Demon Possessed

Chapter 17

Lots of things did not appeal to Megan. Skydiving, for example. Root canals. Lamb chops. Things she simply avoided.

Way up at the top of that list she would have to put “Making a list of people who might want me dead and why.”

It wasn’t the making of the list that was so awful, although—actually, yes, making the list was really fucking awful. Watching the list grow longer and, worse, realizing that she could provide legitimate reasons why any one of the people on it might want to see her dead . . . it felt as if she’d swallowed an anvil.

Oh, no, wait. The best part of all was getting to see how fucking enthusiastic her supposed friends were.

“Don’t forget any of the patients of that Fearbuddies group or whatever it was called.” Tera popped a tortilla chip into her mouth. “They might be pissed that you killed their therapist.”

Roc plucked a chip from the bag too. “Wouldn’t they have come after Megan sooner?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe they’ve been saving up the money, just plotting and planning all these months, obsessing over her—”

“Hey, do you think whoever it is has pictures of her all over his house?” Roc’s beady little eyes lit up. “Like, they’ve drawn big black X’s over her face and written ‘Die Megan Die’ on their walls, or—”

“That’s enough, Roc,” Greyson said.

“I’m just wondering, I mean, someone who’s been planning and waiting that long must really hate Megan, right, so—”

“Cut it out, Roc,” Megan said, and not a moment too soon; she thought Greyson was going to leap off the couch and throw Roc out the window. Not that she would mind. And not that it would hurt Roc. Because of what he was, he could simply dematerialize before he hit the ground. But—

“Hey!” She sat up, Roc forgotten. “The angel. He could fly. I mean, he could materialize and dematerialize. Just like Yezer. Right?”

“Apparently,” Greyson said.

“So can the Yezer follow him wherever it is he’s going? If we tell them all to look for him, maybe they can find out where he’s staying.”

Roc nodded. “We’re already on it. But don’t forget, he can hide himself from us too, so I don’t know how effective that will be.”

She slumped. “Shit, I had forgotten.”

Roc had reported to her in the morning the results of his conversations with the Yezer who’d been guarding the door the night before. Unfortunately, none of them had seen anyone except Elizabeth Reid, so there wasn’t anything to go on with that.

“It’s something to start with, though.” Greyson patted her thigh, a second’s touch that made her feel a little better, while he spoke to Roc. “It’s very possible you guys will be able to see him if he dematerializes. Certainly if he wanders into the psychic plane, you might be able to feel him, if you’re paying attention.”

“He’ll feel like a demon, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Tera and Megan asked at the same time.

Greyson smiled, a thin smile that bore only a touch of humor. “They’re related to us. Not exactly the same but close enough.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Tera said.

“Yes. The only good thing Vergadering ever did was to wipe those psychos off the planet. Of course, they didn’t entirely succeed, obviously, but then you witches do tend to be overconfident.”

“Whatever.” Again with the tortilla chips. Tera’s eating habits never ceased to amaze Megan; she had a demon’s metabolism and a cast-iron stomach. “I told you, there is nothing in the files. No proof. No evidence. So I’m not sure how you think we warred with angels when as far as we’re concerned they don’t exist.”

“Yes, I know. But trust me, you did.”

Tera’s eyes narrowed. Her hand, full of tortilla, stopped halfway to her mouth. “Wait a minute. You said they’re related to you. Did we think they were you? Did you—you guys used us to beat them, didn’t you.”

Greyson shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I wasn’t even alive then.”

“And even if he was,” Nick cut in, “we would have done whatever we had to do. Just like you did. Do I need to remind you of Columbia? How about Oakton? Do you remember the demon children your soldiers murdered? The camps you sent innocent demons, demons who didn’t fight, into?”

“Okay, what the hell is your problem?” Tera actually dropped her chips. “You’ve been sniping at me all day. What did I ever do to you?”

“It’s what you witches did to me,” Nick snapped. “It’s your—”

“Nick.” Greyson’s head was turned away from Megan; she couldn’t see his face. But Nick could. He stopped, paled a little, and nodded.

The silence following was as awkward as any Megan had ever experienced, and her work certainly lent itself to uncomfortable moments. Her instincts at work led her to remain quiet herself while her patients worked through whatever they needed to, or at the very most to ask a quiet, unobtrusive question if the conversation seemed to have stalled completely.

But this wasn’t work. These were her friends, and somehow they’d hit a wall again, a wall that had something to do with Nick and whatever horrors his past contained. They’d brushed up against the subject before, but Megan had never actually spoken to him about it. It was private, and one thing she didn’t find at all disorienting about demon culture was how much they all valued their privacy.

So she reached for a chip herself and forced it down her throat. It tasted a bit like sawdust, but that wasn’t the chip’s fault, and she needed the delay more than she cared about how she took it. “So do you think the angel’s really after me, or does it just like hanging around Reverend Walther? Maybe it’s not what attacked me at all.”

“It had attached itself to that FBI agent,” Greyson said. “It attacked her before you, remember?”

“It was there last night.” The chip fell from her hands. “Right before it showed up today, it felt like everyone suddenly became unreadable. Just like those employees felt last night.”

Greyson nodded. “Doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t been so absorbed in watching Maleficarum that he forgot to keep himself hidden. At least so I assume. I doubt he was deliberately unmasking himself.”

“Maybe he was.” Nick seemed to have regained his composure. “Maybe he was picking a fight. Taunting us.”

“Anything’s possible. I guess we—”

“Grey?” Carter appeared at the bedroom door; he’d been in there doing some work or whatever it was he did. Megan was never quite clear on the details, but she knew he was always available and always busy, just as Greyson had been for his boss Templeton Black.

Greyson had overthrown Templeton—protecting her, not to mention furthering his own interests—and had him sent to a Vergadering prison, where Templeton had died just before Christmas. An apparent suicide; they’d never discovered exactly how he’d done it, but he’d left a note.

Greyson was already up, walking across the room. “I’ll be right back.”

The others sat there, with Nick and Tera exchanging cautious looks and Roc cheerfully snacking. “So,” he said, after swallowing another enormous mouthful. “Do you think whoever it is who hates Megan had to pay a lot of money to have her killed?”

Three hours later Megan was sick of TV. Sick of the suite. Sick of the Bellreive.

It wasn’t that she was having a bad time. Once Tera and Nick had decided to bury the hatchet—figuratively—they’d actually gotten along okay, and if conversation occasionally suffered an abrupt pause when one of them, usually Nick, bit their tongue, it flowed easily enough the rest of the time.

But she was sick of this. Sick of Roc’s gentle snores on the couch beside her. Sick of Malleus’s ceaseless wanderings through the rooms, checking all the closets on every pass. “Lord Dante said make sure you’re safe, m’lady, and I’ll keep you safe, you c’n Adam ’n’ Eve that.”

“I do,” she said, for what felt like the dozenth time and probably was. “You know I do. But you’re getting on my nerves.”

Malleus looked wounded. “You oughter have more care for yerself, you ought. Think what it might do to Lord Dante if something ’appened to you. Me an’ Lif an’ Spud, we fink you take too many risks, an’ it’s time you quit and settle down. No offense, m’lady, but Lord Dante needs—”

Nick leaped up. “What’s that, out the window?”

“What?” Malleus hurled himself across the room with the kind of speed that constantly surprised Megan; one didn’t expect to see a tank move that fast, but the brothers all did when they wanted to.

She caught Nick’s eye and smiled her thanks. Was it her imagination, or did his return smile look rather uneasy?

Well, so what if it did? There was plenty to be uneasy about. Attacks on her life and angels and the whole witch-demon thing and whatever it was Nick was carrying around with him.

“Nuffink ’ere,” Malleus called over his shoulder. “I’ll stay, though, an’ keep watch for a few minutes to make sure.”

“Thanks, Malleus.”

Someone knocked at the door, and Malleus once again zipped over before the knocks resolved themselves into the complex little passcode the brothers had devised. For a second Megan’s heart jumped in her chest, hoping it was Greyson back from whatever business had called him away, but he wouldn’t have knocked, and it wasn’t him. It was Carter returning just ahead of him.

He settled himself on the couch beside Nick. “You guys having fun?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “An absolute blast. I wish someone was trying to kill me every day.”

“Thanks a lot,” Tera said. “Here I’m sitting watching dumb TV instead of shopping, just to keep you company. The least you could do is appreciate it.”

“If you guys are talking about shopping, I’m going into the bedroom.” Nick smiled, but Megan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was bothering him.

She couldn’t ask, though. Not then, in front of everyone. So instead she just smiled. “We’re going to talk about shoes for the next hour, Nick. Escape while you can.”

“If you put it that way.”

They all watched him go. That day he wore black jeans and a black T-shirt; Tera raised her eyebrows when he closed the bedroom door behind him. “He’s kind of a touchy asshole, but he’s awfully sexy.”

“Tell me about it,” Carter said.

Megan blinked; she had the horrifying suspicion her mouth had fallen open. It didn’t matter, not one damn bit; it was simply the fact that she’d known him for months now, and it had never even—it made her ashamed of herself. Why should she assume he was straight? What was the matter with her?

He caught her look. “You didn’t know?”

“I—no. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—”

“Of course I’m gay.” He looked at her as if she had just grown an extra head. “Grey isn’t stupid.”

“Well, no, but I don’t—”

“Maybe we oughter check and see if Lord Dante’s coming back now.” Malleus rushed across the room again; watching him was like watching a very large black tennis ball in play. “I’ll just get th’ door open ’ere—”

“I won’t be having any children,” Carter explained. “At least not the kind I’d need to have. Right? You know this. So I can’t possibly overthrow him. Once he has a son, it won’t matter so much, and he’ll be more secure, but with how vulnerable he is already because you’re human, he really needs to get moving—”

“That’s enough, Carter.” Greyson stood in the doorway. Icy cold energy danced over Megan’s skin; his anger, the only emotion she could always feel from demons, translating as a frigid blast.

For a second she just sat there, totally confused. Why would he be so angry just because Carter was telling her something about demon tradition or culture or whatever? Lots of people grew up with cultural traditions; the whole “sons” thing was a bit sexist but wasn’t such a big deal, really. Demons were pretty paternalistic—not to mention sexist, judgmental, egotistical, superficial, and a whole host of other social evils—so how this was—

Then it hit her, with the force of a semi slamming into her head-on. He was vulnerable because she was human. He was vulnerable because he didn’t have sons to take over once he was gone, to strengthen his position. She remembered he’d mentioned it to her, all those months ago: “Half the Meegra was ready to overthrow Temp and put me in his place anyway—he never had any sons to take over.”

He was vulnerable because they couldn’t have children together. She was human. He wasn’t. It was physically impossible for them to—unless she did the ritual. The one he’d tried to talk her into just the night before, without ever once mentioning how important it might be for their future. Not his, not hers, theirs. The future that apparently didn’t matter to him anywhere near as much as it mattered to her.

All of this went through her mind in just a few seconds, a series of feelings like the images she got when reading people rather than coherent thoughts. Greyson must have seen them in her eyes or on her face; his went blank, the careful mask he presented to hide his emotions.

“Fuck.” The word was so quiet she wasn’t sure she’d actually heard it; for a dizzy moment she wondered if she’d somehow at this late date developed the ability to communicate telepathically.

Greyson closed the door very slowly behind him and stood perfectly still with his head bowed for a long moment. “Tera, Carter, Malleus, would you mind leaving us please? I think Megan would like to talk to me alone.”