Demon Possessed (15 page)

She smiled again, pleased, but the smile faded when Walther finished his prayer and, without warning, yanked a man out of his chair and dragged him to the front of the room.

“You! I can see the demon at work in you! What is your name, and what has been done to you?”

The Yezer on the man’s shoulder gave Megan a cheery wave. Beside her Maleficarum snorted.

“I—I’m Matt. I’ve been gambling. I can’t stop.” Tears thickened the man’s voice; his pain reached out to lick at Megan’s hands. She’d been torn between laughter and calling the police herself. Now the first emotion disappeared, washed away by a red tidal wave of fury. How dare this man take advantage of these people, how dare he damage them—

“You haven’t been gambling. The demon has been gambling. What did he make you do, Matt?”

“I bet on horses. On sports. On how many seconds before a light turns green, on which elevator will come first, I play cards ?”

“That’s not you doing it, Matt. It’s that beast inside you. It is the evil being which has attached itself to you and wants to send your soul straight to Hell!”

Several audience members gasped; Walther had, as he shouted the last few words, made a sweeping motion with his arm, his finger pointed as if he was condemning the entire room along with poor Matt. Which maybe he was, for all she knew.

Probably not, though. The Yezer on Matt’s shoulder and the one at his feet appeared totally unconcerned. One of them was picking at his toes, the other scratching behind his ear.

Matt began crying in earnest. “Help me. Please help me.”

This was appalling. This wasn’t healthy. Megan itched to run over to Matt and pick him up off the floor, to give him her card and the number of the local Gamblers Anonymous chapter.

“I can’t help you. You can’t help you.” Walther was really warming up now; sweat ran down his cheeks. “Only Jesus can save you. Only God can cast out that gambling demon and give you back your soul.”

“I lost everything. I took out a second mortgage on my house and gambled all the money away. I can’t do this anymore ?”

Walther placed his hand on Matt’s head. “I’m speaking now to the demon trying to steal Matt’s body. It’s Reverend Bill Walther, you unclean beast. Show yourself ! In the name of God, identify yourself ! I command it!”

Beside Megan, Maleficarum’s big body shook with laughter. Roc had completely given up attempting to be silent; nobody but herself and the demons could hear him anyway. Same with the rest of her Yezer. Those bothering to pay attention were rolling on the floor, or lying flat on the pads of air above their humans’ shoulders, their shrieks of shrill laughter forming a background like demonic church bells pealing over the shouting of the reverend.

Even Matt’s scream didn’t drown them out. Sweat beaded Megan’s own head too. The screaming and Walther’s yelling and the demons’ laughing made her a little dizzy; the realization that Walther had essentially put Matt into some kind of trance, watching Matt’s face transform as his already battered psyche struggled to give Walther what he wanted, to create a demon for him, nauseated her. She swallowed hard.

“I am Azazael,” Matt shrieked, in the manner of a Monty Python character. “You can’t have this man back!”

Maleficarum hooted. Megan glanced over and found Spud and Malleus hanging on each other, their blunt-featured faces red with suppressed laughter. On her other side Greyson and Nick were biting their lips and staring at the ceiling; Carter just looked bored and annoyed.

Greyson caught her looking. His lips brushed her ear. “Azazael was a major player in Hell. The chances of him hanging around in this moron’s body in order to put twenty bucks on USC are pretty slim, don’t you think?”

“I never know what a man will do in order to bet on football,” she responded automatically.

Greyson’s hand slid down to her behind and stayed there. “Some of us have other interests as well.”

“Really? I never would have guessed.” But she let him keep his hand there—they were against the wall, and nobody could see anyway—and flashed him a quick smile.

“Be gone, demon! In the name of Jesus, be gone! I command you to leave this man alone!” Walther’s right hand flew into the air, pointing at the ceiling. For a moment he looked terrifyingly like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever.
Megan wondered if the Bee Gees were going to start playing in the background.

Yes, perhaps she was being flippant. She couldn’t help it. At least she wasn’t behaving like the brothers. Fat tears rolled down their cheeks; they looked on the verge of stroking out.

Matt screamed again. Megan caught a glimpse of his face—talk about someone having a stroke—and wanted to slap herself for forgetting, even for a second, what was actually happening and why they were there. That man’s already fragile emotional health was being further compromised; who knew where this could lead, what kind of trauma he was experiencing, whether this demon persona his fevered and desperate subconscious was creating would stick around after the so-called exorcism?

“You are gone! Be gone, foul thing!”

Matt collapsed.

Unfortunately, so did Maleficarum. He huddled on the floor next to Megan, shaking with laughter. That was bad enough. What was even worse was that the movement caught Walther’s attention. He stormed up the aisle—he reeked of Hai Karate, sweat, and psychotic—grabbed Maleficarum by the hand, and tugged.

Chapter Sixteen

“No, you can’t—” she started, but Maleficarum was already pulling away from Walther’s hand.

“This man needs my help,” Walther informed her. “God has ordered me to help him.”

“Don’t be scared, brother!” someone shouted. “You can be saved!”

Maleficarum gave Greyson a helpless look. Megan knew exactly what Greyson was thinking, at least. To leave at this point, before they’d seen anything unusual—or, rather, anything that went beyond the special superdeluxe crazy and into the sort of supernatural crazy that had characterized the night before—would mean this had been a wasted visit, and they couldn’t afford to waste any time. She was acutely aware that somewhere out there someone was scheming to kill her, and she knew Greyson was too.

On the other hand, the thought of Maleficarum being subjected to such a thing mortified her. How the hell would he fake his way through that?

Of course, she, Greyson, and their friends seemed to be the only ones in the room who failed to see what a fantastic idea it was to let Maleficarum be exorcised. Malleus and Spud made incoherent mewling noises, they were laughing so hard. Roc had fallen to the floor with Maleficarum and stayed there. The laughter of the Yezer had increased to the point where Megan started fantasizing about the quiet and peace found in textile mills.

“What is your name? Why have you come to me today?”

Maleficarum shot Greyson a terrified glance. “I . . . I dunno.”

“Don’t be shy, brother! God knows everything. He sees into your heart.”

Maleficarum looked down at his chest, then back up. Megan’s lips twitched. No, this wasn’t funny. It was not funny. She had a duty not to laugh; she was a psychiatric counselor, for fuck’s sake, she could not start finding this horror show funny.

“Think maybe I oughter go.” Maleficarum tried to turn away, but Walther grabbed him.

“That’s the demon, the evil beast possessing you, speaking. It wants you to leave, it wants you to—”

“Aieeeeee!”

Megan jumped. She’d had no idea Maleficarum was capable of such a scream. Apparently he’d decided the best way to get out of being exorcised was to imitate Matt; his panicked glances at her and Greyson, the trapped look in his beady eyes, spoke of the kind of desperation that led animals to chew off their own legs.

Walther looked almost as shocked as the others, but then Megan saw his eyes. The flash of confusion left them, replaced by calculation, replaced by fervor. He was a true believer, all right; she knew that. But in that second she saw the showman, saw him realize that Maleficarum was faking and decide to continue anyway.

The sleazy scumbag.

“Tell me your name, you foul thing! You do not belong in this man, you do not belong in this world! Name yourself, demon!”

Maleficarum’s expression changed from panic to agony. Megan held her breath. What name would he come up with? Oh, please let him catch what he was supposed to do, oh—

Maleficarum glanced at her, at Greyson. He squeezed his eyes shut, threw his head back, and howled, “Joseph!”

The moment of confused silence that fell over the room was one of the longest seconds ever in Megan’s life. Reverend Walther looked completely taken aback; he opened his mouth, but whatever he said was drowned out as the demons in the room began their hysterics again.

The humans, the audience, didn’t find it so amusing. They seemed not to understand quite what had happened and waited patiently for Walther to continue. They reminded Megan suddenly of people who in medieval times would have gathered in hordes to watch executions, who would have attended Elizabethan bear baitings. People who wanted to see others suffer, who thought that through that suffering they could themselves feel cleansed.

It wasn’t fair of her, she knew. The audience was there because they wanted help. They were desperate for it. They weren’t simply gawking; if anyone was doing that, she was. But they seemed so cold, so inhuman ?

Her breath caught; her fingers closed around Greyson’s arm. Apparently they closed pretty damn hard too, because he winced and tried to pry her hand off. “Ow, shit, that—what? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer. She was too busy looking, tuning out whatever bullshit Walther had started spouting again, while Malleus moaned like a bad actor doing a death scene. That empty feeling, that sick absence of feeling and warmth and . . . vibration, the absence of energy, had caught her again.

At the far end of the room was another entrance to the ballroom, a single door rather than the double ones they’d come through. It had been closed. Now it was open, and Elizabeth Reid stood just inside it, with her hands at her sides and a blank expression on her face.

Behind her . . . behind her was a man, one of the most nondescript men Megan had ever seen. Her gaze seemed to slide off his features; there was nothing to catch her eyes, just the vague impression of features and dark hair.

That emptiness loomed around him. The hairs on Megan’s arms stood on end. What the fuck was wrong with him? What was he?

“That man,” she managed to say. She didn’t look away from him, afraid that if she did so he would disappear. “The one behind Elizabeth.”

“Where?”

How did Greyson not see Elizabeth? Oh, right. He wouldn’t know what she looked like, would he? Remembering that brought her back to earth a bit. “She’s just inside the other door, the dark-haired—”

“Oh, fuck. We have to go.” His hand closed around her arm, tugging her to the side. “We have to go now. Malleus, Spud, get your brother, we have to go right—”

White light flashed in Megan’s head, searing pain like she’d never felt before. It blinded her, it burned, she couldn’t see or think or do anything, and somewhere she vaguely knew Greyson was dragging her across the floor.

The light eased up enough for her to see Maleficarum leap up from his position on the floor. Through the spots in her vision she saw him coming toward her, evading Walther’s grasping hands, heedless of the audience’s confused sounds, which seemed to come from miles away.

Elizabeth Reid’s smile taunted her, followed her, as Greyson pushed Megan out of the room and across the lobby, with the others grouped like pallbearers around them.

The sun hurt her eyes, still sensitive and blurred from whatever the hell had happened inside the ballroom. Greyson appeared haloed in white spots. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but his expression, seen between floating balls of light, did not invite questions; it was the face of a man who’d seen a ghost. So she kept her mouth shut until they’d piled into the back of the truck and Spud had peeled out of the parking spot at Greyson’s urgent command.

She glanced back in time to see Elizabeth Reid

exiting the lobby. Somehow she didn’t think that boded well.

Greyson sighed and leaned back with his eyes closed. His hand found hers, held it tight. A shiver of fear danced up her spine. What could be so bad that he didn’t want to tell her? The last time he’d been this reluctant to give her information, she’d been up against an actual Legion of Hell. She could only hope that whatever the problem was this time wouldn’t be as dangerous, but somehow she suspected her hope was in vain.

“Just tell me,” she managed. “Whatever it is.”

His lips tightened, as if they wanted to smile but couldn’t summon the strength; his voice was barely audible. “I never thought I’d actually see one. I didn’t even think they still existed.”

“One what?”

“Lord Dante, I’m sorry. I never meant for him to grab me, I din’t. I just couldn’t ’elp but laugh, seein’ as ’ow they was being so silly and all, an’ then he—”

“Never mind, Maleficarum. It doesn’t matter.” Greyson cleared his throat, lifted his head. “We have a bigger problem.”

He hadn’t let go of Megan’s hand. She pulled both into her lap and turned to face him. “What?”

He hesitated. For a second she thought he wasn’t going to tell her, that he wanted to think about it first to be certain. He didn’t like to say anything until he was absolutely sure he was right, she knew; she would have believed it was something he’d learned in law school if she didn’t suspect he’d been that way all his life. He didn’t like to be wrong.

Finally he spoke. “It’s an angel.”

“Don’t be silly, Grey,” Tera started, from the seat behind them. “Angels don’t—”

“They do exist, Tera. We were just in the presence of one. Although why . . . well, who the hell knows why they do the things they do.”

Megan licked her lips. “Seeing as how it tried to kill me last night, I’m guessing this isn’t the angels-bless-and-guide-you type of angel.”

“No angel is that type of angel. They’re all complete bastards. Dangerous ones. Fuck!”

Tera’s hand pulled at the seat as she leaned forward. “There’s no evidence in Vergardering’s files that angels actually exist. None. Our records go back to ancient Rome, and in all that time there hasn’t been a single confirmed angel sighting.”

“Of course there hasn’t.” He glared at her. “They don’t generally announce themelves. And they
are
rare.”

“It felt like a demon,” Megan said.

“Angels is real, all right.” Malleus looked pale beneath the black brim of his hat. “Seen one before. Musta been a hundred years back at least. Yeh, it were, ’cause Victoria were on the throne. Seen it at a party, a gathering like our one now. Scared the life out of me, it did.”

“So you should be able to see them,” Tera said. “But you didn’t see this one.”

“Weren’t lookin’. If Lord Dante says it’s an angel, it’s an angel, Miss Tera.”

They’d pulled into the long drive of the Bellreive; trees lined the edges and cut the bright sun. It made the SUV’s interior feel icy, or perhaps it was simply what the men were saying. Megan shivered. It didn’t seem possible. Not that angels existed but that they were the bad guys. She supposed it made sense that demons would see angels that way, but she wasn’t a demon.

Greyson had told her once that God had nothing to do with demons, that he had very little to do with anything, in fact. The afterlife was the afterlife, and people went where they thought they were going, and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of gods. He wouldn’t lie about such a thing.

But even if he had, which she didn’t believe, she wasn’t a demon. If angels and demons were locked in some sort of battle—again, which she didn’t believe, and she was pretty sure she would have seen evidence of it by now if it were true—why would an angel be after her, when she was human? What possible reason would an angel have to want to kill her?

It was the most important question and the one she most didn’t want to ask. The one she feared asking.

But she feared a lot of things. And part of her job was encouraging her patients to face their fears. She didn’t always succeed at it, and she didn’t always do it herself; being a psychological counselor didn’t make her any less susceptible to normal foibles and fears, just more aware of when she was succumbing to them.

But she tried. It was all she could do. So she took a deep breath. “Why would an angel want to kill me?”

“It’s possible someone paid him to,” Greyson said. “That when the
litobora
attack didn’t work, they hired an angel to finish the job.”

She digested that while Spud braked just beyond the valet stand, waiting for the okay to pull up and surrender the vehicle. She appreciated him not interrupting the conversation but found herself wishing that just once he wouldn’t be so polite; she could have used a few minutes’ distraction. Pretending everything was okay often led to feeling as though everything was okay, and while it would be fleeting and illusory, it would have been nice to feel okay. As opposed to terrified, hunted, and sick.

Then Nick spoke, and everything got so much worse. “You’re assuming the angel attack is related to the
litobora
. It might not be.”