“Let me in,” she said, hating the way he waited for Greyson’s nod before opening the door. Bad enough she’d managed to get herself involved in this demon underworld of violence and crime. Now innocent people were mixed up in it, people who came to her for help and instead got roughed up in a storeroom.
A storeroom in a casino, which didn’t make any sense. Gerald wasn’t a gambler. She’d never even read the slightest interest in gaming from him, unless you counted the occasional football pool at his office, and even that was simply his trying to fit in. Which was good, because he lost every time.
Still he was a nice man, a good man, and he deserved better than this. A kind, gentle—wait a minute.
“Did you say he was strong? That you had to fight to get him in here?”
The guard nodded. Muscles bulged from every inch of his body. He was like a demon Conan, with a smaller chin. Gerald—the Gerald Megan knew—would have been a snack for him.
She pushed the door open and entered the small, dingy storeroom, half hoping, half expecting to see a stranger in there, someone pretending to be Gerald.
But no, it was Gerald. Cowering in the corner, his bare feet scraped and dirty and a bruise marring his narrow little face.
“Megan! Megan!” He scrambled across the floor toward her like a broken-legged crab, his limbs jerking under his clothes. She jumped back. The unnatural movement sent shivers up her spine.
Gerald stopped, glancing up at her. His expression was innocent, fearful, but something in his eyes…Megan lowered her shields to read him. Maybe he was on some kind of drug, maybe he’d gotten hold of something…
Nothing. No images came, no stray thoughts, no flashes of emotion. Fear chased the last of her sleepiness away. This wasn’t right, not at all. She’d always been able to read Gerald, he was a heavy transmitter, and the only times she’d gotten nothing at all from a person were when they weren’t actually people at all, but demons…
Gerald’s eyes glowed. Just for a second, but long enough for Megan to see it. Without thinking she turned the energy she was using to read him into a shield, a weapon, and aimed it at him.
The pressure of the hit reverberated through her entire body, but Gerald only wavered in place. Trying not to let fear overwhelm her, Megan braced herself, certain she was about to be hit back, and hit hard. The place deep inside herself that she saw as a door, the one she’d only opened once before in her life, seemed to throb and glow, wanting her to open it, to reach into it and through it to the personal demons. This was where they connected to her, this was where she knew without thinking that she could harness their power. It would be so easy, so simple to open it and let the demon inside her take over…
But so wrong. So scary. Just the idea of it made her shake. Instead she forced everything she had into shielding herself and ducked down, her knees slamming against the dusty cement floor, the doorjamb against her shoulder.
Screams filled the room, high-pitched squeals of delight that sent shivers up her spine. They reached a piercing crescendo, hurting Megan’s ears, making her scrunch herself into a tighter ball, her heart pounding with terror and her entire body braced for the pain she knew was coming any second—but something inside her wanted to scream too, wanted to leap in the air and dance. The desire beat in her chest, so strong and fierce she screamed herself and wrapped her arms around her ribs. She couldn’t hold on, couldn’t keep herself from bursting into flame—
Silence.
Large bodies pushed past her, knocking her into the wall. She was too afraid to open her eyes. Where was Greyson? He didn’t usually leave her like this, didn’t force her to stand by herself, especially not when she was certain it was obvious to anyone looking that something was very, very wrong with her.
“He’s dead.” The other guard’s voice, the non-Conan one, sounded strangled somehow, confused. “Mr. Dante, the human’s dead!”
In the space between the male feet crowded around it, she saw one hand on the floor. Gerald’s hand, fingers curved up like a dead spider, pale and unmoving. The image filled her mind. Even when she closed her eyes it stayed, burned in like a photographic negative, luminous against the blackness of her eyelids. Her client was dead. Her nice, sweet, nongambling client died on the floor of a storeroom in a demon casino, with his eyes glowing and an unearthly scream—a scream almost like a laugh, she realized now—on his lips, and none of this made any sense and she thought she might faint.
“Get Dr. Chase out of here,” she heard Greyson say. “Take her to the car.” She wanted to argue but her tongue and lips didn’t seem to be under her control. Gerald was dead and she knew it was her fault. Knew it as surely as she knew her own name, knew it as surely as she knew Greyson wanted her to get in the car not just because he didn’t want her to have to look at that hand on the floor, but because he needed to get the body out of his casino before someone noticed it and called the police.
An annoying hum woke her up, and it took her a minute to remember where she was—and for other memories to flood back: the bitter taste of the pills Maleficarum had given her when he put her in the car, she and Greyson sleeping squeezed together across the big backseat, Malleus carrying her up to bed.
The room was dim when she opened her eyes, thanks to the heavy blackout shades on the windows, but there was enough light to see her stupid cell phone buzzing angrily on the bedside table.
She picked up the phone and fumbled with it, trying to find the catch to slide it open. Greyson had bought her the damn thing and she still couldn’t figure out half of the spiffy tricks it was supposed to perform, much less open it with a flick of the wrist the way he and the brothers could.
“Hello?” It hurt her throat to talk.
“Hey! I’m running a little late, do you want to meet me at four instead of three?”
Tera Green sounded chipper and well rested, the way she always did, as opposed to Megan, who, at the moment, probably sounded as wrung out and hungover as she felt.
She pulled the phone away to look at the time. It was twenty to three in the afternoon. She and Tera had a date to go shopping and have dinner. She’d totally forgotten.
Rather than admit that, though, she nodded vigorously until she remembered Tera couldn’t see her. “Yeah, of course,” she said, trying to put some enthusiasm in her voice. “I was just—just getting ready.”
“Great. I’ll see you at four, then.”
Megan echoed the response, although “great” was the last word she thought it was at the moment, and dragged herself to a sit.
“Tera?”
He sounded tired, but not as tired as she felt. She looked at him, his hair rumpled with sleep and his eyes still heavy, and nodded. “We’re going shopping.”
“What fun.” He yawned and reached for her, pulling her closer so he could rest his head in her lap. “Why don’t you stay here instead? I have some things to do but I’ll be free in a few hours.”
“And sit by myself in your room all day? No thanks.” She didn’t move, though. Memories of the night before started coming back: Gerald on the floor, the scream, the pounding in her chest…she shivered.
Greyson’s arms tightened around her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes it was and you know it. I appreciate your not saying, ‘I told you so,’ though.” Her attempt to keep her tone light wasn’t very successful.
He paused. “I worried something like this might happen, but that isn’t why I want you to give up your practice. It still isn’t why.” He sat up and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her down a bit so she could rest her head on his chest. Beneath the smoky scent of his skin she still smelled last night’s whiskey and whatever Spud had put on his wound. She glanced at his arm. The bandage was gone, but a small puckered scar remained.