Chapter 19: The Woman Bewitched by the Devil
The knocking was heavy and relentless — the kind of knock that didn't ask permission. Just by the sound of it, you could tell whoever was on the other side was not only desperate but strong enough to rattle the door on its hinges.
"The hell…"
Ted, jolted awake mid-snore, blinked his beady eyes at the door and rubbed his face with both paws. "Who knocks on a museum door in the middle of the night? A burglar?"
"You ever seen a burglar who knocks first?"
Rango was already moving. He reached under the desk and lifted the silver cross from the wooden box, looped it over his neck, and tucked it inside his jacket where it sat cool and flat against his chest. Then he slid the Holy Cross brass knuckle duster onto his right hand — smoothly, practiced — and tucked that hand behind his back, out of sight.
He could feel it. Something on the other side of that door was radiating malice — thick, unmistakable, like heat off asphalt in August. It pressed against him from the outside, heavy and wrong.
Which told him two things immediately.
First: Amos's blessing had worked. The malice was registering clearly — sharp and vivid in a way it hadn't before, like someone had turned up the contrast on everything supernatural in his field of perception. The blessing had been active for less than ten minutes, and already it had delivered.
Second: whatever was standing outside that door was not friendly.
He kept his knuckle-dusted hand loose at his side, angled behind his hip where no one approaching from the front would see it. One clean hit was all he'd need if things went sideways. He was confident in that.
Rango walked to the door, unlocked the deadbolt, set his stance — weight forward, weight balanced — and pulled it open.
And then he stopped.
Standing on the museum steps, half-lit by the single lamp above the entrance, was a woman.
She was stunning. Not in the polished, put-together way of someone who'd spent an hour getting ready — the opposite, actually. Her dark hair was slightly tangled, falling loose around her face in a way that looked less styled and more like she'd been running. She wore a blue dress — high-necked, fitted close to her figure — but it was wrinkled, like she'd slept in it. Or hadn't slept at all.
Her skin was pale. Too pale. And her eyes — brown, wide, bright — were completely, utterly empty. Like someone had scooped out whatever usually lived behind them and left the lights on by accident.
She looked at Rango. And when she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper, thin and urgent, like she was running out of air to push it with.
"I... I need to find a book."
Rango's fist, still hidden behind his back, stayed where it was. Ready. But he didn't swing.
Because something wasn't adding up.
The malice he'd felt through the door — that thick, suffocating wrongness — it was still there, faint but present, lingering in the air around her like a smell that wouldn't quite go away. But when he looked at her — really looked — his system didn't react. Not even a flicker. No heat in his palm, no pulse from the progress bar, nothing.
She was clean. Completely, entirely human. No spiritual contamination, no possession signature, nothing the system could pick up on.
So where was the malice coming from?
He filed that question away for later. For now, the woman in front of him was shaking slightly, her arms wrapped around herself, and she looked like she might collapse if the wind picked up.
Rango quietly slid the knuckle duster off his hand and tucked it into his pocket. Then he smiled — warm, easy, the kind of smile designed to put frightened people at ease — and extended his hand.
"Hey. It's okay. I'm Rango — I'm the night security guard here." He kept his voice low and steady. "You alright?"
The woman looked at his outstretched hand like it was something she wasn't entirely sure about. She hesitated — a full beat, maybe two — and then, slowly, reached out and took it.
Her grip was light. Her fingers were cold.
"Manina," she said quietly. "Anna Manina."
(A nod to the character from the 1981 film Possession, played by Isabelle Adjani.)
"Miss Anna." Rango released her hand gently and tilted his head, studying her face with a casual, friendly expression that concealed the fact that he was cataloguing every detail. "That's a European name, isn't it? French, maybe?"
Anna didn't answer that. Her gaze drifted past him, toward the dark interior of the museum, and something in her expression shifted — a flicker of desperate focus, like a compass needle swinging toward north.
Rango glanced over his shoulder, then back at her. "Look, I'd love to help, but the museum's closed. Has been for hours. There are rules about after-hours access — pretty strict ones, actually." He spread his hands apologetically. "I'd get in serious trouble if I let someone in right now."
"I just need to find a book." Her voice cracked, just slightly. The urgency in it sharpened — not aggressive, but pleading. Raw. "I'll leave right after. I promise. Please."
And then her knees buckled.
It happened fast — not dramatically, not like a faint in a movie. More like her body simply decided it was done holding itself up. She pitched forward, and Rango caught her on instinct — one arm around her waist, the other steadying her shoulder — and she collapsed against his chest.
She was lighter than he expected. And she was trembling.
He held her there, one hand coming up to rest gently against the back of her head, fingers brushing through the tangled dark hair. His expression stayed calm. Concerned, even. But underneath it, his mind was moving fast.
She's not possessed. The system confirmed that. She's human. Completely human.
So why does she feel like she's being followed by something that isn't?
"It's okay," he said, quietly. "Just breathe. Tell me the name of the book. We'll figure something out."
"It's called—"
She opened her mouth. The words were right there, forming on her lips, and then—
Something changed.
It was like watching a switch get flipped. The vulnerability drained out of her face in an instant, replaced by something flat and cold. Her eyes, which had been wide and desperate a second ago, went blank. Hard. She straightened up — abruptly, sharply — and pulled herself out of Rango's arms like his touch had burned her.
She took a step back. Shook her head once — a small, tight motion.
"No," she said. Her voice was different now. Controlled. Clipped. Almost robotically even. "Never mind. I'll come back another time."
And then she turned and ran.
Not walked. Not hurried. Ran — fast, silent, disappearing into the dark street like she'd never been there at all. Within seconds, she was gone, swallowed by the shadows between the streetlights.
Rango stood in the doorway for a long time after that, one hand resting on the doorframe, watching the empty street.
He was certain — absolutely certain — that Anna Manina was a normal, completely human woman. His system had never been wrong about that. Not once, in all his years working with it in Africa. If it said she was clean, she was clean.
But her mental state was not clean. Not even close.
The mood swings alone — the desperate vulnerability one moment, the cold, almost robotic withdrawal the next — that wasn't normal behavior. That was something else. Something that needed looking into.
And beyond that: this was New York City. A gorgeous woman like her, alone, wandering the streets at two in the morning? That wasn't just unusual. It was dangerous. The kind of thing that ended badly, in this city, more often than not.
Rango rubbed his chin with one hand, turning it all over.
She's beautiful, he thought, almost as an afterthought. The kind of beautiful that stopped you — not in a flashy, Hollywood way, but in a quiet, striking way. The kind that stuck with you after you'd looked away.
The only person he'd ever seen who could match it was his first girlfriend — the one he'd known back in college, years ago, before everything else happened.
He shook his head slightly and let out a short laugh. Then he stepped back inside and pulled the museum door shut behind him, locking it with a quiet click.
He had a feeling — not from the system, just from instinct, the kind built up over years of reading situations — that Anna Manina wasn't done showing up.
Morning.
The sky had barely turned gray when the front doors opened again.
The Curator swept in like he did every morning — suit pressed, tie straight, cane in one hand, the picture of disciplined punctuality. He was, as always, the first person through the door. Early. Every single day, without fail.
Rango had always found this a little bewildering. The man ran one of the most prestigious private museums on the East Coast. He moved in circles that included some of the wealthiest, most connected people in New York. And yet here he was, at six in the morning, walking his own floors like he had something to prove.
If that were me, Rango thought, not for the first time, I'd still be in bed.
"Rango!"
The Curator's voice echoed off the marble lobby before he'd even reached the front desk. His cane tapped sharply against the floor as he closed the distance, and his expression — which had started somewhere in the vicinity of "good morning" — landed firmly on "not impressed."
He stopped at the desk and looked down at Rango, who was slouched in his chair with his feet still up, one eye half-open, clearly in the middle of the nap he'd been trying to salvage for the past hour.
"I don't recall paying you to sleep," the Curator said, his tone clipped and dry.
Rango blinked, sat up, and stifled a yawn behind his hand. "Sorry, Curator. Don't worry — Ted and M3GAN have been on patrol the whole time. I was just catching a few minutes during the shift change."
On cue, Ted emerged from the elevator, flashlight in one paw and a clipboard in the other, looking slightly disheveled but functional. M3GAN followed a step behind — sunglasses on, bangs pulled low over her forehead, posture perfectly straight. If you didn't know what she was, you'd never guess. She looked like a quiet, slightly serious teenage girl with a preference for oversized clothing.
The Curator's eyebrows rose. He looked at Ted. Then at M3GAN. Then back at Rango.
"Them?" His displeasure sharpened, a note of genuine concern cutting through the irritation. "Rango, do you understand what this looks like? If anyone sees this, they're going to think we're employing children. Do you have any idea what the fines for child labor violations are in this state?"
"Relax," Rango waved a hand, leaning back in his chair with an easy grin. "Besides you, Curator, who's coming to visit a museum at six in the morning? We're fine."
The Curator shook his head — the universal gesture of a man who had given up on winning a particular argument a long time ago. His gaze drifted to M3GAN, who was standing quietly with her hands clasped in front of her, head slightly bowed, expression perfectly neutral behind the sunglasses.
Something in the Curator's expression softened. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet, and produced a ten-dollar bill. He stepped forward and held it out to M3GAN with a small, genuine smile.
"Here you go, sweetheart. A little reward for your hard work."
He reached out and gave her head a gentle pat — the kind of casual, fatherly gesture that people made without thinking about it — and then turned toward the elevator, already moving.
Rango watched him go for exactly one second before he moved.
He took a long stride forward and positioned himself directly in the Curator's path — not aggressively, but firmly enough that the older man couldn't easily sidestep without it being obvious.
The Curator stopped. Looked at Rango. And his expression immediately shifted into something wary and deeply familiar.
"Did you break another exhibit?" he asked, flat and resigned, like a man bracing for impact.
"What? No — no, nothing like that." Rango shook his head quickly, then held up both hands in a gesture of peace. He smiled — earnest, a little sheepish, the smile he used when he needed something and knew it. "Actually, there's something I could really use your help with, Curator."
He took a breath, and then he told the story.
Emma. All of it, from the beginning.
Her mother — Rango's sister — had died during childbirth, complications that no one had been able to prevent. Her father, already struggling, had spiraled after that. Depression. Isolation. And then, one morning, he'd put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, leaving behind a four-year-old daughter and nothing else.
Emma was in the foster system now. A state-run orphanage on the Lower East Side. Rango was her only living relative — her uncle, technically, though he and Emma's mother had been closer than most siblings.
"I can't just leave her there," Rango said, and for once, the easy charm and the casual confidence dropped out of his voice entirely. What was left underneath was quieter. Heavier. "She's got no one else. And I know what those places are like, Curator. I really do."
He met the older man's eyes, steady and direct. "If you could put in a word — give a guarantee, vouch for me — I think the orphanage would release her into my custody. But without someone like you backing it up, they're not going to take a night-shift security guard seriously. Not on paper."
The Curator studied him for a long moment. His expression was unreadable — not cold, exactly, but careful. Thoughtful. The look of a man weighing things.
"You've got a lot on your plate already, Rango," he said, and his tone was quieter now. More measured. "You support yourself. You take care of Ted. You look after that girl there." He nodded toward M3GAN. "And now another dependent. A child." He tilted his head slightly. "Are you sure you can give her a stable life? Genuinely sure? Because this isn't something you walk back from."
Rango opened his mouth — and the first thing that was going to come out was the truth. That he was, in fact, not exactly struggling financially. That the money situation was considerably more comfortable than his paycheck suggested. That he could—
"Ah."
The Curator sighed. It was a small sound — quiet, almost wistful — and it cut Rango off mid-breath.
"Don't worry about it," the Curator said, waving a hand with the kind of gentle finality that shut down conversations without being rude about it. "I'll write the guarantee. And—" he paused, reached into his pocket, and produced a small notepad and pen. He scribbled something down, tore off the page, and handed it to Rango. "Starting next week, your hourly wage goes up five dollars."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned, leaned on his cane, and walked briskly toward the elevator — back straight, stride purposeful, the picture of a man who had just made a decision and was done discussing it.
The elevator doors closed behind him.
Rango stood there for a second, holding the note, staring at the spot where the Curator had been.
Then he looked down at the paper. Shook his head. And smiled.
Rushed guy, he thought. But a good one.
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