Stacia Kane: Demon Possessed

Maleficarum nodded, a faint look of disbelief on his face. Megan understood. As if Maleficarum would do anything else.

“I’m going to stay with Brian. I know the thing doesn’t know you, and neither do any of the others involved. But you are psychic, aren’t you? Right. So you could come in handy here, and—forgive me—but I don’t know how much fighting experience you actually have.”

“I wrestled in high school and college.”

Megan blinked. She had no idea.

“Okay, well, that could help. Still.”

“What about me?” Tera cut in. “Don’t I get some protection?”

“Do you actually need it?”

“Well, no, but it would be nice if someone at least thought I was worth protecting.”

Nick smiled. “You stay with me and Brian, then. How’s that?”

“Good.”

“Okay,” Megan said.

The Windbreaker loomed before them, larger in her eyes and mind than she’d ever seen it. Such a dull building, dingy gray walls, small windows in rows up the edifice. It looked more like a correctional facility than a hotel.

She checked her watch, the slim silver one Greyson had given her a few months before. He was in there, and she was going to find him, and they had about half an hour before they were supposed to meet the others back at the Bellreive. What would happen when—if—they didn’t show up?

Not her problem. She squared her shoulders, paused a minute to pull what energy she could from the air. She could have taken it from her Yezer but wanted to wait until it was absolutely necessary. “Let’s go.”

The lobby was silent. Dead silent, way too quiet. She should have heard moans and wails coming from the ballroom where Walther held his exorcisms. Instead the only sound was the low rusty grind of the air conditioner.

“Where do we go?” Nick asked low in her ear.

“I don’t know. Hold on.” If she were Greyson, where would she be? Where, in order to watch all the comings and goings, to keep an eye on the angel and anyone else?

Just as she turned to look for the security office, she saw him poke his head out from around the wall behind the front desk, the partitioned area where the desk clerk had been napping two nights before. His features were twisted in what wasn’t quite a frown but was definitely not a cheerful welcome.

“What are you doing here? Shit, never mind. Get back here, then you can tell me.”

That was the greeting she got? She’d brought the cavalry in to save his ass, and she got a grumpy—well, she guessed it was about all she could expect, given that a few hours before she’d turned him down. Again.

As one, they slid behind the counter and back to where he and Spud sat before a bank of security cameras.

“Did Malleus tell you where I was?”

“No. I figured it out. And I know who it was. It was Gunnar.”

The quick flash of approval in his eyes made her heart leap. “But not just Gunnar. Do you know who else?”

She shook her head.

“Well. Come sit and wait, then, and get ready. I expect any second now she’ll show up.”

“She? But Justine—”

“Of course it’s not Justine. Justine would never have had anything to do with an angel. I’m surprised—”

“Angel?” Brian looked stunned. “What do you mean, angel?”

Greyson rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t see you’d brought the True Believer along.”

“Hi to you too, Greyson. What do you mean, an angel? You don’t honestly expect me to—”

“Not that kind of angel,” Megan said. “It’s not a good angel. It’s a—”

“Angels are kind of good by definition, Megan. You know, creatures of God, protectors—”

“Warriors,” Greyson cut in. “Not protectors. Warriors. Who is it who ends the world in Revelations, Brian? Who carries a fiery sword? For that matter, what about Uriel as the Angel of Repentance? Is that a friendly image? Is it one you want to face?”

If Brian was surprised that Greyson knew what he was talking about, he didn’t show it. “What about messages of great joy? What about protecting the infant Jesus from Herod? What about—”

“Again. This isn’t that kind of angel. Think of it as a rogue angel, okay? One who’s broken from God and works as a mercenary and stays out of Hell because he’s just that sneaky. This is an abomination, Brian. Something that shouldn’t exist. Like a Nephilim.”

Brian shuddered.

Greyson nodded. “Right. That’s what we’re dealing with. It’s not something that’s going to touch you and fill you with heavenly light, Brian. It’s going to rip off your head if it gets the chance. It’s using all those people out there, feeding off their faith, taking their free will and their sanity. It used a woman to slaughter a demon. It ripped her from her throat to her abdomen and tore out her heart. It wants to punish, and at this point it doesn’t care who. It doesn’t care that we’ve made our peace with each other long ago.”

Not entirely true. The demons and witches had wiped the angels off the face of the earth, if what Tera and Greyson had said earlier was to be believed. But there was little point in letting Brian know that.

Brian was silent. Greyson pressed him further. “It feels nothing. It doesn’t care if you were an altar boy. It doesn’t care about your religion. But it cares about—it would care about—your psychic abilities. And it will kill you for them.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t believe this.”

“Then you should go.” Megan put her hand on his arm, tried to get him to look at her. “You should go, Brian, because we have to do this, or it will kill us all.”

The silence stretched so long Megan began to wonder if it would ever end. Just a little while before, she’d felt certain Brian would be her friend forever. Now she wondered if he hadn’t reached the breaking point.

But he nodded. He didn’t look at her, but he nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’ll stay and help.”

“Excellent.” Greyson turned back to the monitors.

“How did you get in here anyway?” Brian asked.

He glanced back. “I convinced the guards they were needed elsewhere.”

“What, like—never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Greyson ignored him, his eyes fixed on the screens. Megan crowded up as close as she dared, close enough to smell his skin and his cologne and feel the sharp stab of pain those scents caused in her gut, but not close enough to touch.

“Any second now,” he murmured. “Any second now, and we’ll find out if it was one of them or both of them.”

“Greyson, who—”

“Shh. You’ll see. They’re getting ready, can’t you feel it?”

Now that she thought about it, yes she could. Could feel the emptiness spreading, a kind of thick blanket of dull silence spreading over everything. Not the silence of an empty building. The silence of the morgue, waiting for the dead to rise. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end.

“I do feel it,” she whispered. “What is it?”

He glanced around at all of them. “They’ll find us soon. Are you guys ready?”

Megan checked the monitors again, found after a moment’s searching the one that showed her the ballroom. Walther’s histrionics had slowed. He moved like a man fighting to run across the ocean floor, his feet sinking in the carpet, his arms pushing through the thick air.

The crowd moved slowly too, if they moved at all. Most of them sat wide-eyed, open-mouthed, like children watching the most fascinating cartoon ever produced.

Her entire body vibrated. Something was wrong. She couldn’t feel them around her. Couldn’t feel them in the building, not even when she lowered her shields all the way. Instead she felt them inside her, wriggling there, making her demon heart pound and squirm as if it was going to break through her ribs and throw itself against the monitors. She put her hand to it, feeling a little silly but wanting absurdly to add another layer of resistance.