Stacia Kane - Demon Possessed

It didn’t come. Instead a heavy hand tangled in her hair, yanked her up. The scent of—what the hell? Roses?—filled her nose, so strong and sharp her eyes watered even more than they were already from the pain.

Through them she barely made out the delineation between ivory wall and dark hallway carpet before the hand moved, closing tightly over her mouth and twisting her head further, up toward the ceiling. She tried to struggle, kicking back, jerking her torso, but an arm like iron closed around her waist, trapping her arms. Her bare feet, encumbered by heavy layers of taffeta, did no good at all.

Her ears rang. Dimly over the sound she heard something else, a low, thick voice like sandpaper. She couldn’t make out the words but felt them. They vibrated over her bare skin, through it into her soul.

Magic. She’d been around Tera enough to recognize that feeling. Had even been able to do some energy manipulation herself, back before she’d attached herself to the Yezer. That connection made it difficult for her to do such things; their energy tended to color her experiments and send them in bizarre directions, so she’d given up trying.

But she still knew what it felt like. Wasn’t likely to forget. And the person who held her—a man, she knew without thinking—was definitely doing magic.

She would have known that even if the wall behind them hadn’t suddenly opened and swallowed them up.

Her head was still spinning when they stopped. Wind whipped her hair into her eyes, pressed her skirts to her body. She had one dizzying glimpse of stars whirling above her before she realized where she was, where they were.

On the roof of the Bellreive, fifteen stories above the ground, and her captor had her in what she was pretty sure was a literal death grip as he shoved her toward the low wall surrounding the gritty, rubbery tar beneath them.

He was going to push her off. Holy shit, he was going to throw her off the roof, this was it, she was going to die—

No! She struggled with all the strength she had, kicking, wriggling, trying to bite the hand over her mouth. He let go and moved his hand down to her throat. Shit, that was worse; he squeezed her throat so she could hardly breathe.

There had to be a way to get out of this. To save herself. The edge of the roof loomed before her, so bright and sharp against the city lights. She had to do something. Wind in her hair, so strong it was hard to think. If he would just wait a second and let her think .

He said something else, his voice slicing at her ears. The wind strengthened. Was he calling it? Controlling it? Witches were strong, they were powerful, they could manipulate elements as easily as she could read one of her radio callers. They manipulated energy. She read people. She couldn’t read witches, generally, but she hadn’t tried in a hell of a long time either, had she?

She went limp, dropping her head, letting her arms fall slack at her sides. She couldn’t do anything about her pounding pulse, as much as she wished she could. Both of her hearts were beating furiously against her ribs, as if they knew what was coming and wanted to try to jump out and survive on their own. Which at least one of them could very well be capable of. She ignored that thought and focused on being heavy, limp, boneless like a heap of rags. Forced herself not to move even when he kicked the back of her leg. Her captor made a surprised, impatient sound and paused to readjust his grip on her.

She struck. Not with her body but with her energy, with all the power she possessed, forming it into a knife in her mind and driving it into his chest.

The shrieking triumph in her head drowned out his screams. He filled her; she couldn’t think of any other way to put it, and it didn’t matter anyway. He filled her with power, with light, with something that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

He let go of her and clutched at his chest; she felt him trying to expel her energy weapon, her psychic blade that was still embedded in him. Felt him grow weak. Watched him fall to his knees as she spun away from him on nimble feet. The height of the roof seemed to be nothing at all. The stars above shone down just for her, blessing her, as she filled herself with him and he crumpled closer to the edge of the roof—

He was going to fall. Because she was stealing his life.

Horrified, she tried to pull away, but the weapon was too bloated, too pure and full and strong to collapse. Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders, trying to yank him back away from the edge, but he struggled against her as if her touch burned him.

Which it might be doing; her skin glowed where it touched him, and energy pulsed up her arms from him. Feeding her. She was trapped in him, terrified but elated. Terrified because she was elated. It was beautiful and glorious and ecstatic and horrifying, and she gritted her teeth against it and threw everything she could into her shields, envisioning them snapping into place with a thick, heavy clang.

They did. The weapon broke. The man—the witch, whatever he was—gasped and struggled to stand, pushing himself away from her.

Wrong move. He stumbled, pitched forward. And fell over the ledge.

He didn’t scream as he fell.

“I have to call—Spud, cut it out, damn it!” She batted his eyeshadow-wielding hand away from her eye and glared at him. The glow from the lights behind him surrounded his cap like a bizarre halo. “It doesn’t matter how I look, because nobody is going to see me but Tera, and even if they do, I was just attacked and almost killed, and I think —maybe I’m crazy—but I think perhaps that gives me license to have smudged mascara!”

“ Bryaela, we can’t—”

“No. No, don’t you dare bryaela me. He almost threw me off the fucking roof, Greyson. And I—I—” Shit. She couldn’t finish the sentence, because it hit her again, the way she’d fed off him, sucked out his energy. The way she’d gloried in it.

“You did what you had to do,” he finished for her. He stood a foot or so away, his arms folded and his brows drawn down, with his hair moving in the breeze. After his initial clutching and holding he’d stepped away, and she was glad. If he’d touched her just then she would have broken down, and she did not want to do that. Not yet. The inner workings of the Vergadering—the witches’ organization, a sort of magical law-enforcement agency, for which Tera worked—were pretty shadowy, but she was pretty sure that she’d need to hold on to as much of that grief and horror as she could for when they showed up.

Just in case it made a difference. She had no idea if it would.

When she didn’t reply, he said it again. “You did what you had to do, Meg. It was you or him. You did the right thing.”

Shit. “I didn’t.”

“You did. If you hadn’t done whatever you did, you’d be dead right now, and I can assure you that would most definitely not be right.”

Without meaning to, she glanced to her left again, at the spot where he’d fallen. She couldn’t seem to stop looking at it; it pulsed in her vision, glowing. “I killed him.”

“And that’s why you’re still here. Look, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but we need to get back down to dinner immediately.”

“I can’t go back down to—Spud, if you come at me with that thing one more time I am going to stick it right up—”

“Spud, why don’t you give us a minute?” Greyson cut in smoothly. “Go wait over there with Malleus.”

Spud looked from him back to her, his heavy features sorrowful like a basset hound’s, before nodding and lumbering away across the roof. Damn. Now she’d hurt his feelings.