Stacia Kane - Personal Demons

The images changed, grew. Something slithered through Megan's mind, a feeling more than a vision. She grabbed it before it got away, saw what it held, and turned it on him.

That was it. That was how she'd done it. And she could do it again.

In the very center of his body, by the foul beating mass of his heart, was the psychic strand binding him to the personal demons. She'd put it there. When Harlan Trooper died, when the Accuser turned back to her, she'd found Harlan's demons and her own demon and used them as shields, flinging them in his path, but it had backfired. He'd sucked them into himself, absorbed them, and in desperation she'd found something to use against him, something she hadn't realized she had.

Her power, swirling and spinning in the air around her, created that cord. It was sixteen-year-old Megan bound in there, Megan and the Yezer Ha-Ra, and she grabbed hold of it with her mind and pulled. The bit of her younger self trapped in the Accuser's innards screamed, holding on to his heart. All of her anger, her fear and alienation, washed over Megan.

Tears stung her eyes. All that pain ... how unhappy she'd been. It hadn't disappeared. It had changed, turned inward, locked itself behind the door. But it never left and all the Accuser kept was an echo.

Her raw throat burned as she gave a final mighty wrench of the cord. The last piece of her young self disappeared, her cries lost in the Accuser's roar as Megan grabbed his heart in her transparent hands and squeezed, feeling it squelch and explode in her fingers.

The cord wrapped itself around her, pulling her out of the shell of the Accuser's body as it collapsed. Megan stumbled and fell, her skin slick with blood.

The brothers knelt on the floor about twenty feet away. Megan hauled herself to her feet and ran towards them, her blood-soaked feet gliding across the marble floor with a grace her physical form never seemed to manage, knowing without being sure how that without the Accuser there to power it she would die.

She pushed between Malleus and Spud and knelt beside her still-warm body, patting it, trying to move it somehow. Trying to ignore the very strange sensation of looking at herself in this manner.

Maleficarum's voice soared over her terror, over the whole room, raised in song. It was beautiful but she barely heard it. How would she get back in? Was she dead, or traveling astrally, or what? Tears of panic ran down her cheeks. She tried touching her own hand, placing her head on her chest. It didn't work. "Come on!" she screamed, pounding her chest with her fists.

Whether it was her scream, the pounding, or even Maleficarum's song she didn't know, but the thin red line that brought her back into the room reappeared, blazed, and engulfed her. The last thing she saw before everything went red was Brian Stone running into the room, followed by Tera Green and an army of figures swathed in black robes.

Something slammed into her, deep inside her chest. Megan gasped and arched her back, it hurt, oh whatever it was hurt, she pushed against it but it burned, and she wanted to pull away but she couldn't...

"Do it again!"

Through the panicky haze of receding pain, she heard someone yelling. It sounded so familiar. She knew that voice.

"I don't think this is working!"

"God damn it, Brian, do it again or I will rip your fucking head off with my bare goddamn hands, do you—"

More pain. Megan screamed. She pushed again, pushed against whatever it was grabbing her and yanking her swirling into dark agony, and suddenly she was in her body again, moving, rolling away. Her eyes opened. The walls of the Solithell's dining room swam into her vision. Sweet air filled her lungs, and she gulped it down. Her muscles ached. Pain shrieked from her left hand, but she was alive. Fully, completely, solidly alive.

She only had a second to enjoy it before someone grabbed her, lifting her upper body from the floor and pressing her into a broad, flat, warm surface with crushing strength. She didn't need to catch a glimpse of his white face to know it was Greyson holding her.

His heart pounded beneath the solid muscle of his chest. It sounded wonderful.

Wait a minute. No, it didn't. Who did he think he was? He'd used her to try and overthrow Templeton Black. Why did he even care that someone as mediocre as herself was still alive?

"Is she okay?" Tera's voice, calm but with an undertone of fear.

"I think so." Greyson pulled away from her, his hands trembling on her shoulders. "Are you okay? Meg, I have to tell you—"

Megan smiled. "I'm fine." She raised her right hand and slapped him across the face with all the strength she had.

The sound of skin against skin echoed in the silence. Megan forced herself to a stand, a rather difficult maneuver without the use of her throbbing left hand, and brushed her right palm on her dirty skirt. "Now," she said, looking at the destruction surrounding them, "what happened? Why are you guys here?"

Brian blinked. "You don't know?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked." Did she feel okay?

She felt as if she'd been given a shot of adrenaline. Shaky and weak, but buzzing and confident, too. Even the sight of Art Bellingham's crumpled, discarded body in the corner didn't shake her as much as she would have imagined it would.

"M'lady! M'lady!" The brothers’ faces, wet with tears, shone like beacons in the dimly lit room. Malleus grabbed her hand and squeezed. A little too hard; she had to tighten her lips to avoid a grimace. "We was so worried, we thought sure you weren't comin’ back, and we was so—"

"Mr. Black, he locked us up, we couldn't get out in time to help you—"

"Yeh, yeh."

"And when we got up here, an’ we saw—"

"Okay, okay." She reached out with her free hand to pat each of them on the shoulder. "It's okay, guys. Thank you. You helped me find my body, that's what I really needed. You let me know somebody cared."

"Well of course we cared, of course we do. And we're sorry we had to spy on you an’ tell Mr. Black what you was sayin’ in the park and all. We din't have no choice, y'see, he were—"

"It's okay, guys. Thanks." She looked at Brian, not wanting to upset the brothers but eager to hear his story. "What happened, please?"

"Dante set it up. Last night, at the ball. He made me promise to come. And to call Tera before I did."

"He told me about it on Thursday," Tera said. "And I told them." She gestured towards the black robes, two of whom now had a firm grip on Templeton Black.

They didn't need to hold him very tightly. He was bound at the wrists and ankles with shiny black rope.

"Why is he tied up?"

"He's being arrested. He tried to sacrifice a human to bring the Accuser back. It's a pretty big no-no."

"Why try it, then?" Megan turned away from Black as the black robes led him away. Her skin prickled under his furious gaze, but she ignored it. So Greyson had his way after all. Black was gone. He'd managed to use her and get rid of her in one smooth move.

"Once it was done, nobody could prove it." Tera shrugged. "And it would have been done, if—"

"If Megan hadn't managed to somehow overpower the Accuser," Greyson interrupted. He stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I assume, Megan, those little ones had something to do with your victory?"

Megan turned around. The personal demons lined the walls, watching. She nodded. "They helped me. Gave me some of their power, and brought me back here."

"We didn't bring you back." Rocturnus stepped forward. "You had a line. We just helped you use it."

"I couldn't have done it without you." She smiled at the gnarled little demon. "Thank you."

Greyson scowled. "If we're all done with the mutual admiration, can we wrap this up? I'm rather tired."