Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

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 connection between herself and her demons. Her demon heart lay like lead in her chest, cold and unmoving. Dead. The doorknob turned and she braced herself for the truth. No flames hid behind it, no cold breath of power. The demon was gone. She was alone.

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.

Another demon huddled beneath it, little eyes impossibly wide. Blood trickled down its forehead and formed a trail down its snoutlike nose. Its mouth opened and closed, trying to form words that would not come.

“Ashtenor!” Roc leaped for it, holding it—him—tight. “Ashtenor, how did you manage to survive?”

“Hid. Pretended…” Ashtenor shuddered.

“Do you know where she took them?” Greyson said. Roc glared at him, but he only shrugged. “We don’t have a lot of time and there are one or two things we need to figure out.”

“Tul azar,” Ashtenor whispered. “Tul azar Akuzi.”

Greyson and Roc exchanged glances.

“Tul azar Akuzi?” Roc asked. “Tresh tena?”

Ashtenor nodded. Megan watched a tear trickle down his rough, wrinkled cheek. She’d failed him, God, she’d failed all of them, she hadn’t protected them and now…now she didn’t know if she had enough energy left to protect herself, much less a thousand little demons. Now that her demon heart was dead, she didn’t have any way to—

If her demon heart was dead, or at least dormant, could it still stop her from practicing what Tera had taught her?

She couldn’t try it here. With her Yezer gone—and she strongly suspected Ktana Leyak was using their connection to Megan to suck her energy away, now that she thought about it—there simply wasn’t anywhere to draw power from. Except Greyson himself, and the thought of treating him like her personal battery made her squirm.

But Ashtenor huddled on the floor, staring at her with those damned Keane-painting eyes of his, and the words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to second-guess them.

“Greyson, I need some help.”

Bless him—or whatever one would do with demons—he didn’t ask why, or even look surprised. He just gave her what she wanted and brought Ashtenor over to her so she could hold him in her lap.

The connection was there, faint but still viable. Megan closed her eyes and reached for it. Greyson’s energy had become hers and now she gave it to Ashtenor, sending it sliding along the line connecting them.

His little eyes widened, then closed, as he snuggled into her. She’d never thought of them as her babies before. Well, they weren’t babies. Babies were good and innocent. Babies were hope. The Yezer Ha-Ra existed to cause pain.

But they were her pain causers. More now than before, when she’d forced herself to watch as Halarvus was punished, she felt the great expanse of what she owed them.

They weren’t inherently evil. They were part of life. Isn’t that what she’d always counseled her clients? Without the bad feelings, we wouldn’t appreciate the good ones?

Being in charge of the Yezer Ha-Ra, even just her small Meegra, was a responsibility not just to them, but to mankind. It was their job to tempt. It was the job of humanity to resist. Without that battle, what was the point of life?

So Megan held Ashtenor close, and breathed her borrowed power into him until his tears stopped and his color—a particularly unpleasant glaring orange—returned. She took care of him.

The way his Gretneg should.

“But we don’t know where the Accuser’s house was!”

Being back at Greyson’s place hadn’t really helped her mood, but realizing she could draw a trickle of energy from the ground outside had a bit. At least she wouldn’t need Greyson to keep kissing her in order to stay awake. It was a little embarrassing.

Her eyes still itched with tiredness, but she could handle it.

“That’s why Brian is coming over,” Greyson said.

“You called Brian?”

“Yes. That’s why he’s coming over, see. It’s very simple.”