Demon Inside

Chapter 4

The minute Megan saw Tera she looked down to see if she’d spilled something on her shirt. She hadn’t, of course. The only blot on her image was the dark shape of Malleus behind her, his gold pinkie ring flashing in the bright winter sun coming through the skylight.

Tera looked, as she always did, perfect; cool and immaculate in jeans and a black sweater, with her trapeze coat swinging behind her and her platinum hair falling in a shining curtain down her back. She was designed to make other women feel inadequate. Megan would have wondered why they were friends if the answer wasn’t so obvious—neither of them had any other friends.

Besides, she genuinely liked Tera, despite the fact that the witch had the social skills of a gnat.

They hugged and started walking through the pre-Christmas Saturday crowds. Maybe shopping wasn’t the greatest idea. Megan had expected to relax, surrounded by people to make her feel normal again. Instead she found herself itching to read them all, to open up and read the entire building, to make sure no one who shouldn’t be lurked in the corners.

Here and there little demons winked at her or waved from human shoulders and she tried to acknowledge them without looking like she was greeting everyone she passed. Where was Rocturnus? She hadn’t expected to see him when she woke up this morning—one embarrassing incident had been enough for her to forbid him from ever appearing in bedrooms, and he couldn’t enter Greyson’s place alone anyway—but she’d thought he might at least put in a quick appearance here to let her know he was okay.

“So.” Tera looked back over her shoulder, her blue eyes scanning Malleus, who stared purposefully ahead. “I see you have a guard today. Grey thinks you might get busted again?”

Megan’s stomach sank. So Tera—and thus Vergadering—did know about her arrest. “You know me, always in trouble.”

“What were you doing? Trespassing in a regular family’s house?”

“I thought it was somebody I knew.”

“And some Good Samaritan called the police and said you were murdering people.”

“Geez, Tera, did my mug shot get sent over to Vergadering as well?”

Tera waved her hand. “They didn’t take a mug shot. And I keep my ear to the ground.”

“That must get uncomfortable after a while.”

Tera smiled. “More than you know. I’m glad you’re okay, though.” She looked at Malleus again. “Hi, Malleus.”

His head barely dipped. “Miss Tera.”

Megan bit her lip. After three months he and his brothers still refused to use her own first name, insisting it was disrespectful.

If Tera knew she’d just been insulted, she either didn’t care or didn’t show she cared. “Look at that blouse, what do you think?”

Megan dutifully looked. Pink and white stripes ran vertically up the tailored shirt. It suited Tera. “Sure, try it on.”

Tera tried. Tera bought. The process repeated itself several times, while Megan grew more and more uneasy. The mall, with its garish every-religion-in-the-world decorations and piped-in cheery music was never her favorite place anyway, and now she was feeling claustrophobic. Life among the crowds had never made her especially happy and the relentless pushing and shoving forced her to shield so hard she lost the train of her rambling conversation with Tera.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked again. Tera sighed.

“Come on. Let’s get a snack or something and sit down. There’s a new store by the food court. I want to check in there and then we’ll have dinner.”

“We’re getting a snack right before dinner?”

“Some of us like to eat.”

“I like to eat.”

“When you remember to.” Tera looked her up and down. “Your life of crime keeping you too busy to eat?”

Megan waited while Tera ordered a gooey cinnamon bun, then said, “It was just a misunderstanding and nobody pressed charges. As you know.”

“I still think it’s weird.”

“You know me, weird Megan the crazy demon woman.”

“You’re not a demon.” Tera shoved a piece of bun in her mouth. “Despite being hip deep in them all the time. Or the other way around, so to speak.”

Megan blushed. “I can’t just magically disconnect myself from them.”

“But your demons aren’t the same. They just do their thing and stay out of the way. You can do whatever it is you do with them and stay yourself. You can keep your practice. You can keep your life.”

Megan didn’t tell her about the discussions she and Greyson had been having lately—the closest thing to arguments they’d ever had—about her practice. “I still have my life.”

“Right. That’s why you were arrested for breaking and entering.”

“It wasn’t breaking and entering, it was trespassing. I didn’t break in.”

Did Tera really not know why Megan had been in that house? Did she really not know about the other demons exploding, about—Megan swallowed—about Gerald?

Somehow she’d managed to forget about Gerald as they wandered the mall. Now the memory rushed back, so vivid and painful Megan had to brace herself against the cheap Formica table to keep from curling up into a ball. Her involvement with the demons had already killed one innocent person, if her instinct about what happened the night before was right. Whatever Greyson said about the inevitability of death or the possibility of accident, something demonic had gotten hold of Gerald, and it was related somehow to her.

“So you were trespassing. Want to tell me why?”

Megan blinked. “Is this an official inquiry?”

“No. The normal police bought your story, so Vergadering isn’t investigating. But I’d like to know. I worry about you, Megan. I’m your friend. Aren’t I?”

“Of course you are.” Megan shrugged. “I was trying to surprise a friend. Someone from the station. I had the wrong house, that’s all.”

Tera’s eyes narrowed. Megan forced herself to look into them and think innocent thoughts. She didn’t want to lie to Tera. Tera knew a lot about a lot of things. She’d worked for Vergadering for a dozen years now, and Megan would have loved to spill it all to her, to tell her about the demon explosions and the assassination attempt and Gerald and see if the witch could make sense of it.

Just having an actual discussion about it would be nice, an opportunity to think out loud to another person. Nobody played their cards as close to the chest as Greyson did, and while Megan was used to it—even liked it, most of the time, because she did the same—there were moments when she wished he was more forthcoming.

But if Greyson was right and it had been witches trying to kill them in that mad car chase…she didn’t want to talk about that with Tera. Couldn’t talk about it with Tera, much as she wanted to try and pick her friend’s brain. If Tera didn’t know anything, it could be awkward, and if she did…that could be even more awkward. Not to mention dangerous.

“I thought you trusted me,” Tera said.

“I do. Tera, what is going on? You don’t usually grill me about this stuff. Aren’t you going to tell me more about Roger or Todd or whoever else you’re dating now who you don’t really like? Or tell me how my top isn’t the right color or something?”

“It’s not. It washes you out.” But she smiled. “I’m sorry. I get a little cranky around the holidays, I guess, and we’ve been hearing some odd—well, I just don’t want to see you get so involved with demons that you forget who and what you are.”

“I’m not forgetting anything.” She glanced up. “What odd things have you been hearing?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that there’s some unrest in the demon world.” Tera was a good liar, but even without being able to read her Megan still knew. It saddened her a little, the same way she imagined her refusal to open up saddened Tera. In the three months they’d been friends, they’d never run into a situation where they really couldn’t discuss something.

“Come on,” she said, getting up. Malleus stood as well, his beefy arms still crossed, his expression grim. His contempt for witches was ingrained, had been ever since he’d been born and named. “You wanted to check that dress shop, right?”

The air between them seemed to clear a bit as they threw away the remains of Tera’s snack and shoved through the crowds. Or rather, Malleus shoved, and they followed in his wake.

“I’m beginning to think I was wrong about him,” Tera murmured. “He’s pretty handy to have in a crowd, isn’t he?”

Malleus’s shoulders twitched, but he said nothing. Megan seized the opportunity and lied, “That’s why he’s here.”

“A favor?”

“Sort of.”

“And how will you be repaying that favor, hmm?”

Megan blushed. Tera laughed and patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, better than—”

“Mr. Brown!” Malleus’s public code name. Who was—

A short, stylish little man threw himself across the shop as they entered. Megan started to jump out of the way, but the broad grin on the man’s face and his outstretched arms stopped her in midjump, turning it into a sort of awkward jerk that made Tera raise her eyebrows.

“Mr. Brown, so good to have you here, I’m so honored! Is Mr. Dante—oh!” His shining eyes lit on Megan. “Dr. Chase, isn’t it?”

Megan nodded, her face burning. She didn’t need to look at Tera to imagine her friend’s expression.

The man reached for her hand, then thought better of it and bowed instead. “Dr. Chase, I’m so pleased—so pleased! Come in, come in, sit down. What would you like today? A dress? A purse, some shoes?”

“I’m just looking,” Megan managed as the little man ushered her through the shop without actually touching her and indicated a padded bench for her to sit on. Tera sat next to her, smirking.

“Nonsense! You don’t need to look, we’ll look for you, you just sit here.”

“You stay here, m’lady,” Malleus added, plunking his weight down on her other side. “You let ’im show you things.”

It was a reminder as much as a genuine desire to see her treated well, she knew. Malleus never forgot whose servant he was and what was expected of him in that capacity. Those rules apparently extended to her. The man now thrusting various garments at her wasn’t a demon, but just the same she didn’t need an interpreter to know what was going on.

It would be an insult not to smile and finger the clothing. It would be an insult not to finally select something and allow the man to box it up for her as carefully as he would the Hope diamond. It would be an insult to try and pay, especially when the little man kept grinning and telling her to remember him to Mr. Dante, to tell Mr. Dante how honored he was that Mr. Dante had sent Dr. Chase to his store and that if Mr. Dante ever wanted anything he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

Megan finally left the shop with a designer gown, the shop owner’s business card, and a face bright enough to send satellite signals.

Tera smiled beside her. “Sure,” she said. “You’re not getting too wrapped up in the whole demon thing at all, are you?”

The bag with the gown in it banged against her leg like a toddler demanding attention as she walked into her house. She’d managed to have a good time, all things considered, especially when the conversation turned away from her and toward Tera’s various casual dates.

“Hi, Megan.”

The scream died in her throat when she saw Rocturnus lounging on her couch. “Damn it, I’ve asked you not to—”

“You asked me not to jump out at you and I’m not. I’m just sitting here.”

“You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, but then demons never did.

She set down the bag and switched on the lamp by the couch. “Where have you been?”

“Checking on everyone.” His beady little eyes shifted. Not a good sign.

“And?”

“And they’re all alive. No more explosions.”

A breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding escaped. “Good.”

“But…maybe you should sit down.”

Megan knew people often told other people to sit down when they had good news for them too. It just hadn’t ever happened to her. There was no point in trying to put a brave face on things as she sat. Rocturnus would be able to feel, taste, and smell her every negative emotion anyway. “Okay, what?”

“Well…some of us aren’t very…happy. About the changes. And about what’s been going on. The deaths.”

“I didn’t think having your buddies explode would put you guys in the Christmas spirit,” she said, “but—”

“Actually we quite like the holidays. Lots of depression, feelings of inadequacy, jealousy…we’re very busy this time of year.”

“Mmm, just like Santa’s elves,” she said. “What about the changes?”

The frown on his wizened little face told her what he thought of the “elves” joke. “It’s confidence,” he said. “I know you don’t feel entirely comfortable with us. With what we do. But you have to remember, it is how we stay alive.”

“I’m not trying to kill anyone. I think it’s fair to ask you to exercise a little restraint, don’t you?”

“There’s another family.”

“What?”

“Another family. I mean, some of us have always had loyalties to other families. Not all of us in this city or even this country belonged to the Accuser.”

She nodded. He’d touched on this subject before, but she hadn’t paid much attention. It was enough to know several thousand demons in the city belonged to her. What the others did didn’t matter much, at least that’s what she’d thought.

Apparently she was wrong. “Another family is forming in the city. Some of yours…they’re uncomfortable. They don’t like your new way of doing things.”

“They’d rather be tortured and beaten?”

Rocturnus nodded. “And be able to live the way they always have.”

“But they aren’t giving it a chance!” She stood up—so much for sitting down—and started pacing, then realized she was still wearing her coat and scarf. No wonder she felt so warm.

“They don’t think you can protect them,” Rocturnus said. “They think you didn’t want us to begin with, and now you’re trying to starve us and you don’t care about the explosions.”

“That’s not true, you know it isn’t true. I do care. I went to jail last night for you guys; if I didn’t care I wouldn’t have bothered to go in that house and—”

“I know that.”

“Have you told them?”

He nodded.

“But they don’t believe you.”

“It isn’t all of them,” he said. “It’s not even a lot of them…yet. But enough to make me worry. They just—they don’t think you’re strong enough.”

She brushed aside the little voice in her head warning they they might be right. “I want to help them!”

“They want to be ruled, not helped. It’s the way demons are.” She raised an eyebrow and he amended, “It’s the way Yezer Ha-Ra are. The big ones, they have their own needs. They still want a strong leader though.”

She never thought she’d live to see the day when she was rejected by a bunch of little demons who fed on human anger and misery. By rights they should be drawn to her like flies to…well, like flies to just about anything. She’d never heard of a discerning fly.

They should be drawn to her like she was drawn to the bottle of vodka in her liquor cabinet. It sloshed into her glass, cracking the ice sticking to the bottom, turning a lovely jewel pink when she poured cranberry juice over it and added a splash of Rose’s lime. A tropical drink for a very cold and frosty night. Hey, something should be warm and tropical. Her insides certainly weren’t.

Half the drink was gone before she felt ready to talk again. “So who started this other family?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who started it? Who’s in charge? Is it one of you guys or is everyone joining a different Meegra or what?”

From the way his mouth twisted she almost expected him to say the others were joining Greyson’s Meegra. But that wasn’t possible, she knew it. Greyson wouldn’t betray her like that.

At least she thought he wouldn’t.

Shoving that disturbing little doubt out of her mind, she repeated the question. “Who’s in charge, Roc? Come on, if I’m going to be in direct competition with someone I’d like to know who it is.”

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “They wouldn’t tell me.”

“Can’t you—wait, what do you mean they wouldn’t tell you? Who wouldn’t tell you, the ones who left or the ones who’re still with me?”

He looked at his hands.

“Okay, so my demons—the ones staying with me—are now refusing to tell you where the demons who are no longer with me are going?”

“That’s the gist of it, yes.”

“Fuck.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Okay, then. Let’s go see them.”

“Now? They won’t be there.”

“Then I’ll call them there.” Why this was suddenly so important she didn’t know. Hadn’t she spent half the day wanting to be rid of the little demons, to be herself again? To come down to it, hadn’t she spent most of the last three months wishing this whole leader-of-the-personal-demon-pack thing hadn’t happened? As much as she liked Roc, being pulled in two directions like this wasn’t exactly comfortable.

But now she was hopping mad, fighting mad. It wasn’t that they were leaving, it was that they weren’t even telling her where they were going. That anger burned in her chest, burned through her entire body. If they wanted to leave, that was fine. But to not tell her where they were going, to treat her so disrespectfully…

It wasn’t until she’d closed her eyes and reached with her mind for the high-ceilinged room in the sky where they lived that she realized she was thinking exactly the way Greyson kept telling her she should think.