by Jenna Black
I shrugged. “And I’d say it’s a good indicator Adam is still threatening her with jail time if she doesn’t cooperate.”
Saul made an unpleasant growling sound in the back of his throat. He sneered, an expression I’d never seen on his face before. “You sound just like Raphael.”
I knew he meant that to be a dire insult, but it fell short of the mark. “Every once in a while, he says something I agree with. This is one of those times. Have your little fling if you must, but keep your mouth shut.”
He bristled. “I don’t take orders from you, and I certainly don’t need your permission to see Barbara.”
“But you do take orders from Lugh, don’t you?”
His hands were clenched into fists, and his face was dark with anger. “So is Lugh forbidding me to see her?”
“What about it, Lugh?” I asked, and Saul and I both fell silent as we waited for his answer.
I heard Lugh’s sigh in my head. I think it best for everyone if he refrains from romantic entanglements for the time being. He sounded regretful, but firm.
I made a sympathetic face at Saul. “Sorry, but he agrees with me.”
Saul pushed away from the table. “I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that because you know I can’t check with Lugh directly.”
Unfortunately, I had no way to refute his claim. I didn’t dare let Lugh into control for even a moment. Just the thought made me shudder and made my still-aching head throb harder.
“You’re well enough to take care of your own damn self now,” he said. “Adam said he should have my new identity all squared away in a couple of days, so I’m going to go apartment hunting. See you later.”
He was still mad as hell—though possibly more because he knew he was in the wrong than anything else—but I doubted anything I said to him would make him feel any better. So I bit my tongue as Saul slammed the door behind him on his way out.
Some bodyguard he turned out to be, I thought at Lugh, but he didn’t answer.
Chapter 27
After Saul left, I sat on the couch, meaning to call Laura. My head was a little woozy, so I decided I’d better do it lying down. I closed my eyes, intending to gather my strength for the ordeal of dialing.
When I woke up, I don’t know how much later, I wasn’t alone in the apartment anymore. Saul had returned with Adam and Dominic in tow. The three of them were talking quietly in the kitchen, huddled together. Trying not to wake me, I guess.
My head felt significantly better, so I tried slowly pushing myself up into a sitting position. I didn’t puke or pass out. It was almost enough to make me do a little happy dance. My stomach growled noisily, attracting the guys’ attention. Adam and Dom hurried to the living room to see how I was doing, while Saul, apparently still sulking, hung back.
“Feeling better, love?” Adam asked. I might almost have thought he cared about me, except he followed up with, “You look like death that still needs more warming over.”
Dom punched him in the arm. “Be nice.”
Adam made an innocent “Who, me?” face. Instead of being irritated, I actually laughed. The easygoing affection between Adam and Dom always brought a smile to my face, though my smile wilted when I remembered the state of my own love life. I wasn’t ready to give up on Brian yet—even if he was ready to give up on me—but I didn’t have the mental energy to figure out how to solve that problem in the midst of all the others.
“Saul tells me you’ve had broth and crackers,” Dom said. “Do you think you’re up to some more solid food?”
My stomach howled its opinion.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dom said, then headed for the kitchen. “I’ll heat up some of that soup I brought for you.”
“Thanks,” I called after him.
Adam remained in the living room, slouching on the love seat nearby. “I talked to Laura Maguire about an hour ago,” he said.
“Oh.” So much for my hopes of making myself useful. “Did you find out anything that might be of interest?”
“Maybe. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Jessica Miles was starting to bug Maguire about the lawsuit. Something about how he shouldn’t abandon the suit, for his granddaughter’s sake.”
I remembered that Jordan Junior and Jessica had had a child together. Somehow, I’d forgotten all about that. “So you think Abraham has taken Jessica for his host?”
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But based on her history, she’s not exactly an angel. She could just be pushing it because she somehow thinks she’ll get money out of it.”
“Well, it’s the best possibility we have, isn’t it?”
He huffed out a sigh. “I suppose.”
“So when I get a little better, Raphael and I will try to get our hands on Jessica and hope it goes better than when we went after David Keller.”
Adam didn’t look happy. “What if we’re wrong? What if Jessica’s just a bitch and Abraham is lurking somewhere else? You can’t exorcize a person who’s not possessed, and if you’ve kidnapped her …”
Why was nothing ever easy? “Do you have any better ideas?”
“I’m planning to go have a chat with her later today. Maybe she’ll let something slip that will make me positive Abraham’s in there.”
I frowned. “You can see auras, can’t you? More easily than an exorcist, I mean?” He’d examined my aura once in the early days, when I was first discovering that I was possessed.
“Yeah, but I need skin-to-skin contact and maybe thirty seconds or so of quiet concentration. I doubt Jessica would allow that even if she’s not possessed. But I’ll see what I can do.”
“And you’ll let me know.”
“Of course.”
The soup was ready now, and Dominic brought it to me on a tray he must have brought with him. I certainly didn’t own such a thing. He saw the suspicious look on my face and smiled.
“Consider it a get-well gift. I expect you to eat most of your meals in bed until you’ve fully regained your strength.”
It felt surprisingly good to be taken care of like this. It was an entirely unfamiliar situation, mainly because I usually pushed people away if they tried to pamper me. Hell, I just push people away, period. But just this once, I allowed myself to revel in it. Even Saul’s undisguised sulking and Adam’s brooding didn’t spoil the mood for me. And when all three of the guys left me so I could get some more sleep, I felt strangely bereft.
I dozed on and off for maybe an hour or two. My head no longer hurt at all, though my mind still felt slow and clouded. My stomach seemed to have recovered fully, growling at me to get more food into my system. I dragged myself to my feet and shambled toward the kitchen, hoping there was more of Dominic’s chicken soup awaiting me in the fridge. And that was when I noticed the envelope, peeking out from under my door.
Every once in a while, I get a premonition that my life is about to take a turn for the worse. I was getting one of those right now. Unfortunately, my premonitions are usually frighteningly accurate.
My appetite vanished as I stared at that envelope. Nothing good ever seemed to come from mysterious envelopes, and I wondered if the universe would mind if I just pretended it didn’t exist.
The envelope was unmarked and unsealed, and inside was a single sheet of white copy paper with a typewritten note. It wasn’t hard to guess who had written it.
The note began with a long list of names, all of which were familiar to me: Adam; Dominic; Diane Kingsley, my mother; Raymond and Edna Griffith, my mom’s parents, who lived in Florida; Andy; Tommy Brewster; Saul; Barbara Paget; Blair Paget; Carl, the overly friendly clerk at the front desk. Even my lawyer, Brandon Cook, and Laura Maguire, whom I barely knew, were on the list.
The rest of the note was brief and to the point. Abraham “requested the pleasure of my presence” at an abandoned building on the Schuylkill River tonight at midnight for some “fun and games.” Failure to show up—alone, of course—would result in the death of one of the people o
n the list, and a repetition of the invitation until I accepted, or all the people on the list were dead.
My appetite completely forgotten, I trudged back to the couch and closed my eyes. Maybe if I went back to sleep and woke up again, I’d find that the note was just a dream. I sighed. If only!
It seemed that finding my good friend Abraham wasn’t going to be much of a problem after all. It was one of those “Be careful what you wish for” deals.
“I have to go,” I said, speaking as much to Lugh as to myself. I expected him to argue, to command me to summon the cavalry. Instead, he stayed silent so long I thought I’d somehow miraculously managed to resurrect the mental barriers that had once upon a time existed between me and him. But of course, that wasn’t the case.
I agree, Lugh said, right when I’d decided I wasn’t going to hear his voice after all. I was actually startled enough to jump.
“You what?” I asked, thinking maybe I was starting to hallucinate.
I agree that you have to go. Abraham has already proven how little he minds killing people. I think his threat is genuine.
“So do I, but I still didn’t expect you to agree with me that I have to meet him.” Lugh was anything but a coward; however, he was very much aware of how crucial his survival was to the human race. If I died, and Lugh returned to the Demon Realm, Dougal’s followers would summon him into a sacrificial host who would instantly be burned at the stake. No more Lugh, no more opposition to Dougal’s plans.
Even if I were willing to let so many people die in order to protect myself, the fact remains that every member of my council, including my brother and my nephew, is on that list. I am as useless on the Mortal Plain without allies as I would be dead. We have to accept Abraham’s challenge. We have to go.
I’d never expected to have to cast myself as the voice of moderation, but since Lugh didn’t seem to be taking on the role, I was the only other choice.
“I can’t just show up at some derelict building at midnight with no backup,” I said. “That would be like hanging a raw steak around my neck and strolling through the lion exhibit at the zoo.”
Abraham thinks you’re only human. We can use that to our advantage.
“Yeah, great idea. Have you been with me these last three days? You feel everything I feel, right? Do you want another three days of that? Or worse?”
Of course not. His voice took on a dry tone in my mind. Never before you became my host had I experienced any human illness. Reading it in someone’s memory isn’t quite the same as experiencing it myself. I could do without it. However, I think in this case, we’ll just have to risk it.
“Okay, so we turn Abraham’s ambush against him. You take control, surprise the shit out of him, and hope you can take him down without killing his host. Then we exorcize him and send him back to the Demon Realm and he knows I’m possessed. We’ve been trying to avoid that, remember?”
If he were after you because he was part of Dougal’s conspiracy, then I’d be worried. But he’s not politically motivated. He’s just after revenge. If he finds out you’re possessed, he won’t know there’s any special significance to it. He might think you’ve got spectacularly bad luck…
“He’d be right,” I muttered.
… but I seriously doubt that the general population of demons has any idea that Dougal’s making a try for the throne. As far as they know, I’m doing a stint on the Mortal Plain, and my brother is filling in for me while I’m gone. Only his inner circle and mine know he intends to make sure I never return. And trust me when I say that there’s no chance Abraham is part of Dougal’s inner circle. A demon that unstable—and that single-mindedly bent on revenge— would be of no use to my brother.
“So you’re telling me your people don’t even know there’s a war on?”
Right. Because there is no war, at least not yet. A conspiracy, yes. An attempted coup, yes. But not a war. The power of the demon throne travels from a king to his successor, and there is no way to usurp it. Dougal can’t get his hands on the power unless I die or abdicate, so open warfare would be meaningless.
Even in the worst-case scenario, if Abraham somehow knows there’s been an attempt to seize the throne, and that you were once my host, and that you’re not supposed to be hosting me anymore, when he returns to the Demon Realm, it will be as a criminal, a killer. Imagine what would happen if a convicted murderer in the U.S. started blathering to the authorities that there was a conspiracy to overthrow the President and he knew where the leader of the conspiracy was hiding. Who would listen to him?
I felt a little better about the plan now, but I still wasn’t exactly liking it. “Okay, so we probably won’t blow your cover if we succeed. But what if I show up at the warehouse and Abraham just shoots me in the head from a distance? You’re tough, but you can’t survive a bullet wound to the head.”
He’s not going to kill you, Lugh said with a certainty that surprised me.
“Why do you say that?”
Do you think he’d go through all this elaborate work just to go for a quick kill and put you out of your misery? The evidence suggests he would find that … unsatisfying.
Not as unsatisfying as I would find it! “You know, we do know someone who can survive a shot to the head. Two someones, in fact.” I’d seen Saul’s current host survive two shots to the head when his previous demon was in residence, and Raphael’s host supposedly had the same abilities.
And as soon as Abraham caught sight of Saul or Raphael, one of the people on that list would be dead. If he found he couldn’t kill whoever we sent after him, he’d just retreat and try someone else.
I was running out of arguments, though the prospect of walking into a trap and crossing my fingers in hopes Lugh and I could turn the tables on Abraham didn’t exactly light my fire.
What else can we do? Lugh asked.
“Call in the troops and have a major powwow session. Maybe if we all put our heads together, we’ll come up with something better.
Morgan, think about it a minute. What’s going to happen if we tell the council that we want to face Abraham alone? Even if they can’t think of a better option?
“It’s not like they can stop you! You’re the king. What you say goes.”
He laughed at that. I would trust my authority over my people in almost any situation. This isn’t one of them. As my advisors, they would feel justified disobeying me if they thought my safety was at stake.
“They’ve let us do dangerous things before when you’ve ordered them to.”
Not quite like this, though.
And he was right. The human members of the council would certainly object, but they wouldn’t be able to stop him. However, if Raphael and Saul and Adam—and this was the only time I could imagine the three of them being in agreement about something—all ganged up on him, then we wouldn’t be going anywhere.
So we didn’t dare ask for a second opinion, or even for backup. Only the thought of Abraham picking off everyone around me one by one was enough to convince me to go along with Lugh’s plan.
Chapter 28
Saul did not return to the apartment, which was a relief. I was feeling much better, but I’d have to fake a relapse and take to my bed if he were around, because even though he didn’t know me as well as the other members of Lugh’s council, he was bound to notice that something was up.
My appetite had been severely put off by Abraham’s little love note, but I forced myself to eat another heaping bowl of chicken soup for dinner. The headache and queasiness were gone, but I was still weak, and I didn’t think starving myself was a good idea.
Per Lugh’s suggestion, I took another nap in the early evening, conserving what little strength I had for tonight’s festivities. I was starting to feel that if I never fell asleep again, it would be too soon, but that didn’t stop me from conking out the moment I lay down. Probably Lugh’s influence, but I decided not to make a big deal out of it.
A major case of cold feet hit me around elev
en, and I had to reread Abraham’s note several times to remind myself of why I had to do something that seemed patently stupid, even to me. God, I was so sick of being caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, which is where I seemed to spend most of my life these days. But despite the cold feet, I called a cab to pick me up at eleven-thirty.
At eleven twenty-five, I knew I couldn’t delay it any longer. It was time to go. Feeling a bit morbid, I grabbed the note from Abraham and scribbled on the back, “If I don’t come back, please tell Brian I love him, and I’m sorry I was such a rotten girlfriend.” Someone would find it eventually and know what had happened to me.
If I’d thought of it earlier, I’d have written something more eloquent, but now there was no time. I left the note on the dining room table, then took a deep breath and headed out.
The cab arrived on time, which was a nice surprise. I gave the driver an address near the building where I was to meet Abraham. He gave me a funny look—it wasn’t exactly a good place for a woman to hang out at any time, much less late at night—but he wasn’t enough of a Good Samaritan to try to talk me out of it.
I walked the last couple of blocks, wanting to get a look at my destination before I arrived. The building was much like I expected it—a large brick monstrosity with boarded-up windows and colorful graffiti scrawled across every flat surface. It had probably been some kind of a warehouse in its heyday. The door had been forced open, the frame flapping loose. I couldn’t see any light inside, but I felt sure Abraham was there, with whatever nasty surprise he had in store for me.
I looked all around me, checking to make sure no one was watching. I needn’t have bothered. The street was deserted, and while there were plenty of cars going by, they were all on the opposite side of the river. Although I didn’t think Abraham was going to make this so easy for me, I armed my Taser and held it out before me. I swallowed what I hoped was the last of my fear and pushed open the door.
