“She probably let you go,” Greyson said. He stood beside Megan, holding her hand, just staring around the room. Megan knew he was imagining his own Iureanlier, thinking of the destruction that could have been visited there the night before if they hadn’t acted quickly enough.
Ktana Leyak had arrived shortly before dawn, somehow managing to remain inside one of Megan’s demons long enough to get back here, the one place they should have been safe. Their home.
When the alarm sounded, those Yezer out with their humans had come back, only to face their own destruction. Those who’d remained stalwart to Megan were torn apart. The others acquiesced quickly.
She’d spirited them away, Roc didn’t know where. And nobody was alive who did.
Megan reached inside herself, looking for the door, looking for the connection between herself and her demons. Her demon heart lay like lead in her chest, cold and unmoving. Dead. The doorknob turned and she braced herself for the truth. No flames hid behind it, no cold breath of power. The demon was gone. She was alone.
Greyson’s energy still buzzed through her body, keeping her awake and alert, but for how long?
Roc nodded. “She wanted Megan to know what she’d done. She wants her revenge.”
Megan’s knees buckled. Greyson held her by the waist and slid a chair beneath her before they gave out, but it was little comfort, especially not since through the handkerchief he’d laid down the cushion was spattered with tacky blood. She’d never thought this much about blood in her entire life and she’d certainly never had to see so much of it.
If the demon inside her was still alive, it would be leaping right now, wouldn’t it? Raging at her, clawing at her chest, desperate to feed?
If it was dead, what would happen to her? Sure, Greyson could still shove power into her. Her psychic abilities were still there, her ability to hold his energy intact. But how long could that last? How long would it be before she became an anchor dragging around his neck, something pitiful, a duty?
All that coffee she’d drunk earlier had left a horrible, sour taste in her mouth.
“Isn’t this revenge enough?” She didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in her voice. “What more is there?”
Her ears rang in the silence. High-pitched, like the whine of Brownian motion only children hear. Must be the shock. Or she was having problems with her ears. Just what she needed on top of everything else. Ear infections.
Maybe she could get diagnosed with Epstein-Barr or something, get some sort of medical help that way…
The whine grew louder and broke, then started again.
“What is that?” Greyson asked.
“What? You hear it too?”
“Of course I hear it.” He squeezed her hand and let go, picking his way through the panorama of destruction to an overturned sofa and flipping it up.
Another demon huddled beneath it, little eyes impossibly wide. Blood trickled down its forehead and formed a trail down its snoutlike nose. Its mouth opened and closed, trying to form words that would not come.
“Ashtenor!” Roc leaped for it, holding it—him—tight. “Ashtenor, how did you manage to survive?”
“Hid. Pretended…” Ashtenor shuddered.
“Do you know where she took them?” Greyson said. Roc glared at him, but he only shrugged. “We don’t have a lot of time and there are one or two things we need to figure out.”
“Tul azar,” Ashtenor whispered. “Tul azar Akuzi.”
Greyson and Roc exchanged glances.
“Tul azar Akuzi?” Roc asked. “Tresh tena?”
Ashtenor nodded. Megan watched a tear trickle down his rough, wrinkled cheek. She’d failed him, God, she’d failed all of them, she hadn’t protected them and now…now she didn’t know if she had enough energy left to protect herself, much less a thousand little demons. Now that her demon heart was dead, she didn’t have any way to—
If her demon heart was dead, or at least dormant, could it still stop her from practicing what Tera had taught her?
She couldn’t try it here. With her Yezer gone—and she strongly suspected Ktana Leyak was using their connection to Megan to suck her energy away, now that she thought about it—there simply wasn’t anywhere to draw power from. Except Greyson himself, and the thought of treating him like her personal battery made her squirm.
But Ashtenor huddled on the floor, staring at her with those damned Keane-painting eyes of his, and the words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to second-guess them.
“Greyson, I need some help.”
Bless him—or whatever one would do with demons—he didn’t ask why, or even look surprised. He just gave her what she wanted and brought Ashtenor over to her so she could hold him in her lap.
The connection was there, faint but still viable. Megan closed her eyes and reached for it. Greyson’s energy had become hers and now she gave it to Ashtenor, sending it sliding along the line connecting them.
His little eyes widened, then closed, as he snuggled into her. She’d never thought of them as her babies before. Well, they weren’t babies. Babies were good and innocent. Babies were hope. The Yezer Ha-Ra existed to cause pain.
But they were her pain causers. More now than before, when she’d forced herself to watch as Halarvus was punished, she felt the great expanse of what she owed them.
They weren’t inherently evil. They were part of life. Isn’t that what she’d always counseled her clients? Without the bad feelings, we wouldn’t appreciate the good ones?
Being in charge of the Yezer Ha-Ra, even just her small Meegra, was a responsibility not just to them, but to mankind. It was their job to tempt. It was the job of humanity to resist. Without that battle, what was the point of life?
So Megan held Ashtenor close, and breathed her borrowed power into him until his tears stopped and his color—a particularly unpleasant glaring orange—returned. She took care of him.
The way his Gretneg should.
Chapter Twenty-four
But we don’t know where the Accuser’s house was!”
Being back at Greyson’s place hadn’t really helped her mood, but realizing she could draw a trickle of energy from the ground outside had a bit. At least she wouldn’t need Greyson to keep kissing her in order to stay awake. It was a little embarrassing.
Her eyes still itched with tiredness, but she could handle it.
“That’s why Brian is coming over,” Greyson said.
“You called Brian?”
“Yes. That’s why he’s coming over, see. It’s very simple.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “I think I know where the Accuser’s house is. But I’m hoping Brian can confirm it, because if I’m wrong we’ll be wasting important time. He can read the document. The corporation papers of your father’s? He might get something from those.”
“But we only have the photocopy.”
“No. That viper who gave you life has the copy. I took the original.”
“You stole it?”
“Does that surprise you?”
She leaned back on the couch. “I guess not.”
“The only person besides us who’ll need to see it is Tucker, anyway. I’ll give him the original next time I see him.”
“When will that be?”
“When you decide what you want to do with the property, darling, and we start probate.” He sat next to her and handed her a Coke, which she took with the sort of gratitude dogs offer when given table scraps. Her throat felt like sandpaper; her stomach was a hollow, nervous space in her belly.
It tasted like pure, sweet life on her tongue. “So you knew we might need to do this. To get Brian to read it, I mean.”
“Of course I did. I certainly didn’t plan to have Orion over for a chat before—well. I didn’t plan on discussing the situation with him.”
And the decision had been taken out of his hands, out of hers too. Orion had needed to be killed. Was Greyson pleased by that? Megan didn’t know ho
w she felt. On the one hand she was horrified, absolutely stunned that she had stood and watched Winston Lawden murder a man. On the other hand…he would have died anyway, right? The minute he let Ktana Leyak into his body he signed his death warrant, one way or the other. At least this way he hadn’t been able to take anyone else with him.
But would Greyson have listened to her, and changed his mind about having Orion killed? He’d said they would discuss it. That didn’t mean he would agree with her.
“Greyson, about Orion…”
“Brian’s here.”
“What? How do you know?”
“Nobody enters or leaves the property without the Gretneg knowing, remember? Except witches, unfortunately. They can break our protections.”
He got up and shuffled through some files on the desk, finally grabbing one and taking some papers out of it. The documents of incorporation they’d taken from her old bedroom.
Brian came in. He smelled like wintry air when he bent to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Jesus, Megan, what happened to you?”
“My—I’m just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“You should go back to bed.”
Ha. He had no idea how good that sounded. All she wanted to do was go back to bed, and stay there with the covers up over her head and the TV on low. “I’ll be okay.”
“Drink, Brian?”
Brian too took a Coke, then sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “Okay, so what do you need me to look at?”
“This. It’s—it’s related to Megan’s dad. We were hoping you might be able to see him from it, maybe something of his conversation with a couple of demons.”
“Demons aren’t readable, you know that.”
“I know, but Megan’s father was, so maybe you could get something through his eyes.”
Brian nodded and glanced at his watch. “Okay, sure. But I have an interview scheduled in about forty-five minutes, so—”
“It shouldn’t take that long.” Greyson handed the papers to Brian, who closed his eyes.
They flew back open as his face turned bright red. “Whoah! Hey, um, I’m not sure you guys want me to see this.”
God damn it. She was forever doomed to have Brian watch her have sex, it seemed. He’d managed to catch a glimpse of a college boyfriend the night he’d read her after they met, and now…she rubbed her forehead with her hand. This was just perfect.
“Try to go back further,” Greyson said, in his just-doit voice.
“Okay.” Brian used his thumb and forefinger to pick the papers up from the floor where he’d dropped them. “I’ll try again.”
This time he held on. “Okay, your dad—I think that’s your dad, he looks younger than in the picture at the funeral—filing these, thinking about what a great deal he’d made…um…oh, okay. I remember Templeton Black, and that guy from the funeral, Orion? He’s there. Blah blah blah, the hospital will be the perfect place to house your daughter, everything she needs is already there and she’ll be very comfortable, just sign here…they’re sort of smirking at each other but he’s not paying attention…” Brian opened his eyes, and looked up. “Is that it, or do you need more?”
Megan had to force the words from her throat. “No. No, I think we have everything we need.”
“The truck,” as Greyson called it, was actually a Mercedes SUV, with cushiony leather seats big enough to lie down on and dark-tinted windows. It was about as close to a truck as the QE2 was to a rowboat, but it certainly did the job.
Trouble was, it wasn’t a job she wanted it to do. She’d intended that the next time she rode in this particular vehicle they’d be on their way to the woods for a romantic, relaxing holiday, not headed into the belly of the beast—pretty much literally—back in Grant Falls.
Back to the hospital.
She shifted a little, adjusting her blanket. With her head on Greyson’s lap and the soft, heated leather beneath her, she could almost pretend she was back in bed. At least, if not for the murmuring voices of the men and the soft drone of music from the CD player, fading in and out as she dozed.
Nick and the brothers were with them, coming along for moral—well, for support, anyway. But Malleus and Spud in the front seats and Nick and Maleficarum in the back ones did make her feel a little as if she were onstage.
“Just think about it, Nick,” Greyson said above her. “I could really use you here.”
“I like Miami.”
“I know. But I need someone…”
Megan drifted back off. They’d been having this discussion on and off all day, and from the way they spoke she had a feeling it had been going on longer than that.
She was back in her own house, on the couch, watching TV, when the doorbell rang. Her feet seemed to sink into the floor as she got up and crossed the room to open it, knowing it wasn’t the smartest thing to do but unable to stop herself.
Her partners from work, holding bottles of champagne, come to celebrate her father’s death.
Her eyes opened. Only the soft glow of the GPS system in the dash lit the interior of the car; they were well out of the city now, and the moon must have gone behind some clouds. She closed her eyes again, her waking unnoticed. Back to sleep…it was so hard to stay awake.
She was back in the house where her demon died, but when the police came this time, they brought flowers.
“She already hinted she’d accept you as a substitute, if you’ll do it.”
Pause. “You don’t have anybody else?”
“Not really, and…I can’t. I don’t want to. I said I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it for you. But this is why I don’t want to get involved, man. I don’t get this shit in Miami, nobody bugs me there.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask if…”
Brian Stone took her out to dinner, but there was a huge dog outside the restaurant and they couldn’t leave. For some reason they thought this was amusing and laughed so hard Megan fell down on the cold cement, which was soft as a feather bed.
This time when her eyes opened, she smiled. Greyson’s hand was warm on her hip. She started to snuggle into him, then stopped when Nick spoke.
“Is she going to do the ritual?”
“I don’t know.” Greyson sighed. His thigh tensed under her head but he didn’t move. “I don’t think she knows.”
“You’re not talking her into it?”
“It’s her decision.”
“But I thought—”
“It’s her decision. I can’t interfere with that. Think about it.”
Silence. “I guess I see that. But…I mean…” Nick sounded uncomfortable, as if he’d just offered Greyson oral sex and been turned down.
“Hell, Nick. You know I’d—What the fuck!”
The car crashed into something, skidded, and spun sideways, flinging Megan off the seat onto the floor. For one long, terrifying moment she was certain she was about to die in a crush of metal on a deserted road. Malleus was yelling from the driver’s seat.
Then silence. The SUV gave a final rock to the left and stopped. Bright light flooded the interior of the car as the doors opened, and Greyson grabbed her and pulled her out, setting her down on her unsteady feet.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She wrapped her arms around herself. The night air was freezing and her coat was still in the car. Someone laid the blanket over her shoulders; she didn’t turn around to see who. “What happened?”
Greyson pointed behind them.
An oak tree grew by the side of the road, its gnarled arms reaching out as though it could trap the moon between them. From one of those branches dangled a rope, and at the end of that rope hung the body of a man, his eyes black holes in his swollen face. A chair, its legs reduced to splinters by the wheels of the SUV, lay about four feet from the tree.
He’d killed himself. The piece of paper pinned to the front of his shirt testified to that. Suicide, right by the road. It wasn’t the highway, as Megan had thought. They’d gone
farther than that. The back of the sign welcoming them to Grant Falls gleamed in the darkness beyond the man’s swinging feet as the first flakes of snow drifted down.
Sleeping further would have been out of the question, even if she’d wanted to. The specter of that grisly welcome home haunted her.
Aside from a few dents on the right-side doors, the SUV was fine. They piled back in and headed toward the center of town, tooling slowly down the road, all of them on the alert. Greyson gave her his gun, grabbing another one from Maleficarum. It rested in his hand like a cobra about to strike. Nick had a gun too, in addition to, of all things, a sword. She might have laughed at the sight—it wasn’t often you saw a man swinging a blade in modern small-town America—if he hadn’t handled it with such deadly confidence.
Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud, of course, looked like they were about to storm Fort Knox. Megan would have prayed they wouldn’t be pulled over, but even if Greyson couldn’t have handled any police officer who came near the car, she doubted it would be an issue tonight. Something told her the police in Grant Falls would be otherwise occupied.
They rolled past the hotel, silent and dark, and continued on. Through the haze of falling snow Megan saw Christmas lights twinkling still on some of the buildings and in the windows of the shops farther down the road, in town. The clock read 11:00. Surely the stores would be closed, the lights off?
Movement off to the right caught her eye. Emerging from the little forest was a woman, her filthy shirt in tatters. Through the strips of grayish fabric they could see her bra soaked with blood and her bare, ghostly pale skin streaked with it, making her look like a bizarre zebra. Even in the darkness her eyes seemed terribly white, wide with terror or the blank screen of dementia. Something else was wrong too, but Megan couldn’t seem to place it and it didn’t matter.
“Pull over,” she started to say, but Greyson interrupted her.
“No.”
“What? Look at her, she must be freezing, she’s—”
“Where’s the cemetery?”
“What? Malleus, I said pull over!”
“Mr. Dante?” Malleus glanced back. His features, cast in pale green light from the dash, looked somehow leaner, as if his frown was pulling them tight.