by Jenna Black
“If you or your family are being threatened, we have grounds to bring in the police.”
“We’re not being threatened,” she reiterated, though I still didn’t believe her. “Your heart is in the right place. I really meant it when I said I appreciated all you’ve done. But it’s time for you to step aside.”
I knew there had to be a good reason she was being like this. I knew she hadn’t just capriciously changed her mind, just like I knew her suddenly cool tone wasn’t personal. That didn’t stop my blood pressure from soaring.
I pushed back my chair, threw my napkin on the table, and stood up. “Thanks for the lovely dinner.”
I started to walk past her toward the door, but she caught hold of my arm and looked up at me beseechingly. “Please, Ms. Kingsley. Leave it alone.” Her eyes pleaded with me, and I felt almost like she was trying to convey some kind of secret message.
Whatever the message was, I wasn’t getting it. I dropped my voice so it could barely be heard in the noisy restaurant. “Tell me who threatened you, and tell me what bad thing will happen if I keep investigating, and I’ll consider your request.”
Her hand squeezed painfully tight on my arm, and her eyes flashed with mingled anger and alarm. “I can’t do that,” she answered just as quietly.
“Fine.” I jerked my arm out of her grip, and this time when I headed for the door, she let me go.
Chapter 15
Because the LOLs had held me up so much this afternoon, I still had one load of laundry to get done when I got home from my wonderful dinner. Not feeling in the mood to do anything else, I schlepped my load down to the laundry room.
I was in luck. All the machines were empty. I shoved my clothes into the washer and dug out some quarters. The small, claustrophobic room echoed with the sound of the water gushing in, covering the sound of footsteps so that I never heard anyone approach. When I picked up my laundry basket and stood, there were suddenly two super-sized men standing in the laundry room doorway.
I live in a big building, so it’s not as if I would know all the tenants by sight, but these guys would have set my mental alarms ringing even if they hadn’t been wearing dark, wraparound sunglasses in a basement. Goon #1 smiled at me in sadistic anticipation, while Goon #2 made a meaty fist and held it up for display.
They were too squat and ugly to be hosting demons—legal ones, at least—but they probably didn’t need supernatural strength to make my life miserable. I’m a pretty good fighter—when you’re family’s Spirit Society, you learn to stick up for yourself at an early age, unless you enjoy getting beaten to a pulp on a regular basis—but I didn’t like my chances against two men who had the look of professionals.
In tandem, they advanced on me. My Taser was in my purse. I was paranoid enough to carry it around with me at all times, but now that I actually needed it I realized I wasn’t paranoid enough. I had to have it out and armed already, not tucked neatly in my purse.
I didn’t have any brilliant ideas, but one thing I knew for sure was the laundry basket wouldn’t help my defense much. I screamed as loud as I could, the sound echoing nicely through the unfortunately deserted basement, and threw the laundry basket at my would-be assailants.
As I’d hoped, they were momentarily startled, which gave me time to put the folding table between me and them while I shoved my hand in my purse. Very much contrary to my hopes, they recovered before I could even find the Taser, much less draw it.
Goon #1 wasn’t about to let a little thing like a folding table get between him and his quarry. He leapt over it, coming straight at me while his partner continued to block the doorway. I didn’t have time to get my hand out of my purse before he was on me, but I managed an off-balance kick that hurt him just enough to annoy him. He charged me again, and I jabbed at his eyes with my fingers while I tried for his groin with my knee. He ducked out of the way of my jab, and turned his hips to take my knee on his thigh. Damn. Apparently he wasn’t expecting me to fight like a girl, and my self-defense moves weren’t surprising him.
He grabbed both my arms to keep me from trying to hit him again. I would have gone for another kick, except Goon #2 had waded in while I was distracted. His punch connected with my cheek, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn he’d just hit me with an anvil.
I didn’t fall down, but only because Goon #1 still had hold of my arms. My head spun, and while I was trying to remember which way was up, a punch to the gut drove all the air out of my lungs. The goon hit me again, this time in the eye, and pain stabbed all the way through my head. But it wasn’t the pain of his fist that caused it. Lugh was trying to surface, coming to my rescue like a knight in shining armor. Considering these guys could probably beat me to death if they wanted to, I supposed I should let him.
But then Goon #2 let go of my arms and allowed me to collapse to the floor in a puddle of misery.
“This is just a friendly warning,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “Stay out of Tom Brewster’s business.”
I realized that meant the beating was over, and I no longer needed Lugh’s services. I’m sure he realized that, too, but he didn’t let up. He was going to exploit my semi-dazed state and steal the reins to my body. I concentrated on holding him off, but a poke in the gut with a toe reminded me I had more than one problem.
“You hear me?” the goon prompted.
Forming words while fighting for air, fighting nausea, fighting dizziness, and fighting Lugh wasn’t exactly easy. However, I figured if I didn’t answer, I was in for more pain, and Lugh was even more likely to win our battle. “Loud… and… clear,” I managed to gasp, and the goons, satisfied with a job well done, disappeared as silently as they had come.
Lugh continued his barrage against my mental barriers, the pain spiking through my head so hard it drew a whimper from my throat. If that were the only pain I had to battle, I probably would have prevailed. Knowing I would eventually have to sleep and leave myself open to him, he would have bided his time rather than submitting me to what amounted to torture. But combined with the pain of the beating, it was too much. Hard though I tried to hold on, my mind slid closer and closer to oblivion. Tears of frustration welled in my tightly shut eyes.
And then my entire body eased, the pain disappearing as if it had never existed. I took a moment to sigh in relief before I let the panic set in.
Driving my body, Lugh pushed me up into a sitting position. I felt the touch of my own hand as he made me wipe away the traces of tears. He was blocking the pain so thoroughly that in any other circumstance, I’d probably have been grateful to him. Well, maybe not.
My body was no longer my own, but if a mind could shudder, then that’s what mine did. The last time Lugh had taken control, he’d shut my conscious mind out completely, trapping me in a dark, claustrophobic, terrifying oubliette. I had panicked then like I’ve never panicked before in my life, and had I actually been there in body, I would have done myself considerable physical harm in my frantic attempts to escape. If he did that to me again…
“I won’t,” he said, using my own mouth to speak to me. I really hate it when he does that. “Those were extenuating circumstances,” he explained as he rose to his feet. “I would not do that to you on a whim.”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t control a single muscle in my body, but I imagined any number of colorful suggestions for what he could do with himself, and since he knew all my thoughts, I knew he could “hear” them.
He sighed. “We’ve been through this before,” he said patiently. “I have a responsibility to my people—and to yours—that has to take precedence over your desires. I’m not in any way trying to hurt you.”
He picked up my laundry basket and carried it out into the darkened hallway, where he summoned an elevator. If I couldn’t wrest back control before he made it to my apartment and my phone, he was going to make the damning call to Adam, and there would be nothing I could do to stop him.
Fool that I was, I’d forgotten about t
he cell phone in my purse. Lugh hadn’t. While he waited for the elevator, he fished the phone out. I struggled against his control, but he had a firm hold. It would take time to wrest control back, time I knew I didn’t have.
It showed something about the mess my life had become that I had Adam on speed-dial.
Something hard and cold solidified in my center— metaphysically speaking, I suppose, since without a body, I didn’t really have a center. This was not a battle I was willing to lose, not a battle I could afford to lose, not if I wanted any say at all in the rest of my life.
I focused all my thoughts into getting one clear, cold message across to Lugh. Do this, and from now on, we will be enemies.
He gasped, and from that I knew he’d heard my message. Adam’s phone began to ring just as the elevator doors opened. Lugh stepped inside.
“You can’t mean that!” he objected.
You know I do. And, because there was no corner of my mind he couldn’t see into, he did. I’ll find a way to get back in control eventually, even if you decide to toss me in that oubliette again. Do you want to be at war with me as well as with Dougal?
He shook his head. “Why?” he asked. “Why do this over a request you don’t even know if Adam and Dominic will honor?”
Why ask questions when you already know the answers? But in case you need me to verbalize it—it’s because I have to take a stand somewhere, sometime. This is where I’m drawing the line in the sand.
“Hello?” Adam said, and Lugh didn’t immediately respond.
“Perhaps I should have put you directly in the oubliette after all,” Lugh muttered very softly.
“What?” Adam said. “Morgan? Are you all right?”
Lugh made a soft growling sound that my throat shouldn’t have been able to make. “Actually, it’s not Morgan, it’s Lugh.”
Even without a body, I felt as if I were holding my breath, nervously waiting to see which path Lugh would choose. I didn’t want to be at war with him, but that decision now rested firmly in his hands.
“Morgan was just attacked in the basement of her apartment building,” Lugh said, and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. “She wasn’t hurt too badly, and I don’t dare heal her injuries since her attackers got away. However, she should make a police report, and you should be the one to take her statement.”
“Of course. I’ll be right over.”
“And, Adam?”
“Yes?”
“Morgan has a request from me that I’ve tasked her with making. I’ll allow her to phrase it however she wants, but don’t leave her apartment until she conveys the request. Understood?”
“Er… yeah, I guess.”
“Very well. We shall see you soon.”
Lugh hung up just as the elevator doors opened on my floor. He stepped out into the hallway. “I hope you will consider that a fair compromise,” he muttered.
I wasn’t sure what I thought about this “compromise” yet, so I didn’t answer.
Lugh let himself into my apartment, dropped the laundry basket by the door, and drove my body to the couch. He sat down, and then suddenly my entire body ached and throbbed, and nausea roiled in my stomach.
With a groan, I lay down on the couch and clutched a throw pillow over my face, blocking out the light in hopes that it would ease the pounding in my head.
Chapter 16
Eventually, I hauled myself off the sofa and headed for the kitchen to make up an ice pack for my aching head. My left eye was on its way to swelling shut, and any motion of my jaw sent fingers of pain stabbing throughout the side of my face. Holding a baggie full of ice to my eye, I made my way to the bathroom and downed three ibuprofen. I didn’t think it would help a whole lot, but it couldn’t hurt.
I’d taken a lot of physical abuse since I’d begun hosting Lugh, but most of the time he’d been able to heal the damage so that the suffering didn’t last terribly long. But this beating he hadn’t healed, and I understood why. No one was supposed to know I was possessed, so I couldn’t miraculously turn up uninjured after I’d taken a thumping like that. I cussed him out for it anyway. Hey, pain makes me grumpy.
I’d gone back to lying on the couch, moving the ice pack back and forth between my eye and my cheek, when the front desk called to let me know Adam had arrived. The walk from the couch to the door seemed to take forever, and my face throbbed to the beat of my heart. I detoured to the kitchen to dump the ice, which was mostly melted by now anyway, before opening the door to let Adam in.
“Wow,” he commented as soon as he saw me. “You look like shit.”
I scowled and tried not to slam the door behind him. “Thanks. Your compassion knows no bounds.”
He laughed, and I seriously considered decking him just to vent a little of my frustration and fury. But no, I was bruised and battered enough already. The last thing I needed was to start a fistfight with Adam.
“Tell me what happened,” he said as we sat on opposite ends of the couch.
I did. I wasn’t able to give much of a description of my attackers. Short, squat, powerfully built, with blah-brown hair and no identifying marks. At least, none that I’d been able to see while I was being pummeled. It wasn’t a whole lot to go on.
“I’ll check with building security,” Adam promised. “See if I can figure out how they got in. One assumes they aren’t residents.” I gave him a sour look, but didn’t comment. “Do you have a theory on who they were?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I assume they’re in league with Brewster.”
Adam looked thoughtful. “Maybe. But let’s keep an open mind. Who else has reason to want you to leave Brewster alone?”
My stomach did a backflip as an unpleasant possibility came to mind. “I had dinner with Claudia Brewster tonight. She was suddenly very anxious for me to butt out. She wouldn’t confirm or deny it, but I’m sure someone must have threatened her.”
Adam didn’t look any happier with that idea than I was. “I’m not sure she has the connections to hire a rent-a-thug on such short notice, but she certainly has the money. Anyone else been bugging you about the case?”
“Well, there’s you.”
He grinned. “Love, if I wanted you roughed up, I’d do it myself.”
I was too miserable to work up a good retort, so I settled for a dirty look. “There’s also Raphael,” I said. “Maybe he wasn’t as forthcoming with me as he claimed. Maybe there’s more to the Houston project than he was willing to admit, and he wants me to stay out of it.” I bit my lip, remembering my last conversation with him. “He did tell me to back off. He claimed it was because it was a hopeless cause, but maybe he had other motives.”
Adam looked grim. “I suppose that is a possibility. Damn, that guy is a pain in the ass.”
I had other, less charitable ways to describe him, but I’d voiced my opinion on the subject plenty of times already. “Is there any point in questioning him?”
“Doubtful. I don’t think he’s going to come clean if he’s the guilty party, and if he’s not, he could be offended.”
I snorted. “Like I care about offending him!”
“Your brother might care.”
I winced at the reminder. I might not be able to convince myself whose side Raphael was on, but one thing I did know—he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Andy to punish me if I pissed him off too much.
Adam folded up the little notebook he’d been jotting notes in and tucked it into an inner pocket in his jacket. It would have been nice if he’d forgotten all about Lugh’s little “suggestion,” but of course, he hadn’t. “So,” he said, his voice conspicuously neutral, “what’s the request Lugh wants you to make?”
I swallowed a groan, hopefully before any sound left my throat. I did not want to do this. And I wasn’t sure if this could technically be considered a compromise, seeing as Lugh and I hadn’t agreed on the terms before he’d taken matters into his own hands. Unfortunately, my options were limited in the extreme. Despite the threat I’d made e
arlier, I really, really didn’t want to be at war with the demon who possessed me. My life was tough enough now.
I nearly jumped out of my seat when Adam’s hand came to rest on my shoulder. I’d been staring at my hands, which were clenched in my lap, but now I looked up to meet his eyes. And I saw something in his expression that I’d never seen before, at least not directed at me—concern.
“What is it, Morgan?” he asked, and damn if I didn’t feel the prickle of tears in my eyes.
I swallowed hard, taking in a deep breath and banishing that hint of tears. “Have you told Dom about your extracurricular activities yet?” I asked.
Adam’s hand slid off my shoulder, and his posture stiffened. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Did you?”
The concerned expression disappeared as if it had never existed. Perhaps it hadn’t. Perhaps I’d just wanted him to look concerned. Now he was wearing his hard, cold face, the one that probably scared the shit out of any criminals who found themselves in his custody.
“No.” His voice was curt and clipped, and I had the feeling a full-fledged explosion of anger was on its way.
“Good.”
That took him by surprise. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “What did you say?”
I knew he’d heard me, so I didn’t bother to repeat it. At least Dominic wouldn’t already be in a vulnerable state of mind when Adam asked him to host Saul again. I swallowed the lump in my throat and mentally reminded Lugh what I thought of him at the moment before I continued.
“Lugh’s decided to set up his court here on the Mortal Plain,” I said.
Adam nodded cautiously. “That seems like a reasonable thing to do.”
“You’ll be part of his inner circle, of course, and he’s counting on Raphael to be there, too, though he and I disagree on that.” I stalled out.
