whispered, “I’ll pray for you.”
    Alex spun around, and sprinted out of the precinct. The stares of the onlookers burned into her back. They passed their own judgment, chatted about her now. Sniggered and gawped as she fled the shopping arcade. Everything was such a mess, she thought. If Clive was a hallucination, why did he seem real? Or was that how mental illness worked? Shit! Alex barreled out of the Broad Street Mall and onto the high street.
    What about the healing? Alex skidded to a halt outside a closed down furniture shop and ducked into the entryway. She needed to understand, make sense of the demon, and stop the damn tears from falling. Alex slid down until she squatted over the litter, turning her face away from passers-by. The stench of urine and worse filled her nostrils, but she hardly noticed. Maybe she hadn’t fallen, she thought. Had the pain been an illusion as well? And the documents she found about Becky’s thievery? Her mother’s dildo? She couldn’t have known those things. That would make him real. But only she could see or hear him. That would make him imaginary. Alex held her head firmly between her hands and tried to squeeze out the problems. Her brain hurt. Her legs ached from crouching. And she wasn’t going to solve anything in a stinky doorway with a bundle of bills stuffed down the front of her trousers. Alex rose up, weakly wiped the tears from her cheeks, and began a cheerless walk down the road.
    The time was coming up to late afternoon, and the bus stop was crowded with people going places. A queue snaked along the high street and away from the shelter.
    “Fantastic. There’d better be space for me,” she mumbled.
    The round man waiting ahead of her turned around, offered a smile and his nod of agreement. Alex widened her eyes at him for a second then stared down at the pavement. He stayed in her peripheral vision, greasy hair pulled over a bald patch, brown raincoat buttoned to the top. A giggle came from nowhere as Alex imagined him flashing his jiggly torso to the queue, comb-over flopping in the wind. In reality the man frowned and turned away.
    Only half of those waiting managed to squeeze onto the first bus before the driver closed the doors. Alex squeezed onto the next one and pushed through to the back where she spied a small space. A large backpack partly blocked the aisle. Alex braced against this and grabbed onto a pole as the bus shuddered forward.
    The man sat to her side had the Reading Chronicle open at the sports pages. Alex read over his shoulder and scanned the headlines. The scent of oranges, juicy and sweet floated past her nostrils, like in one of those cartoons with the beckoning hand at the end. She craned her head to find out where the smell was coming from. No one was pealing fruit. Confused, Alex turned back to the front. Again, a strong citrus odor tantalized her senses. She twisted around. Clive appeared directly behind