Demon Inside

Chapter 3

I don’t understand.”

“There’s no way I could have defeated those witches so easily if they’d really wanted to kill us,” he said. “Not unless they were just a couple of kids hunting demons for a lark, which we know isn’t the case.”

“How do we—oh. The jail. They knew I was there.”

He nodded. “And they knew I’d come for you. They were too powerful to be kids, too.”

“The police said someone called them and told them there was a dead body in that house. Do you think the witches might have called? That they’re the ones killing the demons?”

“I don’t think so, no. I think our little friends just took advantage of the situation.” He emptied his glass again. Worry started creeping up Megan’s spine. He looked as if he was bracing himself for something, as if he was trying to forget. Even with a demon’s metabolism, which she knew was pretty good, four Percocet and half a bottle of Bushmill’s couldn’t be helping him think faster.

What was bothering him so much?

“Why did they come after us? Why would witches want to ki—warn us?”

“Me, not us, if I’m right—and of course I am. I’m taking care of it, so don’t worry.”

If she pressed him he would tell her, but now it felt like an invasion of his privacy. Which was probably his intent.

“So who is doing it? Killing the demons, I mean?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody knows.”

The chill air swirling around her legs was starting to make her uncomfortable. Greyson kept the room ice cold, and usually she preferred it that way too because he was so warm all the time. But there was no point in standing here shivering. She climbed into bed instead, not realizing until she slid between the heavy silk sheets how hard it was to keep her eyes open. “Rocturnus said they used to be punished this way, with the explosions.”

“Did he?” He poured another glass.

“Yes. Why?”

“So for the Yezer this is normal?” She could almost see the wheels turning in his head.

“I wouldn’t say ‘normal,’ but I guess it’s not unheard of. Isn’t it the same for the rest of you?”

“Did he say who used to do it? Was it the Accuser or—”

“Are you going to answer my questions, or what?”

“If you answer mine. Who used to punish them that way?”

“Roc didn’t say. Do you all blow up? I mean, should I expect you to explode one of these days?”

“Only if you don’t do everything I say, all the time.”

Her fist gripped his pillow. His reflexes were a little slower, maybe, from the injury and the chemicals. She might be able to hit him with it if she moved fast enough…

His eyes gleamed. Damn it. “Where is Roc, anyway?”

“Checking on the others. I kind of wanted some privacy while I was—”

“Rotting in jail.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “You put it so nicely.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t take the bait. “Do you remember anything else he said?”

“No. Why?”

He glanced at the clock by the bed. “It’s past one. You should get some sleep.”

“Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“Eventually. I have a few things to do first.”

She expected him to get up and head back down to his office, but he didn’t. He was still sitting in his chair, drinking and watching her, when she drifted off to sleep.

Wings of fatigue beat behind her eyelids three hours later as they walked into the casino. Her entire body ached. All she wanted to do was go back to bed.

Unfortunately, for reasons she still couldn’t seem to get straight in her sleep-muddled head, that wasn’t possible. Instead she was here, making her way across the floor under scarily intense white lights and the watchful gazes of at least a dozen demons.

She’d been to the casino only once before, when Greyson was doing some work and called her to meet him for lunch. It had been daytime then, the casino a dark silent room waiting for the crowds.

Now the crowds were there. The floor roared with bells and shouts and the harsh bright rattle of poker chips hitting each other. So much noise in such a small space made her head hurt. She didn’t even know how all of these people knew about the place. The demons, yes. But at least half of the shoulders crammed up against the craps and card tables had Yezer Ha-Ra perched on them. It bothered her. She didn’t know much about Greyson’s various legal enterprises, and even less about the illegal ones, but she’d assumed this one—illegal—was demon-only.

He stopped when she did, and followed her gaze. “You’re not the only human who knows demons,” he said quietly. “Just the only one who knows what we are.”

She tried to smile. “I knew I was special. Where’s Gerald?”

He nodded toward the back. “They managed to get him into one of the storerooms. Come on.”

His hand in hers reassured her as he led Megan through the room, past a roulette wheel and a long, well-lit bar where several pretty young ladies served drinks. They smiled as Greyson walked past, their big eyes following him. To Megan they gave the barest of nods, not daring to ignore her completely.

Two guards stood outside a nondescript doorway. “Mr. Dante,” said the first. “He’s inside.”

“This is Dr. Chase,” Greyson replied. “He asked for her?”

“Yeah, he seemed, I don’t know, really off,” said the second. Both of them kept their eyes averted, she noticed, and shuffled their feet. “He sounded like he was speaking our language, but…not.”

“Like a weird dialect,” the first added. “Then English again.”

Greyson and Megan exchanged glances. One of her clients speaking the demon tongue? She couldn’t even speak it, not more than a couple of words anyway. “Bryaela,” of course, although why anyone but Greyson or John Wayne would call someone “pilgrim” she had no idea. He said it was because she was like a little explorer in a new world, but that wasn’t exactly a satisfactory explanation. “Sheshissma,” she knew, but he only used that one when he was feeling particularly amorous, so she’d never had the guts to repeat it.

In fact, now that she thought of it, the only words she knew seemed to be essentially useless outside the bedroom. Maybe he’d agree to give her lessons, or if he wouldn’t, Rocturnus would.

Speaking of whom, where was he?

“Did he say anything else?” Greyson asked.

The second guard shook his head. “No, sir, he just started crying and asking for Dr. Chase. He didn’t want to come in here at first, but…” he glanced uneasily at Megan. “We, uh, convinced him. He was strong too.”

“Let me in,” she said, hating the way he waited for Greyson’s nod before opening the door. Bad enough she’d managed to get herself involved in this demon underworld of violence and crime. Now innocent people were mixed up in it, people who came to her for help and instead got roughed up in a storeroom.

A storeroom in a casino, which didn’t make any sense. Gerald wasn’t a gambler. She’d never even read the slightest interest in gaming from him, unless you counted the occasional football pool at his office, and even that was simply his trying to fit in. Which was good, because he lost every time.

Still he was a nice man, a good man, and he deserved better than this. A kind, gentle—wait a minute.

“Did you say he was strong? That you had to fight to get him in here?”

The guard nodded. Muscles bulged from every inch of his body. He was like a demon Conan, with a smaller chin. Gerald—the Gerald Megan knew—would have been a snack for him.

She pushed the door open and entered the small, dingy storeroom, half hoping, half expecting to see a stranger in there, someone pretending to be Gerald.

But no, it was Gerald. Cowering in the corner, his bare feet scraped and dirty and a bruise marring his narrow little face.

“Megan! Megan!” He scrambled across the floor toward her like a broken-legged crab, his limbs jerking under his clothes. She jumped back. The unnatural movement sent shivers up her spine.

Gerald stopped, glancing up at her. His expression was innocent, fearful, but something in his eyes…Megan lowered her shields to read him. Maybe he was on some kind of drug, maybe he’d gotten hold of something…

Nothing. No images came, no stray thoughts, no flashes of emotion. Fear chased the last of her sleepiness away. This wasn’t right, not at all. She’d always been able to read Gerald, he was a heavy transmitter, and the only times she’d gotten nothing at all from a person were when they weren’t actually people at all, but demons…

Gerald’s eyes glowed. Just for a second, but long enough for Megan to see it. Without thinking she turned the energy she was using to read him into a shield, a weapon, and aimed it at him.

The pressure of the hit reverberated through her entire body, but Gerald only wavered in place. Trying not to let fear overwhelm her, Megan braced herself, certain she was about to be hit back, and hit hard. The place deep inside herself that she saw as a door, the one she’d only opened once before in her life, seemed to throb and glow, wanting her to open it, to reach into it and through it to the personal demons. This was where they connected to her, this was where she knew without thinking that she could harness their power. It would be so easy, so simple to open it and let the demon inside her take over…

But so wrong. So scary. Just the idea of it made her shake. Instead she forced everything she had into shielding herself and ducked down, her knees slamming against the dusty cement floor, the doorjamb against her shoulder.

Screams filled the room, high-pitched squeals of delight that sent shivers up her spine. They reached a piercing crescendo, hurting Megan’s ears, making her scrunch herself into a tighter ball, her heart pounding with terror and her entire body braced for the pain she knew was coming any second—but something inside her wanted to scream too, wanted to leap in the air and dance. The desire beat in her chest, so strong and fierce she screamed herself and wrapped her arms around her ribs. She couldn’t hold on, couldn’t keep herself from bursting into flame—

Silence.

Large bodies pushed past her, knocking her into the wall. She was too afraid to open her eyes. Where was Greyson? He didn’t usually leave her like this, didn’t force her to stand by herself, especially not when she was certain it was obvious to anyone looking that something was very, very wrong with her.

“He’s dead.” The other guard’s voice, the non-Conan one, sounded strangled somehow, confused. “Mr. Dante, the human’s dead!”

In the space between the male feet crowded around it, she saw one hand on the floor. Gerald’s hand, fingers curved up like a dead spider, pale and unmoving. The image filled her mind. Even when she closed her eyes it stayed, burned in like a photographic negative, luminous against the blackness of her eyelids. Her client was dead. Her nice, sweet, nongambling client died on the floor of a storeroom in a demon casino, with his eyes glowing and an unearthly scream—a scream almost like a laugh, she realized now—on his lips, and none of this made any sense and she thought she might faint.

“Get Dr. Chase out of here,” she heard Greyson say. “Take her to the car.” She wanted to argue but her tongue and lips didn’t seem to be under her control. Gerald was dead and she knew it was her fault. Knew it as surely as she knew her own name, knew it as surely as she knew Greyson wanted her to get in the car not just because he didn’t want her to have to look at that hand on the floor, but because he needed to get the body out of his casino before someone noticed it and called the police.

An annoying hum woke her up, and it took her a minute to remember where she was—and for other memories to flood back: the bitter taste of the pills Maleficarum had given her when he put her in the car, she and Greyson sleeping squeezed together across the big backseat, Malleus carrying her up to bed.

The room was dim when she opened her eyes, thanks to the heavy blackout shades on the windows, but there was enough light to see her stupid cell phone buzzing angrily on the bedside table.

She picked up the phone and fumbled with it, trying to find the catch to slide it open. Greyson had bought her the damn thing and she still couldn’t figure out half of the spiffy tricks it was supposed to perform, much less open it with a flick of the wrist the way he and the brothers could.

“Hello?” It hurt her throat to talk.

“Hey! I’m running a little late, do you want to meet me at four instead of three?”

Tera Green sounded chipper and well rested, the way she always did, as opposed to Megan, who, at the moment, probably sounded as wrung out and hungover as she felt.

She pulled the phone away to look at the time. It was twenty to three in the afternoon. She and Tera had a date to go shopping and have dinner. She’d totally forgotten.

Rather than admit that, though, she nodded vigorously until she remembered Tera couldn’t see her. “Yeah, of course,” she said, trying to put some enthusiasm in her voice. “I was just—just getting ready.”

“Great. I’ll see you at four, then.”

Megan echoed the response, although “great” was the last word she thought it was at the moment, and dragged herself to a sit.

“Tera?”

He sounded tired, but not as tired as she felt. She looked at him, his hair rumpled with sleep and his eyes still heavy, and nodded. “We’re going shopping.”

“What fun.” He yawned and reached for her, pulling her closer so he could rest his head in her lap. “Why don’t you stay here instead? I have some things to do but I’ll be free in a few hours.”

“And sit by myself in your room all day? No thanks.” She didn’t move, though. Memories of the night before started coming back: Gerald on the floor, the scream, the pounding in her chest…she shivered.

Greyson’s arms tightened around her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was and you know it. I appreciate your not saying, ‘I told you so,’ though.” Her attempt to keep her tone light wasn’t very successful.

He paused. “I worried something like this might happen, but that isn’t why I want you to give up your practice. It still isn’t why.” He sat up and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her down a bit so she could rest her head on his chest. Beneath the smoky scent of his skin she still smelled last night’s whiskey and whatever Spud had put on his wound. She glanced at his arm. The bandage was gone, but a small puckered scar remained.

“Meg, people die all the time. Would it have been your fault if gentle Gerald’s problems had overwhelmed him and he’d killed himself? If he got hit by a car crossing the street because he was thinking of something you said and forgot to look both ways?”

“A demon possessed him and led him there to die, I think that’s a bit dif—”

“No, it isn’t different, it’s exactly the same. It’s too bad the guy’s dead if it bothers you, but all of your clients could die and I wouldn’t give a damn. The only life I’m interested in saving is yours. And mine, of course.”

“Of course.” She didn’t know if she believed him, didn’t know if she really felt less responsible, but the black cloud over her head seemed to lift a little just the same.

“Which is why I want you to take Malleus with you today.”

She pulled away. “No, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Tera will just have to deal with it. And don’t tell her why.”

“She’s going to know something’s up if she sees him.”

“She can think what she wants to think. What did I just say? I want you to stay safe. Malleus can make sure you do.”

“I thought the witches were just after you.”

“Call me paranoid.”

He looked, sitting on the bed framed by the black satin pillows and sheets, like a medieval king granting favors, but his eyes were tired and serious.

“If I didn’t know better I’d think you really cared,” she said. It wasn’t an unusual joke or one they’d never made before as they edged carefully around the issue of their feelings, but this time it fell flat. Her face flooded with heat.

He blinked. “Yes, well, I’ve got you rather a nice Christmas present, I’d hate to see it go to waste.” The covers whispered as he shoved them off and got out of bed. “Malleus will be waiting for you when you are ready to leave. He brought your car over last night.”

“Greyson…” But there was nothing to say.

He fastened his pants and came over to her, planting a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll try and come by tomorrow night. I have to leave early Monday, though, so don’t wait up.”

Without meaning to she reached for him, curling her fingers around his arms, stroking up and down the hard, smooth muscles. Just the feel of him under her palms made her warm.

He kissed her again, on the lips this time, lingering just a moment longer. “Unless you want to cancel on Tera after all…” His hands traveled down her ribs to her waist, where they paused.

She shook her head. Much as she wanted to stay, she was looking forward to going out into the normal world again. As normal as it could be when you were shopping with a witch and had a demon bodyguard following you. “She’ll be hurt if I cancel.”

“Just make sure you have your phone on. And be careful.”

He started to move away, but she grabbed him. “What did—what did you do with him?”

“Gerald?”

She nodded.

“Took him back to his place, put him on the bed. Someone will find him.”

The cold feeling started creeping back. He sounded so nonchalant, like he moved dead bodies around—or ordered them moved—every day. Which she supposed he might. “Who did this to him? Was it someone from a different Meegra, or—”

His knuckles under her chin forced her to look up at him. “We’ll figure it out. Meanwhile—”

“I know. Be careful, don’t tell Tera anything, and keep Malleus with me.”

“See? It’s so much better when you just obey me.”

He ducked away before she could swat him.