“Being powerful doesn’t mean you know how to lead them. You need to lead them. I know you don’t like it, but…this is the way it is.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Megan looked around the little office with its dark wood and comfortable flowered-chintz furniture. Her demons had a taste for the quaint; she assumed it was because they were so small.
She’d assumed a lot of things.
Whatever was happening to her wasn’t going to just go away. Roc wanted her to do the ritual. So did Greyson. Because both of them felt she wasn’t connected enough, that she wasn’t keeping the needs of her demons in mind. And maybe they were right. Her plans for a newer, gentler Meegra weren’t going to go very far if she treated them the same way she wanted them to treat their humans.
They wanted her, needed her, to be something different. And she didn’t have a choice but to be it.
“Bring him in,” she said, steeling herself. John Wayne would know what to do here. Joan Crawford would know how to get those little buggers in line.
So Megan Chase could do it too.
Rocturnus left, returning a few minutes later with Halarvus. She’d seen him before; he was one of the demons who’d grumbled and snickered in the back of the room last time she was here.
His black eyes regarded her coldly. She could feel his indifference. It pissed her off.
“Halarvus, do you know why you’re here?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What difference does it make? I don’t answer to you. I’m not going to be one of your little demons of light, spreading joy and happiness to all the kiddies. Our mother is offering us a chance to be what we are.” His black eyes widened in his dark blue face. “To feed.”
“I let you feed.” She wanted to smack herself. Why was it so easy for her to take the lead with people, with her clients, but dealing with her demons made her so nervous and unsure of herself? Like a child trying to tell adults what to do.
If she lost them all, she could die. She could lose all of her power and become like a flower with no petals. Nothing.
Come on, Megan…you can do this.
“Not the way we want. Not the way we should.”
God damn it, why was nothing in her life simple anymore?
Her power was always stronger here, always seemed to come more readily to her call. Keeping her face impassive, she lowered her shields and let it go, not all of it, just enough to knock Halarvus across the room.
“You’re not going anywhere.” She stood up, hating herself, hating the tiny flare of pleasure in her chest. If she did the ritual, would this be easier? Would she be able to accept it? Or would it be worse, putting her more at war with herself than she was already?
Maybe this would be a good test run. See exactly what she could handle.
Halarvus got back to his feet. Dark blood ran from his nose. Megan forced herself to look at it as he wiped it away, making a thin streak across his face.
No desire to taste it came to her, no crazy urge to lick it from his papery skin. Maybe that had ended?
“Just because you’re angry—,” Halarvus started, but Megan interrupted him.
“I’m not angry.” She willed it to be so, knowing he could sense it. “But I’m keeping what’s mine.”
She turned to Roc. “Take him into the hall.”
The others waited for her, the white light from the high ceiling bouncing off their multicolored heads.
Their silence followed her as she stepped up onto the little dais and took the seat that had once belonged to the Accuser. Now it was hers, a heavy, ornate gold thing that looked like Louis XIV had designed it in an opium haze. Knobs and carved leaves dug into her skin when she sat; she’d had the original cushion burned and kept forgetting to get another one.
Another reminder, if she’d needed one, of how far she’d been letting things slip here. She should know better than that. Problems and complications didn’t go away simply because one wished they would.
Rocturnus brought Halarvus to stand before her, in the center of the space cleared by the others, and climbed up himself to the chair beside her. She couldn’t get out of this one by lashing out at all of them and running away, which was exactly what she’d done the last time no matter how much she didn’t want to admit it. She needed to take charge, to really and truly show them she could protect them, could help them, could be to them everything Ktana Leyak was promising to be.
Because if she didn’t she probably wouldn’t survive.
“Halarvus, you’ve been working against me?”
“I’ve been telling the truth,” he said. His little eyes gleamed. “That you aren’t strong enough. That your human heart isn’t in this. You haven’t gotten involved with the other Meegras and their businesses. You haven’t been looking out for our interests.”
Megan snapped her head toward Rocturnus. “What’s he talking about?”
“The other Meegra Yezer have been horning in on us,” he whispered. “We’re small. We don’t really have any defenses. When they send some of their bigger demons to force us out…” He caught her glare. “What? I told you this before.”
“Yes, but…” He had told her, and again, she hadn’t really paid attention. That was so unlike her! Had she been so wrapped up in—well, okay, yes, he’d taken up a lot of her time. Plus the radio show, and her practice…
Greyson had been right. Maintaining her practice and her demons was too much work. It made the decision to give up the practice sting a little less, like a child giving up a job in the city to go home and take care of an elderly parent. At least she’d made the right decision once in the last few weeks, even if it left her finances awfully tight.
She cleared her throat. “Tonight I attend the funeral of Templeton Black,” she announced. It felt a little self-important and ridiculous, but the demons seemed to like the change in her demeanor.
“I want a list of names, if you know them, of demons who’ve harassed you and what houses they’re in. I’ll see the other Gretnegs and tell them to leave you alone.”
The demons shifted on their feet, looking both slightly mollified and doubtful.
“I’ll make sure you stop losing humans. But my rules stand. No child abuse. No murder.”
“Not even of criminals? Bad guys?” one of the demons asked hopefully.
She started to say no, then stopped. All the power in the world was no good if she couldn’t hold on to them long enough to exert it. “Case-by-case basis,” she said, trying not to feel like a monster and failing. “It has to be approved by me.”
They waited, their gazes on her, and this time she knew what they expected. Once again that chasm stood in front of her, filled with flames, but this time it was the fire of Hell, of destruction, not of desire.
There was no choice to make. There hadn’t been from the moment she’d tied the Yezer to herself. There hadn’t been from the moment her father sold her to demons for a piece of land and a successful accountancy practice. Megan took a deep breath. “Rocturnus, Halarvus must be punished.”
The Yezer relaxed, their silent pleasure floating through the air. Halarvus’s eyes widened as Rocturnus said something in the demon tongue, widened further as he was chained to a frame like the one she’d seen Greyson chained to three months before.
She forced herself not to blink when the whip cracked the air.
This was her life now.
Chapter 18
The white marble floors of Iureanlier Sorithell glowed orange with reflected flames from the torches burning along the walls. The high ceiling, normally white with a dragon mosaic that twisted and shifted, was black. Mystery and power whispered in the dark corners of the entry hall.
Megan stood in her black dress and waited to be noticed, twisting the thin cord of her little silk evening bag between her fingers. Rocturnus perched a few inches above her shoulder, riding weightlessly on the pad of psychic energy all humans had there. He’d been to the mansion only a few times. Normal security kept all demons but family from crossing the threshold, just as it had back at Orion Maldon’s place in Grant Falls.