Demon Inside

Chapter 26

Fire filled Greyson’s palm as they picked their way down the stairs, throwing shadows on their faces. In its light Greyson looked gaunt, tired; she could only imagine how she must look with her hair frizzing around her head and her eyes wide with fear. Megan didn’t think anyone had been down here since the place closed, but she was wrong. Spiders were here and rats and cockroaches, skittering across the mess of strewn papers and dust and bones on the floor when the light hit them. Her skin crawled at the sight. It was bad enough in the lobby, but here, where no light ever came and no workman had been in to even halfheartedly tidy up, it was chaos, a foul-smelling dump where years’ worth of waste had settled like silt on the ocean floor.

Cobwebs shrouded the damp, slimy walls, so thick and dusty they were more like curtains. In the center of one lurked the largest spider Megan had ever seen, almost as big as the palm of her hand. Its horrible eyes glittered when the light hit them. She gasped, her fingers twitching in Greyson’s. She couldn’t go in there, she just couldn’t. And she shouldn’t have to.

“It’s not in here,” she said, aware for the first time that her demon heart had moved feebly when they were in the lobby, just when they entered. It lay still in her chest again, even though her own heart—her human heart—pounded like a hammer. “It’s not down here, I just…I feel it, I know it isn’t here.”

“Okay.” But he paused, and nodded toward the far wall. “Looks like something’s down here, though.”

“What? I—oh.”

Files. The entire wall was lined with filing cabinets, lurking behind the fog of spiderwebs. One of the drawers hung open; Megan could see the files inside.

“Do you want it?” He moved a little closer, still holding her hand. “You don’t have to, bryaela. You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to. But if you do…it’s there.”

“I don’t.” It came out more strongly than she’d intended, her voice echoing off the walls and sending something rustling away through the mess on the floor.

“Okay,” he said again. “So let’s just head back up the stairs then.”

“Wait.”

He stopped.

“I…I do. I think I do want to see it. Maybe I should see it.”

“Malleus?”

The big guard demon pushed past her carefully and headed for the files, sliding his thick index fingers down the faded labels on the drawers, then opening a few and sifting through them. The folders themselves looked surprisingly clean and dry, but that didn’t make Megan any more comfortable about actually holding it in her hands after Malleus dug it out.

Which he did, after a minute or so of hunting. He started toward her, holding it out in front of him, but she shrank back. Not yet, not here. She didn’t even want to touch it.

But seeing it made something click deep inside her. All these fucking years later, and here she was again in this place. And it was almost Christmas, it was the Friday night before. She was supposed to be home packing right now. Ktana Leyak was ruining the first real Christmas Megan had had in years, and when a wave of rage surged in her chest she realized this was what she’d been missing.

What was wrong with her? It was as though Ktana’s stealing her demons had stolen something more than that too. She’d stolen…she’d stolen Megan’s sense of herself, had picked at it with razor-sharp nails since the first time Megan had seen her. She didn’t think she’d had a more difficult week in her entire life and damn it, it was time for this shit to end. Now.

She straightened up, and held out her hand for the file. “Give it to me.”

Malleus glanced at Greyson, then obeyed.

“Thanks.” She rolled it up—it was surprisingly thick—and stuffed it as best she could into the inner pocket of her coat. She might read it later. She might not. But seeing it, touching it, had reminded her who she was. And who she was would not let some demon bitch steal from her like that.

The triumph of her steely resolve was only faintly lessened when she stumbled and scraped her knee on her way back up the steps. Yes, she was certainly back to her old self.

Another flight of stairs, this one familiar to her. She’d walked up it before, the day she came here—her memory of it was vague and disordered, filtered green—but at that time it had been clean and she’d had an orderly with her. And her parents, faking concern while they checked their watches when they thought no one was looking.

“Each floor has a…had a…rec room, you know, where they did therapy? In the center, with the patients’ rooms around it. Maybe we should check—”

“Which one was your room?”

She stared at him, dumbstruck. “Oh my God, of course. It’s there, isn’t it? Whatever it is?”

Greyson nodded slowly. “It’s a good guess, anyway.”

“I was on, um, the fifth floor, I think. In the corner. I don’t remember the number…”

But it would be in her file, the file in her pocket. She reached in and pulled it out, holding it open in unsteady hands.

“Here.” Nick held it for her, his eyes averted while she flipped through it by the light from Greyson’s hand. Various phrases leaped out at her. “Presented with persecutory delusions…No shoelaces or cutting implements permitted…refuses to eat…fight with another patient…” She didn’t remember any of that.

“I was in 526.”

Greyson thought for a minute. “I still want to at least check the other floors, just in case. But if you can feel it, whatever it is, we’ll do it as quickly as possible.”

“I think I can. I’ll try anyway.”

“I can help,” Nick said. “I might be able to feel it too. My—my father was part psyche demon.”

“Psyche demon?”

“Greyson’s a fire demon, the boys are actually herket demons—their ancestors performed tortures in Hell. They’re physical demons, you know what I mean, with some mental abilities. But psyche demons are like the Yezer, their powers are all mental, with slight physical strengths. I can feel a few things from you without touching you, so it’s possible I’ll be able to feel the demon here if I focus.”

Greyson looked at his friend. Something passed between them, some sort of moment Megan didn’t understand. “Thanks, Nick.”

Nick shrugged. “Let’s go, then. Get this over with.”

They turned and started back up the stairs. Megan’s feet were heavy. She had to force her body to move, to obey her and keep walking toward…whatever was up there.

At the top of the staircase the hallway split, leading to the left and the right. The air up here was a little cleaner, but colder too as the wind blew through the empty windows and doorways. Kids had been in the building, teenagers drinking or getting high or just on a dare, and they’d left their calling cards in spray paint on the walls. CP + DK 4-EVER stretched across the wall in blood red paint, the letters dripping like the title of a Hammer horror flick, next to a passable copy of Motor-head’s Warpig. Another invited readers to suck his cock. At least Megan assumed the anonymous wit had been male. A swastika—no wall of graffiti seemed complete without some asshole adding that one, especially not in a town like Grant Falls.

The sight of it bothered her, brought memories of the town’s hate flooding back even more clearly than they already had been, but she didn’t expect Maleficarum to react the way he did. The sound he made could only be called a growl, and he flung his large body at the wall, hammering it with his fists until the plaster gave and nothing was left but a gaping hole. When he turned around his eyes were red, even in the dim light.

There was no time to question it, no time to react, because something moaned at the other end of the hall, something that sent chills rising up Megan’s spine. A zombie…two zombies…the fire flared higher and she saw more, coming around the corner, a small army.

An uneasy moment passed as they stared at each other, demons, human, and zombies facing off in the hallway at the top of the stairs, and then the zombies charged.

She could vaguely remember Greyson telling her that the speed at which zombies moved was related to how strong the zombie maker was. Ktana Leyak must be getting more from the Yezer than Megan ever had.

The hall lit up like a tanning booth as blue-white flames engulfed them, but they kept coming.

“Go! Meg, go!”

Nick was already moving, grabbing her arm, yanking her away from where Greyson stood with his brow furrowed in concentration. Heat roared down the hallway, singeing her eyebrows, and she understood even as Nick and Malleus tugged her around the corner that if she didn’t get away she would burn, they would all burn when the zombies fell on them. The last thing she saw was Greyson standing, his body outlined black against the burning bodies advancing on him, his shoulders set as he waited.

They’d almost reached the end of the hall when explosions ripped the air. Megan’s hair blew forward, lifted from her shoulders by the force of the blast. To her right the blackness of the empty stairwell beckoned; they all ducked into it and started up the stairs, their feet pounding on the cement.

Another explosion rocked the building and tore a scream from Megan’s throat. Blindly she turned, stumbling back down toward the landing. If he was hurt, if he’d died—

“He’s fine!” Nick practically pulled her arm out of its socket as he dragged her up the stairs. “He’s fine, Megan, come on!”

The edge of a step collided painfully with her shin as she tripped over her own feet, but there was no time to stop, no time even to hear her own cry of pain.

The stained walls were nothing but a jumble in front of her. Something fell with a dull clang on the metal railing. A chunk of the stairs above. The building still shook. Another dull explosion rattled through it.

They reached the third floor and started down the hall, their feet shuffling through dead leaves and refuse. Megan’s demon heart gave another leap, bigger than it had been downstairs, and she stopped, almost falling forward.

“Nick? Do you—”

He nodded. “Not here. But closer.”

She turned back toward the stairs, but Maleficarum pulled her away. “Down there, m’lady. We don’t wanna stay in one place, right?”

Nothing came at them from the empty caves of the rooms they passed, but Megan had the sense of things waiting in there, skulking against the dingy shadowed walls, crouching under windowsills. She ran as fast as she could, hooking her finger into Nick’s belt loop and letting him pull her along until he slipped and she crashed down with him.

Her body knew what they’d fallen into before her mind was able to grasp it, to comprehend it. Blood, warm and sticky, spreading in a slow oozing lake across the hall. Her pants and coat were soaked with it, and when her demon heart twitched again she knew it wasn’t just blood, it was Yezer blood, her demons were here and they were being hurt, just like in their home. They should have been safe and they weren’t and that fucking bitch, she was going to get her—

She didn’t think she’d ever felt rage like this before, this bone-deep fury, and it scared her just as much as it elated her, made her feel powerful, more than powerful. Aroused, and that’s when she realized she had hold of Nick’s hand and was taking his energy, sucking it slowly into herself, and if she didn’t stop soon she was going to explode. The sex came from him, but it was the anger that shoved its way into her stomach and flooded her limbs. Jesus, he’s so angry, he’s so fucking hurt and angry—

She dropped his hand as if it had turned into a tarantula and backed away, slipping in the blood and falling against the grimy wall. The lake at her feet still spread; she turned, into the gaping mouth of the doorway and saw, in the faint light through the plastic over the empty window, pieces of her demons. Ears, legs, torsos, roughly stacked like Lincoln Logs against the wall, tumbled across the floor. How many of them, she didn’t know, but they were there, they were everywhere.

Where was Roc? Was he in there, God was he in there, one of those random limbs making the space look like the back room of a slaughterhouse?

She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until Malleus took hold of her arms and propelled her away, down the hall, squishing in the blood. “He ain’t there, m’lady, don’t you fret none, he’ll be ’ere soon, you wait an’ see…”

There were no windows in the far stairwell. It was like stepping into a mouth and being swallowed, feeling their way up the steps, moving slowly enough for Megan to start wondering why she hadn’t heard any more explosions in a while, and why Greyson hadn’t yet appeared. Her chest hurt.

The pitted metal railing bit into her hands but she was afraid to let go. Why they’d come armed to the teeth but without so much as a cigarette lighter…but then, they’d assumed they wouldn’t need to make their own fire, hadn’t they? It had never even occurred to her that Greyson might not be at her side every step of the way. Dangerous, that. Her vision blurred and she realized she was sobbing as they walked.

Even over the scuffling of their feet on the steps she heard the sound, a low gurgling rumble, like someone with laryngitis trying to yodel. Something waited for them on the fourth floor, and she thought she knew what it was.

Metal clinked and clanged around her as the men drew their weapons. She still had the gun, tucked dangerously in her pocket. Her palms were so slick it was difficult to get a good grip on it, and it wouldn’t do much good anyway if she was right.

She was. Her father stood waiting when they left the stairwell.

He hadn’t changed since they’d buried him, only two days before—two days, she couldn’t believe how much had happened in two days—but the vague emptiness in his eyes, the way he stood as though balancing on two feet was an effort, were things she’d never seen before.

Nick started forward, his sword raised, but Malleus grabbed him by the arm and muttered something. Megan didn’t hear it. She’d been expecting this, had known from the minute they saw the zombie coming out of the woods at the edge of town, but now the moment was here, really here, and she didn’t know what to do.

She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t move. She just stood there and stared at him, tears running icy tracks down her face. Was there anything left of him in there, and if there was, would he even care?

The thought had barely gone through her mind when he charged. The men leaped forward, trying to catch him, but he shook them off with amazing speed and agility and reached for her, his freezing fingers clutching her throat.

They crashed backward onto the cement floor of the landing. All the breath left her body; her back arched as she tried desperately to inhale, but his fingers tightened around her throat. This was it, he was going to kill her, just like he’d tried to do before, and she couldn’t fight him, she wasn’t strong enough…

She brought her knee up as hard as she could and smashed it into his groin. He might not be able to think and his nerves might be deteriorating, but she was willing to bet even undead men hurt when solid bone was driven into their balls. He howled, a raspy, animal sound, and curled forward. His fingers loosened. She sucked in a huge, glorious breath and actually felt oxygen spread through her entire body.

Too late she realized he was falling sideways, taking her with him to the top of the staircase. Another inch or two and they would tumble back down into the impenetrable blackness.

“Help me!” she screamed, but the words weren’t even out of her mouth when the body was lifted away, when Nick’s hands found hers and he hauled her up so fast she fell forward into him.

The boys were yelling, struggling with the frantic body of her father. Megan remembered well how strong zombies could be, how terrifyingly focused.

Something cracked. She had no idea what it was, but Malleus’s grip loosened for a second, and that second was enough for her father to lunge at her again.

This time she was ready, bracing herself, but at the last second something else happened, something that made her heart—both of her hearts—leap. Roc appeared, and trailing in his wake were four or five of her demons. So few, but enough to get her demon heart moving, to send a jolt of power through her body. It combined with what was left of the energy she’d stolen from Nick in the hall below, and she focused it, focused on it, and put as much of it as she could behind her swinging fist.

Her arm vibrated. All of her knuckles cracked, and she felt two of her fingernails break off at the quick.

Her father—she should start thinking of him as “the zombie,” but she couldn’t, it was her father, it was his body—barely paused, reaching for her again. Nick’s sword came down on his arm, slicing it off, but again, her father didn’t stop.

Megan slipped sideways and lifted the gun, but her fingers were too sore and clumsy to fire it. Malleus and Maleficarum dragged the zombie a few feet away and Nick attacked him again with the sword, its blade black and sticky with rancid fluid.

Her father howled, confusion and pain and anger in what was left of his voice, and Megan couldn’t take it anymore. It probably wouldn’t work, it probably wouldn’t even matter, but there was such a cruel, ironic symmetry to it all as she stepped forward and pressed the barrel of the gun to his head, just above his right eyebrow.

It felt like she should say something, but she couldn’t think of anything to say; she squeezed the trigger and let the gun speak for her.

Its report echoed so loudly in the stairwell and hall she thought it would never stop. Her father’s body slumped forward. The horrible bright light left his eyes, and he became again what he should have been. A corpse. Just a corpse.

The rattles started then, the metal stair railings sounding like a piece of aluminum shaking in the wind. Little snickering sounds, dry scratches and rasps. Her demons were coming, down the stairs from the fifth floor or up from the other floors, alerted to her exact location, and she was crying too hard as she looked at the blurry, messy figure of her father on the ground to care. It wasn’t until Roc touched her hand and spoke to her that she was able to look up.

“…to go, Megan, hurry! Hurry!”

The others stood behind him, terrified. They would die if she didn’t beat Ktana Leyak, if Megan didn’t manage to get the relic before she did. At that moment exhaustion weighed so heavily on Megan’s body that she almost didn’t care if she survived or not. It would be so easy to sit down, to rest, to wait for it all to end.

Greyson still hadn’t appeared…

“Hurry!”

Maleficarum scooped her up from the floor, and they ran down the hall to the other staircase.