Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

Megan tried to take comfort in this, but somehow the idea that Gerald’s end via demonic possession—whether it had caused a heart attack or had taken his life in some other, more sinister fashion—had been written in the stars just didn’t hold true for her.

“Yeah. Well. Thanks for calling me, Althea. Did the police say when they’d be there tomorrow?” With her luck it would probably be the same ones who’d busted her on Friday.

“They asked if nine was okay, but I told them eight’s better, that way there aren’t any clients in the office.”

“Great.”

“And, honey…I feel just awful springing this on you at a time like this, but…”

“Just say it, Althea. Don’t worry.”

“The partners…that is, some of us…”

“Which means everyone but you, right?”

Althea cleared her throat. “Some of us want to talk to you. About what happened Friday.”

“Do you mean my interrupting a session?” Did Althea’s refusal to answer mean she was included in this group this time? When the partners had suspended her three months before, Althea had been the holdout. She’d been the only one purely on Megan’s side. Was she not any more?

“Well, yes. And the, ah, arrest.”

“Jesus, does everyone in the city know about that?”

“Someone called us.”

“Someone?”

“She didn’t give a name. Just said you were in jail. By the time I got there, though, you’d been let go.”

“Nobody pressed charges,” Megan said. “It was a mistake.” Who the hell had called her office to tell them she’d been arrested? Nobody knew about that. Nobody but the arresting officers, Greyson, Hunter Kyle, and…

And whoever it was who’d made that phone call about the supposed body and tipped the cops off to begin with.

Not to mention probably all of Vergadering, but the chances they would have involved themselves in something as mundane as this were slim to none. Tera said they weren’t investigating, so the idea that they would have been responsible for an anonymous phone call to get Megan in trouble at work was really stretching it.

“Honey, I just want to warn you. I’m sure the police thing was just a big misunderstanding. But you know one of the things that makes our practice different is the way we organize things and, well, ever since you started that radio show you haven’t been very organized. We had to suspend you for that one week, then you took two weeks off, and now it seems you’re taking long weekends almost every month…we just don’t feel like your heart’s in the practice anymore.”

“Are you…” Her throat felt like someone had filled it with glue. “Am I being asked to leave?”

Pause. “We just want you to think about whether you really want to stay. If you still want to make that kind of commitment to us.”

Funny. Everyone seemed to want her to make some kind of commitment to them these days. Everyone except, of course, Greyson Dante.

Two minor domestic disputes, one rebellious teenager, one disgruntled employee, and a woman who didn’t know if she should accept a marriage proposal from a “reformed” felon later, Megan was just taking her last call of the night on her radio show when it happened. Again.

As my-name-is-Pat started telling her about an issue with her mother, Megan opened her shields to read. This had actually become much easier to do over the phone than in person lately, she’d noticed, in large part because so many of the Yezer felt the need to show themselves during appointments, especially when clients described feelings of misery or doubt. They’d nod and wink and wave, expecting Megan to cheer them, she guessed.

She had guessed. Now she wondered if they were taunting her instead. Although given what had happened in their home the night before, she doubted they’d be taunting her again anytime soon.

So, relieved that there weren’t any little demon faces looking at her, Megan lowered her shields, just as she had for her first ten callers, and reached out.

And got nothing.

It didn’t make sense. My-name-is-Pat, whose real name was of course probably not anything like Pat, had the trembly, shaky kind of voice Megan associated with people who were easy to read. Nerves opened them up, as a rule. So did adrenaline, fear…the closer to victim-hood people were, the easier it was to break through the weak shields most carried instinctively.

“But she just doesn’t seem to appreciate anything I do for her,” my-name-is-Pat said. “All she does is criticize. And she tells my children she doesn’t care about them.”

Megan leaned forward in her chair as if she could somehow get closer to the woman by doing so. Why wasn’t she getting anything? She’d never not been able to read someone, unless…Unless they weren’t human. She couldn’t read demons.

My-name-is-Pat didn’t sound like a demon, and Megan couldn’t think of a single reason why a demon would call her show and pretend to be just another human seeking advice. But there was no other explanation for it. Either my-name-is-Pat was a demon, or…

Or she was possessed by one.

“Pat, this seems to be causing a lot of stress for you,” Megan said. “How have you been sleeping?”

Flying blind was definitely not her favorite thing to do, and whatever she knew about demon possession she’d learned from B movies. But she imagined it would be something like Dissociative Identity Disorder, so she came at it from that angle.

“Oh, I seem to fall asleep anywhere,” warbled my-name-is-Pat. “What difference does that make?”

“Do you think you’re sleeping too much?”

“I didn’t know you could get too much sleep. Is that, like, a medical problem?”

Just answer the damned question! “So are you just falling asleep at odd moments or places? You said you seem to fall asleep anywhere.”

“Well, sometimes I sit down and the next thing I know it’s several hours later.” Nervous laugh. “But I’m not getting any younger, you know! We start to need more sleep as we age.”

Given that the woman was probably barely forty, Megan rolled her eyes. Still…she shifted in her seat. The woman was losing time and couldn’t be read. Something was definitely wrong here, and it was a lot more than just a disapproving mother. Hell, Megan’s own mother hadn’t spoken to her in ten years, unless you counted curt little Christmas cards printed complete with signature facsimile—Happy Holidays from Diane and Dave”—as talking. Megan didn’t.

“Have you been to a doctor? About your sleeping?” What to tell my-name-is-Pat? “You’re probably possessed by some sort of demon” just didn’t seem right, somehow. Aside from the fact that Megan had no idea how to treat it or take care of it or anything. Greyson had said all that God versus the Devil stuff ceased being relevant centuries ago, and there wasn’t even a Hell anymore.

So Megan did the cowardly thing, the only thing she could. She told my-name-is-Pat to give her mother a break and remember how hard the old woman’s life must have been. She told her to take vitamins and get some exercise and to cut down on time with her mother if it upset her so much. She told her everything she would have told any client in the same situation, and hoped for her sake this had nothing to do with the red shape behind Gerald’s eyes before he’d leaped at her Friday night.

Her cell phone rang just as she was nearing the turnoff for her neighborhood. Thankfully she was stopped at a light, because the damn thing had fallen so far into the bottom of her purse she would have run off the road while hunting for it.

“Hello?”

“It was lost in your purse, wasn’t it?” Greyson’s voice was sexy and intimate even over the phone. Megan wondered how he managed it.