Stacia Kane - Demon Possessed

She was glad she’d forgiven him, though.

“I am indeed here to guard you,” he said. “Although ‘escort’ is really more the way Greyson put it. He said he has some meetings and stuff and asked if I would mind making sure you’re never alone.” He set down his suitcase and closed the door behind him. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“I should hope not.” Greyson emerged from the bedroom, with his hair damp and his shirt untucked. “Not after what a last-minute ticket from Miami to here cost me.”

“Like you can’t afford it,” Nick replied. “Have you traded in the Jag for a solid-gold Rolls yet?”

“You could have one yourself, you know, if you’d—”

“Don’t even start.”

Megan smiled as the men embraced. That was an old discussion, one they seemed to engage in out of habit. Greyson wanted Nick to move from Miami and work with him, to do Carter’s job; Nick resisted. If she’d heard them talk about it once, she’d heard it a hundred times.

She slipped away while they conversed and hurried through a shower. Seeing Nick was a pleasure. Imagining the two of them sitting alone with Tera wasn’t, and she had no doubt Tera would be there any minute.

Sure enough, the witch’s voice floated through the closed bedroom door when she emerged fifteen minutes later. Megan tossed on a plain dark dress—if they were heading over to see Reverend Walther later, which they were, she wanted to look as unobtrusive as possible—and opened the door.

Tera was sitting in the dark leather armchair, a tray over her lap loaded down with food. She barely looked up from her plate when Megan entered. “Hey. Any new information?”

“I was kind of hoping you might have had some ideas.”

Tera shook her head, making nodding wait-a-minute motions while she forced down an enormous bite of muffin. Witches never turned down free food. Or really anything free. Finally she swallowed. “I did a quick check through the Vergadering mainframe last night, but I couldn’t find anything about you, or this hotel, or any indication that someone on one of the watch lists is in town.”

Megan raised her eyebrows and settled on the couch next to Greyson, who rested his hand on her thigh. “Watch list?”

“Yeah, you know. Known assassins, criminals for hire . . . There are a few mercenary witches out there, and we keep tabs on them as best we can.”

“As opposed to simply arresting them,” Greyson said.

“We don’t know exactly where they are,” Tera said, through another chunk of muffin. “We would if we did. We just get rumors about them being in specific cities, specific places. We do what we can.”

“Funny. You always manage to know the exact location of any one of us who got a parking ticket at any given time.”

Tera made a sour face. Megan squeezed Greyson’s thigh hard and cut in before either of them could make it worse. “Thanks for checking, Tera. Is there any chance you just don’t know whoever-it-was is in town?”

Tera glared at Greyson for another second or two before answering. “Of course it’s possible. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m the only witch in the building at the moment. And I’m going to do a little something for you, so you’ll be better able to tell if any of us are around you.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course.” Tera tossed her head. Her long, straight blond hair caught a ray of sunlight and glowed for a moment before falling obediently behind her right shoulder. She gave Greyson and Nick a significant look. “Actually, it’s something we picked up from them.”

“What do you—”

Greyson leaned forward. “You’re going to do a betchimal . . .”

“You know what it is, then.”

“Of course I know what it is. I don’t know how to perform it, since you witches stole the knowledge, but—”

“Oh, will you give me a fucking break, Grey? It’s not like you’re so poor and downtrodden.” Tera gave the walls around them, gleaming pale in the morning light, a significant look. “I didn’t personally steal anything, okay? It’s not my fault you guys lost.”

“No, but you work for—”

“Okay.” Megan stood up. “That’s enough, you two. Can we get back to something that actually matters here? You know, someone trying to kill me? Someone who attacked an FBI agent and made her go seek out an exorcist, for whatever reason? I think we have bigger things to concern ourselves with than some centuries-old war. Don’t you?”

Silence hung heavy in the air for a second. Neither Tera nor Greyson bothered to blush or look sheepish, but she knew them both well enough to know that had they been a little less self-contained, they would have.

Then Tera spoke, her expertly colored lips curving into a smile. “FBI agent? What’s the FBI doing here, Greyson?”

Greyson smiled back. Megan could practically see the halo over his head. “How in the world would I know?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Megan said. She realized she was still standing, as if she was about to break into song, and plunked herself back down on the couch. “What does matter is that she’s here, and I think the thing—the witch, if it is a witch, which I guess it is—attacked her, and then she ran to the hotel to talk to the exorcism guy. I have no idea why, or why he would be involved in all of this, but I’d like to find out.”

Tera finished her muffin. “And where is this FBI agent now? Do you think she knows what attacked her?”

Megan shook her head. “She’s probably in her room, and no, I don’t think so. We went to see the reverend last night—”

“Reverend?”

“Reverend Walther, the exorcist. We went to see him last night, and I read him and saw his conversation with her. She wanted to join his crusade or whatever, but she didn’t mention demons or witches or anything specifically.”

Tera frowned and popped a piece of melon into her mouth. “Walther. That name sounds familiar. And don’t you think it’s possible that she wanted to join him because she knew what had come after her?”

“Yes, it’s possible, but I don’t think that’s the case. She seemed . . . kind of dazed. And she said she could help him. I don’t really see why she would offer to help him, if she knew she’d been attacked by something, well, not quite human. Or whatever.”

“A superior being,” Tera said.

“Hey! I’m human, remember.”

“Oh, I remember. Okay. I think the best thing to do is head down to her room. I’ll do a little spell so she’ll forget the attack, and we can wipe our hands of her at least.”

Greyson leaned forward. Had innocence been a tangible thing, like chocolate, he would have been brown from head to toe. “Perhaps it would be better to remove her memories of all of us and send her away. We wouldn’t want her getting in the way and being hurt again, would we?”

Tera’s eyes narrowed. For a long moment they all sat, silent, while she chewed her melon and thought whatever it was she was thinking. Megan suspected it had something to do with wishing desperately that Greyson’s idea wasn’t a good one and trying to think of a way to get out of doing what he wanted.

“I guess you’re right,” she said finally. “But I think you’re going to owe me a favor.”

“Done.”

“Okay, then.” Megan stood back up, this time for a reason. She wanted to get down to Agent Reid’s room as quickly as possible, and not just because it was nearing nine o’clock. She could never be sure how things were going to go when she had Greyson and Tera both in the same room; sometimes they got along just fine, even managed to joke and at least put on a good enough show of enjoying each other’s company. Other times they were like a couple of sharks fighting over the same tasty innocent victim. This was clearly one of the latter occasions.