Demon Inside

Chapter 17

The room looked as though a lecherous hurricane had blown through it. Papers covered everything, the comforter had somehow ended up bunched on the floor, and the sheets had come away from the corners of the mattress. Droplets and streaks of blood decorated them, visible sins on the snowy white.

It smelled like smoke and sweat and blood and sex, mingling together like a bordello carpet.

All of this Megan observed when she sat up and found the remains of her panties, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The room could be cleaned. Her mind was not so easily erased.

Greyson entered holding a pie plate and a bottle of water, which he handed to her without comment. The icy liquid cleared some of the cobwebs in her head, but when he sat down shock replaced them.

“Oh God…did I do that?”

The wounds were already healing, which made them look worse. Deep, angry furrows covered his back from shoulder blades to waist, surrounded by blood dried almost black.

He nodded, sticking his fork into a piece of her mother’s famous apple crisp. His gaze traveled from the top of her head to her feet. “And I did that to you.”

She hadn’t even looked at herself. Bruises like dark roses blossomed on her wrists, on her upper arms and hips. Her neck was tender enough where he’d bitten her to make her suspect she’d be bruised there too.

She’d never enjoyed or expected pain in the bedroom. He’d never indicated he did either. But God help her if it hadn’t been one of the most amazing experiences of her life. Was there nothing about her that was still the same?

“This is pretty good,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of crisp. “Do you have this recipe?”

“She wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Shame.” He forked up another mouthful.

“Greyson…I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Look at you.”

“I’ll heal.”

“But—”

“Meg.” He turned to her. “At the risk of sounding like some…hmm. At the risk of sounding like I do your job, negative emotions affect demons oddly sometimes. It’s no big deal. You’ll learn to control it.”

“I’m not a demon.”

He paused. “But you have demon in you, so that’s going to change your reactions to things. You haven’t noticed anything different about yourself? Anything you find strange?”

Damn it. How much did he know, how much had he been able to feel?

“No,” she lied. “Nothing.”

He watched her for a minute, while she forced herself to stare calmly into his eyes. Just why it was so important to keep it hidden she didn’t know. He could help her, if she told him.

But he would also encourage her to do the Haikken Kra ritual, and she was afraid if he really put his considerable powers of persuasion behind it, she would agree. The prospect of losing a part of herself terrified her. The thought of admitting she wasn’t like everyone else—aside from her psychic abilities—made her feel a little sick.

She’d already fed off Gerald’s sister in her office. She’d gotten high off the sadness of the mourners at her father’s funeral. If she did the ritual…she’d become a parasite.

Finally he shrugged. “You should really try to get this recipe. Did your dad have an office here in the house?”

“I doubt she keeps it in there, if he does.”

“We need to photocopy those documents. But you should look for this too. We’ll copy it. And then you can make it for me.”

“I didn’t know you liked apples.”

“All demons like apples. You’re slipping if you didn’t get that joke.”

“What—oh. Right.” She couldn’t help smiling, whether out of relief that he’d dropped the subject of her unorthodox urges or simply because it was the sort of joke she would make. Exorcist jokes about his Georgetown upbringing, Robert Johnson jokes about his CD collection…she should have caught the apple thing a mile away.

“Why do we need to copy them?”

“I want to look into it. See if it was a Meegra purchase or a personal one of Temp’s. Speaking of which…” He picked his watch off the small scratched-up wooden nightstand. “We don’t have a lot of time, and we still need to get back to the city for the funeral tonight.”

“What—tonight, really?”

“Has to be done as soon as possible. You’ll need to come—all the Gretnegs will be there—but the ceremony after is for Sorithell only.”

“Ceremony?”

“When I become Gretneg,” he said, and before he kissed her forehead she saw the triumph in his eyes.

The policeman held out his hand. Megan shook it, glad they’d gotten dressed and cleaned the room in plenty of time, but uncomfortably aware that she was going commando under her dress.

“Your mother, she asked me to come along—”

“To make sure you didn’t steal anything,” Diane finished coldly. “Please wait, Officer Dunkirk, while I finish checking the bedrooms.”

Officer Dunkirk blushed. Megan didn’t. She’d known when she heard the unfamiliar voice downstairs what her mother had done. She didn’t care. No matter how long this little burst of euphoria lasted, this new feeling of confidence, she’d at least been able to go back to her indifference to the moods and petty cruelties of her mother. She’d done just fine without the woman for years, and she could keep on doing so.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Dunkirk said. “Everything checked out as far as that fire complaint last night. Sorry we troubled you about it.”

Because we used supernatural trickery to get it to. But the police didn’t need to know that, so she just smiled. “Thank you.”

Maldon had indeed given their names to the police—omitting everything but his “idea” that he “might have” seen them on the street right before the fire. Not so brave after they’d escaped and he knew they were meeting with his Gretneg tomorrow.

After which—oh please—they would leave for the cabin and a solid week of relaxation.

They spent a few more uncomfortable minutes standing there. Megan tried not to look around at the walls that had once housed her, the furniture she’d crawled onto as a child, but she couldn’t help it. Over there by the kitchen door was where she’d spilled a glass of Kool-Aid and gotten sent to her room for a week. The darkened Christmas tree in front of the window, where it had been every year. She’d broken an ornament when she was eight and hadn’t been allowed to help decorate it again for three years.

It had never felt like home, not that she could remember. It had been a prison, as cold and impersonal as any other, as lonely as that damned hospital her father had conspired to put her in. A few years of closeness and happiness, when she was so young the memories existed only in a haze and then…nothing.

She would never be in this house again. When her mother died she wouldn’t be back, if anyone even bothered to tell her about it. As for Dave…she had to admit that made her a little sad. Dave hadn’t given up on her as quickly as her parents had.

But he’d given up just the same.

Greyson had been right. She didn’t need these people, not for anything. The thought buoyed her despite her worries.

“You stole my apple crisp.”

“Excuse me?”

“I made a crisp,” Diane said. “It was in the refrigerator. And a bottle of water. You stole them.”

Officer Dunkirk looked completely lost. Megan could read his thoughts without even needing to lower her shields. Was he supposed to arrest them over a dessert and a bottle of Evian?

Greyson pulled out his money clip and held out a bill to her mother with the air of a king paying a leper to go away. “Here. To cover your inconvenience.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like you, Mr. Dante.”

He shrugged. “Come on, Meg, let’s go.”

Megan looked at Diane, with her chic silvery bob and her impeccable black dress. Almost like a mirror image of herself, aged and viewed through a lens of ice.

“Good-bye, Mother.” Should she offer her hand? She certainly wasn’t going to give the viper a hug.

“What did you do to your neck?”

Megan’s hand flew to the tender spot on her throat. By the time Greyson put his shirt on, his scratches had started to shrink, but they’d forgotten her bruises. “I…I stumbled on the stairs.”

Diane watched her for a minute. “You always were clumsy.”

She turned and walked back to the kitchen, the conversation clearly over.

“I know this has been a…busy week for you,” Rocturnus said. “So I haven’t wanted to bother you.”

Megan lifted her face from her hands to look up at him. This was not the way she wanted to spend the hour she had free between finally arriving home and heading for Greyson’s Iureanlier for the funeral. “But you should have. This is something I need to know.”

“You haven’t been very interested so far.” It sounded like a reprimand—she knew it was—but the delivery was obviously calculated to put her at ease.

Too bad it didn’t work.

“I don’t understand this. I went there not even a week ago and showed them—”

“Being powerful doesn’t mean you know how to lead them. You need to lead them. I know you don’t like it, but…this is the way it is.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. Megan looked around the little office with its dark wood and comfortable flowered-chintz furniture. Her demons had a taste for the quaint; she assumed it was because they were so small.

She’d assumed a lot of things.

Whatever was happening to her wasn’t going to just go away. Roc wanted her to do the ritual. So did Greyson. Because both of them felt she wasn’t connected enough, that she wasn’t keeping the needs of her demons in mind. And maybe they were right. Her plans for a newer, gentler Meegra weren’t going to go very far if she treated them the same way she wanted them to treat their humans.

They wanted her, needed her, to be something different. And she didn’t have a choice but to be it.

“Bring him in,” she said, steeling herself. John Wayne would know what to do here. Joan Crawford would know how to get those little buggers in line.

So Megan Chase could do it too.

Rocturnus left, returning a few minutes later with Halarvus. She’d seen him before; he was one of the demons who’d grumbled and snickered in the back of the room last time she was here.

His black eyes regarded her coldly. She could feel his indifference. It pissed her off.

“Halarvus, do you know why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What difference does it make? I don’t answer to you. I’m not going to be one of your little demons of light, spreading joy and happiness to all the kiddies. Our mother is offering us a chance to be what we are.” His black eyes widened in his dark blue face. “To feed.”

“I let you feed.” She wanted to smack herself. Why was it so easy for her to take the lead with people, with her clients, but dealing with her demons made her so nervous and unsure of herself? Like a child trying to tell adults what to do.

If she lost them all, she could die. She could lose all of her power and become like a flower with no petals. Nothing.

Come on, Megan…you can do this.

“Not the way we want. Not the way we should.”

God damn it, why was nothing in her life simple anymore?

Her power was always stronger here, always seemed to come more readily to her call. Keeping her face impassive, she lowered her shields and let it go, not all of it, just enough to knock Halarvus across the room.

“You’re not going anywhere.” She stood up, hating herself, hating the tiny flare of pleasure in her chest. If she did the ritual, would this be easier? Would she be able to accept it? Or would it be worse, putting her more at war with herself than she was already?

Maybe this would be a good test run. See exactly what she could handle.

Halarvus got back to his feet. Dark blood ran from his nose. Megan forced herself to look at it as he wiped it away, making a thin streak across his face.

No desire to taste it came to her, no crazy urge to lick it from his papery skin. Maybe that had ended?

“Just because you’re angry—,” Halarvus started, but Megan interrupted him.

“I’m not angry.” She willed it to be so, knowing he could sense it. “But I’m keeping what’s mine.”

She turned to Roc. “Take him into the hall.”

The others waited for her, the white light from the high ceiling bouncing off their multicolored heads.

Their silence followed her as she stepped up onto the little dais and took the seat that had once belonged to the Accuser. Now it was hers, a heavy, ornate gold thing that looked like Louis XIV had designed it in an opium haze. Knobs and carved leaves dug into her skin when she sat; she’d had the original cushion burned and kept forgetting to get another one.

Another reminder, if she’d needed one, of how far she’d been letting things slip here. She should know better than that. Problems and complications didn’t go away simply because one wished they would.

Rocturnus brought Halarvus to stand before her, in the center of the space cleared by the others, and climbed up himself to the chair beside her. She couldn’t get out of this one by lashing out at all of them and running away, which was exactly what she’d done the last time no matter how much she didn’t want to admit it. She needed to take charge, to really and truly show them she could protect them, could help them, could be to them everything Ktana Leyak was promising to be.

Because if she didn’t she probably wouldn’t survive.

“Halarvus, you’ve been working against me?”

“I’ve been telling the truth,” he said. His little eyes gleamed. “That you aren’t strong enough. That your human heart isn’t in this. You haven’t gotten involved with the other Meegras and their businesses. You haven’t been looking out for our interests.”

Megan snapped her head toward Rocturnus. “What’s he talking about?”

“The other Meegra Yezer have been horning in on us,” he whispered. “We’re small. We don’t really have any defenses. When they send some of their bigger demons to force us out…” He caught her glare. “What? I told you this before.”

“Yes, but…” He had told her, and again, she hadn’t really paid attention. That was so unlike her! Had she been so wrapped up in—well, okay, yes, he’d taken up a lot of her time. Plus the radio show, and her practice…

Greyson had been right. Maintaining her practice and her demons was too much work. It made the decision to give up the practice sting a little less, like a child giving up a job in the city to go home and take care of an elderly parent. At least she’d made the right decision once in the last few weeks, even if it left her finances awfully tight.

She cleared her throat. “Tonight I attend the funeral of Templeton Black,” she announced. It felt a little self-important and ridiculous, but the demons seemed to like the change in her demeanor.

“I want a list of names, if you know them, of demons who’ve harassed you and what houses they’re in. I’ll see the other Gretnegs and tell them to leave you alone.”

The demons shifted on their feet, looking both slightly mollified and doubtful.

“I’ll make sure you stop losing humans. But my rules stand. No child abuse. No murder.”

“Not even of criminals? Bad guys?” one of the demons asked hopefully.

She started to say no, then stopped. All the power in the world was no good if she couldn’t hold on to them long enough to exert it. “Case-by-case basis,” she said, trying not to feel like a monster and failing. “It has to be approved by me.”

They waited, their gazes on her, and this time she knew what they expected. Once again that chasm stood in front of her, filled with flames, but this time it was the fire of Hell, of destruction, not of desire.

There was no choice to make. There hadn’t been from the moment she’d tied the Yezer to herself. There hadn’t been from the moment her father sold her to demons for a piece of land and a successful accountancy practice. Megan took a deep breath. “Rocturnus, Halarvus must be punished.”

The Yezer relaxed, their silent pleasure floating through the air. Halarvus’s eyes widened as Rocturnus said something in the demon tongue, widened further as he was chained to a frame like the one she’d seen Greyson chained to three months before.

She forced herself not to blink when the whip cracked the air.

This was her life now.