Demon Inside

Tera raised her eyebrows. “Mr. Lawden. I have a few questions for you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t see what sorts of answers I might have. Greyson called me last night to inform me your witches had gravely injured Orion. He was dead by the time I got here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you implying something, Miss Green?”

“Only that if one of your people killed my witches, you might know something about it.”

Megan choked on her drink, but Winston only smiled indulgently. “Miss Green, I can assure you I did not. I’ve recently discovered Orion was…acting outside his authority, shall we say? This had nothing to do with me.”

Greyson must have called him while she was in the shower or when he got up in the morning. Or maybe demons simply had plenty of practice at this sort of thing, which was likely. She knew how quickly Greyson’s mind moved. Usually she wasn’t too bad herself, but she just couldn’t seem to get it together this morning. The coffee actually seemed to be working against her rather than helping; she was starting to feel sick.

Two witches came to collect Orion’s body, their faces fixed in disapproving sneers as they pulled the sheet over his ruined head and lifted the gurney with a clang of metal against metal.

“This will still be investigated,” Tera said. “Just because we can no longer question Orion Maldon doesn’t mean we’re done looking into his actions.”

“I’m an open book,” Winston said. A whisper of cold wafted over Megan’s skin. His voice echoed strangely in her head. Was he dragging out his words, or was it just her? He sounded like a record played on too slow a speed. “Feel free to make an appointment to speak with me, if you must.”

“How about now?”

“Am I suspected? Are you declaring me so? Because if not, you can make an appointment, and if so, I’m permitted my own witnesses. Uninvolved witnesses.”

Megan’s cup fell from her hand. The couch was so soft…she could just lie down and go to sleep…

“Megan? Megan!”

Greyson’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her. Maybe a little more roughly than he needed to. She was just tired, is all. Didn’t it make sense that she would be, after everything that had happened? And they hadn’t ended up going to sleep until almost three. So much to do, so much to discuss…

“Le’me ’lone.” She brushed feebly at his arm, while Tera’s and Winston’s voices joined the chorus of concern and she heard pounding in the distance. Someone knocking somewhere…why couldn’t she open her eyes?

More voices. One sounded like Roc, which didn’t make any sense because Roc wouldn’t be here. He was with the other Yezer, in his little room that looked like Currier & Ives threw up in it.

“All of them…she took…destroyed…everywhere…” The voices sounded like faraway whispers, like television filtered up stairs and under a closet door. She used to like to play in the closet, when she was little…it felt so secret and safe in there. Just like now.

“Fuck! Meg, wake up, sit up, come on…”

“God, she’s so pale.” Gentle hands patted her cheeks.

“Is she breathing?”

“Shit, get…”

Hands on her shoulders, lifting her from the couch, then sliding up to cup her face. She mumbled feebly and tried to push him away. Just like a man, couldn’t he see she was tired?

His lips pressed against hers, forcing her to accept the kiss. “Go ’way,” she started to say, but when she opened her mouth his tongue slipped inside, along with a deep, low rush of burning power. It flew through her body, heating her from the inside, speeding her sluggish blood and making her gasp.

Her eyes opened, then closed again as she leaned forward, raising her hands to his shoulders, trying to pull him closer. Somewhere deep in her mind she remembered there were other people in the room, but it didn’t matter. She was waking up, unfurling like a butterfly, going from exhausted to normal to overheated with desire in the space of a few seconds.

Abruptly he pulled away. She reached for him, her eyes widening at the sight of his tense, pale face, but as she did, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Tera’s and Winston’s backs were politely turned, but she was dimly aware that she’d moaned, or something, and her face grew hot. Or would have, if it wasn’t already. Her cheeks stung. How hard had they actually hit her?

Worse than that was the little body next to Tera. It was Roc. And if Roc was here, something was very wrong.

Wreckage.

That’s all it was.

Megan blinked back tears as she took in the little doors hanging on their hinges, the broken furniture scattered across the shining floor. At least, it had shone once. Now blood, sticky and dark, slicked the surface and spattered the walls. It formed a clotted sludge in the crevices joining the floors and walls and in the cracks between the floorboards.

Roc righted a chair and slumped into it. “She took everyone,” he said for the tenth time, repeating the words over and over as if he could make sense of the event by describing it. “I managed to get away…I don’t know how.”

“She probably let you go,” Greyson said. He stood beside Megan, holding her hand, just staring around the room. Megan knew he was imagining his own Iureanlier, thinking of the destruction that could have been visited there the night before if they hadn’t acted quickly enough.

Ktana Leyak had arrived shortly before dawn, somehow managing to remain inside one of Megan’s demons long enough to get back here, the one place they should have been safe. Their home.

When the alarm sounded, those Yezer out with their humans had come back, only to face their own destruction. Those who’d remained stalwart to Megan were torn apart. The others acquiesced quickly.

She’d spirited them away, Roc didn’t know where. And nobody was alive who did.

Megan reached inside herself, looking for the door, looking for the co

Greyson’s energy still buzzed through her body, keeping her awake and alert, but for how long?

Roc nodded. “She wanted Megan to know what she’d done. She wants her revenge.”

Megan’s knees buckled. Greyson held her by the waist and slid a chair beneath her before they gave out, but it was little comfort, especially not since through the handkerchief he’d laid down the cushion was spattered with tacky blood. She’d never thought this much about blood in her entire life and she’d certainly never had to see so much of it.

If the demon inside her was still alive, it would be leaping right now, wouldn’t it? Raging at her, clawing at her chest, desperate to feed?

If it was dead, what would happen to her? Sure, Greyson could still shove power into her. Her psychic abilities were still there, her ability to hold his energy intact. But how long could that last? How long would it be before she became an anchor dragging around his neck, something pitiful, a duty?

All that coffee she’d drunk earlier had left a horrible, sour taste in her mouth.

“Isn’t this revenge enough?” She didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in her voice. “What more is there?”

Her ears rang in the silence. High-pitched, like the whine of Brownian motion only children hear. Must be the shock. Or she was having problems with her ears. Just what she needed on top of everything else. Ear infections.

Maybe she could get diagnosed with Epstein-Barr or something, get some sort of medical help that way…

The whine grew louder and broke, then started again.

“What is that?” Greyson asked.

“What? You hear it too?”

“Of course I hear it.” He squeezed her hand and let go, picking his way through the panorama of destruction to an overturned sofa and flipping it up.