Personal Demons

Chapter 12

The wind made her eyes water, but she didn't care. The cool, damp air felt wonderful against her heated skin.

"Just relax ... just be still and relax." Greyson's voice seemed to come from very far away, though he stood right next to her with his hands hard on her upper arms. "Deep breaths ... deep breaths..."

"He was in my mind," she whispered. "He invaded my mind."

"I know."

"I had my shields up, I don't know how he managed to do that, why is he able to do that, I don't—"

"Come on." Greyson released her arms and took her left hand in his, leading her off her little patio and out into the yard. The stiff grass whispered under her shoes. September had changed from Indian summer to autumn in a day, and winter's approach was fragrant in the air. She shivered.

From inside the house came the low voices of Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud as they watched television. Apparently they were big fans of the evening soaps. That normalcy only a few dozen feet away helped calm her, as did the motion of walking and the presence of someone at her side.

Megan and Greyson stopped just before the small patch of trees—nowhere near large enough to be called a forest or even a wood—that separated her property from the next neighborhood over. The trees, and the privacy they afforded, had been one of the things that most attracted Megan to the house when she'd bought it late the year before. Now she wished she'd bought a condo somewhere instead, in one of those horrible gated communities with a pool always surrounded by sullen teenagers and retirees, barely tolerating each other on the patio.

To her right, at the opposite corner, was the shed. Where Greyson had burned the zombies.

Greyson followed her gaze. "There's nothing over there," he said. "I swear."

"I believe you."

She hugged herself more closely and looked up at the dusky clouds in the dark sky overhead. What she wanted to do was cry. To curl up under the covers and make everything disappear.

She wanted to go home, but there was no home to go to. It had been made clear to Megan years ago that the only place in the world for her was a place she made herself. Now even that didn't feel safe anymore.

"You know, Meg," he said. "It's okay to be scared about all of this."

"What?" Her fingernails dug into her upper arms she was gripping them so tightly in an effort not to slap him. "What? Was that supposed to be helpful? Do you really think I'm standing here all worried that you might think I'm scared?"

Even as she said the words, she realized that was exactly what she was worried about, that no matter how scared she felt, she didn't want to admit it to him. The knowledge made her even angrier.

"No, I just thought maybe—"

"Maybe what? Maybe you can get me so worried about being afraid that I won't notice you haven't answered any of my questions? You still haven't even told me everything about the personal demons. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" Her shouts roused some birds in one of the nearby trees; they took off in a flurry of wings, sending leaves dancing down to the earth behind them.

"Lower your voice—"

"Not to mention what you hope to get out of this. I'm not stupid; I know there must be something you expect to accomplish. Are you going to explain that?"

"I've been trying—"

"Don't give me trying, you haven't been trying, you've just been smirking and acting superior and enjoying all of this, haven't you?"

"If you would—"

"I don't have to do anything, I'm not going to be all meek and let you—"

His lips stopped her words, warm and firm on hers as he pulled her to him.

The first thing she noticed was how hot his hands were on her face, how hard his body felt pressed against her. The second thing was how he tasted faintly of Scotch and smelled like vanilla and wood smoke.

There was no third thing. She was lost, lost in the sensations his lips evoked from every nerve ending, the way her entire body caught fire just as if he'd set her ablaze with a snap of his fingers.

He pulled her closer, pressing his left hand into the small of her back, switching his hold on her so his right hand tangled in her hair.

Her arms were around him without her realizing she'd put them there, her fingertips brushing against the tips of the sgaegas between his shoulder blades.

His tongue darted between her teeth and she met it with her own, surprised at the surge of power that flooded through her when they touched. It sizzled through her veins, white-hot, filling her body with light and pooling between her legs. She wouldn't have been surprised to see them both glowing, to see the trees around them lit up like daytime if she opened her eyes.

Which she did, as soon as Dante pulled away from her.

"May I speak now?" His voice was normal, but his breathing wasn't.

Megan straightened her spine and lifted her chin. "I'm not stopping you."

He stood there for a minute, watching her.

"I'm listening."

"Yes, yes, I'm just—just trying to think of where to start." He shoved his hands into his pockets again and started pacing. Without the heat of his body, she was cold again. The breeze swirled around her, finding the tiny holes in the weave of the clothing and caressing her rapidly cooling skin.

He sighed. "Okay. Here's the thing. Demons ... we're not like humans."

"Oh, gee, you don't say."

"Don't be sarcastic. I've never had to explain this before—well, I've never been allowed to explain this before. You heard Tera earlier. This is the kind of thing that could get me in big trouble with a number of people."

"Like the verga—vergera—"

"Vergadering. Yes. They're the ruling body for supernatural beings and they don't like it when they catch us telling tales. Neither do my employers. Or any other demons, or witches, or the Fae—although they have nothing to do with this and they're not under Vergadering rules—or the weres, the vampires, or anyone else."

"Weres and vampires? You're telling me vampires are real?"

He stopped short. "Demons and witches you'll believe, but vampires I'm making up?"

"Point taken."

"The Vergadering aren't too crazy about demons. They're all wizards and witches and they view us as secondary beings, beneath them. They attempted to erase us from the planet a few hundred years ago—you heard me mention it with Tera just now—"

"You guys were arguing about something that happened that long ago? You made it sound like it was last month."

"Do you want me to explain this or not?"

"Yes."

"Then be quiet. Time moves a little slower for us and, anyway, it isn't like you people don't carry prejudices from your own history. The point is, since the Vergadering is intent on keeping demons and our activities firmly under their fat little magical thumbs, we've built our own set of rules and standards. Ways to get around things a little. Back in the early nineteenth century, by your reckoning, the Meegras came into being. The Families."

"Then you are like the Mafia."

"No, no, no." He shook his head. "It's not ... well, okay. Yes. It's kind of like that. But it's not a criminal enterprise per se. It's just a way to keep track of things and to police ourselves so the Vergadering will stay as far away as possible.

"Are you cold?" It took her a second to catch the question and realize he expected an answer. She nodded.

He made a scooping motion with his hands. Flames rolled off his fingers, flaring orange in the darkness, and hovered a few inches above the ground.

Another move of his hand and the flames leapt higher. It was like a real campfire—only without logs—and warmth caressed her legs.

They sat down. The icy ground froze her skin, but the heat from Greyson's little fire more than made up for it. Megan felt like they were sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories and the dancing flames soothed her. Something deep inside her relaxed as Megan peacefully watched the shapes and colors change. Even the shadows the fire cast on the trees nearby weren't as threatening as they might once have been.

Megan understood now why her prehistoric ancestors had been eager to harness fire. Fire was safety. A precarious safety, yes, for it was still dangerous, still terrifying. But the act of sitting by a small, controlled fire such as this made one feel as though the element had been conquered, even if only for a short while.

She looked at Dante with something akin to awe. Not just because of the way he'd kissed her earlier—her stomach gave a distinct flip at the memory—but because he could do something no human had ever managed to do. He could command an element, bend energy to his will. It hadn't struck her with the same force in her cheery, well-lit house. Out here ... out here fire was life.

"You're staring at me." His voice sounded as if it were made of smoke itself, husky and low. She wondered if he could see her interest, her attraction, as plainly as she could see the flames reflected in his eyes. Somehow she thought he could.

"Sorry." She looked away.

He paused, but when she didn't speak he continued. "So we have our Meegras. And yes, we do fight for power, but it's not the way you think of power. Remember when you asked me yesterday about gods and souls?"

She nodded.

"Money is important and skills are important. But we all, well, collect souls too. Not the way you're thinking, but we do like to ... control people. At least, our power as a Meegra tends to be measured by how many humans we have."

"Have?" The cold was back. Did he view people as ... as creatures, as things put on earth to do his bidding?

"Say you're the head of a large company. Your worth is judged not only by how much money you make, but how large your empire is, all over the world, right? It's the same thing. And if we can manage to make humans’ lives a little less, ah, boring, we get some credit for it. Some power. Respect ... Don't look at me like that. Megan. What did you expect demons to do, teach baking classes and have sewing circles? Fucking with humans is our purpose in life."

She shook her head. "I try to help them, and you try to harm them."

"Our side is much more fun."

"Why are you helping me, then?"

He paused. "Because you've gotten yourself involved in something you shouldn't be involved in and I don't think you should get further involved."

"That's it?" There had to be more. He'd just finished explaining that demons collected people, hadn't he? Tera had called her a weapon. Greyson said someone with her abilities would be seen as a threat. Could he be trying to recruit her?

"Plus you gave your word to us in the beginning, remember? You promised not to accept other offers. We have a vested interest in making sure you don't end up with Bellingham. It would make us look bad."

"But I won't end up with Bellingham."

"We need it to look like you're with us. Part of my job is to make sure it looks that way."

She'd been pulling blades of grass up as he spoke, shredding the thin dying leaves between her fingers. Now her fingertips touched bare, hard earth. She fisted her hands and crossed her arms instead. "I see." This was just business, demon business. Fine. Lots of people kissed their business acquaintances so hard their bodies throbbed. "Am I going to owe you a favor? What if I say no?"

"Maybe you will. Maybe it will be something you want to do."

"I won't join your family or become a demon, you know."

"I don't remember asking you to." The firelight danced over his scowl.

An awkward silence settled between them. No, he hadn't asked her to join his family. He hadn't even asked her on a real date and here she was refusing to marry him. And she wondered sometimes why she was still alone.

"I have a question," she said, hoping to change the subject. "What does mine look like?"

"What?"

"My demon."

Now it was his turn to pick at the grass. "Didn't I tell you?" The studied casualness of his voice might have fooled her two days ago. Not now.

"No, you didn't tell me."

"I thought I had."

"Stop dawdling. What are you hiding?"

"You don't have one."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't have one. You're the only person in the world without one. Strange. We're not sure how it happened. But there it is. You're without a personal demon."

"But I—" She almost bit her tongue. "I don't believe you."

"One thing I'm not," he said, in a voice cold enough to make her shiver, "is a liar."

She stared at him. He relented. "Not about stuff like this, anyway."

"But you didn't tell me this before."

"You didn't ask before."

"That's a lie by omission."

"Megan," he said. "What difference does it make?"

"You should have told me." She stood up, not wanting to be with him anymore, not even wanting to look at him. Away from his fire the cold wind cut through her again. "You shouldn't have waited for me to ask."

"I hoped you wouldn't ask."

He reached for her, but she pulled away. "Is this why you can't tell them I'm not a threat to them? Because they don't have any connection with me?"

He nodded. "It makes you pretty powerful. Anything rare becomes valuable, doesn't it?"

"And I'm rare enough to be valuable to you?"

He opened his mouth, closed it again. This time he managed to grip her shoulders before she tore herself away and headed back towards the house. Whatever he had to say, or whatever he wanted to do, she wasn't ready.

When she was in college she'd hidden another girl's class notes as a joke. The girl had been mean to her, but without her notes she'd almost failed. Nobody made Megan do that. She'd done it herself.

Once, while shopping, she had seen another woman take the last copy of a DVD Megan wanted off the rack and place it in her cart. When the woman turned her back, Megan grabbed the DVD and rushed to the counter to buy it herself. Her own choice.

Just like all the other petty meannesses and minor transgressions of day-to-day life. The parking spaces taken, the five dollar bills found on the ground and pocketed instead of being turned in, the dirty looks given to people driving too slow.

Most of these choices hadn't bothered her more than the occasional twinge of conscience. Now ... now she knew everyone else had a demon who ordered or encouraged them to do those things. Was everyone else good, and only she truly bad? Was that why she didn't have a personal demon?

Greyson, damn him, seemed to know the track of her thoughts. He caught up with her, stopped her with his hand on her arm. "You're not a bad person, Meg."

"How the hell do you know?" She wanted to believe him so badly it hurt, but she couldn't. He'd lied to her, he hadn't told her about this, and she felt like she was swimming in the middle of a lake too large and deep for her to ever reach the shore. "How would you know anything about people? And why would your good opinion mean anything, anyway? You're a demon. You do evil shit for fun, for a living. You use people up and throw them out, you just admitted it. How are you qualified to judge me in any way?"

The moment the words left her mouth she regretted them, but she couldn't seem to find her tongue to apologize. They just stood there, the wind blowing between them like an invisible, angry barrier.

Finally he spoke. "Do you want me to take the boys with me when I go?"

"No."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'm independent, not stupid. Obviously I need some physical protection." Although why, she couldn't be sure. Was a petty, mean-minded soul like hers even worth saving?

Well, yes, it was. No matter how she felt, she didn't want to die. She would just have to make more of an effort. She'd have to be better, nicer.

She sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I guess I overreacted a little bit. This is stressful, you know, and I'm not sure how I should be responding to it all."

"Sure."

They stood awkwardly for another minute, the voices of the brothers singing a rousing rendition of "Knees Up, Mother Brown" forming a surreal soundtrack to their isolation. "Do you want to have another drink? Might warm us up," she said.

He shook his head. "I should get going. I have to meet with Tera tomorrow morning and I'm pretty tired after last night."

"Sure."

His goodbyes to Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud were just as smooth as ever, but Megan noticed their curious looks. She decided to ignore them. Screw Greyson Dante. She didn't particularly like him anyway, cool bastard of a demon that he was.

He wasn't even human. What had she been thinking? Just because his appearance rang every bell she had and his kiss made her feel like she'd found something long lost did not mean they were suited for each other or that she was interested in him. Well, interested in him in a way that didn't begin and end in bed. She was human, after all, and it had been some time since she'd ... been with someone.

Not that he deserved the pleasure, but she did. Either way, it wasn't going to happen. Not now, not ever, and next time he decided to plant an arrogant kiss on her she'd be ready with her fists clenched. Or, at least, prepared to pull away and say "no."

Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud were watching her, and she realized she was staring at the closed front door as if she could will it to open again. She shook her head and turned to them. "Where do you guys want to sleep? I can make up the bed in the guest room, I think two of you can fit there if you don't mind sharing, and..." She'd never had this many guests before. Come to think of it, she'd never had any guests before. "I can make up the couch, too."

"No need, m'lady," Malleus replied. "On'y one of us sleeps at a time. The guest bed's all we needs. T'other two'll be on duty, right?"

Visions of them hovering over her bed watching her sleep danced in Megan's head like beer-filled sugarplums. "On duty where?"

"One of us in ‘ere, one in your room. We'll take turns."

How to put this delicately? "I get a little, ah, nervous at the thought of people watching me sleep."

Surprise was not a flattering emotion on their crinkly, pug-nosed faces. "We can't let you sleep alone, m'lady," Maleficarum said. "Mr. Dante wouldn’ like that at all."

"Maybe I could just leave the door open?" Even as she suggested that, she knew it was no good. Her shoulders sagged. "Okay, but please let me at least use the bathroom and change by myself."

They relented and, after searching the rooms, allowed her to brush her teeth. She put on her oldest, most modest nightgown, a flannel monstrosity with a high collar and a hem that almost reached her ankles. The last time she'd let anyone see it was her last boyfriend; he'd thought it was hysterical and had insisted on calling her "Miss Eyre" every time she put it on, which wasn't often...

Even covered as she was, the boys averted their eyes until she finally threw on her bathrobe, too. It wasn't cold enough yet for such clothing, and she was sweating by the time she'd finally had enough bland late-night television and gone to bed.

Sleep refused to come. One of the demons moved around in the room and she pulled the sweltering covers closer around her sweaty head. She had no doubt he was being as respectful as possible and not staring at her, but it was still disconcerting.

All things considered, though, what was one more discomfort? In the past few days she'd made her radio debut, been attacked by zombies, met several demons and a witch, seen quite a few more demons, been suspended, and had her psychic defenses breached by someone—or something—who felt like pure, cold evil crawling up her spine.

She'd just been informed that the entire rest of the human population had something that she didn't and her head ached every time she tried to figure out what that meant about her.

Worst of all was the email Brian Stone received. After all these years ... she'd thought she would never hear the name Harlan Trooper again, would never have to see his face or hear his voice in her mind. Even now some part of her brain refused to let her remember what had happened. It was a blur, just as it had been for years before she'd finally managed to banish the memory completely. The prospect of telling it again, of dredging it all back up, made her chest hollow and cold.

And what about Brian? Was he friend or foe? She had no idea. Even less did she know for sure which side Greyson Dante fell on. All she knew about him was that her lips still tingled.