The human who’d gotten past her demons felt triumph. Excitement. She was—oh, shit. She was the FBI agent, Elizabeth Reid.
For a moment Megan froze. She couldn’t speak to the woman, couldn’t even let the woman see her there, not after denying any knowledge of the meeting.
Then relief flooded through her. This was the Bellreive, and the private rooms had been rented for the week for an exorbitant price. She’d call the management and ask them to eject the intruder.
Yes, Elizabeth’s ID would probably make a difference there. But it would delay her at least long enough for Megan to inform the others what was happening.
It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a decent plan. Megan had just turned to head for the courtesy phone planted unobtrusively on the wall in an alcove when she felt the other presence.
Not human this time. Demon. Following Elizabeth Reid very closely. What the hell?
If something happened to Agent Reid, if she was attacked or even killed, they’d all be questioned. Their presence would be discovered. Agent Reid wasn’t the only one who suspected their little group was more than the gourmet club they’d told hotel management they were. It would be an unholy mess.
She headed for the courtesy phone, keeping her shields down, and reached into her black silk evening bag for her cell.
A bored receptionist answered the courtesy phone, her mind almost completely occupied by thoughts of the BDSM fun she’d get up to with her boyfriend later. Megan got a few very interesting images before she managed to shut the pictures down. Hey, it wasn’t as if she was anyone to judge or had any interest in doing so. “I’m with the Gastrique party in the Moonlight Dining Room, and there’s a woman screaming outside the main doors. Could you please send security immediately?”
The receptionist—her attention fully diverted by Megan’s story—promised to do so. Megan hung up and scrolled through the numbers on her cell with her other hand until she found the one she wanted.
“’Ello, m’lady. Wot you need?” Malleus sounded, as always, alert and ready. She pictured him pacing the floor with the phone in his hand, just in case he was called.
In reality he was probably watching Dancing with the Stars or some such tripe with his brothers. It didn’t matter. He’d be at her side as soon as he could get himself down the stairs.
“Hey. I need someone down here. There’s a demon in the hall, and I don’t know what it is.”
“We’re coming.” The dial tone almost cut off the final syllable.
Okay. Security was on its way, and the brothers were too. She felt a little safer. Not much—she was acutely aware of the empty room behind her, of the demon getting closer—but a little.
She’d just turned to head back into the dining room and alert the others when the scream came through the double doors, loaded with terror so thick her own heart—both of them, actually—skipped a couple of beats. It was Agent Reid’s voice. Agent Reid was in the hallway with a demon of indeterminate appearance and intent.
Megan’s feet were moving before she thought of it. Whatever the consequences, they could be dealt with; if she couldn’t hypnotize the agent, she’d get one of the others to do it. Security wasn’t fast enough, the brothers weren’t fast enough—they had fourteen floors to get down, damn the damn luxury top-floor suites—and if she crossed the room to get the others, the agent could be dead by the time they got there.
Of course, she could find herself dead, which was not a great thought. But she didn’t have much choice, not when another scream rent the air, worse than the first.
A heavy thud came through the doors a second before she flung them open. Could she still feel Agent Reid? Yes, she could. She focused on her, and—wait. Reid was moving away from the doors; her thoughts were a bit jumbled, but she didn’t seem particularly frightened. Had the demon, whatever kind of demon it was, altered her memories?
Too late to stop and think about that, to consider the implications. The doors were open, banging against the walls and bouncing back at her, the sound of them hitting the plaster loud in the heavy silence.
And it was silent. Dead silent. Empty, except for a thin, horrible streak of red on the wall that she knew was blood, could smell was blood. Human blood.
A flicker of movement at the end, a figure disappearing around the corner. Agent Reid. What the hell had happened? Was she injured?
Injured or not, she was beyond the point where security would find her. Megan had two choices, neither of them right. To follow the agent and make sure she was okay would be the moral thing to do but would get her busted. To ignore the agent’s possible injuries and head back to her dinner as if nothing was wrong wouldn’t be the moral thing to do. It would be the negligent thing to do. But probably the correct thing.
She hesitated for a moment, then took a step forward. She’d follow, but she’d hang back. That way she wouldn’t be spotted, but if Reid collapsed or something, she could—
Something slammed across the back of her legs, knocked her down before she even had time to feel the injury. Her shocked body moved of its own accord, scrambling to get away, already anticipating the next blow.
It didn’t come. Instead a heavy hand tangled in her hair, yanked her up. The scent of—what the hell? Roses?—filled her nose, so strong and sharp her eyes watered even more than they were already from the pain.
Through them she barely made out the delineation between ivory wall and dark hallway carpet before the hand moved, closing tightly over her mouth and twisting her head further, up toward the ceiling. She tried to struggle, kicking back, jerking her torso, but an arm like iron closed around her waist, trapping her arms. Her bare feet, encumbered by heavy layers of taffeta, did no good at all.
Her ears rang. Dimly over the sound she heard something else, a low, thick voice like sandpaper. She couldn’t make out the words but felt them. They vibrated over her bare skin, through it into her soul.
Magic. She’d been around Tera enough to recognize that feeling. Had even been able to do some energy manipulation herself, back before she’d attached herself to the Yezer. That connection made it difficult for her to do such things; their energy tended to color her experiments and send them in bizarre directions, so she’d given up trying.
But she still knew what it felt like. Wasn’t likely to forget. And the person who held her—a man, she knew without thinking—was definitely doing magic.
She would have known that even if the wall behind them hadn’t suddenly opened and swallowed them up.
Her head was still spinning when they stopped. Wind whipped her hair into her eyes, pressed her skirts to her body. She had one dizzying glimpse of stars whirling above her before she realized where she was, where they were.
On the roof of the Bellreive, fifteen stories above the ground, and her captor had her in what she was pretty sure was a literal death grip as he shoved her toward the low wall surrounding the gritty, rubbery tar beneath them.
He was going to push her off. Holy shit, he was going to throw her off the roof, this was it, she was going to die—
No! She struggled with all the strength she had, kicking, wriggling, trying to bite the hand over her mouth. He let go and moved his hand down to her throat. Shit, that was worse; he squeezed her throat so she could hardly breathe.
There had to be a way to get out of this. To save herself. The edge of the roof loomed before her, so bright and sharp against the city lights. She had to do something. Wind in her hair, so strong it was hard to think. If he would just wait a second and let her think.
He said something else, his voice slicing at her ears. The wind strengthened. Was he calling it? Controlling it? Witches were strong, they were powerful, they could manipulate elements as easily as she could read one of her radio callers. They manipulated energy. She read people. She couldn’t read witches, generally, but she hadn’t tried in a hell of a long time either, had she?
She went limp, dropping her head, letting her arms fall slack at her sides. She cou
ldn’t do anything about her pounding pulse, as much as she wished she could. Both of her hearts were beating furiously against her ribs, as if they knew what was coming and wanted to try to jump out and survive on their own. Which at least one of them could very well be capable of. She ignored that thought and focused on being heavy, limp, boneless like a heap of rags. Forced herself not to move even when he kicked the back of her leg. Her captor made a surprised, impatient sound and paused to readjust his grip on her.
She struck. Not with her body but with her energy, with all the power she possessed, forming it into a knife in her mind and driving it into his chest.
The shrieking triumph in her head drowned out his screams. He filled her; she couldn’t think of any other way to put it, and it didn’t matter anyway. He filled her with power, with light, with something that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
He let go of her and clutched at his chest; she felt him trying to expel her energy weapon, her psychic blade that was still embedded in him. Felt him grow weak. Watched him fall to his knees as she spun away from him on nimble feet. The height of the roof seemed to be nothing at all. The stars above shone down just for her, blessing her, as she filled herself with him and he crumpled closer to the edge of the roof—
He was going to fall. Because she was stealing his life.
Horrified, she tried to pull away, but the weapon was too bloated, too pure and full and strong to collapse. Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders, trying to yank him back away from the edge, but he struggled against her as if her touch burned him.
Which it might be doing; her skin glowed where it touched him, and energy pulsed up her arms from him. Feeding her. She was trapped in him, terrified but elated. Terrified because she was elated. It was beautiful and glorious and ecstatic and horrifying, and she gritted her teeth against it and threw everything she could into her shields, envisioning them snapping into place with a thick, heavy clang.
They did. The weapon broke. The man—the witch, whatever he was—gasped and struggled to stand, pushing himself away from her.
Wrong move. He stumbled, pitched forward. And fell over the ledge.
He didn’t scream as he fell.
Chapter Eight
“I have to call—Spud, cut it out, damn it!” She batted his eyeshadow-wielding hand away from her eye and glared at him. The glow from the lights behind him surrounded his cap like a bizarre halo. “It doesn’t matter how I look, because nobody is going to see me but Tera, and even if they do, I was just attacked and almost killed, and I think—maybe I’m crazy—but I think perhaps that gives me license to have smudged mascara!”
“Bryaela, we can’t—”
“No. No, don’t you dare bryaela me. He almost threw me off the fucking roof, Greyson. And I—I—” Shit. She couldn’t finish the sentence, because it hit her again, the way she’d fed off him, sucked out his energy. The way she’d gloried in it.
“You did what you had to do,” he finished for her. He stood a foot or so away, his arms folded and his brows drawn down, with his hair moving in the breeze. After his initial clutching and holding he’d stepped away, and she was glad. If he’d touched her just then she would have broken down, and she did not want to do that. Not yet. The inner workings of the Vergadering—the witches’ organization, a sort of magical law-enforcement agency, for which Tera worked—were pretty shadowy, but she was pretty sure that she’d need to hold on to as much of that grief and horror as she could for when they showed up.
Just in case it made a difference. She had no idea if it would.
When she didn’t reply, he said it again. “You did what you had to do, Meg. It was you or him. You did the right thing.”
Shit. “I didn’t.”
“You did. If you hadn’t done whatever you did, you’d be dead right now, and I can assure you that would most definitely not be right.”
Without meaning to, she glanced to her left again, at the spot where he’d fallen. She couldn’t seem to stop looking at it; it pulsed in her vision, glowing. “I killed him.”
“And that’s why you’re still here. Look, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but we need to get back down to dinner immediately.”
“I can’t go back down to—Spud, if you come at me with that thing one more time I am going to stick it right up—”
“Spud, why don’t you give us a minute?” Greyson cut in smoothly. “Go wait over there with Malleus.”
Spud looked from him back to her, his heavy features sorrowful like a basset hound’s, before nodding and lumbering away across the roof. Damn. Now she’d hurt his feelings.
“Meg. We have to get back to dinner now. Right away. Before the others start wondering what’s going on.”
“But—”
“No. We have to. One of two things has happened here. Either this witch attacked you of his own accord, in which case there’s no point in freaking the others out, or one of them paid him to attack you, in which case—”
“The only way to make them sweat is to act as if nothing happened,” she finished.
“Right.”
“But what if he didn’t act of his own accord? What if he was hired by someone else who wants to kill me, and it’s not one of them at all?”
“Again. If you don’t go back to dinner, you’ve shown them a vulnerability. A weakness. You may give them ideas, if they don’t have them already. They will take advantage of any weakness they can find, darling. Anything. Please, come back to the table with me now.”
She hesitated. He was right. She knew he was.
But how in the world could she go back down to that table and finish her meal as if nothing had happened? And what about— “What about the body?”
“I told Carter to take care of it.” Seeing her look, he continued, “He’ll stow it away until we decide what to do. He won’t incinerate it yet.”
She didn’t really like the sound of that “yet,” but there wasn’t much she could do. “I still want to call Tera.”
“And you can. As soon as we get through this meal, you can call anyone you wish. But we have to get through it. You have to get through it, Meg, and I know you can. Come on.” He reached out and pulled her into the protective circle of his arm, tight at his side. His lips brushed the top of her head.
She wanted to call Tera, wanted to go back to the room and crawl under the covers and sob. She’d killed a man. And she’d liked it; well, no, she hadn’t liked killing him, but she’d certainly liked what came before.
She’d gotten used to the occasional strange craving. Gotten used to—more than used to—trading energy with Greyson, as a way to keep from having to take energy from the negative emotions of humans. Well, she traded energy with Greyson for a few reasons, but one of them was that it meant she didn’t have to feed off anyone or anything else. She didn’t require a lot of energy anyway.
And she’d gotten used to the fact that taking that energy felt amazing. But taking it the way she had—she’d attacked him, stolen from him. It was a hideous thing she’d done.
She’d had to kill him. She hadn’t had to like it.
She shuddered and circled her arms around his waist. For a long moment she just held on, feeling his body warm and solid beside hers and his grip on her tighten. Later. Later they would talk about it.
The ringing of his cell phone cut into her thoughts, sliced them apart like a pair of rough hands. He took a step away, held the phone to his ear. “Carter. What’s—what? Are you—okay. Right. Shit. Yes, get back in there. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“What’s wrong?” Malleus and Spud had descended on her with brushes and lipstick, but when Spud lowered one beefy arm, she saw Greyson staring at the phone as if he’d forgotten what it was.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“There’s no body.”
“What? Ow!” She’d started forward without thinking, and Malleus had practically ripped a chunk of hair out
of her head.
“Sorry, m’lady. But you know you oughter not move when we’re—”
“There’s no body,” Greyson said again. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and crossed the remaining feet of roof between them. “Carter checked everywhere.”
“So what does that mean?” Nothing good, she imagined. Although . . . “Did I not kill him?”
“You’re sure he went over the edge?”
Ugh. “I watched him.”
“All the way? Did you watch him hit the ground?”
“No. No, I . . . I couldn’t. I didn’t. I just saw him fall.” Watched him tumble off the roof, his body disappearing over the wall . . . she shuddered.
Malleus’s finger tapped her lips, magically setting her lipstick. She ignored it. If the man—the witch—was still alive, if she hadn’t killed him . . . it was a relief. At least it was until she realized that if he wasn’t dead, he’d be coming back for her.
Greyson must have thought the same thing. “No more going anywhere alone. Nowhere. We’ll need someone . . . hmm.” He checked his watch. “We need to get back down there. We’ll discuss this later, okay? Meanwhile, nothing happened. We’ll figure out a story in the elevator.”
* * *
Dessert was some incredibly rich chocolate raspberry thing that Megan couldn’t even come close to finishing. Even if her stomach hadn’t been alive with nerves she wouldn’t have been able to finish it.
She could finish her cocktails, though. Several of them. One good thing about the energy she’d taken from the witch, it allowed her to drink a hell of a lot more without feeling anything more than a pleasant buzz. She’d probably pay for it the next day, but at that point she didn’t care. Everyone rose from the table and started milling around. Dinner was over. Thank God, dinner was over, and soon she’d be able to go back to their room and figure out what was going on. Or at least try to figure out what was going on.
The luxurious setting made everything even more unreal. What was she doing there? Yes, fine, she’d admit it. She’d gotten rather used to luxury over the last eleven months or so. How could she not, when she spent a few nights a week—okay, every weekend and several midweek nights—in a mansion? A real one, with servants. When her costume jewelry had slowly but surely gathered dust because she wore real diamonds now, real sapphires and rubies, all gifts from her very wealthy boyfriend?