Personal Demons (20 page)

Somehow her arms were around his neck, her fingers entwining in his hair as he kissed her harder. This had never happened to her before. She'd never been with someone she couldn't read, someone who forced her to leave her head and focus on her body. And, oh god, her body felt good.
His
body felt even better.

He pulled away, his breath ragged. His left hand cradled her cheek, his thumb hard under her chin. “Let me take you home, Megan,” he said. “Let me make love to you.” His lips traveled up the side of her neck to her ear, where his tongue darted out to lick at her earlobe. “I've waited, god I've waited, don't make me beg.”

The words sent a sharp thrill straight through her chest and down still lower. “It's only been a week,” she murmured, trying to keep her thoughts straight. It wasn't easy, especially when he pulled her earlobe between his teeth and sucked it gently.

“It feels like forever,” he said. “Megan…please.” He shivered slightly, as if it was an effort to say the word. Maybe it was. All she knew was his shiver sent an answering one through her own body.

“We haven't stopped the killer,” she said.

“Brian can do it.”

“Brian thinks you're a dick.”

“I don't care. Don't change the subject.” Then, in a different voice, “Hi, Brian.”

Megan jumped back and almost stumbled. Greyson caught her. “How did you manage to live as long as you have without losing a limb? You're the clumsiest woman I've ever met.”

“Flatterer.” Things were back to normal, it seemed, but she knew this was different. The urgency of his voice, the feel of his hands on her skin…there was no going back and he knew it as well as she did. A new possessiveness transmitted itself in the way his hands rested on her waist as he pulled her to stand in front of him, the way he pressed her to him. Something had changed in that kiss. She'd given in, though she hadn't spoken the words. Maybe she never would. The outcome would be the same.

Brian had the grace to color slightly. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think I've found the guy.”

“That's great!” she said, a little louder and more enthusiastic than she'd meant to. “Where?”

“Over there, in the corner,” Greyson said. “The blond guy.”

Megan did a double take. “How do you know?”

“I read him. Through you.”

“What? I thought you could only force thoughts on people, but can't read them.”

Brian stepped closer. “Yeah, what?”

“I'm not psychic,” Greyson said. “You and Megan are. If I make close physical contact, I can use your skills with my power behind it. I read the whole room.”

Megan pulled away and glared at him. “You could have done that right from the start.” She glanced at Brian, who looked as though he'd like nothing more than to put his hands around Greyson's throat. “You made us spend the last hour frantically reading the entire crowd, tiring ourselves out, when all it took was physical contact with one of us?”

“Close physical contact,” he said, stepping nimbly to the left as a dancing couple threatened to mow him down. “Would you rather I'd kissed Brian? You weren't exactly in the mood earlier.”

“I'm not in the mood now,” she snapped, pulling away. It was a complete lie. Her body still throbbed.

He cocked an eyebrow. Damn him. Could he read her? Being in the dark like that made her twitch. It was unsettling.

Then again, everything lately was unsettling. What was one more thing on top of it?

“W
hat do we do now?” Brian asked. “I mean, we can't exactly go to the police, right?”

Greyson gestured over to the near wall, where Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud lounged, looking like vaguely threatening grandpas.

“Wait a minute.” Megan stepped away to look Greyson in the face. “Why not hypnotize him?”

“I'm sorry?”

She glanced at Brian, trying to gauge his reaction. This didn't seem like the type of plan he would be in favor of, but she couldn't think of anything else—save Greyson having the brothers kill the man, which she thought he might be planning but which she wanted to avoid.

“Can't you—I mean, especially if Brian and I help—get into his head? Make him cancel the plan?”

“I'm not so sure that's a good idea,” Brian said, taking a step back.

Megan caught his sleeve. “What do you want to do, Brian, let somebody die? Isn't this the lesser of two evils?”

“I'm just worried about what would happen if we accidentally do another power transfer, Megan.”

“Oh.” Nothing like running into the field with all guns blazing, only to find the enemy wanted to negotiate instead.

Greyson shook his head. “I'd rather not, Megan. It's one thing to use my power through you the way I did it, but if I do this here—”

“If you do this here, what? Someone's life is saved?”

“Why don't we just have the boys beat the shit out of him?”

“I should have known,” she said, turning away.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her a couple of steps away. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means, you don't give a damn if this woman lives or dies, you don't give a damn what I want. I'm asking you to do one thing for me, Greyson, one little thing.” She knew this wasn't fair—he'd done plenty for her, whether by choice or by order of his boss or some other reason she didn't know yet, but she owed him her life. “Why won't you do it? Why should I do something for you, something with you, if you don't even care enough about me to save someone's life?”

He stared at her, then shook his head. “Okay,” he said, glancing over to his right. Megan looked, but didn't see anyone she recognized. “Okay, I'll do it. For you.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him.

He nodded, but did not return the smile. “Let's go, then.”

He took her hand in a warm, firm grip and led her off the dance floor. Just as well, since she'd caught a few annoyed looks from people trying to actually dance.

“You guys wait by the—ah.” He stopped. They all stopped, like a halted army.

A tall, heavy-set man stood in front of them, a wide white grin on his tanned face. Power rested easily on his broad shoulders, but Megan felt no particular vibrations from it at all. Which meant he was probably Greyson's boss.

He shook Greyson's hand, covering it with both of his. The diamond pinky ring on his left hand glinted at Megan.

“Grey.” Wrinkles formed at the outside corners of his eyes as he smiled. He was older than he'd originally appeared; Megan looked closer and saw gray sprinkled through his jet-black hair, and patches of skin showing through the hair at his forehead. “I was looking for you.”

“Megan,” Greyson said, not taking his eyes off the older man as they released hands, “may I present my boss, Templeton Black? Temp, this is Megan Chase.”

Megan smiled and offered her hand. Templeton Black's skin was warm and very dry. She longed to offer him some lotion.

“Such a pleasure, Miss Chase. I've been looking forward to meet you.”

“Well, now you have,” Megan said. What did one say to that, anyway?

Templeton laughed. “Grey said you were smart. Wonderful. He's told me quite a bit about you.”

“Oh?” She knew he was waiting for it, so she gave him the cliché. “Don't believe a word he tells you. I don't.”

“Oh, no. I've always found him to be a most truthful sort of employee. At least, he's never given me any reason to doubt his loyalty to me. Have you, Grey?”

Greyson's smile didn't reach his eyes. “Of course not. You know our goals are the same.”

Templeton eyed him. For a second his features seemed to rearrange themselves into something Megan didn't find half as pleasant as he'd looked a moment ago, but it was over before she could even be certain she'd seen it. “I believe they are the same,” he said softly. “I never did before.”

Megan looked at Greyson. He was still as an archer just before the bowstring is released.

Templeton clasped his hands together, ending the moment. “I take it Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud are working out for you? I wanted to send you the best, you know.”

“Thank you.” So Greyson hadn't been lying when he said his boss was protecting her.

“You're welcome. Unfortunately, dinner is about to start, and I must get to my table. Perhaps Grey can bring you to my house tomorrow for a late lunch? Say, three o'clock? Wonderful. See you then.”

Megan waited until he was out of earshot. “Am I crazy? Did I answer him without realizing it?”

Greyson smiled, but his lips were tight. “That's just the way he is.”

“What's wrong? What was that ‘we're on the same side' stuff about, anyway?”

“What? Nothing. I'm just thinking about what I'll say to our murderous friend over there. Wait here for me, won't you? Thanks.”

Then he, too, was gone without waiting for a reply. Megan turned to Brian, standing just behind her, and said, “Is this some man thing I don't know about, just walking away like that?”

“Maybe it's a demon thing.” Megan tensed, but he continued. “Or maybe they're just busy. I don't want to fight with you anymore, Megan.”

Megan bit her lip. “I'm glad.”

A passing waiter produced flutes of champagne, and she and Brian sat down. Megan kept one eye on Greyson, who was now leading the blond man out of the room and down a hall towards what she guessed was the restroom.

“So you didn't kill that guy, Trooper,” Brian said. “But you don't know who did, either.”

Megan took a long sip of her drink. “I was hoping maybe you'd know.” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “I mean, maybe you saw something I don't remember, or maybe it made more sense to you as an outsider…” Brian's face didn't change. “I guess I'll never know.”

“Maybe it will come back to you one of these days. Sometimes memories work like that. Something could trigger it, and before you know it the whole story is there in your head.”

“What about your story? What will you write about it?”

“I'll bury it,” he said. “A local homeless man died. You found the body. That's it. Nobody needs to know about the court or his name even. If you could give me a quote about how that was what made you want to be a counselor, that would be great, too.”

“I can definitely do that. Thanks, Brian. Hey…how are you doing, anyway? I mean, with all of this?”

“As well as I can, I guess. Not like you.”

“Me?”

“Does any of this even affect you? You seem just like you did the first day we met. Like there's all this stuff going on around you, but it doesn't touch you at all. How do you do that? How do you keep yourself so locked up inside, that it seems like you don't even have feelings sometimes? You fall down, you pick yourself up, you move on, and if somebody mentions your fall you look surprised. Just like you look now.”

“I-I deal with people's feelings all the time, Brian. I had to learn to shut myself off.”

“Yeah, but you're shutting yourself off from your own life.”

“No, I'm not.”

He folded his arms and stared at her.

“I'm not. Of course I'm scared, and freaked out, and of course all of this bothers me. But I can't just curl up in a ball under the covers and hope it all goes away. I still have to live my life.”

“But you seem to be enjoying this life. I mean, your boyfriend there—don't try to tell me he's not, maybe he wasn't, but he certainly is now—is a
demon
.” He whispered the last word. “And you let him touch you. And if you don't like it, you sure are a good actress. I don't think you understand the reality of demons here. Greyson's not just some guy who's a little different, like maybe he's a different religion or grew up in another country. He's not human.”

“People might say we're not quite human.” Her glass was empty. She looked for a waiter, drumming her fingers on the tabletop until she caught one's eye and lifted her glass at him.

“It's not the same thing and you know it. And you can anesthetize yourself with drink all you want, but that doesn't change the fact.”

“I do not—”

“No, you aren't an alcoholic or anything, but give yourself time.”

“That's a shitty thing to say.”

“Yeah, well, the truth is shitty sometimes.” He glanced over at the hallway Greyson and his victim had disappeared down.

Megan looked, too. It had only been a few minutes, but she tingled with anxiety. The air in the room hung close around her, charged with something she didn't understand.

“You're letting him have you, you know,” Brian said. “You're letting him take your soul without even a fight.”

“They don't take souls.” The waiter brought her drink, but she refused to even take a sip after what Brian said. “What do you care, anyway?”

“I just don't like to see the bad guys win. That's why I became a reporter.”

“And who's the bad guy here? The guy trying to save my life, who is right now saving another woman's life, or the one who can't look beyond
what
he is, and see
who
he is?”

“They're the same,” Brian said. “A demon's a demon.”

“Who told you that?”

“Father McElory. My priest.”

“You told a—you have a priest?”

Brian nodded. “I've been going to Saint Michael's since I was a kid. Altar boy, the whole works. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but it goes against everything I believe, everything I've been taught. So I have to ask myself, who's right here, a girl I've known for a few days or two thousand years of teachings? Demons seduce, Megan. They convince. They'll do anything to win. How do you know this isn't all a set-up, just to get you to their side?”

Megan shook her head, tears blurring her eyes. “I have to go with what I feel. And what I believe. Fact is, nobody's ever tried to save me until now. Set-up or not, and I don't believe it is, I'm making my own choices based on what I know.”

Greyson chose that moment to appear. He looked like a man who'd just won the lottery. Megan's brows knitted. She'd been sitting out here panicking and defending her personality and choices to Brian, and he was trotting jauntily over to the table? He could have at least looked like he'd been exerting himself in some way.

“Done,” he said, sitting down next to her and scooting his chair close enough to place one hand on her chiffon-covered thigh, just over the lace of her stockings. He straightened his bowtie with the other. “Did I miss the food?”

“Yes.”

Brian cleared his throat. “How did it go?”

“Oh, fine. Just fine. He's going to get a divorce then get out of town, no harm to the lady. He was a bit resistant at first, but we reached an understanding.”

His fingers swirled in lazy circles on the top of Megan's thigh. Her mouth watered. How was it possible to be both furious and liquid with desire at once?

“That's it, then,” Brian said. “You found the guy, you took care of it, and the rest of us just get to sit around and congratulate you?”

“Sorry there isn't even a story in it for you.”

Megan looked from one of them to the other. Did Greyson know why Brian was hostile? Did he care? Did
she
care? It was hard to think about anything when Greyson's fingers were now moving so close to where she ached for him that she had to fight to keep her legs together.

She bit her lip and tried to act normal, while Greyson caressed her thigh and Brian scowled.

“There's lots of stories out there,” he said. It took Megan a second to recall why he was saying it. “Don't worry about me, Dante. I'm sure I'll find something.”

Megan wondered exactly what Brian was threatening Greyson with, but Greyson didn't seem concerned at all. “Good luck with that,” he said, and finished Megan's drink.

 

“W
E ALREADY DANCED.”

“That wasn't dancing. It was investigating. Come.”

He didn't wait for her reply this time, pulling her to the crowded floor and sweeping her into his arms. “There.” His voice was low in her ear, mixing with the strains of ‘That Old Black Magic'. How appropriate. She giggled.

“Don't laugh. How am I supposed to seduce you properly if you're snickering at me?”

“Is that what you're trying to do?”

“You know damn well it is.” His hand left her waist to touch her head, encouraging her to rest it against him. “You're not very good at this, are you?”

“Insults aren't very seductive.”

“It isn't an insult, it's a question. You kiss like you know what you're doing, but all the trappings seem completely lost on you. I wonder why.”

“Most men don't bother with seduction anymore,” she said. “They just buy you a few drinks and leap on you.”

His laughter came out in soft puffs of air stirring her hair. “I can do that, if you prefer.”

“No, thanks.”

“Good. It's not my style.”

The music switched, something slower, softer, that Megan wasn't familiar with. She sighed and closed her eyes as Greyson slowed their movements around the floor, aware that she was sinking into him like melting ice cream into cake and not caring at all.