Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

Where they would go from there she had no idea. The demon hadn’t been moving very quickly, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t.

The ground shook. The demon had slammed her fist down on the street. Malleus stumbled, knocking Megan’s hip painfully against the trunk of the car they’d slipped behind. He righted himself just before they hit the ground and flipped her back over, yanking her down in the same motion so they crouched just a few cars away from Brian and Roc.

Brian seemed to have regained control of himself. He motioned her over, keeping himself in the smallest possible ball behind a beat-up Escort.

“Human,” the demon woman said. Her voice reached right into Megan’s soul and vibrated there. “You have something that belongs to me. I want it back.”

Brian shook his head. “Don’t,” he mouthed, his brows knitted. “Don’t.”

Malleus tightened his grip on her arm.

Roc’s entire body shook. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“I know you’re back there, little human.”

A creak, then the twisting crunch of metal as the demon woman picked up the Toyota Megan and Malleus hid behind and tossed it away as if it were an empty box. The car landed on another across the street with a brittle crash. Glass flew everywhere and sparkled on the street, oddly festive in the icy pale moonlight.

Megan, exposed like a child playing hide-and-seek badly, cringed into Malleus. He pushed her sideways, stepping in front of her, rising to his full height with his arms ready at his sides.

Roc took her hand, and Megan realized in that moment how stupid she’d been. She had no hope of defeating this demon by herself. Malleus didn’t either, she knew. But with Brian and the power of the Yezer behind her—the power she’d learned only days before she could still harness and reach—she had a chance.

The demon woman’s hands came toward her, the fingers still coated with witch’s blood. Megan closed her eyes against the sight, found the door inside herself, and opened it.

Power flared in her body, greenish-blue sparks that sizzled along her skin and nerve endings. But nowhere near where it had been before, nowhere near the all-consuming blast she’d felt Saturday night.

She tried again, focusing, concentrating all her might on it. Maybe she wasn’t—

“M’lady!”

A shove. She fell against a chain-link fence and shifted sideways, caught by Brian, pulled away even as Malleus rose from the pavement, hoisted by one bloody demon hand.

Megan screamed. Brian held her tighter, trying to shove her toward her car, but Megan fought him, turned the feeble energy from her opened door into a weapon and crashed it into him, tears clouding the vision of Malleus being borne into the air, of his struggles calming as she turned those mesmeric green-light eyes on him…

Brian’s arms convulsed around her as her psychic weapon made contact. “Shit!” She felt him fumble in her pocket, felt him let go, heard his footsteps as he ran away, but she couldn’t care, couldn’t even think about anything but Malleus.

At her feet rested a dusty wine bottle. She picked it up and threw it, aiming for the demon woman’s chest, knowing the chances it would inflict any damage were slim to none.

Indeed it did nothing, smashing against the rotted-looking flesh but not even making the demon woman blink.

“Ye old bitch!” Malleus shouted. Light flashed off the edge of the blade Megan hadn’t realized he had as he lifted it over his head and drove it into one of the glowing eyes.

The demon shrieked, her mouth opening impossibly wide, revealing several rows of foul teeth.

Megan picked up a brick off the ground, grateful for the first time that this street was already like a war zone, and flung it. It bounced off the demon’s teeth, but her scream grew louder in acknowledgment. Triumph like sweet blood red wine flooded Megan’s breast.

Tires squealed on the pavement. Brian spun Megan’s car around, turning the headlights on high beam, aiming them right at the demon woman.

She turned, her eyes widening as the hood of the Focus sped toward her. Malleus pulled back his knife and raised it for another strike—

And fell to the ground just as the car whizzed past. The demon woman had disappeared, leaving the street silent and empty except for the dead.

“Hot buttered rum?”

“Sure, just hold the hot and the butter,” Brian gasped, collapsing on the couch. “In fact, hold the glass and give me the whole fucking bottle.”

Megan considered it for a minute, then obeyed, grabbing a bottle of bourbon for herself and whiskey for Malleus. Roc took a shot of crème de menthe and sipped it slowly, a habit that usually made her laugh. Tonight she didn’t think she could find humor in a Chris Rock routine, let alone the curious drinking habits of a little green demon.

“M’lady.” Malleus finished swallowing and rested the bottle on his knee. He’d drunk half of it in one long gulp. “You ’ave to call Mr.—”

“Don’t even say it. Just don’t.”

His brows lowered. “You know you ’ave to tell ’im. You need to—”

“He’s right, Megan.” Rocturnus spoke so quietly she had to lean forward to hear him. “They all have to know.”

“Who all? Why does anybody need to know—”

“Because she’s hurt others, from other families.” Roc finished his glass and poured another. “Because she’ll keep doing it.”

“You know who she is?”

“And so do you. You heard her name.”

Ktana Leyak.

She opened her mouth, but Roc, eyes wide, held up a warning hand. “Don’t say it, don’t even think it.”

“Why? Who is she, who was she?”

He sighed. His eyes closed. “She’s our mother.”

The phone rang.

For a moment Megan didn’t even understand what it was. The sound, so normal, so everyday, didn’t seem to fit into this conversation; it belonged to a different life in a world that hadn’t become increasingly more insane over the last few months.

“What do you mean?” she asked Roc.

“Just what I said. She created us. She’s our mother.”

“So—”

“Are you going to answer that?” Brian’s eyes were closed as he slumped back on the couch. With the bottle in one hand and his other hand on his chest he looked like a drunken fraternity boy.

“No, I don’t think so.” The bourbon was starting to spread its heat and false comfort through her body now, taking the edge off the deep chill.

“M’lady, you should—”

“So what does that mean, your mother, Roc? Why is she killing you, why is she killing other demons?”

He shook his head. “We don’t know.”

“Is it the ones who leave she’s killing, or the ones who stay, or what? Why is she going after demons from other families?”

Megan’s answering machine clicked on, then fell silent as her caller hung up.

“We can’t tell,” Roc said. “We don’t really talk a lot as a rule, you know. It’s not like we all sit down at the end of the day to have these little meetings you humans seem to enjoy so much.”

From her purse came the sound of her cell phone. Damn it. She’d known it was him. Greyson was pretty much the only person who had that number except for Brian and Tera.

“Sorry if we try and communicate with each other,” she snapped. This was too much, all too much. She just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep. For a week. She’d basically killed one of her clients, she’d lost her job, she’d lost another demon, from the look on Brian’s face it was possible she’d lost one of her few friends, and now her damned—well, whatever he was—wanted her to talk to him. She was going to have to tell him what happened and he was not going to be pleased, and she thought if she had to deal with one more thing tonight she was going to start screaming. And keep screaming until they put her in a nice, quiet, padded room somewhere. Hey, straightjackets probably weren’t as uncomfortable as they looked, right?