Stacia Kane - Demon Possessed

Megan barely heard it. One of them. Not guns. Gunnar.

Elizabeth would have known who he was. Would have recognized him. And of course Justine knew him and would have opened her door to him. From there, Elizabeth, powering the angel or being used by the angel—a stroke of cleverness she wouldn’t have expected from Gunnar, setting up a murderer so no suspicion was cast on him—could have walked in right after him and done the dirty work.

Gunnar, who’d tried to downplay the deaths of his rubendas . Gunnar, who hadn’t wanted to go to the Windbreaker and confront the angel. Gunnar, whom Megan had always considered the dullest and weakest of her fellow Gretnegs; the man collected fish, for fuck’s sake.

She glanced at Nick, saw the same knowledge in his eyes. The same aching uncertainty of what to do, with Julie and Brian there.

“Oh God!” Julie’s voice cut their eye contact but did nothing to still the panicked hammering of her heart. “And she’s—oh my God. Yes. Yes. Okay.”

She hung up and stood staring at the phone, her pretty face set in a deep frown.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Brian took a step toward her, but Julie shook her head.

“Elizabeth is dead.”

“Oh, shit, seriously?”

Julie nodded. “But . . . they said her body was all . . . She just died, but she’s already decomposed. Like she’s been dead for a couple of days instead of twenty minutes.”

Knowledge hit Megan so hard she had to grip the bed to try to hide her shock. The angel had killed her. Killed her the other night, either right before or right after it had attacked Megan herself. That’s where the blood came from. That’s why Elizabeth had been so spaced out. The angel had either been inhabiting her body part of the time or using it, moving its limbs like a fucking marionette. The image made her stomach lurch; she put her hand over her mouth.

Luckily it wasn’t too extreme a reaction to discussions about decomposition anyway. Julie reached for her. “Megan, I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking—this must be really more than you want to hear.”

Megan waved her off. Okay. It was Gunnar. And the angel hadn’t just seen Megan, attacked her. It had seen her with Greyson, with Nick and the brothers, with Roc and—

Tera.

Tera the witch. Tera, whom, if Greyson was right, the angel would have just as much reason to go after as any demon would. Yes, as a witch Tera was better protected than the rest of them, but still. If it snuck up on her, alone? She hadn’t sensed it at the exorcism, hadn’t seen it the way the rest of them had.

Megan stood up, almost falling in her haste. “Hey, guys, I just realized the time. I’ve really got to get going. I’m—I’m meeting Greyson. And I need to go right now. Nick? Nick, we need to go. Can you call Greyson and tell him we’re on our way while I freshen up? And tell him to meet us in Tera’s room. And to hurry.”

When she emerged from the bathroom—her hair was tangled at the back, she looked ridiculous, and nobody had bothered to say a word—with her heart still hammering and her hands almost shaking, she expected to find Brian and Julie gone.

They weren’t. Or, rather, Julie was. Brian wasn’t.

“I asked her to go get us some Cokes,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

She looked at Nick, but he was on the phone, his back to her. She hoped he was talking to Greyson. “Brian, this isn’t a good—”

“What’s going on? You look terrified. This is a demon thing, isn’t it? Some demon possessed Elizabeth Reid and made her commit that murder.”

“No, Brian, it isn’t a demon. Really.”

“Well, what did happen? Megan, I’m trying to help. Is something after you?”

“There’s a . . . creature, yes. Something not human. It’s after all of us. It attacked me the other night, it attacked Elizabeth and did something to her, and it killed Justine. And I think it might be after Tera right now. Or any one of us. So really, I need to go, I’m—”

“Can I help?”

“What?”

“Can I help? Is there anything I can do to help?”

She had no idea what to say. On the one hand, it’s possible that, being psychic as well, Brian could be very useful. On the other, this was dangerous. And she couldn’t bring him into it without telling him exactly what they were fighting.

But the offer brought tears to her eyes. All of her earlier worries about their future faded as she looked at his earnest face. He would always be her friend, no matter what.

“I—”

“Greyson’s not there,” Nick said. He looked more worried than she’d ever seen him, even more than he had the night before when Greyson knocked and interrupted their ill-fated and ill-advised makeout session.

Her heart fell into her stomach and started thudding so hard she imagined her entire body vibrated like a speaker on too loud. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not there. Malleus doesn’t know where he is. He went out this afternoon, after you left, I guess, and he hasn’t come back yet.”

“What about his cell?”

“No answer.”

Her legs suddenly didn’t feel strong enough to support her. He was fine, of course. Maybe he went for a walk or more likely a drive—he did that sometimes when he wanted to think—and saw where the call was coming from and just didn’t want to answer. “Try calling from your cell,” she managed.

He started dialing, while she tried not to panic. He’d said he was pretty sure he knew who it was. He wouldn’t have blundered into Gunnar’s room, or anyone else’s, for that matter.

Good thing she hadn’t eaten after all. She couldn’t possibly hold on to food with this kind of fear making her body feel like an icy husk.

Okay. Time to focus. Time to call Tera and get her up there, make sure she was okay. And of course, Roc. She’d given him the day off, essentially, until they knew what was happening. She should have contacted him sooner. Should have reached out to him as soon as she got back to the room.

The little psychic cord connecting her to her demons vibrated when she sent a push along it, waited for the push to come back. Nothing. She sent it again. Nothing.

Okay, what the hell. If she hadn’t known better, she would have wondered if they were planning some fucking surprise party for her or something.

One more time. This time it came back, finally, a little shiver that made her feel much better.

“Roc will be here in a minute,” she told Nick. “Anything?”

He shook his head.

“What can I do?” Brian asked. “Just tell me.”

They all turned when someone knocked on the door. Roc, Megan felt. But Julie too. Shit, she’d forgotten about Julie.

“You can’t do anything, Brian. You have to get Julie out of here. It might . . . it’s probably not going to be the safest place to be around here tonight. So you really should just go.”

Another knock.

“I’ll take her home and come back.” He put his hand on the knob. “Okay? I’ll be back in a bit.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. It’s not safe.”

His brows drew together. “You’re my friend. I’m coming back.”

With Greyson gone—unreachable, she reminded herself; not gone, just unreachable—it fell to her to try to corral everyone, to figure out what was happening and what to do about it. She and Nick were the only ones aside from him who knew who was behind the angel.

Or they had been. Tera was mercifully safe, if a bit irritated to be interrupted in the middle of a manicure in the hotel spa. Roc was fine, if a bit irritated to be interrupted in the middle of feeding off a group of very bitter divorcees he’d found by the pool.

But none of her Yezer had found the angel. It wasn’t traveling on the psychic plane, and it wasn’t anywhere visible to them. Probably in hiding. Lurking. Waiting.