by Stacia Kane
“Room three thirty-three,” the clerk said finally, in the slightly dreamy tone of someone asleep.
“Has he had any visitors this evening? Anyone ask for him?”
“A woman came, half an hour ago. The reverend came down and met her. They went back to his room.”
“Has she left?”
“Didn’t see her leave.”
“Thank you. You can go back to sleep now.”
The power snapped away as Greyson turned. They left the clerk, already shuffling off back behind his wall, and headed for the elevators.
Megan stopped halfway there. The emptiness was stronger there. She felt it like stepping into a cold draft. “Hold on.”
They stood outside a nondescript brown door. The thin plaque on the wall beside it informed them that this was the entrance to the Flower Ballroom.
“What is it?” He’d taken her hand as they walked away from the desk. Now he gave it a faint squeeze. “You look a little pale, bryaela. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just . . . it feels weird in here.”
He examined her for a second, his gaze sweeping over her face and resting on her eyes. “Want to go in?”
She didn’t, actually. But she didn’t want to admit that. She wasn’t scared, necessarily. It wasn’t fear making her heart beat a little faster. It was that emptiness, that sensation of nothing. She hadn’t felt that in a while. Or rather, she hadn’t felt that outside Ieuranlier Sorithell, a houseful of demons she couldn’t read.
She’d never felt it out in the real world, the human world.
So she nodded. Even as she did so, she was aware that they could be walking into a trap, but she did it anyway. “The room feels empty.”
He glanced up, nodded at the brothers. The secret sound of knives being drawn from pockets and sheaths filled the air around them before Maleficarum opened the door.
The room wasn’t empty.
What the hell?
How had she not been able to feel them? They were just people. Three hotel employees, two maids and what looked like a maintenance man, tidying the room. They glanced up when the door opened. Quick movements beside her were the brothers tucking their weapons behind their backs.
“C’n I help you?” The man plucked a screwdriver from his pocket. The brothers tensed around her, but he simply held it. Beside him were exposed wires and a wall sconce half dangling like an open seashell.
“We were looking for Reverend Walther,” Greyson said smoothly, as if he’d expected to find people in the room. People she hadn’t sensed. People she couldn’t read.
“He’s not here now.” One of the maids picked up a chair, started carrying it to the stacks against the wall. The room was set up as for a seminar of some kind, with a table at the far end and rows and rows of chairs lined up to observe it. About half the chairs appeared to be gone, waiting against the wall for the next day. Or so she assumed.
“Bless him,” the other maid said. “He must be just exhausted from what he did here earlier. You should have seen it. He was amazing.”
“He’s touched by the angels,” the maintenance man agreed.
“I’ve never seen anything so amazing.” The first maid turned around and headed back to the row of chairs. Her gold necklace caught the light and flashed at Megan before she bent again to grab another chair. “He truly has the power of Jesus behind him.”
“We’re lucky he’s here,” the maintenance man informed them.
“We’re all blessed by his presence,” said the second maid.
Megan and Greyson glanced at each other. His eyes were troubled; he cut them sideways, back at the chair-stacking maid, and raised his eyebrows.
Megan looked again but didn’t see anything. He shrugged. “Well, thank you. What time does the show start tomorrow?”
The maintenance man frowned. “It’s not a show. He’s saving lives.”
“Of course. What time does the life-saving start tomorrow?”
None of the room’s occupants—none of the human occupants—seemed to like that comment, but finally the first maid spoke. “Eleven. Eleven in the morning, and he won’t leave until everyone is clean.”
“Until they’re all free from the demon scourge,” added the other maid.
Malleus snickered.
Greyson’s lips twitched. “Thank you.”
They barely got the door closed behind them before the demons started giggling. Megan understood their amusement but couldn’t bring herself to share it. “Why couldn’t I feel them?”
Greyson stopped smiling. “Did you try while we were in the room? While they were speaking?”
“No, I—no. I don’t know why.”
He reached for the doorknob. “Do you want to try again?”
“Careful now, Lord Dante.” Malleus had not stopped smiling. He looked like the Joker. “There’s a demon scourge about, there is.”
Maleficarum slapped him on the back. “Aye, there is! Fink we oughter be scared? Nobody’s safe wif demons about.”
For once their humor didn’t go completely over Megan’s head, but for once she didn’t feel at all like laughing. The only people she’d ever failed to read had not been people at all. They’d been demons. But the three inside the Flower Ballroom had most certainly been human. Since Christmas and the consolidation of her powers, she’d been more easily able to tell the difference. Demons had a certain feel to them, a power signature that humans simply didn’t have.
Even as she thought it, though, something else occurred to her. No. There had been another human she couldn’t read. Not a witch either; witches were also difficult to read but had a certain feel to them.
She’d had a radio caller just before Christmas, just before things with her demons and Ktana Leyak—a leyak demon, the one who’d created the Yezer—had gotten truly out of hand. The caller had called because of problems with her mother or something—Megan couldn’t remember the details very well. She wouldn’t have remembered the details at all if not for the fact that the woman had been unreadable.
Megan had suspected possession herself at the time. But perhaps . . . perhaps something else was going on?
Shit. The last thing she needed was for her powers to start going wonky again.
“That’s enough,” Greyson said, dragging her back to reality and dragging them all toward the elevator. “We need to find that FBI agent, and we need to figure out what exactly the reverend is up to. I don’t like this one bit.”
“Yes, what were you looking at, by the way? You raised your eyebrows at me.”
“The maid’s necklace,” he said, and pressed the button. “Didn’t you see it? There’s clearly something off happening here.”
“No, I didn’t see it, why?”
The elevator doors opened. They all stepped inside. “She was wearing a Star of David.”
Chapter 11
“I don’t—” she started, then stopped. Oh, right. “Most Jewish people aren’t testifying about the power of Jesus.”
“Correct. So unless she converted and forgot to remove her jewelry, we could have a problem here. You couldn’t read them?”
She shook her head. “The room felt empty. And not even empty. More than empty, if you know what I mean. Like there was . . . an absence. A vacuum.”
The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open, revealing a nondescript hallway empty of anything but doors. The patterned carpet made Megan think uneasily of The Shining.
They all stood for a second as if the opening of the elevator doors was an event they couldn’t possibly have anticipated. Then the brothers exited, peering around the wall first, checking to make sure nothing and no one lurked in wait.
Greyson took her hand and led her into the hall, the dim light lost in the darkness of his hair. She hadn’t noticed before how tired he looked, how the shadows under his eyes weren’t just caused by the horrid plastic- covered fluorescents clinging to the ceiling, casting a greenish glow on everything.
But then she was sure
she looked exhausted. She certainly felt exhausted, as if someone had attached heavy weights to her limbs. Being almost killed hadn’t exactly pepped her up either; all the energy she’d taken from the witch on the roof had dissipated, worn away by fear and worry and the desperate search for answers.
Not that she really expected them to find any here. That would be too easy. The idea that Reverend Walther would open the door and announce, “There you are! I’ve been trying to kill you for days!” was a tad far-fetched.
But then the idea that he had anything at all to do with this was a tad far-fetched, even with the proof—circumstantial though it was—staring her right in the face.
“They were definitely human,” Greyson said as they started walking down the hall.
“So maybe they were possessed?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. They didn’t feel like demon at all. Did you see their Yezer?”
“No, I—no, I didn’t. But they’re supposed to keep hidden, so I wouldn’t.”
“Your Yezer are supposed to keep hidden. If they belong to someone else, they might not.”
True. She nodded. “I’ll ask Roc.”
They’d reached Walther’s room at that point, an unassuming door like all the others, dark wood, with light showing in the slight gap beneath. The brothers stepped back, out of the way, and Greyson knocked.
After a moment a voice came through the door. “How can I help you?”
Shit. Megan hadn’t even thought of what they might say, what sort of cover story they’d need.
Greyson apparently had. When he spoke, his voice had a hesitant twang. “Reverend, we’re looking for our friend?”
He glanced at Megan; she whispered, “Elizabeth.”
“We’re looking for our friend Elizabeth? She left a note saying she was coming to see you, but that was a while ago, and we’re getting—”
Shadows moved across the light on the floor. The door opened.
Megan wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Some John Knox-esque character with raving eyes and a flowing beard, perhaps, or a slick Benny Hinn type with shellacked hair and an oily smile.
Reverend Walther was neither. Pale blue pajamas, frayed at the hems, covered his medium frame and gapped slightly at the front where his belly widened. Silver hair topped his head; his eyes were small and brown and full of what appeared to be honest concern.
“You’re friends with that girl?”
Megan didn’t listen to Greyson’s reply. She was too busy lowering her shields, reaching out to see if she got anything from the man, unsure if she hoped she would.
She did. A church interior. Heads bowed over books. A wife and three daughters at home, dressed in exceedingly modest high-necked, ankle-length dresses. Roast beef and station wagons. Soup kitchens.
And beneath it all something that genuinely scared her, a force that sent cold chills all the way to her toes. Not because it was demonic or otherworldly but because it wasn’t. The reverend was a fanatic. He truly believed in what he was doing, honestly thought he had the power to expel demons and that God wanted him to do so, and he would do anything to obey that command.
Greyson had told her that the Christian God had very little to do with demons anymore, that there was no Hell, and that the concept of a good-versus-evil battle was outdated and silly. Or, rather, that the concept of a good-versus-evil battle being based on religion and the power of God was outdated and silly. Yes, demons did lead humans astray whenever they could, but that was for fun and profit. For power. Not because some devil told them to.
Walther believed the exact opposite, and just standing in the presence of someone with that much self-justified rage and self-exaltation made her twitch.
The other thing she got from him, the last thing, didn’t help either. He didn’t know who she was. Thought she looked familiar but didn’t know her. Didn’t know who or what Greyson and the brothers were.
“—but she left about fifteen minutes ago,” Walther was saying when she snapped back to reality. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.”
Megan took a deep breath and reached for him with her mind again, focusing on Elizabeth Reid this time.
Yes. Okay. There was Elizabeth, her dark hair a little mussed, her eyes wide and hopeless. And she . . . Wait. She looked fine. Well, not fine; she looked upset, a little spacey. But she didn’t look injured. Her bare arms and exposed throat were free of marks.
So where the hell had all that blood come from?
“I talked to her for a few minutes and told her to come back tomorrow.”
“When you do your exorcisms,” Greyson said.
“When God works through me to cast the demons out,” Walther corrected.
“Of course. Thanks for your time.”
“God bless you,” said Walther, and closed the door.
They walked in silence back to the elevator. Megan didn’t want to speak; too many thoughts circled in her head, too many unanswered questions. Plus, she was afraid Walther would hear. She pictured him with a cheap plastic hotel cup pressed to the door, spying on them. Probably a silly image but one she couldn’t shake, and she didn’t feel like trying to read him again to confirm or refute it.
But the others may have shared her discomfort or caution, because Greyson didn’t speak until the elevator had started to descend. “Well. That was anticlimactic.”
“She weren’t even there,” Malleus agreed. “’Ow’d she get out right past us?”
“Maybe she left out a different exit, or while we were in the ballroom.” Megan leaned against Greyson, who wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter. She’s alive and well anyway. She didn’t even look injured.”
“You saw her? So you could read him, then.”
She nodded without opening her eyes. Exhaustion was starting to hit her hard; her head buzzed with it. Without thinking, she reached out along the psychic line connecting the Yezer to her and gave it a little tug. The energy helped, but she still needed sleep. “He’s kind of a kook. I mean, he’s a fanatic. He really believes what he’s doing. But he’s not evil. Not in an Accuser sort of way, at least.”
“But just as dangerous.” Greyson’s arm tightened around her. “Fanatics always are.”
“That’s so cheering.”
“Hmm. What’s even more cheering is that we have to come back here tomorrow and watch his little show.”
“Right. She wanted his help.” Megan stood up straight, her eyes opening. “She said she thought they could help each other. She didn’t identify herself as FBI; he had no idea who she was. I mean, he figured she was just another wanderer—that’s how he thinks of them, wanderers—looking for spiritual aid.”
“She didn’t say how she could help him?”
“No. But he told her to come back tomorrow morning, and she said she would.”
He sighed as the elevator doors slid open again to reveal the shabby lobby. “And you’re sure whatever attacked her is what came after you?”
“No.” The clerk was sleeping again. The lobby felt too big, too cold; that spot of emptiness still hung around the ballroom door. Megan held Greyson’s hand a little tighter and felt his answering squeeze. “But I feel like it was. What else could it have been? And—oh! I meant to tell you. When I sensed her and whatever attacked me, I thought it was a demon, because it didn’t feel like anything. It felt empty, like the maids did in there.”
Hot air blasted them when Malleus opened the lobby doors. The night waited outside, wrapped itself around them as they crossed the gritty sidewalk. “If she suspects she was attacked by something not human,” Greyson said, “we have a much bigger problem. Why don’t we head back to her room? We can erase the whole thing from her head. No, better yet, Tera can do it.”
Megan hesitated. “I didn’t see whoever it was who attacked me. Maybe she did.”
“You can read her first, then. See if you get anything.”
He was right. She knew he was. But she
was so damn tired; her hands were cold despite the heat, her eyelids heavy, and the entire night had been reduced to nothing more than a confused jumble of images. Nothing more than a body falling off the roof, dark against the city lights, that moment of utter silence when she’d watched a man die.
At least when she’d thought she was watching a man die. And being fervently and purely grateful that it wasn’t her.
“Can’t we do it in the morning?”
He stopped walking, touched her cheek. “You’re that tired?”
She nodded.
“I guess it—Actually, that might be better. We’ll keep an eye on her. Maybe we can . . . hmm.”
“What?”
They’d reached the car; not Greyson’s Jaguar, which was back at the Bellreive, but the Mercedes SUV the brothers had driven to the hotel. Spud opened the door, then closed it behind them and climbed into the back. Malleus and Maleficarum sat up front. Megan had gotten used to it, the feeling of always being under observation, but she’d also gotten used to saving some discussions for later, when the brothers weren’t around. One of those popped into her head as she fastened her seat belt. She made a mental note not to forget again.
“I was just wondering,” he said as they left their parking spot. The air conditioning kicked on, reviving her a little. At least, instead of feeling like her limbs were overcooked pasta, she felt fairly al dente. “Why a demon, or a witch, would want to get what’s-her-name involved with some silly faith healer.”
Megan had been wondering it too, but in an abstract kind of way. Now she realized it was the biggest question, the one she should have been asking all along. The answer she came up with sent cold chills down her spine and woke her up far more than she’d thought possible. Without much hope, she asked, “Because they thought it would be funny?”
He smiled. It was too dark in the car to see his eyes, but she could picture them just the same, that combination of pride and amusement that flooded her with heat every time. “I do wish that were the case. But I somehow doubt it is.”
