Demon Inside

“Here.” Nick held it for her, his eyes averted while she flipped through it by the light from Greyson’s hand. Various phrases leaped out at her. “Presented with persecutory delusions…No shoelaces or cutting implements permitted…refuses to eat…fight with another patient…” She didn’t remember any of that.

“I was in 526.”

Greyson thought for a minute. “I still want to at least check the other floors, just in case. But if you can feel it, whatever it is, we’ll do it as quickly as possible.”

“I think I can. I’ll try anyway.”

“I can help,” Nick said. “I might be able to feel it too. My—my father was part psyche demon.”

“Psyche demon?”

“Greyson’s a fire demon, the boys are actually herket demons—their ancestors performed tortures in Hell. They’re physical demons, you know what I mean, with some mental abilities. But psyche demons are like the Yezer, their powers are all mental, with slight physical strengths. I can feel a few things from you without touching you, so it’s possible I’ll be able to feel the demon here if I focus.”

Greyson looked at his friend. Something passed between them, some sort of moment Megan didn’t understand. “Thanks, Nick.”

Nick shrugged. “Let’s go, then. Get this over with.”

They turned and started back up the stairs. Megan’s feet were heavy. She had to force her body to move, to obey her and keep walking toward…whatever was up there.

At the top of the staircase the hallway split, leading to the left and the right. The air up here was a little cleaner, but colder too as the wind blew through the empty windows and doorways. Kids had been in the building, teenagers drinking or getting high or just on a dare, and they’d left their calling cards in spray paint on the walls. CP + DK 4-EVER stretched across the wall in blood red paint, the letters dripping like the title of a Hammer horror flick, next to a passable copy of Motor-head’s Warpig. Another invited readers to suck his cock. At least Megan assumed the anonymous wit had been male. A swastika—no wall of graffiti seemed complete without some asshole adding that one, especially not in a town like Grant Falls.

The sight of it bothered her, brought memories of the town’s hate flooding back even more clearly than they already had been, but she didn’t expect Maleficarum to react the way he did. The sound he made could only be called a growl, and he flung his large body at the wall, hammering it with his fists until the plaster gave and nothing was left but a gaping hole. When he turned around his eyes were red, even in the dim light.

There was no time to question it, no time to react, because something moaned at the other end of the hall, something that sent chills rising up Megan’s spine. A zombie…two zombies…the fire flared higher and she saw more, coming around the corner, a small army.

An uneasy moment passed as they stared at each other, demons, human, and zombies facing off in the hallway at the top of the stairs, and then the zombies charged.

She could vaguely remember Greyson telling her that the speed at which zombies moved was related to how strong the zombie maker was. Ktana Leyak must be getting more from the Yezer than Megan ever had.

The hall lit up like a ta

“Go! Meg, go!”

Nick was already moving, grabbing her arm, yanking her away from where Greyson stood with his brow furrowed in concentration. Heat roared down the hallway, singeing her eyebrows, and she understood even as Nick and Malleus tugged her around the corner that if she didn’t get away she would burn, they would all burn when the zombies fell on them. The last thing she saw was Greyson standing, his body outlined black against the burning bodies advancing on him, his shoulders set as he waited.

They’d almost reached the end of the hall when explosions ripped the air. Megan’s hair blew forward, lifted from her shoulders by the force of the blast. To her right the blackness of the empty stairwell beckoned; they all ducked into it and started up the stairs, their feet pounding on the cement.

Another explosion rocked the building and tore a scream from Megan’s throat. Blindly she turned, stumbling back down toward the landing. If he was hurt, if he’d died—

“He’s fine!” Nick practically pulled her arm out of its socket as he dragged her up the stairs. “He’s fine, Megan, come on!”

The edge of a step collided painfully with her shin as she tripped over her own feet, but there was no time to stop, no time even to hear her own cry of pain.

The stained walls were nothing but a jumble in front of her. Something fell with a dull clang on the metal railing. A chunk of the stairs above. The building still shook. Another dull explosion rattled through it.

They reached the third floor and started down the hall, their feet shuffling through dead leaves and refuse. Megan’s demon heart gave another leap, bigger than it had been downstairs, and she stopped, almost falling forward.

“Nick? Do you—”

He nodded. “Not here. But closer.”

She turned back toward the stairs, but Maleficarum pulled her away. “Down there, m’lady. We don’t wa

Nothing came at them from the empty caves of the rooms they passed, but Megan had the sense of things waiting in there, skulking against the dingy shadowed walls, crouching under windowsills. She ran as fast as she could, hooking her finger into Nick’s belt loop and letting him pull her along until he slipped and she crashed down with him.

Her body knew what they’d fallen into before her mind was able to grasp it, to comprehend it. Blood, warm and sticky, spreading in a slow oozing lake across the hall. Her pants and coat were soaked with it, and when her demon heart twitched again she knew it wasn’t just blood, it was Yezer blood, her demons were here and they were being hurt, just like in their home. They should have been safe and they weren’t and that fucking bitch, she was going to get her—

She didn’t think she’d ever felt rage like this before, this bone-deep fury, and it scared her just as much as it elated her, made her feel powerful, more than powerful. Aroused, and that’s when she realized she had hold of Nick’s hand and was taking his energy, sucking it slowly into herself, and if she didn’t stop soon she was going to explode. The sex came from him, but it was the anger that shoved its way into her stomach and flooded her limbs. Jesus, he’s so angry, he’s so fucking hurt and angry—

She dropped his hand as if it had turned into a tarantula and backed away, slipping in the blood and falling against the grimy wall. The lake at her feet still spread; she turned, into the gaping mouth of the doorway and saw, in the faint light through the plastic over the empty window, pieces of her demons. Ears, legs, torsos, roughly stacked like Lincoln Logs against the wall, tumbled across the floor. How many of them, she didn’t know, but they were there, they were everywhere.

Where was Roc? Was he in there, God was he in there, one of those random limbs making the space look like the back room of a slaughterhouse?

She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until Malleus took hold of her arms and propelled her away, down the hall, squishing in the blood. “He ain’t there, m’lady, don’t you fret none, he’ll be ’ere soon, you wait an’ see…”

There were no windows in the far stairwell. It was like stepping into a mouth and being swallowed, feeling their way up the steps, moving slowly enough for Megan to start wondering why she hadn’t heard any more explosions in a while, and why Greyson hadn’t yet appeared. Her chest hurt.

The pitted metal railing bit into her hands but she was afraid to let go. Why they’d come armed to the teeth but without so much as a cigarette lighter…but then, they’d assumed they wouldn’t need to make their own fire, hadn’t they? It had never even occurred to her that Greyson might not be at her side every step of the way. Dangerous, that. Her vision blurred and she realized she was sobbing as they walked.