Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

“I quit.”

“What?”

Megan pulled the thin hotel sheet up, covering her bare breasts. “I quit. Monday morning. I left.”

His brows furrowed for a minute as he stood by the cheap dresser. “Just like that?”

“This business with Gerald…I didn’t want to stay anymore.” It was mostly true, right?

He nodded, but she thought she saw something else in his eyes. Suspicion, maybe, or just curiosity?

“I can still pay my bills,” she said, not sure why she was being defensive but being it just the same. “The show pays me enough.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me.” He slipped a white T-shirt over his head, then a charcoal V-neck sweater, one of her favorites.

“But…I mean, don’t you have an opinion?”

“Yes, and you know what it is. What did you expect, that I’d be shocked and disappointed? I’ve wanted you to leave that damned practice for months.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“I never would have assumed it was.” He buckled his belt and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Come on. Unless you want to stay in bed? You do look fetching under that flimsy sheet.” His teeth scraped her throat. “We could send the boys out for food, and spend the day—”

“No. Brian and Tera are waiting.” This was so typical. He opened up, then retreated. Now she was doing the same. She wanted to talk to him, to tell him why she’d left, how scared she was, that her radio pay would cover the bills but not much else. That she didn’t know if she could ever do her job effectively again, that in her darkest hours she’d found herself actually considering taking up the station’s offer of a TV spot on their evening infotainment show because at least there she wouldn’t find herself accidentally sucking out people’s pain like oysters from a shell.

But something held her back, as firmly as a hand over her mouth. If she told him he’d want to help. He’d offer to cover her bills. He’d as much as offered several times already, and she just…she didn’t want to be kept.

She didn’t want to look weak.

“Ah, yes. Our friends Brian and Tera. How long do you think it will take before Tera brings up those witches again?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “About two minutes.”

“That long?” He took her hand and tugged her gently up from the bed, encircling her bare body with his arms so his palms rested hot on her back. “And speaking of time…we have ten minutes or so, don’t we?”

They were fifteen minutes late, in the end, long enough for Brian and Tera to be thoroughly annoyed.

“We were worried about you,” Tera said, for the second time. “You should have called.”

“I—we fell asleep.”

“You told me you never nap.”

“I did today,” Megan said lightly, grabbing a menu from the stand. This restaurant—a tidy little diner off the highway—wasn’t close enough to town for her to run into anyone she knew, at least so she hoped, and it was crowded enough to make her think the food might be decent.

Tera raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Instead she turned to Greyson. “So, Grey, about those witches…”

“I win,” he muttered. Megan elbowed him.

“I just have a hard time believing it’s a coincidence,” Tera continued.

“It probably isn’t, but I don’t see why I’m your chief suspect when the one you should be looking at is already in custody.”

“Templeton? He couldn’t have done it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s—he’s in prison. He couldn’t have gone out and—”

“And I was in New York, but you’re perfectly willing to believe I was behind it all.”

Megan had seen the implication earlier, outside the church, but it wasn’t until that moment that it fell into place. The witches were Templeton’s guards. The witches had tried to kill them—or at least warn them, if shooting at them from a speeding car and chasing them through the city flinging foul, oily smoke at them could be considered a warning.

Templeton Black must have been behind it.

Jesus, was there anyone who didn’t want to cause trouble for her this week?

“Look, Tera, if there’s a problem I’ll come to your office after the holidays, but you know as well as I do that I’m not stupid enough to go after witches, and I don’t think there’s any need to bore Brian with this anymore, do you?”

Tera glanced at Brian, who was studying his menu. Medieval monks transcribing holy texts could not have concentrated harder.

“Fine,” she said. “But I—”

“C’n I take your order?”

Brian practically leaped out of his skin. Megan smiled, but her laugh died in her throat. She felt awfully jumpy too. She’d thought it was just the tension from Greyson and Tera’s conversation, but the butterflies in her stomach didn’t want to settle even now, when Greyson and Tera seemed to have reached at least some kind of accord.

In fact, as everyone ordered, they were only getting worse with each passing second. Megan asked for a Caesar salad she knew she wouldn’t eat. The thought of food, so appealing ten minutes before, now made her queasy.

“Brian,” she murmured, leaning over the table toward him, “what’s wrong?”

“I don’t—I’m not sure.”

“There’s a demon in here,” Greyson said.

“Of course there is.” Tera raised her eyebrows. “You’re here and your men—”

“No.” His voice was barely above a whisper as he leaned back, glancing casually around the restaurant. “Not like us.”

Malleus and Maleficarum also leaned back, shifting their chairs so they faced more toward the restaurant than the table. Spud got up entirely and plunked himself down next to Megan.

“Is it—” Megan started, but she didn’t need his warning glance to tell her not to finish the sentence.

“I think that’s a pretty good guess, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“What are you talking about?” Tera asked. “Who?”

“A demon. One we don’t want to mess with. Maybe we should go.” Megan tried not to look around the room, but couldn’t help stealing one glance.

No one else in the diner seemed to notice anything wrong. All around them were smiling faces, people chatting as they ate, families with little children playing tic-tac-toe on napkins or paper place mats. Megan folded her arms across her chest in a fruitless attempt to warm herself. Was one of these people, these happy diners, possessed? And if so, would they survive?

Gerald hadn’t.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s aware of us,” Greyson said. “But it might not know we’re aware of it.”

“Is it the waitress?” Tera asked. “I mean, you guys didn’t seem to get really nervous until she came, right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“How do you not know? Don’t you guys all recognize each other?”

“Whoever she…it is, it’s possessing someone. So no, I feel it, but I don’t know who it is. I’d have to look into their eyes or touch them to really know.”

Megan caught Brian’s eye. He tilted his head back and to the right. She nodded. He’d read that side, she’d read the other.

“Don’t,” Greyson said. “Don’t warn it.”

“But if—”

“No. I know what you guys are thinking, but we don’t know who or what it is. Let’s not—”

Their waitress appeared, balancing their tray on one hand while she flipped open a wooden stand with more force than seemed necessary with the other. She shot a glare back toward the kitchen.

“Here.” She set the tray on the stand and started handing out plates, her brows knitted in a grouchy frown.

“Is something wrong?” Megan asked.

“No, it’s just the cook.” The waitress smiled faintly. “He’s got a bee in his bonnet today, you know? Like none of the rest of us work hard. He practically threw your plates at me, at least your food is hot—”