Demon Possessed
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

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