Stacia Kane - Personal Demons

"No more than you deserve," Templeton said. "How you thought you could convince her to help you overthrow me, I'll never know. All you did was buy punishment for yourself and death for her."

Greyson shrugged. "Worth a shot. Spending time with her was dull, but it would have paid off if I'd succeeded."

The only way to keep from bursting into tears was to get angry. Megan did, letting her fury build, letting herself picture what she'd like to do to him if she ever had the chance and a nice array of weapons. She read a particularly effective torture scene once involving a seatless chair and a carpet beater wielded from below. Now she pictured Greyson sitting in it and her own hand holding the beater. It made her almost smile.

Something flickered in Greyson's eyes. He looked quickly away. He was scared, was he? Scared of her anger? She'd show him anger. The bit of power he'd given her earlier still buzzed around in her head, in her body. In a flash she remembered how he hypnotized her that night, watching the city lights. He'd done something, put some sort of demon protection in her ... had he planted something, some link to the Accuser that would be activated by his energy? He'd given her his word ... but despite all their talk of honor, she'd seen now exactly what a demon's word meant. She assumed they'd promised snowballs in Hell there was no danger of melting, too.

She should unleash that power. She could open it up, open herself up, and let all that anger spill out over all of them. If she could read theirs, maybe they could feel hers. Maybe she could even hurt them with it. Maybe there would be a chance, a moment, while the Accuser entered her, when she could fight back.

The opposite of despair was hope. Now Megan had some. The hope that she would live to get her revenge on them all. Especially Greyson.

The lights dimmed. The chanting started.

At first the words sounded much like the ones she'd heard at Fearbusters, but after the first minute Megan realized they were different. Still familiar, but not...

No. They were familiar. They were the words she'd spoken in her bedroom at sixteen, the words that allowed the Accuser to enter her body. Now they were being spoken by the Fearbusters clients, and the power in them rose and swirled around Megan. It was all she could do to block them, all her anger and plans forgotten as she focused on putting every bit of energy she had into keeping herself safe.

Hands grabbed her and lifted her from her seat. She felt herself being carried to the cage, felt the metal close around her wrists, but she didn't struggle. She couldn't spare the strength for her body. She needed it for her head.

Blackness rose in a seductive cloud, dancing and swirling, filling the space. She could hardly see anyone in the room, or anything, just the twisting darkness growing and spreading like a stain. Despite her focus she shrank back from it, convinced she would scream if it touched her.

Over the chant and the whispering sound of the cloud rose Bellingham's voice. Not out loud, inside her head. "Are you ready, Megan?" he said. "Repeat the chant, and it will all be over."

"No."

"Yes. Or I'll start killing the clients. I think I'll start with Hanna. Poor Hanna. You identified with her, didn't you? A woman, all alone in the world, no man, no friends ... a woman just like you. But a much better person, Megan. Hanna's demons have made her do many things she didn't want to do. But she always felt bad about it. Not like you. You haven't had a demon for a long time, but you still haven't been a very good person, have you?"

"Shut up."

"All the terrible things you've done ... all your own choice. Such a selfish woman you are, so cold, for all that your job is in one of the so-called caring professions. You don't care and you never have."

"That's not true." Was it? The woman with the DVD, the girl with the notes, parking spaces, people she hadn't held the door for or cut off in traffic ... she wasn't a terrible person, was she?

"Then prove it. Say the words, Megan. Let me in, and save these people's lives. They can be good people, happy people. It's all up to you."

"You son of a bitch!" she shouted, but over the anger, over the power, her sadness and despair seeped in.

Was she going to give up? Just let him in?

Did she have a choice? She couldn't let him kill those people. If she could prevent that, it would be worth it. Payment, maybe, for the things she'd done in her life she wasn't proud of. Payment for Harlan Trooper, a man who gave his life to try and help her.

She started to speak, the words coming as readily to her lips as her own name. She was barely three words in when she felt him invade, ripping into her. Her back arched; the words were interrupted by a scream. He was reading her, taking everything from her, her thoughts, her memories.

It seemed as if everyone she'd ever known flew through her mind again. Her stomach squirmed and shifted inside her body. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks. She'd never felt pain like this before, not even the last time, because this time the Accuser was rifling carelessly through her mind and discarding her soul, taking what he thought he might use and letting the rest fall away.

She waited for the oblivion of death. Any hell had to be better than the cold dread of the Accuser. Any hell would be better than seeing the failure of her life again, seeing even the events of the last week and the first time she'd ever felt like she might belong anywhere disappearing in Greyson's cruelty at the table.

She tried to focus on the anger which had been so strong a moment ago, to grab it and be ready in case an opportunity to fight presented itself, but it was fading. Fading like the last vestiges of light in the room, leaving her broken and alone, and as she opened her mouth to choke out the final words of the chant she felt the last bit of Greyson's energy flare with rage in her body, a spark that could not ignite.

The light hurt her eyes, so bright and pure it burned. Megan squinted against it and sat up, trying to clear her head.

She'd been ... oh. She'd been chained up. She wasn't now. Her arms and legs were free, her body aching but intact.

What happened? Why hadn't it worked?

As her eyes adjusted she realized it had. Wherever she was now, it wasn't the Solithell.

She lay on the floor of a room with a ceiling so high she couldn't see it well. Shapes and colors shifted up there, but the pattern eluded her.

The hardwood floor shone. Megan stood up on shaking legs and tried to ignore the pain in her head. Did dead people get headaches? Was she dead? Or simply in some other dimension?

Or was this heaven?

It looked familiar enough that if she'd been religious, she would have believed it. Her soul, before birth, had lived in this silent place, and now she returned, and perhaps through the large door at the end sat god on a golden throne...

But Megan didn't think such things waited for her. Perhaps through that door was Hell, or something worse. Greyson never had fully explained everything about the demon world, or even most of it. Greyson. Why had he betrayed her so cruelly? For fun? Was she another power notch on his slim leather belt?

Her footsteps echoed in the still air as she started across the wide, clean expanse of floor. The door at the end looked so far away. It could take days to reach it, or minutes. Her depth perception didn't seem to work properly here. She didn't care. It was enough to be here at all, to be thinking and feeling instead floating in space. Instead of being nothing but extinguished.

A faint creaking sound interrupted her thoughts. She spun around, her breath catching in her throat, but the room still stood empty, its secrets hidden.

Except ... was that a faint line of light, on the wall? It hadn't been there before. Now it looked almost as if a door had been opened in the wall, a cupboard.