Personal Demons mc-2

by Stacia Kane

  Beat…beat…beat…The drum continued its mournful order as the last of the family passed. Megan turned her head to the left to watch them go, the black smoke still swirling and roiling over the floor, obscuring their feet. Her skin crawled. The energy in the room, the pure, unbridled sense of power, made her hair stand on end.

  More than that was the sense she’d somehow stepped back in time. With the torches lit, only the suits of the rubendas indicated they hadn’t all somehow traveled to the inside of a pyramid, or a Viking longhouse. It was creepy and mournful and exhilarating, all at the same time.

  Still creepier were the servants following the rubendas. Their faces were smudged with soot and downcast, their hair was tangled and matted. Bare feet peeked out from beneath their shapeless black togas.

  She leaned closer to Nick. “Why—”

  “It’s to show mourning,” he murmured. “They absorb the misery of everyone else, and it destroys their physical appearance. Purely symbolic, of course.”

  “I’ve heard of that.”

  The shadow of his profile bobbed up and down. “A lot of cultures took aspects of our funerals. The Romans copied it almost exactly.”

  “So every house does their funerals like this?”

  The silhouette bobbed again. “With a few minor changes here and there—the colors, the smoke—but basically, as far as I know.”

  Megan gasped, her hand tightening on Nick’s arm. Behind the servants were—demons. Not demons as she’d come to know them, but the demons of legend and nightmare. Red scaly skin peeked out from beneath hooded black capes that dissolved into the smoke. Horns curved into the air over their heads.

  Worst of all were the faces, shiny and white, expressionless—masks, she realized. China masks. Some of the features looked familiar.

  “Sorry,” Nick whispered. “I should have warned you about the masks.”

  She didn’t answer. The blank artificial faces towering over the crowd transfixed her. If they were on stilts—and she imagined they must be—they were obscured by the smoke.

  “The masks are ancestors. All the Gretnegs are cast. They attend the funeral, see? To welcome one of their number to death.”

  Megan didn’t bother to hide her shiver.

  The last one had a “traditional” demon face, with a hooked nose and cruelly twisted lips. His mask seemed to float above his head, gleaming white and pale. Templeton Black’s mask, younger, thinner, but undoubtedly Black.

  She glanced at Rocturnus, uncharacteristically silent through this service. His little mouth hung slightly open. “Roc?”

  His eyes came back into focus. “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “That was beautiful,” he said. “We’ve never done something so elaborate. You don’t even have a mask.”

  “Oh God.”

  “What? You should have one, I mean, what if—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Would she have a funeral like this one day? Would her body, old and wrinkled—hopefully—be displayed like this? Who would walk behind her?

  “Why? We should—”

  She shuddered. “Not now, Roc.” Nick was leading her anyway, to join the line of demons following the procession.

  “Keep hold of my arm,” he said. A few quiet voices rose around them as her feet fell into the rhythm of the drumbeats. Heat flared from the torches to play over her skin as they made their slow way past. “I think the floor’s going to get pretty rough.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Into the catacombs,” he said. “Into the dungeon.”

  Ahead of them the darkness seen through the doorway loomed.

  Chapter 19

  They walked down the ramp forever, it seemed, until the muscles in Megan’s legs started to ache and she had to give up her pride and grip Nick’s arm with both hands to keep from stumbling. At least now she understood why Greyson had chosen him as her escort. She might be embarrassed by their last meeting, but at least she wasn’t clinging to a stranger.

  The uneven stone floor gritted under her feet as they walked, still in time to the drumbeat, the parade winding down the tunnel like a snake dancing to a charmer’s flute.

  Turn, then turn, then turn again. Down they went, until the torches along the walls no longer put out enough warmth to keep Megan from shivering, until the walls were damp and the air smelled like the inside of a well. She couldn’t even estimate how far down they were, and yet they kept walking, the drumbeat moving them forward as inexorably as if they were an army marching to their death.

  “We’re almost there,” Nick murmured. “At least I think we are.”

  Megan didn’t reply. They’d hit a particularly sticky patch; she stumbled, grateful for him beside her but feeling like an idiot just the same.

  Finally they reached the end of the path. A room opened before them, cavernous and dark, with greenish bracken decorating the walls and a chill Megan couldn’t shake off. From the ceiling dangled the largest chandelier she’d ever seen, its arms stretching like a pale, bony spider twenty feet in each—oh God. It was a bony spider. Human bones, their white long faded to mellow ivory, like old pearls in the flickering light. The center was formed entirely of skulls, stacked on top of each other. More skulls decorated the ends of the arms, each with a fat, glowing candle stuck in the crown.

  The catafalque had been placed near what Megan guessed was the back of the room; an enormous golden urn dominated it, so big she could have lain down and gone to sleep inside it had she wanted to. Even if she’d been tired she wouldn’t have.

  The rest of the procession stood and watched them enter. Greyson seemed deep in conversation with Templeton’s widow. It struck Megan that the woman was losing everything in this moment, her husband and her position, and her heart ached a little bit. To be a Gretneg was to reach the pinnacle of success. To be the wife of a Gretneg must carry its own advantages, especially if her experience at the mall with Mr. Santo was any indication. What would it feel like to lose all of that? Megan had never cared about such things. Did she still not care? Or had the hierarchy of this underworld somehow become as much a part of her as that second heart that still shivered with every drumbeat?

  They assembled in rows, still standing, as Greyson stood expectantly before the giant, gleaming urn. He waited until they were silent to begin speaking.

  “Templeton Black ga chrino,” he said. “Alri neshden Templeton Black.”

  “Alri neshden Templeton Black,” said the crowd around her.

  “Templeton Black is dead, long live Templeton Black,” Roc whispered, but Megan shushed him. She didn’t need the translation. She wanted to let Greyson’s voice wash over her, feeling tears prick behind her eyes when it roughened, letting her lips curve up a little when it lightened. A few times a soft laugh worked its way through the crowd. Even in words she couldn’t understand she could see what an effective speaker he was. What a shame the nature of his business kept him out of the courtroom.

  Or not such a shame. She had a feeling he would delight in representing the guilty.

  He talked for a while, then relinquished the floor to several other Gretnegs. The chill air seeped through Megan’s skin and into her bones. She grew bored, as horrible as it was to admit. Her feet hurt. She felt particularly conspicuous in her inability to understand what was being said. She was the outsider, the lesbian at the Southern Baptist church service.

  Finally things drew to a close. Greyson escorted Templeton’s widow down the center aisle, back to where the body lay. Megan’s eyes grew wet when Mrs. Black climbed on a little stool to give her husband a last kiss.

  The woman’s sniffles were the only sound in the room for a moment. The torches dimmed.

  Bluish flames exploded around the body, filling the shadowy dungeon with sun-bright light. Megan squinted as the image seared itself into her corneas.

  The demons started singing, a low hum at first, then louder as the fire consumed both Templeton and the p
latform glowing with heat. Smoke drifted toward the ceiling, trickling at first, then turning into a thick black column. It arced over the body and drifted down, spreading through the room, coating Megan’s throat and nostrils with a peculiar acrid, sweet taste. Her second heart sped up. The singing grew louder.

  Megan started to feel as if she were floating. Her feet remained firmly on the ground, but her head was full of air, full of that meaty, savory smell. She knew what it was, was a little horrified by the knowledge, but that didn’t stop her from having to swallow as her mouth filled with saliva. It wasn’t just the smell, it was the sensation behind it, of power floating in the air. It was the chorus of words older than any language Megan had ever known, calling to that part of her that was just as old.

  Flames filled her vision. Templeton’s soul, or whatever it was he had, was rising now, escaping from the shell it had occupied, and she could rise too if she wanted to—

  “Sorry, Megan.” Nick’s words didn’t register in the split second before his shields enclosed her, becoming understandable only when heat flooded through her body. His energy was powered with sex, hardening her nipples, making her back arch slightly. Beneath the sex she felt blood, and anger, something she could connect to and that would bring her back to the real world. Such as it was. His shields protected her, forced her to stay in her body.

  Another reason he was her escort. How much did Greyson know about what was happening to her? She wouldn’t be able to put off that conversation much longer, and something inside her—something purely emotional, not physical—squirmed at the thought.

  They stood there while the body burned, waited and sang until it was reduced to ash on the white-hot metal platform. It took no time at all, and it took forever. Megan’s body was so overheated, her mind so fuzzy with sex and power and the thrilling sense of savagery in the cavernous stone room, that she barely noticed when the flames finally died and the torches flared again.

  The priest stepped forward and waved his hand. Metal clanged against metal behind Megan. She turned on unsteady feet to see the lid of the enormous gold urn lifted by Malleus and Spud.

  Maleficarum and the other pallbearers picked up the catafalque one last time and carried it up the aisle, followed by Greyson and Templeton’s widow. The wooden legs were charred black but still solid, the platform already cooling. Iron, she thought it must be, treated somehow to keep it from melting, or magically protected.

  A sigh rippled through the crowd as the ashes were poured into the urn. Flames shot from it into the air, so high they almost touched the ceiling. The flickering orange light played across Greyson’s face, turning his eyes into sunken sparks, highlighting his sharp bones.

  Roc shifted in his position on her shoulder. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you.”

  It didn’t seem like the time to dissemble, to tell him it was none of his business or shrug it off. So she just sighed. “I suppose so, Roc. I suppose I am.”

  They all stood and watched the ashes fall into the urn until there were no more, until the fire went out, until Malleus and Spud replaced the lid and the service was over.

  “So you’re Megan Chase,” the man in front of her said. Another familiar face, but then why wouldn’t he be? All of the Gretnegs had been there that day three months before, to watch as she struggled to remember the worst moments of her life.

  “Yes.”

  He held out his hand. “Winston Lawden.”

  “House Caedes Fuiltean,” she replied, forcing herself to shake it. It had a familiar hard, tight feel to it. Would Greyson’s hands change when he became Gretneg? She sincerely hoped not. Templeton’s had been distinctly dry. “Orion Maldon’s boss.”

  Winston’s ruddy face darkened. “I hope you know how sorry I am about that. Orion overstepped himself most egregiously.”

  “Orion tried to kill me.”

  “I know. And trust me, our meeting tomorrow is only a formality. I am prepared to punish Orion in whatever way you feel is necessary, I assure you.”

  She nodded, pleasure at his sincerity warring with doubt of the same. Demons prided themselves on keeping their word, but they planted all sorts of loopholes in those words too.

  “I’d like to ask you about my demons,” she said. Perhaps this wasn’t the right time, but she’d promised. “I understand some of your Yezer have been attacking mine.”

  Lawden’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “My Yezer? Oh, dear. My Yezer are very well policed. That’s not possible.”

  “I have a list of names.” She pulled it from her little evening bag and handed it to him. “Surely you don’t think my demons are lying to me?”

  She had to give him credit. He started to read the list, but glanced up sharply after a few seconds. “Two of these Yezer are dead.”

  “I suppose this was before they—wait, dead? How?”

  His blue eyes read the knowledge in her own, and he nodded.

  “They exploded,” she said. “Didn’t they? Greyson said you’d lost two.”

  Winston folded the paper back up and slipped it into his breast pocket. “They did. What do you know about it?”

  The question wasn’t a demand, but her skin grew warm anyway, as if he were blaming her. “Not much. But if those who exploded were attacking mine…”

  “Do you have the lists from other families?”

  She nodded and opened her bag again. “Everyone has a few—”

  “Megan? What’s wrong?”

  She forced herself to smile. “Nothing, nothing. What were we saying?”

  Every house had lost some. Even Greyson’s. Were some of his Yezer attacking hers, was he actually trying to undermine her, to steal from her?

  He’d said he’d lost one, that he didn’t know what was happening until one of his had exploded last week.

  There had to be some explanation for it, she knew it. But what did it say about their relationship that three months in, her first instinct was to see if she could trick him into telling her what was going on instead of asking him outright?

  “You think these explosions are connected somehow to your demons?” Winston shook his head. “Yezer don’t have that kind of power.”

  “It’s not Yezer, though. It’s—” She stopped herself. If he didn’t already know, she wasn’t going to tell him now.

  “It’s the leyak?” Winston asked, his blue gaze rooting her to the spot.

  She nodded.

  “I thought so.” Why was he being so nice to her? He was Maldon’s boss, and Maldon had been in on the deal with her father and Templeton, and that would be reason enough not to trust him even if he wasn’t what and who he was. The head of an opposing demon family was probably not the best sounding board for her fears.

  “After I meet with you and Greyson tomorrow, the others will be over to discuss this,” he went on. “Will you stay? We all want this problem solved. I think you might be able to help us.”

  “I—I’ll have to check—”

  “No, Megan. You’ll have to be there. We all know you’ve been having some difficulty adjusting. Some of us want to let you have whatever time you need. But this is a discussion you must be part of if it centers around your rubendas. Failure to participate…it may make some of us angry.”

  She looked up sharply, searching for the threat in his eyes, but finding only kindness. “It’s time to take your place, Megan. Ready or not.”

  She was hungry.

  Around her the house was silent, empty, every living being except her back down in the dungeon while Greyson became Gretneg.

  Surely it would be okay for her to sneak down to the kitchen and get a snack? She wouldn’t go down that long winding hall. She didn’t particularly want to, and even if she had, she knew it would definitely not be a good thing to do. It would be violating a trust. She wouldn’t be in this house at all if there hadn’t been complete confidence in her staying away from the ceremony.

  A trust she suddenly wasn’t so sure she returned.

&nb
sp; “The Gretneg of a Meegra has to do what’s best for her family first,” Greyson had told her the night she’d connected herself to the personal demons and started this whole thing. Or rather, the night this stage of the whole thing had begun. Apparently it had started even before she thought it had, before the Accuser had shown up in her bedroom and taken over her body.

  Greyson was Gretneg now, and nobody knew better than Megan how seriously he took that responsibility. If he thought it served his needs and those of his family best, he would flick her demons out of the way with no more care than he would if a moth landed on his windowsill.

  Wouldn’t he? Had he done it already?

  She knew this was silly. If she asked him he would tell her. He would give her his word, and she trusted that word. But the heavy atmosphere in the house, the sense that the air around her was swirling and shifting, made her skin tingle and butterflies fill her stomach. Something was changing, and she didn’t know yet how serious or far-reaching those changes would be.

  She got up and started pacing, while the walls and furniture stood as silent observers to her unease. Her stocking feet sank into the soft carpet, whispering at her as she moved.

  “This is stupid,” she said out loud. She was hungry. There was food downstairs. She’d sneak down and grab something and be back in less than five minutes, long before the ceremony ended. She needed something to do. Her book didn’t distract her and nothing on television was of interest. She’d get a snack, she’d bring it back here and try to get some things straight in her head while she waited. Formulate a plan for when Greyson returned.

  Her toes grew numb from the freezing marble as she crept down the stairs, and the few oriental carpets in the hall did nothing to warm them. The torches had been put out immediately after the guests left, and only the floodlights from outside provided any illumination. Roc had had to leave too. The complicated process by which demons were permitted into each other’s homes still eluded Megan, but there hadn’t seemed to be much reason for Roc to stay.