by Jenna Black
I pulled one of Dominic’s hands away from his ear. “Welcome back,” I said.
“Thanks. Now, since Adam was so busy lecturing me he didn’t cook dinner, let’s retire to the kitchen so I can remedy that situation.”
I didn’t think what I came to ask about would make good dinner conversation. Nor did I think I’d want to eat afterward, no matter how tempting Dominic’s cooking was. Unfortunately, with his Italian upbringing, he would be mortally offended if I didn’t stay.
“Is it okay if Adam and I have a little chat before we join you?” I asked.
A look that I couldn’t interpret passed between them.
“Sure thing,” Dominic said. “I could use a little time off for good behavior.”
Adam cuffed him playfully on the side of the head, and for a moment I feared this was going to turn into a wrestling match. Or a make-out session. But then Dominic retreated to the kitchen, leaving me and Adam alone.
Adam gestured me toward the couch, and I sat reluctantly. My civilized self was horrified at what I was planning to say. And do. I licked my lips and tried to figure out how to get across what I meant without actually saying the words.
“I hope you don’t play poker,” Adam said.
I’d always had a habit of wearing my emotions where anyone could see them, and I didn’t suppose that was going to change anytime soon.
“We have to question Bradley Cooper,” I blurted, and we both knew what I meant by “question.”
Adam nodded. “I have no problem with saying I told you so.”
“Yeah, you’re a fucking genius.”
Each word coming with an effort, I told Adam what Lugh had made me remember. I also told him about Raphael’s refusal to shed any light on the situation.
I concluded with “Maybe it’s not that important…”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Adam said. “If it weren’t important, Raphael wouldn’t give a damn if Lugh knew. Whatever it is, it’s so important that he thinks Lugh will punish him for it, despite all the help he’s been giving us.”
That made me frown. “Punish him how?”
“We have our own system of laws,” he answered vaguely. “Assuming we can ever get Lugh back on the throne, he’s going to be exercising a lot of them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “It means ‘ask Lugh.’ I don’t get to decide which state secrets to share with you.”
I shook my head in disgust. “The way you guys act, what you had for breakfast is a fucking state secret!”
“Ask Lugh,” he repeated, not perturbed by my pique.
I bit back any number of responses. I forced myself to change the subject back to that which I didn’t want to talk about.
“So I guess it’s important enough that we have to talk to Cooper.”
“Yeah,” Adam said, almost gently. “It may not be as bad as you think. You’ve met him. You know what a weasel he is. When you confront him with what you remember, he may break down and tell you everything.”
It made a nice fantasy.
“Intimidation also makes for a very effective interrogation technique,” Adam tried again. “One I’m very good at, I might add.”
Why he was trying to soothe my conscience, I didn’t know. I gave him a sad smile and patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate the effort, but the damage is already done. Even if we don’t have to lay a finger on him, even if all I have to do is tell him what I already know and he spews out everything, I know just how far I would go, and it’s not a good feeling.”
“When the idea starts to get to you, just remember what he was willing to do to you as a thirteen-year-old girl. And ask yourself if you could possibly be the only child he’s ever hurt.”
I winced. Was it terribly egocentric of me to think I was the only one? Or was it merely naive? “No one deserves to be tortured.”
To that, Adam had no answer.
CHAPTER 23
Cooper lived in a charming Victorian house in the suburbs. When Adam and I pulled into the driveway, I felt a pang of longing for the house I had lost in the fire.
Of course, Cooper being a high muckety-muck in the Spirit Society, his house was on a different scale than mine had been. He was twice divorced, with no children, and I couldn’t imagine what he did with all that extra space. Maybe he held Society meetings there.
His car was hidden in the garage, but there were lights on in the house, so we figured he was home. Adam turned to me when we brought the car to a stop.
“Are you ready for this, love?”
I grimaced. “No, I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”
He reached over and patted my leg in a way I would have objected to if I weren’t so freaked out. “Then you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”
I grunted something he took for agreement, and we both got out of the car. My skin was clammy with sweat, and my mouth was dry. Thoughts collided and fought in my brain, and I wished I could think of some reason to stall. With Adam standing beside me as if to block my escape, I rang the bell. As we waited, I bit the inside of my cheek to try to moisten my mouth.
When I’ve described Cooper as a weasel, it hasn’t been just because of his personality. He’s tall and thin, with small beady eyes he makes even beadier-looking with his round-rimmed glasses, and buck teeth he should have had corrected when he was a child. His hair had been gray and thinning for as long as I’d known him, and no one had told him the comb-over didn’t actually camouflage incipient baldness. It was no surprise that, despite his reverence for demons, he’d never had the “privilege” to host. Who the hell would want to spend a lifetime looking like that?
He blinked a couple of times when he saw me on the doorstep, his nose twitching in his most weasely manner. His eyes went wide when he looked past my shoulder and saw Adam standing there.
“May we come in?” I asked when it became clear he could stand there in silence for hours.
He frowned, causing his glasses to slide down his nose. “I’m very busy right now. If you’ll call my office in the morning, I’m sure we can schedule you in sometime.”
I put my foot in the door, just in case he was about to slam it in our faces. “This really can’t wait until tomorrow,” I said.
I thought I saw a flicker of unease in his eyes, but perhaps that was my wishful thinking. He looked back and forth between me and Adam and must have decided there wasn’t a chance in hell he was getting rid of us. With a long-suffering sigh, he held the door open and gestured us in.
While his house was lovely on the outside, the inside screamed “single male occupant with no maid.” There was clutter everywhere, stacks of books and papers, piles of junk mail, empty Diet Coke cans—though why a man as skinny as Cooper was drinking diet soda was anyone’s guess.
Surprisingly, the sofa and chairs in the living room weren’t serving as auxiliary tables, so Cooper didn’t have to move anything aside to let Adam and me sit. I blew out a deep breath, hoping against hope that this interview would be easier than I was expecting. And I tried not to think about what would happen if Cooper refused to talk.
“I remember what you did to me at The Healing Circle,” I said, and the words seemed to detonate like a land mine.
Cooper’s already pale face lost all its color, and his eyes went wide. Tension screamed through his taut muscles, and he looked like he was poised to make a run for it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Both Adam and I laughed. Cooper’s back straightened, and his face took on an expression that was supposed to imply hurt feelings. No doubt he was about to say something scathing, but I cut him off.
“If you saw yourself in the mirror, you’d know why we were laughing. Why don’t you save us all some time and cut the bullshit? You and Dr. Neely tortured me until I agreed to summon a demon, but it couldn’t possess me. So you tried again with another demon that was al
ready on the Mortal Plain, and he failed, too. When he tried to kill me, you told him that someone named Raphael wouldn’t approve.” Adam and I had agreed in advance that it wasn’t in anyone’s best interests for me to admit I knew who Raphael was. I think I managed to keep my lip from curling in distaste when I said his name.
Cooper sat there stuttering and stammering, not exactly cool under fire.
“I’ve got a number of questions for you, Brad,” I continued, and saw him flinch at my use of his first name. I’d have been in big trouble growing up if I’d dared to call a man of his stature by first name, and I’d carried the habit well into adulthood. But after what he’d done to me, I’d be damned if I’d give him an ounce of respect.
“My first question is, who or what was my father?”
I could almost see him examining possible answers, then discarding them one by one. What finally came out of his mouth was “I think you should leave now.” But he didn’t say it like he thought we’d listen to him. I sat back on the couch and folded my arms, not saying anything. Beside me, Adam was also silent, but out of the corner of my eye I could see his malevolent stare.
Cooper might not be too worried about me, but I saw how his eyes kept darting in Adam’s direction, then looking quickly away. He was still deathly pale, and there was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He clasped his hands together in his lap, his knuckles turning white.
“I can’t answer that,” he said, staring at his hands. “I’m very sorry, but I don’t have the authority—”
“Mr. Cooper,” Adam interrupted. “Ms. Kingsley has remembered more than enough to drop you in a kettle of very hot water. I’m willing to listen to your side of the story before I take any drastic actions.”
Cooper raised his chin in what was supposed to look like defiance. It would have worked better if fear didn’t radiate from his every pore. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions. Just as soon as my lawyer is present.”
Adam laughed, and the sound raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I can’t imagine what it must have done to Cooper. I laid my hand on Adam’s arm.
“Let’s just stay calm and discuss this like civilized human beings,” I said. Only with Adam was it possible for me to play the “good cop.” Adam leaned forward in his seat, staring at Cooper once more with unblinking eyes, but he didn’t say anything. That was probably creepier than any threat he could have uttered.
“The cat is well and truly out of the bag,” I said. “There’s no point in trying to hold on to your secrets.”
Cooper took off his glasses and started polishing the lenses with his shirttail. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” I answered patiently, “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you to explain.”
He kept polishing. “I can’t answer your questions.”
“Yes, you can. You just don’t want to. Unfortunately for you, you don’t have a choice.”
He didn’t say anything, just shook his head and kept polishing those glasses as if his life depended on it.
“Are we going to have to resort to the same methods you used on me when I wouldn’t do what you wanted?”
His hands jerked, and the glasses dropped to the floor. When he bent to retrieve them, I saw that he was shaking. If I didn’t have the image in my mind of him ordering Dr. Neely to give me another jolt of electricity, I might have felt sorry for him.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked, his voice shaking as badly as his hands.
Well, duh! “If you have no memory of doing anything bad to me, then why should you be worried?”
He jammed the glasses back on his face. “I didn’t say I didn’t remember. I said I can’t talk about it.”
“You can and will,” Adam said, his voice surprisingly mild. But to Cooper, that mild voice must have sounded as terrifying as a growl.
He shook his head, and white showed all around his pupils. “I can’t!” he repeated. “Raphael would kill me. Or worse.” He looked at Adam with pleading eyes. “You know who Raphael is!”
“Yeah, and I don’t give a flying fuck.” Cooper jumped at the sudden vulgarity.
Playing good cop again, I reached out to pat Adam’s arm. “Take it down a notch.” I gave Cooper my best sympathetic smile, though I didn’t care if it was patently false. “I asked Adam to let me do the talking, but as I’m sure you know, he’s got a bit of a temper on him.” Beside me, Adam cracked his knuckles, and Cooper jumped. I gave Adam a dirty look out of the corner of my eye. If Cooper were any more terrified, he might faint dead away.
I put the smile back on. “It’s not like we’re going to go to Raphael and report everything you tell us. He never has to know how we got our information. For all he’ll know, it all came back to me, and someone let slip your big secrets while they thought I was out cold.”
Cooper’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t know Raphael.”
Actually, I probably knew him far better than Cooper, but that was beside the point. “And you don’t know me and Adam. We’re asking you nicely, but that could change.”
This time, he didn’t feel compelled to ask if that was a threat. He lowered his face into his hands, forgetting about the glasses until he inadvertently knocked them off. He didn’t bother to retrieve them. His shoulders shook, and I realized with my first hint of genuine pity that he was crying. I had never liked Raphael, and after talking with Andy, I knew he was a bad dude. But I hadn’t realized until now just how bad.
“Are you going to talk to us?” Adam asked, and he’d gone back to using his calm, gentle voice.
I prayed that Cooper would start talking, and I held my breath as I waited for his answer. When he shook his head, the air rushed out of my lungs, and I felt something very much like despair. It didn’t matter what this bastard had done to me—I didn’t know how I could stand to see Adam interrogate him.
I turned to Adam to beg him for more time, but he held up his hand for silence, his eyes meeting mine.
“There’s another way we can do this,” he said cryptically, then rose from the couch and crossed to Cooper. Cooper didn’t raise his head, didn’t acknowledge in any way that he noticed. Adam crouched in front of him, then reached out and touched Cooper’s hand.
It was just a casual touch, a quick brush of skin on skin. But Cooper’s whole body shuddered, and when Adam rose and came to sit beside me on the couch once more, I knew what he had done.
Cooper didn’t move, and Adam didn’t speak. I had to clear my throat before I could find my own voice.
“Is Cooper going to be a vegetable when this is over?” I asked.
Adam sighed. He promised he’d do his best not to do any damage, but he couldn’t guarantee results.
Then I asked the important question. “And is Cooper going to live through this interview?”
Adam nodded. “He can’t prove we did anything to him, so he’s not really a threat to us.”
I stared at Cooper, who still hadn’t moved. “How long is this going to take?”
“Shouldn’t be long. He can access Cooper’s memories almost instantly. He’ll just need to stay in there long enough to sort them out and make sure he knows all the important stuff.”
In all the possible scenarios I had built in my mind, this one had never occurred to me, though now it seemed patently obvious. What better way to get the truth out of Cooper than to rummage through his mind? Even if we’d gotten answers out of him using Adam’s more dubious interrogation techniques, we couldn’t have been sure it was the truth.
A chill crawled down my spine as I absorbed all the implications. “Why didn’t he do this when he interrogated Val?” In reality, he hadn’t hurt my best friend and betrayer very much, but he could have avoided everything just by possessing her.
Cooper raised his head, but it was the demon Adam who looked out of his eyes. “Don’t,” he said, staring at his host intensely.
His host returned the stare, but spoke anyway. “Becau
se Adam knew from the beginning he was going to kill her. She was a danger to both of you, even if he hadn’t laid a hand on her.”
Cooper made a disgusted face. “Thanks a lot. Now I’m going to have to listen to Morgan’s opinion of me for the entire ride home.”
“She would have figured it out on her own anyway. Are you ready to come back to me?”
Instead of answering, Cooper just held out his hand. While I was still struggling to process everything, Adam clasped Cooper’s hand. A moment later, Cooper collapsed in a heap on the floor, and Adam was back to himself once more.
CHAPTER 24
Cooper was conscious and sentient when we left him. Traumatized, angry, scared, but other than that he was okay. I know Adam expected me to light into him the moment we got into his car to drive back to my apartment, but I didn’t. We drove for perhaps fifteen minutes in total silence before he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and asked, “Aren’t you planning to tell me what you think of me?”
I let out a heavy sigh, hoping in vain that it would release some of the tension from my body. “Ordinarily, I would. But you know what they say about people in glass houses.”
Once upon a time, I might have felt that Adam’s premeditated murder of Valerie was somehow worse than if it had been spur of the moment. But hadn’t I just gone to Cooper’s house prepared to let Adam kill him if necessary? What had I become? I shuddered, wondering if I really wanted to know.
“At least we got what we needed to know out of Cooper without having to hurt him,” Adam commented.
It was a cold comfort, but it would have to do. “You got what we needed to know. Care to share your knowledge with the little people?”
He grunted in what may have been amusement—of course, it could have been gas for all I knew. He was silent for so long I was afraid he wasn’t going to answer. Maybe he’d decided he didn’t dare speak without Lugh’s permission. But this was my heritage we were talking about. I had a right to know.
Apparently, Adam agreed.
“Dougal’s been attempting to create a better host.”
