Which he did, after a minute or so of hunting. He started toward her, holding it out in front of him, but she shrank back. Not yet, not here. She didn’t even want to touch it.
But seeing it made something click deep inside her. All these fucking years later, and here she was again in this place. And it was almost Christmas, it was the Friday night before. She was supposed to be home packing right now. Ktana Leyak was ruining the first real Christmas Megan had had in years, and when a wave of rage surged in her chest she realized this was what she’d been missing.
What was wrong with her? It was as though Ktana’s stealing her demons had stolen something more than that too. She’d stolen…she’d stolen Megan’s sense of herself, had picked at it with razor-sharp nails since the first time Megan had seen her. She didn’t think she’d had a more difficult week in her entire life and damn it, it was time for this shit to end. Now.
She straightened up, and held out her hand for the file. “Give it to me.”
Malleus glanced at Greyson, then obeyed.
“Thanks.” She rolled it up—it was surprisingly thick—and stuffed it as best she could into the inner pocket of her coat. She might read it later. She might not. But seeing it, touching it, had reminded her who she was. And who she was would not let some demon bitch steal from her like that.
The triumph of her steely resolve was only faintly lessened when she stumbled and scraped her knee on her way back up the steps. Yes, she was certainly back to her old self.
Another flight of stairs, this one familiar to her. She’d walked up it before, the day she came here—her memory of it was vague and disordered, filtered green—but at that time it had been clean and she’d had an orderly with her. And her parents, faking concern while they checked their watches when they thought no one was looking.
“Each floor has a…had a…rec room, you know, where they did therapy? In the center, with the patients’ rooms around it. Maybe we should check—”
“Which one was your room?”
She stared at him, dumbstruck. “Oh my God, of course. It’s there, isn’t it? Whatever it is?”
Greyson nodded slowly. “It’s a good guess, anyway.”
“I was on, um, the fifth floor, I think. In the corner. I don’t remember the number…”
But it would be in her file, the file in her pocket. She reached in and pulled it out, holding it open in unsteady hands.
“Here.” Nick held it for her, his eyes averted while she flipped through it by the light from Greyson’s hand. Various phrases leaped out at her. “Presented with persecutory delusions…No shoelaces or cutting implements permitted…refuses to eat…fight with another patient…” She didn’t remember any of that.
“I was in 526.”
Greyson thought for a minute. “I still want to at least check the other floors, just in case. But if you can feel it, whatever it is, we’ll do it as quickly as possible.”
“I think I can. I’ll try anyway.”
“I can help,” Nick said. “I might be able to feel it too. My—my father was part psyche demon.”
“Psyche demon?”
“Greyson’s a fire demon, the boys are actually herket demons—their ancestors performed tortures in Hell. They’re physical demons, you know what I mean, with some mental abilities. But psyche demons are like the Yezer, their powers are all mental, with slight physical strengths. I can feel a few things from you without touching you, so it’s possible I’ll be able to feel the demon here if I focus.”
Greyson looked at his friend. Something passed between them, some sort of moment Megan didn’t understand. “Thanks, Nick.”
Nick shrugged. “Let’s go, then. Get this over with.”
They turned and started back up the stairs. Megan’s feet were heavy. She had to force her body to move, to obey her and keep walking toward…whatever was up there.
At the top of the staircase the hallway split, leading to the left and the right. The air up here was a little cleaner, but colder too as the wind blew through the empty windows and doorways. Kids had been in the building, teenagers drinking or getting high or just on a dare, and they’d left their calling cards in spray paint on the walls. CP + DK 4-EVER stretched across the wall in blood red paint, the letters dripping like the title of a Hammer horror flick, next to a passable copy of Motor-head’s Warpig. Another invited readers to suck his cock. At least Megan assumed the anonymous wit had been male. A swastika—no wall of graffiti seemed complete without some asshole adding that one, especially not in a town like Grant Falls.
The sight of it bothered her, brought memories of the town’s hate flooding back even more clearly than they already had been, but she didn’t expect Maleficarum to react the way he did. The sound he made could only be called a growl, and he flung his large body at the wall, hammering it with his fists until the plaster gave and nothing was left but a gaping hole. When he turned around his eyes were red, even in the dim light.
There was no time to question it, no time to react, because something moaned at the other end of the hall, something that sent chills rising up Megan’s spine. A zombie…two zombies…the fire flared higher and she saw more, coming around the corner, a small army.
An uneasy moment passed as they stared at each other, demons, human, and zombies facing off in the hallway at the top of the stairs, and then the zombies charged.
She could vaguely remember Greyson telling her that the speed at which zombies moved was related to how strong the zombie maker was. Ktana Leyak must be getting more from the Yezer than Megan ever had.
The hall lit up like a tanning booth as blue-white flames engulfed them, but they kept coming.
“Go! Meg, go!”
Nick was already moving, grabbing her arm, yanking her away from where Greyson stood with his brow furrowed in concentration. Heat roared down the hallway, singeing her eyebrows, and she understood even as Nick and Malleus tugged her around the corner that if she didn’t get away she would burn, they would all burn when the zombies fell on them. The last thing she saw was Greyson standing, his body outlined black against the burning bodies advancing on him, his shoulders set as he waited.
They’d almost reached the end of the hall when explosions ripped the air. Megan’s hair blew forward, lifted from her shoulders by the force of the blast. To her right the blackness of the empty stairwell beckoned; they all ducked into it and started up the stairs, their feet pounding on the cement.
Another explosion rocked the building and tore a scream from Megan’s throat. Blindly she turned, stumbling back down toward the landing. If he was hurt, if he’d died—
“He’s fine!” Nick practically pulled her arm out of its socket as he dragged her up the stairs. “He’s fine, Megan, come on!”
The edge of a step collided painfully with her shin as she tripped over her own feet, but there was no time to stop, no time even to hear her own cry of pain.
The stained walls were nothing but a jumble in front of her. Something fell with a dull clang on the metal railing. A chunk of the stairs above. The building still shook. Another dull explosion rattled through it.
They reached the third floor and started down the hall, their feet shuffling through dead leaves and refuse. Megan’s demon heart gave another leap, bigger than it had been downstairs, and she stopped, almost falling forward.
“Nick? Do you—”
He nodded. “Not here. But closer.”
She turned back toward the stairs, but Maleficarum pulled her away. “Down there, m’lady. We don’t wanna stay in one place, right?”
Nothing came at them from the empty caves of the rooms they passed, but Megan had the sense of things waiting in there, skulking against the dingy shadowed walls, crouching under windowsills. She ran as fast as she could, hooking her finger into Nick’s belt loop and letting him pull her along until he slipped and she crashed down with him.