Demon Inside

“Why do we need to copy them?”

“I want to look into it. See if it was a Meegra purchase or a personal one of Temp’s. Speaking of which…” He picked his watch off the small scratched-up wooden nightstand. “We don’t have a lot of time, and we still need to get back to the city for the funeral tonight.”

“What—tonight, really?”

“Has to be done as soon as possible. You’ll need to come—all the Gretnegs will be there—but the ceremony after is for Sorithell only.”

“Ceremony?”

“When I become Gretneg,” he said, and before he kissed her forehead she saw the triumph in his eyes.

The policeman held out his hand. Megan shook it, glad they’d gotten dressed and cleaned the room in plenty of time, but uncomfortably aware that she was going commando under her dress.

“Your mother, she asked me to come along—”

“To make sure you didn’t steal anything,” Diane finished coldly. “Please wait, Officer Dunkirk, while I finish checking the bedrooms.”

Officer Dunkirk blushed. Megan didn’t. She’d known when she heard the unfamiliar voice downstairs what her mother had done. She didn’t care. No matter how long this little burst of euphoria lasted, this new feeling of confidence, she’d at least been able to go back to her indifference to the moods and petty cruelties of her mother. She’d done just fine without the woman for years, and she could keep on doing so.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Dunkirk said. “Everything checked out as far as that fire complaint last night. Sorry we troubled you about it.”

Because we used supernatural trickery to get it to. But the police didn’t need to know that, so she just smiled. “Thank you.”

Maldon had indeed given their names to the police—omitting everything but his “idea” that he “might have” seen them on the street right before the fire. Not so brave after they’d escaped and he knew they were meeting with his Gretneg tomorrow.

After which—oh please—they would leave for the cabin and a solid week of relaxation.

They spent a few more uncomfortable minutes standing there. Megan tried not to look around at the walls that had once housed her, the furniture she’d crawled onto as a child, but she couldn’t help it. Over there by the kitchen door was where she’d spilled a glass of Kool-Aid and gotten sent to her room for a week. The darkened Christmas tree in front of the window, where it had been every year. She’d broken an ornament when she was eight and hadn’t been allowed to help decorate it again for three years.

It had never felt like home, not that she could remember. It had been a prison, as cold and impersonal as any other, as lonely as that damned hospital her father had conspired to put her in. A few years of closeness and happiness, when she was so young the memories existed only in a haze and then…nothing.

She would never be in this house again. When her mother died she wouldn’t be back, if anyone even bothered to tell her about it. As for Dave…she had to admit that made her a little sad. Dave hadn’t given up on her as quickly as her parents had.

But he’d given up just the same.

Greyson had been right. She didn’t need these people, not for anything. The thought buoyed her despite her worries.

“You stole my apple crisp.”

“Excuse me?”

“I made a crisp,” Diane said. “It was in the refrigerator. And a bottle of water. You stole them.”

Officer Dunkirk looked completely lost. Megan could read his thoughts without even needing to lower her shields. Was he supposed to arrest them over a dessert and a bottle of Evian?

Greyson pulled out his money clip and held out a bill to her mother with the air of a king paying a leper to go away. “Here. To cover your inconvenience.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like you, Mr. Dante.”

He shrugged. “Come on, Meg, let’s go.”

Megan looked at Diane, with her chic silvery bob and her impeccable black dress. Almost like a mirror image of herself, aged and viewed through a lens of ice.

“Good-bye, Mother.” Should she offer her hand? She certainly wasn’t going to give the viper a hug.

“What did you do to your neck?”

Megan’s hand flew to the tender spot on her throat. By the time Greyson put his shirt on, his scratches had started to shrink, but they’d forgotten her bruises. “I…I stumbled on the stairs.”

Diane watched her for a minute. “You always were clumsy.”

She turned and walked back to the kitchen, the conversation clearly over.

“I know this has been a…busy week for you,” Rocturnus said. “So I haven’t wanted to bother you.”

Megan lifted her face from her hands to look up at him. This was not the way she wanted to spend the hour she had free between finally arriving home and heading for Greyson’s Iureanlier for the funeral. “But you should have. This is something I need to know.”

“You haven’t been very interested so far.” It sounded like a reprimand—she knew it was—but the delivery was obviously calculated to put her at ease.

Too bad it didn’t work.

“I don’t understand this. I went there not even a week ago and showed them—”

“Being powerful doesn’t mean you know how to lead them. You need to lead them. I know you don’t like it, but…this is the way it is.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. Megan looked around the little office with its dark wood and comfortable flowered-chintz furniture. Her demons had a taste for the quaint; she assumed it was because they were so small.

She’d assumed a lot of things.

Whatever was happening to her wasn’t going to just go away. Roc wanted her to do the ritual. So did Greyson. Because both of them felt she wasn’t co

They wanted her, needed her, to be something different. And she didn’t have a choice but to be it.

“Bring him in,” she said, steeling herself. John Wayne would know what to do here. Joan Crawford would know how to get those little buggers in line.

So Megan Chase could do it too.

Rocturnus left, returning a few minutes later with Halarvus. She’d seen him before; he was one of the demons who’d grumbled and snickered in the back of the room last time she was here.

His black eyes regarded her coldly. She could feel his indifference. It pissed her off.

“Halarvus, do you know why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What difference does it make? I don’t answer to you. I’m not going to be one of your little demons of light, spreading joy and happiness to all the kiddies. Our mother is offering us a chance to be what we are.” His black eyes widened in his dark blue face. “To feed.”

“I let you feed.” She wanted to smack herself. Why was it so easy for her to take the lead with people, with her clients, but dealing with her demons made her so nervous and unsure of herself? Like a child trying to tell adults what to do.

If she lost them all, she could die. She could lose all of her power and become like a flower with no petals. Nothing.

Come on, Megan…you can do this.

“Not the way we want. Not the way we should.”

God damn it, why was nothing in her life simple anymore?

Her power was always stronger here, always seemed to come more readily to her call. Keeping her face impassive, she lowered her shields and let it go, not all of it, just enough to knock Halarvus across the room.

“You’re not going anywhere.” She stood up, hating herself, hating the tiny flare of pleasure in her chest. If she did the ritual, would this be easier? Would she be able to accept it? Or would it be worse, putting her more at war with herself than she was already?