by Stacia Kane
Elizabeth’s face didn’t even change. If Megan hadn’t already known in every cell in her body that something was wrong, that would have told her. The Elizabeth Reid who’d come to her office had been bright and driven, so much so that she’d taken an enormous risk like tipping off the subjects of an investigation. Now here Megan was, and for all Elizabeth knew she was ready to spill her guts or snitch or blab or whatever the terminology was these days, and Elizabeth looked as if she’d unwrapped a Christmas gift and found a pair of old sweat socks inside the box.
But at least she was still herself enough to shrug and step back, admitting them to the room. “If you like.”
Megan lowered her shields and reached out as she passed Elizabeth, steeling herself for whatever darkness she might receive.
Nothing.
No, worse than nothing. Tera’s damned spell, which was supposed to be so helpful, interfered with what Megan actually felt, the kind of emptiness she usually associated with demons but something stronger, more sinister. Something that didn’t feel like demon but didn’t not feel like demon either, and it certainly didn’t feel like witch. Tera practically vibrated in Megan’s mind. Elizabeth did not.
She felt human. Just unreadable. Just with something extra around her, something soft and solid that resisted Megan’s attempts to see it. She tried using her power as a weapon, tried pulling whatever it was back to herself. It stung where she touched it, but she felt humanity behind it, hiding there. If she could somehow push through whatever it was, past it, she could find out what was really going on.
Something screamed in her head when Tera bumped into her, hard enough to make it obvious she’d done it deliberately. “Are you okay?”
“What?” Megan looked around. Nick was sitting in one of the small bucket chairs by the room’s little desk, with Elizabeth on the bed. They looked settled, as though they’d been there for a few minutes already.
The door was closed behind her. How long had she been standing there, trying to fight her way through that thick dull veil surrounding Elizabeth?
Tera inspected her from head to foot, which made Megan want to slap her more than she had before from the stupid bickering in the hall. “Did you get anything?”
Megan glanced at Elizabeth, then realized it didn’t matter. Tera was going to remove the entire incident anyway. They could speak as freely as they wanted.
“No. It’s like there’s some kind of cloth or barrier wrapped around her. Maybe it’s a spell or something. Could he have cast a spell that deadened people? Hid them behind a psychic or magical shield?”
Tera shrugged. “Of course. If it was a witch. I don’t think a demon could do something like that.”
“What in the world are you people talking about?” Elizabeth wasn’t completely gone after all. She’d half risen from her perch on the sage-green patterned bedspread and assumed a defensive stance, ready to fight.
Tera waved her hand. Elizabeth subsided.
Nick glanced at her. “A psyche demon might be able to do something like that, but not that strong.”
“Can you feel it, Nick?”
He nodded, with his eyes on the floor. Nick’s father had been part psyche demon, she knew, but only because Nick had used the bit of power his heredity had given him to help her back at Christmas. Aside from that she knew nothing about his family, except that both of his parents were dead. He never spoke of them.
She knew there was a reason for his reticence. She didn’t know what it was, but every once in a while something would happen, she’d feel his energy just a little too strongly, and it would blow her away with the injury of it, the anger and pain and fear lurking beneath everything else. It didn’t scare her. But she was aware of it, always.
So she didn’t press him. “I don’t know, Tera. I’ve never felt or seen anything like it before. I can’t get anything from her at all.”
“So you can’t see what she saw, what attacked her.”
Megan shook her head.
Tera sighed. “Okay, well, look. I’ll see if I can get anything from her, but the longer we let these memories sit around in her head the stronger they get, as you know. And the longer she holds on to a false memory the more she’ll come to believe it. So every minute that goes by . . .”
Megan nodded. It was pretty basic knowledge, how memories were created and the difference between short-term and long-term. Someone who’d suffered a head injury and been knocked unconscious wouldn’t remember how it happened; the brain wouldn’t be able to “set” those memories.
Tera took a deep breath, shooting a glance at Nick. Megan caught his eye and jerked her head to the right; he got up.
That was the last thing that seemed clear in what happened next: the image of Nick, his body strong and graceful, lifting from the chair and moving silently to the left. A shaft of light caught his black hair and gleamed like the wing of a raven. Tera said something under her breath at the same time, and a cool wave of energy hit Megan, rocked her gently.
Then it exploded.
Megan fell, down to the carpet, through the carpet. The air left her lungs as if a giant hand had wrapped around her chest and squeezed, an iron band that refused to yield. Pain, pain so sharp and fierce it blinded her, tore into her chest, into her head, bright white and terrifying.
She tried to scream but nothing came out; she had no air to scream with. She was going to die. She was going to die here, on the floor of a nice hotel room, and she would never even know why or what killed her.
The thought sent a wave of rage all the way to her toes. That was bullshit, utter bullshit. It was almost her goddamn birthday, for fuck’s sake, and— She reached for her demons, needing their strength, knowing that if she had it she might be able to fight back, to push at whatever it was that squeezed the life out of her on the carpet.
The Yezer were attached to her by an invisible thread, one she saw in her mind’s eye but not with her physical ones. She grabbed the thread with every bit of strength and will she had left, sent her panic and fear along it.
A second to send it out. A second of waiting. And back it came, thick, strong power, filling her up. She was air; she was lighter than that. She’d never taken this much from them, not even the awful day of her father’s funeral when she hadn’t realized they were feeding her. She’d been high then. Now she was somewhere in the stratosphere.
Without her consciously doing anything about it, the band around her chest eased, then disappeared completely. She was left alone on the floor, with energy still coursing through her body and her hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks in sweaty, itchy tendrils. She wanted to scratch them but didn’t dare move, afraid that if she did, she would either fly off the floor and into the sky or collapse in a sobbing heap.
It took a second for the spinning room to stop. When it did, she saw Tera leaning against the wall, her face pale but composed. Nick hunched on the floor a few feet away, eyes wide, but also alive, which was Megan’s chief concern.
It wasn’t until Tera took a step toward her that Megan realized how shaken she was; the hand she wiped her forehead with trembled. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I— What the hell was that? Nick, are you okay?”
His face shone with sweat. “Okay,” he said, but Megan didn’t like the weakness in his voice. He sounded as if he was very far away, rather than a few feet across the pale green carpet.
“Whatever it is that’s got her, it resisted me.” Tera jerked her head toward Elizabeth Reid, who still sat on the bed as if nothing at all had happened.
Okay, that was weird. Well, obviously, it was all weird— it had been some months since life had been as bizarre and full of attempted murder as this, and Megan could honestly say she hadn’t missed it a bit—but it seemed especially weird, particularly weird, that any person, much less an FBI agent, would watch someone else have a fit on the floor and still be sitting there, smiling faintly. Which was exactly what Elizabeth Reid was doing.
“How? I mean,
how did it resist you?” Her legs felt rubbery. She forced them to move, pushing herself off the floor.
“I don’t know. It was stronger than me. Or whatever the spell is around her, or the aura or whatever, I didn’t have the right way to break through it.”
“So she remembers everything. She knows we were here, she heard you, everything.”
Tera raised her eyebrows. “Does she look like she cares?”
“Good point.” Okay, her legs really would support her. They didn’t want to, but they would. If she couldn’t control her own legs, things were at a pretty sad pass. She used them to cross the room to Nick, then let them collapse beneath her again to join him against the wall.
She reached out to touch his arm. He looked so dazed. “Nick. Hey, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Whatever it was . . .” he said, and she realized it wasn’t the physical attack, or whatever it was, that had so shaken him. “Whatever it was, it affected us because of what we are.”
“It’s really bad for psyche demons, you mean.”
He nodded. “It felt . . . I could feel it. It didn’t manage to do exactly what it wanted to because I’m not entirely psyche. It didn’t manage to do it to you because you’re human still. And Tera’s not demon at all, which is why she’s still standing.”
“I felt it, though.” Tera joined them on the floor. They sat there like a trio of early-morning drunks with their legs stretched out before them, Elizabeth Reid in her simpering catatonia essentially forgotten. “It got me; I mean, that really stung.”
Silence fell heavily. Megan knew what they were thinking, what they didn’t want to ask or even think about. But she couldn’t help but think about it. She asked, “So what the hell was it?”
“I don’t know,” the other two replied in unison, followed by equally weak smiles.
“It was beautiful,” Elizabeth said.
Megan didn’t know which surprised her more, what Elizabeth said or that she so obviously meant it. Her entire demeanor had changed. Where she had been affectless, she was animated. It sent cold chills creeping up Megan’s spine.
“What was it, Elizabeth?” No point bothering with “Agent Reid”; the woman obviously didn’t care.
“It touched me.”
“Yes, but do you remember what it looked like? What it is?”
Elizabeth looked at her watch. “I have to go.”
The three on the floor exchanged looks, basically all variations on what-the-fuck. Then Megan caught on.
Her own watch told her it was almost ten. Reverend Walther’s little psychological freak show—maybe she shouldn’t think of it that way, but she did—started at eleven, he’d said. So if Elizabeth planned to be there, she’d want to start getting ready.
Which meant they needed to get ready. Megan’s entire body felt sticky; her hair was drying against her cheeks. She wanted another shower and a change of clothes. She wanted a stiff drink—who gave a damn how early it was—and she wanted to tell Greyson what had happened. He was bound to know something or have some idea how to proceed beyond following Elizabeth over to the Windbreaker and simply watching what happened.
They’d have to watch either way. But she’d feel a hell of a lot better if he was there too, and she knew he’d want to go.
She stood up, noticing with some pleasure that her legs felt almost normal again. “Come on. We have to go see this.”
Chapter 15
Unlike the previous night, the lobby of the Windbreaker teemed with people, hiding the generic wallpaper and grubby carpet. The crowd overwhelmed Megan; she still didn’t quite have her equilibrium back, psychically speaking, and she clung to Greyson’s hand a little harder than normal.
He glanced at her. “They are a bit much, aren’t they?”
She rolled her eyes in response, not quite trusting her voice while she locked her shields as tightly as she could. The despair in this crowd, the anger and misery and fervor that could only be described as bloodthirsty . . . It wasn’t that she was afraid of their emotions touching her. It was that her body, still worn and woozy and a little buzzed from what her demons had given her and the gin she’d downed in the room, instinctively wanted to keep going. To keep feeding. She hadn’t felt her demon this strongly in months; for a moment all she saw were negative emotions coloring the air and making it taste like wine. All she felt was the desire to open up and take it all in.
Greyson returned the pressure on her hand. He didn’t look at her, too busy scanning the crowd, but she knew he knew, that he was simply there waiting until she had won her battle and was ready.
It only took a minute; she’d gotten much better at controlling it. And now that she faced it without the crippling fear and shame of months before, it was much easier to handle. Sort of like getting her first period as a teenager, several years after all the other girls did. A completely alien thing the first few times, gradually becoming just a nuisance.
Beside her Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud giggled and elbowed each other, with Roc’s little head bowing and dipping as he joined in from Spud’s shoulder. She didn’t think she wanted to know what they found so amusing.
The ballroom doors opened; the crowd pushed forward. “It’s like a wave of stupid,” Tera said behind her. In her hand was a Coke can frosted with cold.
Megan jumped. “You got a drink already?”
Tera shrugged. “I can get through crowds pretty easily if I need to.”
She still looked a tad pale, troubled. Megan didn’t know how powerful Tera really was. She’d always figured Tera was pretty damn powerful, considering her job. But she’d never known her to use that power among humans. Keeping the existence of the supernatural secret was one of Tera’s highest priorities.
Well, hell, if Megan had been able to mutter a few words and get herself a cold Coke faster, she probably would have too. The last thing she wanted to be doing at that moment was getting ready to join the throng of humanity spreading like an oil slick into the ballroom.
She started to anyway, but Greyson held her back. “Let’s let the others get themselves settled first. We’ll stand in the back in case we have to leave.”
“Do you think we’re going to have to leave?”
He shrugged. “I’d rather be able to escape this ghastly horde as quickly as we can, wouldn’t you? We’ll probably catch ringworm or something if we spend too much time with them.”
But the joke wasn’t quite working. Shadows lurked beneath his eyes, the kind she rarely saw, and his smile didn’t reach them; he wasn’t the type to walk around wringing his hands but the signs of worry were there for anyone who knew where to look. She squeezed his hand a little harder, leaned into his side. “I’m more worried we’ll miss lunch.”
“Think the reverend will mind if we order pizza on his time?”
“Well, if we’re there, and he’s there, that makes it our—”
“Grey,” Carter cut in, “I just got a text from Win. He said he has an opening around three, you guys can meet then?”
“No. Tell him I’ll call him when I have an opening.”
They were alone in the lobby, except for a few stragglers messing about with tissues and hard candies just outside the door. The brothers shoved themselves forward, peering into the ballroom as though it were a top-secret nuclear base under fire from aliens, and motioned the others forward. Great. That didn’t attract any attention at all.
And the brothers were so unobtrusive to begin with, in their black caps and clothing, gold glinting on their wrists and fingers. They looked like extras from On the Waterfront.
Of course, she’d forgotten for a moment what the rest of the crowd looked like. Sure, it was a mix. She’d seen enough with her own patients to know that just because a person was religious, that didn’t mean that person was stupid; she would never make such an assumption or generalization, not when faith had so many positive aspects and was so valuable to so many people. And she of all people couldn’t judge those who believed dem
ons existed.
But the desperation of these people, the sadness in the air, set her teeth on edge at the same time as it made her demon heart skip a little beat. These people needed help; they had real problems. And yes, while it was true that some of their problems may very well have been—okay, absolutely were—caused by demons, not all of their problems were. Who knew what kinds of issues they were dealing with?
And instead of something that would really help them, would give them the tools to cope with their lives and feel good about themselves, they were being given gobbledegook about being possessed. As if all of their problems stemmed from that and once they exorcised whatever was living inside them, they’d be perfectly happy, and everything would be fine.
Life didn’t work that way. One of the ways she was able to reconcile what she did for a living with what she did as Gretneg of House Io Adflicta was that without the negative emotions, people couldn’t appreciate the positive. Someone who never made a mistake, never put a foot wrong or did something he or she was ashamed of or regretted later, wasn’t emotionally healthy so much as sociopathic or a chronic shut-in.
People made mistakes; they erred in their judgment or acted rashly or whatever. Coping with and learning from those mistakes was what made them stronger and healthier. Blaming all of those mistakes on circumstances beyond one’s control . . . well, it might be all the rage, but Megan found it very difficult to approve.
Not to mention that she had no idea how much Walther was charging these people. And quite a few of them looked as if they had to sell plasma in order to eat. Painfully thin arms stuck out from beneath threadbare thrift-store shirts with missing buttons. Too-short pants rode up to expose pale ankles, incongruous against arms so deeply tanned they looked as if they’d been imported from other bodies. Vinyl shoes covered feet, cheap polyester covered legs, sunburned skin covered shoulders.
Not all of them, of course. Scattered through the crowd were a fair number of people who looked as if they could buy and sell the others. No, there was really no way to stereotype the crowd, only a way to pity them.
