by Stacia Kane
And instead of something that would really help them, would give them the tools to cope with their lives and feel good about themselves, they were being given gobbledegook about being possessed. As if all of their problems stemmed from that and once they exorcised whatever was living inside them, they’d be perfectly happy, and everything would be fine.
Life didn’t work that way. One of the ways she was able to reconcile what she did for a living with what she did as Gretneg of House Io Adflicta was that without the negative emotions, people couldn’t appreciate the positive. Someone who never made a mistake, never put a foot wrong or did something he or she was ashamed of or regretted later, wasn’t emotionally healthy so much as sociopathic or a chronic shut-in.
People made mistakes; they erred in their judgment or acted rashly or whatever. Coping with and learning from those mistakes was what made them stronger and healthier. Blaming all of those mistakes on circumstances beyond one’s control . . . well, it might be all the rage, but Megan found it very difficult to approve.
Not to mention that she had no idea how much Walther was charging these people. And quite a few of them looked as if they had to sell plasma in order to eat. Painfully thin arms stuck out from beneath threadbare thrift-store shirts with missing buttons. Too-short pants rode up to expose pale ankles, incongruous against arms so deeply tanned they looked as if they’d been imported from other bodies. Vinyl shoes covered feet, cheap polyester covered legs, sunburned skin covered shoulders.
Not all of them, of course. Scattered through the crowd were a fair number of people who looked as if they could buy and sell the others. No, there was really no way to stereotype the crowd, only a way to pity them.
She and the others found a place against the back wall, not far from the door, to settle. A chair would have been nice, but she couldn’t have everything, and she didn’t dare mention it. One of the brothers would have attempted to make her sit on his back; it had happened before. Being in the room with a gang of demons was bad enough. Having one of them drop to all fours so she could use him as a bench would be unthinkable.
To take her mind off both the anger building in her stomach at the crowd being taken advantage of and the absurd desire to start giggling from the memory of the demon-bench incident, she settled herself against Greyson and said, “Is everything okay? Did something happen with you and Win? Something I should know about, I mean.”
He shrugged, his gaze still wandering restlessly over the crowd of obedient heads before them. “He wants me to do something for him, and I don’t particularly want to, and he’s being rather adamant. Not a problem, simply an irritation.”
“Anything I can do?”
He smiled and looked at her, the worry gone from his face. “I can think of a few things, yes, but nothing that would be appropriate here.”
Her reply was lost in the general uproar as Reverend Walther entered.
The meek, pajama-clad man she’d seen the night before had disappeared. Instead Megan stared at a man who looked like a cross between Liberace and Wyatt Earp. He wore a black broadcloth suit, and his hair swooped up in a pompadour to rival the highest horn-hiding demon hairdo. It gleamed with oil or shellac or whatever the hell he used to keep it in place. Instead of a white shirt he wore a hot pink one, with a black string tie in an enormous bow at his throat; it was tied so tightly his collar wrinkled. His head appeared to erupt from the bright fabric like a mushroom from the mud.
Most different of all was his aura, his energy. It waved around him, so thick Megan felt it whisper over her skin and so strong she shivered. It wasn’t drugs or alcohol or anything like that, turning him from a man into something like a high-powered light. It was his fervor, his fanaticism.
The crowd, perhaps too awed to continue speaking after their first enthusiastic burst of welcome, hushed almost immediately. The atmosphere in the room changed. It was as if Walther’s energy filled it, and the audience’s answered, as if he’d pulled something vital out of them to flavor the air.
But along with that flavor was fear and sadness. Emotions Megan recognized and forced herself not to want to absorb. Roc, of course, had no such compunction; she saw his beady little eyes darken.
Did Walther’s do the same? Did he somehow—no. No, he didn’t. The man was nothing if not human.
Greyson must have been thinking the same thing. “He’s certainly an energetic little cur, isn’t he?”
“I didn’t think he’d feel anywhere near that powerful,” she agreed. “He certainly didn’t last night.”
“Hmm. He apparently wasn’t as powerful as this, even a few months ago. Basically came out of nowhere back in June. He’d been doing the exorcisms and dabbling in some faith healing, if you can believe the ridiculousness of that, but in June he started to catch on. Attendance at his bizarre little church rose, donations jumped up, that sort of thing. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged and settled himself more comfortably against the wall. “I looked him up online after you fell asleep last night. And made a few phone calls.”
“You didn’t sleep?”
He shook his head.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“Eventually. Don’t worry about me, darling. The point is, he was a quiet, dull little nobody until recently. Now he’s filling the ballrooms of horrible budget motels. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Did he make a deal with the devil?” she asked, only half joking.
He smiled, squeezed her hand. “Not with any I know. But . . . hmm.”
“What?”
“No, nothing. I just wonder . . . no. There has to be some other explanation.”
“But what were you thinking?”
“I’ll tell you later. I think he’s about to start banishing demons to Hell or whatever silliness. As if he could do anything of the kind.”
Megan looked back toward the front of the room. Greyson was right. Walther was preparing to begin; at the same moment she looked up, the rest of the room bowed their heads, and Walther began intoning a long, wordy prayer so histrionic it made Megan nervous. He was a true believer, she knew he was, but the speech was so devout it felt fake.
She let her mind drift and the words turn into nothing more than a rush of sound in the background, rising and lowering in volume and pitch like a song on a far-away radio. She’d been so busy trying to settle herself to wonder if anyone in the room was readable, or if they all had that horrible emptiness the hotel employees had had the night before. She hadn’t thought to check if any of her demons were in attendance either.
Roc still sat on Maleficarum’s shoulder, having a whispered and, Megan imagined, highly amusing conversation. Certainly the two of them looked as if they were about to burst into hysterics. She’d never seen Maleficarum’s eyes so bright.
“Roc,” she said, “ask them to show themselves. I want to keep an eye on them and make sure everything is okay.”
Actually, she wanted to see if perhaps some of the people in the room were without Yezer. As far as she knew, every human being in the world had one; she’d killed hers at sixteen and had thus been without one for fifteen years, but although Roc didn’t attempt to lead her astray, he was technically hers.
But being without one had made her an anomaly. She wondered if somehow Walther really was banishing Yezer, and the hotel employees the night before had been without them, and that’s why they’d felt so bizarre.
If her Yezer—those in her Meegra—had been banished somehow, she would know about it. But they weren’t all hers.
Those who were began appearing, exploding into existence like bizarre and incredibly unattractive popcorn popping. Okay. Most of the people in the room appeared to be local, and their Yezer were hers.
“Good idea,” Greyson murmured. “Gives us a better idea what’s happening.”
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.
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.