Personal Demons

  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.

  A cupboard ... she had seen this room before. She'd been here in Kevin's dream, in the vision that sent her to the hospital. The Accuser had sent Kevin to her, had sent that room to her.

  She was in the home of the personal demons and, as the realization hit and her heart started pounding, more doors in the walls opened.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Megan's throat worked convulsively as she attempted to scream, even though she knew screaming wouldn't do her any good.

  The demons poured from their cupboards, crawling along the walls, swarming across the ceiling and down. The walls were alive and moving, a sight made all the more impossible by the almost near-silence of their movements. Their dry little hands and feet rustled along the wood, whispering things she could not understand, but none of them spoke. They didn't chant her name, they didn't laugh or sing. They were like roaches under a log when the log was turned to the sun, scattering and moving, their horrible bodies scabrous in the bright light.

  Megan started to run, but even as she turned she knew it was too late. Had been too late the minute she arrived here, the minute she went to dinner. The minute she sat down in that radio station. What would everyone think happened to her? Or would ... would the Accuser use her body, pose as her, to do her show? Of course he would. He'd take over her practice, her show, her life. She could easily picture him on television analyzing Hollywood marriages and the inner pain of government leaders.

  Sparks of anger flashed through her. Her reputation, the life she'd worked so hard to build after she left home for college and her parents actively encouraged her not to come back. She hadn't spoken to them in years. She wondered if she regretted that and decided she didn't.

  But she didn't slow down as she ran for the door. It was impossible to tell how far away it was and the floor rumbled under her feet as the first demons reached the slick wood and came after her. She might have gone down the way Art Bellingham wanted, to save the Fearbusters people, but there was no way she was bending over for these fucking little demons, these miserable beasts who did nothing but make people unhappy and laugh as they did it.

  She skidded to a halt, almost falling as those damned boots skidded on the polished floor. Why was she running? She couldn't escape them. They were coming for her, and they would get her, and she would face them head on.

  Now she understood what Greyson said earlier about being calm because he'd done everything he could do. As she turned to face the demons, her breathing slowed, her eyes focused. She'd take out as many of those little bastards as she could before they killed her.

  The demons stopped, too. One minute they were running, the next they were still and silent in front of her. A Mexican stand-off without the guns. Megan felt vaguely like Dorothy in Munchkin land, an odd feeling for a woman only a couple of inches over five feet tall.

  Up close they were no less terrifying than they'd been before, an army of bald creatures with large, loose-lipped mouths and pinkish eyes, but Megan's calm didn't leave her. “What do you want?"

  They didn't reply, but a shuffling movement among them made Megan think they weren't expecting the question.

  "If you don't even know what you want from me, why don't you leave me the hell alone?” Her voice echoed against the high ceiling, the words continuing long after she'd closed her mouth again.

  She expected a reply, but not the kind she got. They didn't speak, they didn't attack. Not physically. Instead they sent a wave of choking power, anger and despair, frustration. Above it all was the feeling of being trapped. Unable to move or breathe. She wanted to get up but couldn't, she was so heavily weighted with the force of their frustration.

  She screamed and fell back, pain shooting up her wrist as she used her hands to break her fall. Her shout turned into a choking gasp. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. They'd captured her, enslaved her, using only their energy.

  "No,” she managed. “No!” Somewhere deep inside her was a door, the door Tera had tried to teach her to open. Now she found it, her desperation making her mental fingers shake, and pulled.

  Every muscle in her body tensed and vibrated, an orgasm without the pleasure. Instead pain ripped through her, rendering her insensible for a moment that could have been forever. Flames roared through her head, obscuring her vision. Agony ripped her body apart. Her hands scrabbled claw-like at the floor, her feet kicked at nothing.

  Somewhere in the middle of it, Megan's mind still fought. She gathered all the force together, everything terrible that had crouched behind that door, and turned it into a sword in her head. Her body disappeared. She couldn't feel it anymore and, in that second of blessed relief, she turned the sword outward and flung it through the air, severing the connection between the demons and herself, pushing them away with all the force she could muster.

  The demons screamed, their voices rising as one, drowning out Megan's own cries. She opened her eyes and found them all on their knees, their horrible little faces contorted with pain, but also with something that looked like ... triumph. As if she'd pleased them. Had she done the wrong thing, had she given them all of her energy and left none for herself?

  A voice. “She can do it."

  "What?"

  The demons hadn't moved, didn't move even as Megan pulled herself to her feet. She swayed on her heels and wanted to take them off, but didn't dare. She couldn't show any weakness now, not when they looked at her with wide, respectful eyes. She'd scared them.

  One demon, slightly bigger than the others, stepped towards her. He bowed slightly.

  "Will you help us?"

  "Okay, let me get this straight.” Megan sank back in the soft leather chair and rubbed her eyes. “I bound you to the Accuser?"

  The little demon—Rocturnus, his name was—nodded. “Have some more water. And try one of those cookies. We got them just for you.” He nodded towards the little table next to her, on which sat a silver tray covered with chocolate cookies. Across from her a small fire burned merrily in a brick fireplace. The room behind Rocturnus's little cupboard door was larger than she'd imagined and very comfortable. Like a gentleman's study, instead of a demon's lair. She liked the room, and in spite of herself she liked Rocturnus. She even managed not to shiver when she saw the rest of the Yezer Ha-Ra watching through the open doorway.

  For a week now she'd imagined the horrors the personal demons would visit upon her when they finally caught her. Not once had she supposed they would give her tea and cookies, and settle her in an easy chair for a nice chat.

  "Thank you. How did I manage that?"

  "We don't know for sure. But for the last fifteen years of your time, he's been using us. All of our power, he took. Everything we feed on, he took. So we branched out. We took more and more, just to survive. You understand."

  Megan nodded. The personal demons had been faced with a choice—get meaner, or die. They'd chosen meaner. She couldn't say for sure she blamed them.

  "Normally we don't like to gang up in such numbers,” Rocturnus continued. Like the room, he was strangely elegant for a naked three-foot-tall demon with lurid green skin. Megan kept expecting him to smoke a pipe or play concert piano. “It dilutes our power. When we have to share, when we're forced to gang up on people who don't have the strength to give, it deadens everyone. Our victims aren't as strong to begin with, their friends and family aren't as shocked and upset when—well. I'm sure you know to what conclusion we normally take our humans."

  Megan nodded.

  "But he took that choice away from us. You took that choice away from us, Megan, and we'd like our freedom back—at least as much as we can have it back. We want you to undo it."

  "I don't know how."
>
  "You do. You just don't remember that you know. But somewhere in there, you know how you did it and how you can fix it. You beat us, just now. That takes tremendous power."

  She shook her head. “I don't understand. If it was so easy for me to beat you, and you just wanted my help, why did you scare me? Why all the business with the photo shoot, and the restaurant? What about sending Don Tremblay after me and my radio show?"

  "We thought your show was a threat to us, a message for us. We wanted to see how powerful you really were. And we were his personal army.” The venom in Rocturnus's voice hit Megan almost like a physical blow. “When we're not here, in our home, we must do what he says. The show gave him a convenient excuse. But we made sure Tremblay missed that day in the park, you have to give us that."

  "Thanks. But why did he send me here? That doesn't make any sense."

  Rocturnus sipped his tea. “He didn't. We don't know how you ended up here. Certainly we wanted you. That may have been enough. Now we can go after the Accuser."

  "But I don't know how I did that. It just sort of happened. I mean, I knew what I was trying to do, but I don't know how it worked. And I can't remember how I did it."

  "The Accuser does. And we have a connection to him, just like you. All we must do is go back to where he is. You'll find what you need."

  "You'll take me back to him?” It came out as a whisper.

  "No. We can only come when called. You'll take us back."

  "Won't you have to obey him if I do?"

  Rocturnus smiled. She tried not to look at his teeth. “We can rebel a little, if we concentrate, but not for long. You'll need to defeat him quickly."

  "But I can't. I can't go back. He kicked me out. I don't have a body anymore, he's in it."

  "Not completely.” Rocturnus dropped out of his chair in a smooth slide and held out his hand. Megan hesitated, then took it. His skin was cool and dry, his fingers like long animated sticks in her palm.

  "Someone left a line for you,” he said. “All you have to do is follow it back."

  "A line? I don't—"

  She saw it then, a faint red scar pulsing in the air, leading from her chest up into the ether.

  The personal demons stood up en masse and lifted their arms. Rocturnus said something in the demon tongue, one word. They repeated it.

  Their power slammed into Megan again, but this time she did not scream. This time she opened that door she'd found, and sucked it all in. Their demon power, her own power, mingled in the furnace in her soul and she grabbed hold of the thin scarlet streak and pulled.

  The room disappeared. Colors flashed and swirled around her. There was a tremendous thump. Megan opened her eyes and found herself back in the Solithell, lying on the floor beside a slathering horned beast with three eyes who she knew immediately was the Accuser in his true form.

  * * * *

  The Accuser roared, his huge black body shaking as he raised his fists into the air. Megan screamed, too, not just out of fear or anger but because being in his presence made the energy inside her body flare to a point where she didn't think she could control it. Behind her the personal demons shrieked, their voices echoing through her.

  How long had it been? It felt like hours, but the position of the people in the room made her think only minutes had passed, at the most.

  The black smog no longer filled the room. She couldn't see the Fearbusters clients, but Dante still sat at the table, visibly tense even at a distance. Her eyes watered when she spotted Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud, huddled on the other side of the room around something she had a sneaking suspicion belonged to her. Templeton Black shouted in the demon tongue, his voice hoarse with terror as he faced the Accuser. He hadn't seen her yet. She didn't know if he could, if any of them could. Could they?

  A quick glance down told her no. She could see through herself, as if she was some sort of faded reflection. For a moment the world spun and she stumbled before righting herself. No time. She'd already died or agreed to die. This was her chance to live and if it meant spending a little time in Casper form here in the Solithell she would do it.

  She shook her head and stood up.

  "Hey!"

  The Accuser stopped. His eyes glowed red as he turned in her direction, his pig-like nostrils flaring. Blood ran down his bulging arms and matted the hair on his body. If Megan hadn't been ethereal, she thought she would have peed her pants.

  "You didn't get rid of me after all,” she said, her voice squeaking, “and I've brought some friends to see you, too."

  The Accuser looked at her, then turned away, back towards Templeton. The temptation to hide from him, to run around the room, find her body, and steal it back, was almost unbearable.

  Then Megan looked behind her and saw the little demons watching her, hope shining in their bulgy eyes. Funny, they were almost kind of cute in a horrible way, once you got used to them. It was her fault they'd been enslaved for fifteen years and her responsibility to rescue them.

  She took a deep breath, and attacked the Accuser.

  He'd been about to pick Templeton Black up in one ham-like fist. Megan's energy hit him with enough force to make Megan stumble, but the Accuser merely stopped what he was doing. He looked at her, puzzled, as if she was an insect, then gave an almost human shrug.

  Megan didn't think anything had happened until she found herself flying across the room, slamming into the wall and falling to the floor. The Accuser had hit back, without even looking as if he was trying to. The little demons hissed.

  She stood up, reaching for her head. She wasn't injured. She had no body to injure.

  He couldn't harm her any more than he had. She could stay as she was, or she could get her body back, but she couldn't be hurt any worse than she was already hurting.

  With a scream, she ran towards him, lowering the shields she still carried and sucking energy from the little demons, shaping it into a ball of fire in her head. A ball so large and hot she would have been sweating if she'd had a body to sweat. She held it in her hands, let it envelop her, until she was flame and she was Megan, and they were both the same.

  She laughed, a delighted sound that echoed across the shouts and chaos of the room. She floated above it all, running across the floor on feet that wanted to dance, pulling energy as she ran. Templeton's, and the other demons’ and the brothers', and then with a final giggle, Greyson's, fiery red in her hands and her mind.

  She ran with it all, flying with it, across the marble floor, and when she got to the Accuser she didn't hesitate. She kept running, right into him, his flesh collapsing around her with a sickening squelch.

  Her own memories flooded back, bending her backwards with the pain of them. Her disappointments, the things she'd seen and done, the loneliness ... and then something else, something clean and pure that was love, and happiness, and pride in her accomplishments. The soft blue of Tera's new friendship, the green of Brian's respect, even the blazing black-edged orange of Greyson's desire and companionship. They wiped away the shame and sadness, not erasing it completely but making it manageable. She shouted in triumph, dug her fingers into the slime-covered flesh around her, and read.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  He was older than humans, older than time. She saw dinosaurs and crawling, filthy slug-things. She saw Cro-Magnons and prehistoric animals, chanting Druids, people growing and changing. Occasionally they challenged him, but they never won. He slaughtered and licked them clean of blood, danced in the flames as their bodies burned, and cried out in triumphant glee. Their despair filled him, went to his head like fine wine. Megan tasted it with him, was him, and threw her head back in delight.

  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 p
sychic 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.