Demon Inside

Chapter 21

Orion, shivering and wrapped in a blanket, catapulted into the room. The reason for the dramatic vault was soon clear; Malleus stood behind him with an amused look on his face.

“Hello, Orion,” Greyson said. The contrast between himself—sharp, clean, well dressed—and Orion in his blanket with blood caked in his hair and along the side of his face could not have been clearer.

She had to hand it to Orion, though. He stood ramrod straight and nodded with the dignity of a duke. “Greyson. Cal eptari retchia.”

“Retchia senshar.”

The formalities thus apparently dealt with, Orion started to sink into one of the cushy armchairs behind him.

“I don’t recall giving you leave to sit,” Greyson said.

Megan glanced at him, then back at Orion, whose face flushed. “I apologize, Gretneg Dante. May I sit?”

Greyson nodded. He’d made his point. Orion was in his house; Orion was in serious trouble.

She’d been so focused on the ritual she hadn’t thought about what it meant, hadn’t even paid attention to the difference in Greyson. Power curled through the room, the same easy, confident strength Templeton Black and the other Gretnegs she’d met bore. Now Greyson was one of them.

Of course, so was she, but by default. Her power hadn’t increased, she didn’t live in the Yezer Iureanlier, she hadn’t done a ritual and wasn’t expected to, save the Haikken Kra. Which she still wasn’t sure about.

Maybe it would help her, make it easier to accept and deal with the feral urges. Maybe it would make them harder to resist. She wished she’d asked more about it before everything started going haywire, but it hadn’t seemed like such a complex decision then. They’d wanted her to consolidate her demon power, to allow it free reign in her body and become, essentially, demon. She didn’t particularly agree. It was that simple—or had been.

“You came to give us information, Orion. Might as well start.”

Orion licked his lips. “I’m thirsty.”

Greyson flicked his gaze to Spud, who moved to pour a drink. Orion accepted it with both scraped, bloody hands, like a child. Megan’s demon heart gave a little leap. She looked away.

“Winston is on his way, Orion. You came to ask Dr. Chase and me to show you mercy. You might want to start convincing us why we should.”

The silence beat against Megan’s skin. Orion wasn’t going to talk after all. He’d come to taunt her with his knowledge, to try and convince her to spare his life in exchange for hints. How could she even be certain he was telling the truth, no matter what he said? She trusted Greyson’s word. She didn’t trust Orion Maldon’s.

“I went to her father,” he said finally. “I found her. I moved to Grant Falls and I watched.”

“How—,” Megan started, but Greyson silenced her with a quick shake of his head.

Orion went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “We’d been looking for someone to help the Accuser for a while, me and Temp. You didn’t know we were friends, did you? We grew up together—well, he was older than me by a few years, but we knew each other.

“So I started hunting. On my off hours. I wasn’t a lakri then, I was just a soldier. I had time to look. I visited just about every town and city in three states before I found you.” His blue gaze fixed on Megan, and for a second the humbled petitioner disappeared, replaced by the man she’d met the other night. “If you could have seen her then, Greyson, you—”

“Malleus,” Greyson said smoothly and, before Megan or Orion had time to react, Malleus stepped forward and smacked Orion across the face with one beefy hand.

It looked casual, as if Malleus was brushing a fly away, but the sound of skin on skin rang through the room and Orion’s head snapped to the side. Droplets of blood flew from his nose and mouth. Megan’s stomach churned. Somewhere inside her the memory of what she’d seen earlier still lurked, the confused desire still simmered. She did not need to see more violence or smell more blood.

Orion clutched his mouth for a moment, glaring at Greyson, who looked back at him with utter indifference.

Orion looked away first. “I found her,” he said, his voice thick. “And contacted her father to make the deal.”

Megan saw it in her head, not a psychic vision but simply the events as Orion told them. He showed up at her father’s office one afternoon and presented himself as a man in need of tax advice. His bulging accounts certainly interested her father, and a friendship of sorts had sprung up.

It didn’t take long for the two men to get around to the subject of Megan.

“He said you were always in trouble,” Orion said. “That you were out of control, neither of your parents knew what to do with you. You started fights with their friends. The kids at school hated you. You—”

“That’s enough,” Greyson interrupted. Megan looked at him, but his gaze was focused on Maldon. “What was the deal, Maldon?”

The deal was, Megan would be the Accuser’s vessel. In return, David Chase, CPA, would find his business prospering, his position in town cemented, and the problems with his children—Dave had already been busted for marijuana possession, which was a surprise to Megan—would be ignored. Maldon had powerful friends who could take care of people’s nasty little memories and inconvenient problems like police reports.

“Did…” Megan’s throat closed up. She shook her head.

“Did the man know what he was doing?” Greyson asked the question for her. “What would happen to her?”

Orion nodded. “She was supposed to live in the hospital. The Accuser could gain strength there, using her body. Then when the time was right…” He shrugged. “He would emerge.”

“And Megan would die.”

“It wouldn’t have been much of a life for her anyway. Possessed by the Accuser and trapped in that building.”

Her palms hurt. She looked down and saw her own blood seeping between her clenched fingers.

Orion noticed too. His nostrils flared. “I’m awfully weak,” he said, staring at her hand. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep talking without a restorative.”

“You’ll keep talking,” Greyson replied.

“Retchia says you have to give me whatever I require.”

“Malleus,” Greyson said again. Malleus stepped forward, pushing up the sleeve of his black sweater. Spud drew his wicked-looking knife.

“No.” Orion put up his hand. “Not his. It’s not strong enough for me. You know the rules, Greyson. The Gretneg must offer his greatest hospitality to those under his protection.”

Greyson stared at him. So did everyone else in the room.

“Otherwise it’s a violation of retchia,” Orion singsonged.

Oh no.

Greyson sighed and shoved up his own sleeve. The wound made during the ceremony had not yet healed; the angry mark striped his forearm. Megan looked away, but the image stayed in her mind, bringing back every memory of what had happened earlier, every bit of squirming, sickening panic.

“You know, Orion, this really isn’t the best way to win my favor.”

Orion straightened in his chair, his gaze steady. For the first time he looked like something more than a small, irritating dog who’d been given power he didn’t know how to handle. “Let’s not play, Greyson. I know as well as you do that you’re not going to spare my life. If I hadn’t requested sanctuary you would have let those witches kill me, and your only regret would have been that it wasn’t by your order.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Greyson nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Fair enough. Spud?”

Spud didn’t reopen the old wound. Instead he made a second, smaller cut next to the first, slicing across a vein. Blood spurted into a thick crystal glass, in time with Greyson’s slow, steady pulse.

Red spots flared behind Megan’s eyes, spots filled with blood and pain and the memory of Templeton’s heart, of the flames filling the dungeon and Greyson’s naked form, his arms upraised, lord of Hell in his purest, most powerful form. The slash in his skin taunted her and Megan saw his back as it had been in her room, destroyed by their passion.

Her heart pounded. The demon inside her writhed and screamed as blood filled the glass, almost to the rim, before Greyson drew his handkerchief and Spud handed the glass to Orion. He raised it to his mouth, lowered it to show lips stained with red, and Megan couldn’t take any more. She wasn’t even herself, she was nothing but a desire, a need, something so fierce she could only do one thing to fight it.

She ran.

Her footsteps echoed on the bare white marble, so it sounded to her as though an army of desperate women raced toward the door, joined almost immediately by one determined man. One man who ran faster than she could ever hope to. She knew he was there but still screamed when his fingers closed over her arm.

She tried to yank it away but succeeded only in losing her balance and almost falling. The floor veered crazily in front of her until his arms closed around her from behind, pulling her to the warm strength of his chest.

“Jesus, Meg,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

The words didn’t sink in. Nothing seemed able to penetrate the crimson fog in her brain, the choking need in her chest. She fought, struggling against his arms, finally bringing the sharp heel of her shoe down on his toe.

“Ow! Fuck!” His grip loosened, then tightened again before she could take advantage of it.

Dampness seeped through her dress at the waist. Greyson hadn’t stopped bleeding. Her stomach lurched. She could smell it, see it, on the sheets earlier, on his back, on Orion’s lips…she could almost taste it.

She screamed, one short yelp that echoed in the sterile hall, before her body finally gave out and she completed her humiliation by throwing up on the floor.

Her throat hurt, her stomach hurt. She felt like she’d been awake for years, like this day would never end, as she stayed bent over with his arms around her waist.

“God damn, that’s sexy,” he said finally. “I think you actually cut my toe off.”

Her stomach twisted again. The only thing worse than vomiting in front of a man was doing it a second time because he’d made a joke. “Don’t—”

“Malleus.”

Megan turned to see the boys all standing in the doorway, watching them with identical expressions of concern. Spud had his hands clasped in front of his chest like a Victorian lady suffering an attack of the vapors.

Not that she looked any better. Demons in glass houses…

“Miss Chase isn’t feeling well,” Greyson continued unnecessarily. “Will you take her into the den, please, and fix her a drink? Maleficarum, you get her something to put on and a clean washcloth, and tell one of the maids to come take care of this. Spud, go to her house and bring her some fresh clothes of her own. Winston’s going to be here any minute and I don’t think she wants to greet him wearing one of my shirts. I’ll sit with Orion and try to get more information out of him before Win arrives.”

It always surprised her how quickly the boys moved. Their stocky figures looked designed for intimidation and brute strength rather than speed, like hippos. But before she could blink Malleus’s respectful hands rested on her upper arms, half carrying, half leading her, and the other two disappeared.

The gold-flocked walls of the den welcomed her. This—aside from the bedroom—was where she spent most of her time at the Iureanlier. Not a big room, at least not by the standards of this house, but a comfortable one, with an especially deep and cozy brown suede couch just the right size for two. The TV and stereo sat cold and silent, the only difference between this night and any other.

“Here y’go, m’lady.” The tenderness in his rough voice brought fresh tears to her eyes. “Let’s just get this undone, you’ll feel all better.”

She stood like a doll while he unzipped her dress and slipped it off her shoulders, wincing a little as the sticky sleeves slipped over her hands. Blood and vomit…her nose wrinkled.

“You hold my shoulders, let’s get these shoes off too.”

She’d once thought of Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud as bizarre, criminal grandpas. That thought comforted her now, while her mascara ran down her splotchy cheeks and Malleus removed her shoes and stockings for her, tender as a father with a small child.

Her father was dead, really dead, and long before he’d died he’d sold her to a demon. Given her up, tried to get rid of her, traded her life for whatever success he’d had in some podunk town that nobody else gave a fuck about. His only daughter. The little girl he’d once read bedtime stories to.

She could barely see now. For some reason this helped. It was easier to pretend Malleus couldn’t see her, easier to pretend she wasn’t really there when Maleficarum entered and started cleaning the blood off her stomach with a warm, damp cloth.

By the time Malleus whispered, “Close your eyes, now,” and wiped her face clean, her breath hitched in her chest. She could feel the two demons exchanging worried glances over her head, their uncertainty about what they should be doing. Crying women made most men uncomfortable. Centuries-old guard demons who, as far as she knew, had never even dated were no different.

Together they helped her step into a pair of Greyson’s silk pajama bottoms and pulled the drawstring tight around her waist, then slipped a clean white T-shirt over her head and helped her sit down in the corner of the couch. Maleficarum shoved a drink into her hand, cold and smelling of bourbon and Coke, which made sense because that’s what it was.

“You need something sweet,” he said. “The sugar’ll ’elp.”

Like she needed convincing. She drank half the glass in one long gulp, took a breath, and got ready to finish it. Drunk had never sounded so good. She wanted to pass out and wake up in the morning unable to remember anything.

Which was impossible. Those images would never, ever leave her head.

“Careful now, m’lady. You don’t wanna drink too much on an empty stomach.”

Yes, she did. “Yes, I do.”

“Naw, naw, now, cuz Lord Lawden’s gonna be ’ere, and you don’t wanna be all drunk then, right? Ain’t ladylike, it ain’t.”

“Who cares.” Nobody did. Nobody cared about her. Okay, it wasn’t fair to say that anymore. People cared. But it was more fun at that moment to say nobody did, so she could attribute feeling sorry for herself to loneliness and isolation instead of the reality. She felt sorry for herself because she’d somehow won some kind of misery lottery, and her prize was a parasitic piece of demon wrapped around her heart. Her forehead ached from crying.

How much more of this was she supposed to take? How long would it be before she stopped being able to resist, before she let the demon inside have its way, taking blood, taking energy, feeding on the sorrow of every human she came across?

“Okay, guys.” Greyson’s voice, smooth and calm. “Orion’s having a little trouble remembering he said he’d tell us how to beat the leyak. Maybe you could help him with that?”

Maleficarum patted her on the head before he left. The gesture only made her start crying again.

Greyson took away her empty glass. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, resting her forehead on the cool smooth suede, while ice clinked and cracked and soda fizzed.

Light flared against her eyelids. He’d started a fire. A nice gesture, but she doubted she would ever feel warm again.

Finally the cushion shifted with his weight as he sat next to her and closed her fingers back around the glass. His hand found her back, rested there unmoving, warming her chilled skin.

“I know what’s going on, Meg,” he said quietly. “Are you…do you want to talk to—about it?”

“It’s not right.” Her words were muffled by the thick padded arm of the couch.

“Not right for whom? For you? For me? Maybe not for Brian or Tera or that miserable bunch of hypocrites who raised you. Come on, bryaela. You’re stronger than this.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Now sit up and stop behaving like a child.”

“Oh my God.” She turned to stare at him. “You are the most insensitive man I’ve—oh, whatever.”

“Part of my charm.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes, though, and she noticed shadows beneath them that hadn’t been there in the study.

She took a deep breath. “I…I saw.”

“I know you did.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean to, I was hungry so I went to the kitchen…”

“And you found the stairway,” he finished.

“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure if she was apologizing to him, or to herself, or…to whom, but they were the only words that made sense.

He shrugged. “It’s done.”

“Wait, you…you knew?” Of course he knew, stupid. You practically hung a sign around your neck.

“Of course I knew. I felt you in the room. And then you don’t normally hang around by the front door with your shoes and purse in your hand, like an inexperienced cat burglar.”

“I panicked.”

“You’re not yourself.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“And that’s the point.”

The urge to slap him felt so good, after the abject misery of the last twenty minutes or so, it took her a minute to realize what it was. None of her problems seemed as bad when he was being this exasperating. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Maybe.”

Megan watched him for a minute. He watched her right back, his dark eyes serious. It felt a little odd to be having such a—well, such an intimate conversation, that didn’t involve any intimate activities to go with it. They talked a lot—even more than they engaged in those activities—but this was different. The subject was open, laying between them. It wouldn’t go away no matter how she might want it to, so she might as well have the discussion. Get it over with.

He must have had the same thought. “You didn’t really think you could hide it from me, did you?”

“Obviously I did, or I wouldn’t have tried.”

A quick smile flashed across his face, like a lightning bolt straight into her chest.

“I pay attention, darling,” he said. “It wasn’t hard to see, even if you hadn’t fed off me a few times.”

“No, I didn’t—did I?”

He nodded.

Why couldn’t she get drunk? None of the reasons seemed to be that important. Winston seemed nice enough, and she didn’t really need to participate…

Unless she wanted to behave like what Orion had accused her of being.

Greyson’s chest looked almost as inviting as her drink. She leaned into him, resting her cheek just below his collarbone. His muscles relaxed and his arm curved around her.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Come on, Meg.”

Right. He wouldn’t have invaded her privacy like that, any more than she would have done it to him. “But…aside from that, why didn’t you?”

“Because it was obvious you didn’t know you were doing it. Just like you didn’t realize your steak the other night wasn’t overdone. Or that earlier today—you didn’t see your eyes.”

Her hands flew to her face. “Oh God, did they change?”

“Yes. They haven’t done that before, at least not that I’ve seen.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Your demon is growing. It’s gaining power, and trying to get more. Maybe because some of your little ones have abandoned ship, like we talked about after your dad’s funeral. Or maybe just because. But it’s trying to assert itself and your power is too strong to let itself be destroyed. So the demon has to look elsewhere for food.”

Your power is too strong to let itself be destroyed…“It was feeding off me?”

“At least at first, yes.”

“And that’s why the stuff Tera taught me stopped working.”

She caught his sharp glance. She hadn’t told him that. “I would think so.”

“So if I…if I keep it fed, I can do that stuff again? And I can read people again?”

“You haven’t been?”

“No, not really. Not after Gerald’s sister came to the office Monday morning. I wanted to comfort her, but…” She shook her head. “It went wrong.”

“So that’s why you quit like that. I wondered.”

“No you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. For a minute I thought perhaps you’d bowed to my superior wisdom, but that would have been too much to ask. So I assumed it had something to do with the demon.”

It all seemed so rational, so sensible, as they sat there sipping bourbon in front of a roaring fire. Megan could have imagined they were talking about dinner plans or what movie to watch, if she didn’t still feel so cold and the squirming thing in her chest had stilled itself.

It hadn’t. Calmer, yes, but not quiescent.

Spud appeared holding an armful of clothing at the same time the buzzer rang. Winston Lawden had arrived.