Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

“What?”

His fingers twined in hers, warm and comforting, while she waited for him to speak. Finally he shook his head. “Never mind. Is this the bottom floor, or what?”

Her heart sank. “There’s a basement.”

Fire filled Greyson’s palm as they picked their way down the stairs, throwing shadows on their faces. In its light Greyson looked gaunt, tired; she could only imagine how she must look with her hair frizzing around her head and her eyes wide with fear. Megan didn’t think anyone had been down here since the place closed, but she was wrong. Spiders were here and rats and cockroaches, skittering across the mess of strewn papers and dust and bones on the floor when the light hit them. Her skin crawled at the sight. It was bad enough in the lobby, but here, where no light ever came and no workman had been in to even halfheartedly tidy up, it was chaos, a foul-smelling dump where years’ worth of waste had settled like silt on the ocean floor.

Cobwebs shrouded the damp, slimy walls, so thick and dusty they were more like curtains. In the center of one lurked the largest spider Megan had ever seen, almost as big as the palm of her hand. Its horrible eyes glittered when the light hit them. She gasped, her fingers twitching in Greyson’s. She couldn’t go in there, she just couldn’t. And she shouldn’t have to.

“It’s not in here,” she said, aware for the first time that her demon heart had moved feebly when they were in the lobby, just when they entered. It lay still in her chest again, even though her own heart—her human heart—pounded like a hammer. “It’s not down here, I just…I feel it, I know it isn’t here.”

“Okay.” But he paused, and nodded toward the far wall. “Looks like something’s down here, though.”

“What? I—oh.”

Files. The entire wall was lined with filing cabinets, lurking behind the fog of spiderwebs. One of the drawers hung open; Megan could see the files inside.

“Do you want it?” He moved a little closer, still holding her hand. “You don’t have to, bryaela . You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to. But if you do…it’s there.”

“I don’t.” It came out more strongly than she’d intended, her voice echoing off the walls and sending something rustling away through the mess on the floor.

“Okay,” he said again. “So let’s just head back up the stairs then.”

“Wait.”

He stopped.

“I…I do. I think I do want to see it. Maybe I should see it.”

“Malleus?”

The big guard demon pushed past her carefully and headed for the files, sliding his thick index fingers down the faded labels on the drawers, then opening a few and sifting through them. The folders themselves looked surprisingly clean and dry, but that didn’t make Megan any more comfortable about actually holding it in her hands after Malleus dug it out.

Which he did, after a minute or so of hunting. He started toward her, holding it out in front of him, but she shrank back. Not yet, not here. She didn’t even want to touch it.

But seeing it made something click deep inside her. All these fucking years later, and here she was again in this place. And it was almost Christmas, it was the Friday night before. She was supposed to be home packing right now. Ktana Leyak was ruining the first real Christmas Megan had had in years, and when a wave of rage surged in her chest she realized this was what she’d been missing.

What was wrong with her? It was as though Ktana’s stealing her demons had stolen something more than that too. She’d stolen…she’d stolen Megan’s sense of herself, had picked at it with razor-sharp nails since the first time Megan had seen her. She didn’t think she’d had a more difficult week in her entire life and damn it, it was time for this shit to end. Now.

She straightened up, and held out her hand for the file. “Give it to me.”

Malleus glanced at Greyson, then obeyed.

“Thanks.” She rolled it up—it was surprisingly thick—and stuffed it as best she could into the inner pocket of her coat. She might read it later. She might not. But seeing it, touching it, had reminded her who she was. And who she was would not let some demon bitch steal from her like that.

The triumph of her steely resolve was only faintly lessened when she stumbled and scraped her knee on her way back up the steps. Yes, she was certainly back to her old self.

Another flight of stairs, this one familiar to her. She’d walked up it before, the day she came here—her memory of it was vague and disordered, filtered green—but at that time it had been clean and she’d had an orderly with her. And her parents, faking concern while they checked their watches when they thought no one was looking.

“Each floor has a… had a…rec room, you know, where they did therapy? In the center, with the patients’ rooms around it. Maybe we should check—”

“Which one was your room?”

She stared at him, dumbstruck. “Oh my God, of course. It’s there, isn’t it? Whatever it is?”

Greyson nodded slowly. “It’s a good guess, anyway.”

“I was on, um, the fifth floor, I think. In the corner. I don’t remember the number…”

But it would be in her file, the file in her pocket. She reached in and pulled it out, holding it open in unsteady hands.

“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.