by Jenna Black
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I said, and I meant it. It was hard to imagine Adam getting into any kind of trouble he couldn’t handle. Perhaps I was overestimating him, but his combination of competence and confidence made him seem almost invulnerable to me.
“Do you have any idea where he’s gone?”
I shook my head. “No. Why?”
Dom’s lips pressed together in a tight line, his eyes narrowed in pain. “Because I’m worried about him. I hurt him, and I’m worried he’ll be distracted by it, get himself in trouble. .”
I thought I understood what Dominic was trying to say, even though he didn’t come right out and say it. “You want me to go look for him?”
His brilliant smile lit up his face. “Would you? He’s turned his phone off, and I don’t know how to reach him. I want to make sure he knows I’m staying before he faces Tommy.”
I almost took him up on it without thinking, but every once in a while I surprise myself by considering the consequences of my actions. “You know he’s going to be pissed at you for letting me go.”
Dom’s smile turned into a grin. “Do you think I’m afraid of him? It won’t be the first time I’ve pissed him off, and it won’t be the last, either.” He sobered and looked at me gravely. “Sometimes he has trouble understanding that people have a right to decide things for themselves, even if he doesn’t like their decisions.”
I had a feeling he was talking about more than my own situation. Had Adam tried to bully Dom into not taking Saul back? That would explain why Dom hadn’t rushed in to reassure him.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go see if I can find Adam and make sure his head is in the game where it belongs. But first you have to tell me about the black eye.” I believed him when he said Adam didn’t do it on purpose, but considering they’d obviously argued, I felt like I had to know the circumstances before I could get near Adam without killing him. “Were you fighting?”
Dom stared at his hands in apparent fascination. “We were play-fighting, though we both should have known better. You don’t do any kind of BDSM play when you’re angry. At least, you shouldn’t.” I must have looked horrified, because he hastened to reassure me. “We weren’t throwing punches or anything, just wrestling. Of course, I don’t stand a chance of winning a wrestling match with a demon, so usually I don’t try very hard. But I was angry, so I fought harder than usual, and I managed to break his grip.” A wry smile twisted his lip. “I was as surprised as he was, so I lost my balance. You’ve seen the bed next door.”
Yes, I had. It was a massive king-sized black iron bed that looked heavy enough to fall through the floor.
“I ran into it face-first. Adam managed to catch me or it probably would have been much worse.”
If it were anyone else, I might have thought this story equivalent to the “I bumped into a door” story that’s the staple of battered women everywhere. But I believed Dominic, and that meant I could go off in pursuit of Adam without wanting to kill him.
I don’t know what was to stop Adam from dragging me right back to my civilized little prison cell the moment I found him, but I’d worry about that later. I smiled at Dom to let him know I bought his story.
“Do you happen to know where Adam stashed my Taser when he confiscated it?”
“No, but I’m sure we can find it.”
Picking up the tray, he led me out of my cell.
I can’t tell you how relieved I was to get out of that house, though I felt a little like I’d escaped under false pretenses. I’d promised Dominic I’d look for Adam, but I had no real hope of success. Philly is a big city, and I had no idea where he’d gone. Naturally, I tried stopping by Tommy’s place, but no one, not even his slimy roommate, seemed to be home. I then tried Adam’s office number, even though I doubted he’d officially gone back to work on his “sick day.” I was right.
Other than The Seven Deadlies, I didn’t know where else Tommy was likely to hang out. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon, and the club wouldn’t open until nine. I tried Adam’s cell phone on the off chance he’d turned it back on since the last time Dom had called, but no dice. I even tried calling Claudia, but she was in a meeting—not with Adam, because I asked—and couldn’t be disturbed. I declined to leave a message. I’m sure the kidnappers had commanded her to go about her day as if nothing were wrong, but I hoped the fact that she was in a meeting meant the children were okay.
It was almost five when I admitted defeat. Until The Seven Deadlies opened, I had no clue where to find Adam. I called Dom to let him know I was going back to my apartment, and he confirmed that Adam still hadn’t returned any of his calls. The worry in Dom’s voice was contagious, but neither one of us could come up with any brilliant ideas. I gave Dom strict orders to call me if he heard from Adam, then headed home.
My day was not improved when I found a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer camped out in the lobby of my building. Not the same reporter who’d been calling me on the phone, but I recognized her as press—perhaps because of the whiff of brimstone that clung to her—as soon as she sprang up out of her chair and strode toward me.
If I ran for the elevator, would I be able to get in and get the door closed before she caught me? With my luck, that would be a big no. So instead I turned to glower at her, arms akimbo, body language screaming “get the fuck away from me.”
She couldn’t possibly have missed the message, but I suppose reporters were used to ignoring hostility, since she came right up to me anyway and stuck out her hand.
“You must be Morgan Kingsley,” she said with a polished smile. “I’m Barbara—”
My smile was so polished the edges could cut through diamond. “I don’t care who you are. I have no comment, and I want you to stay out of my hair.”
Her shapely eyebrows rose. She held out a press badge for me to examine. I ignored it and turned toward the elevators. Barbara What’s-Her-Name followed, her businesslike black pumps making clicking noises as she tried to catch up. Naturally, both elevators were near the top of the building. I hit the Up button with more force than necessary.
“You know,” Barbara said as she settled in to wait beside me, “I’m from the Philadelphia Inquirer, not the National Enquirer. There’s no reason to be so skittish.”
I tried to pretend she wasn’t there. With all the crap I was going through in my life, you’d think the universe would give me a break once in a while! But no, why would anyone think that?
“So you have no comment about the death of Jordan Maguire Jr.?”
I stared at the blinking lights above the elevators, wishing the damn things weren’t about a hundred years old and slow as tortoises.
Reporter Barbie was undaunted. “What about Jordan Maguire Sr.’s threats to file suit?”
I blinked. This was the first I’d heard of it, and I groaned internally. Just what I needed—more trouble. One of the elevators was still at floor twenty, but the other one was making its way down steadily. Fifteen, fourteen, twelve—because this was an old building and had no thirteenth floor—eleven, ten. . And then the damned thing stopped, and I almost howled in frustration.
“Is there anything you’d do differently if you had a chance to do it all over again?” Barbie continued, as if I’d been answering her questions all along.
The elevator stayed on floor ten, and I decided enough was enough. I walked back into the lobby and caught the doorman’s attention. He was a big black guy built like a linebacker, but he was one of those gentle giants who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’d talked to him just enough to know he was a starving artist who worked the door to keep food on the table while he pursued a career as a painter. Still, Barbie didn’t know any of that.
“Hey, Mike,” I said with a big smile, “is there any chance you can help me get rid of an unwanted visitor?” I jerked my thumb at Barbie.
He returned my smile. “Sure thing,” he said, then looked at Barbie. The smile gave way to a politely blank expression. “Ma�
��am, this is a private building. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Reminding myself to slip Mike a generous tip later, I pivoted back toward the bank of elevators. Barbie started to protest, but Mike was firm. I breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors closed behind me. I felt a little less relieved when I remembered the death threat on my answering machine last night. Great to know everyone and their brother was gunning for me!
I half-expected there to be another death threat when I finally let myself into my apartment, since the universe seemed to be piling it on right now. The fact that there were no messages made me practically cheerful. Yeah, welcome to my life.
I scrounged up a dinner, if you could call it that, of a toasted frozen bagel and dry cereal. I hadn’t had much chance to hit the grocery store lately. Then I spent the rest of the evening alternating between trying Adam’s cell phone number and checking in with Dom. I decided not to call Brian. He thought I was safely locked up in Adam’s house, and he’d probably feel it his duty as my knight-in-shining-armor to come “protect” me if he knew I was alone. I’m not very good at accepting help even when I need it, but I seriously didn’t think the bad guys were going to storm my building. I’m sure they could get past security if they wanted to—obviously, they’d done it once already—but they’d still have to get through my door. I kept my Taser in my pocket just the same.
I was really starting to get pissed off at Adam. If he was in trouble, I’d feel guilty about it later, but right now I figured he was probably just sulking over his little spat with Dom. I didn’t think members of Lugh’s council should be allowed to sulk. Except me, of course. I could sulk all I wanted.
When I still hadn’t heard anything from Adam by nine o’clock, I decided it was time for me to put in yet another appearance at The Seven Deadlies. Unless he was in trouble, he was bound to be there, staking the place out, looking for Tommy. We had never really discussed what would happen if he found him, but I felt pretty sure Tommy wouldn’t enjoy the encounter.
This time, I didn’t particularly care if I fit in with the crowd, so I dressed in jeans and a plain white button-down. The only nod I made to the Seven Deadlies crowd was to wear a single skull and crossbones earring with bright, genuine rubies in the eyeholes. Brian had bought it for me as a semi-joke, though it looked too expensive to be relegated to the junk drawer. I put an assortment of gold and silver studs in the remaining holes, then stared myself in the eye in the bathroom mirror and tried to convince myself I was ready.
I wasn’t ready, and I knew it. But other than washing my hands of the whole situation, I had no other choice, so I guessed that meant I was going.
I still hadn’t bothered to deal with the flat tire, so I called a cab to take me to South Street. It was well past ten when I headed for the club. Still pretty early for the Friday night club scene, but then I’d rather get there before the place was completely packed with demons and their groupies. Making sure the cabbie couldn’t see me past the partition, I opened my purse and rearranged everything so that the Taser was in a compartment by itself. Easier to grab that way. All the other pockets were full to bursting, making for unsightly lumps, but oh well.
As soon as I closed the purse, it rang. Great. My cell phone was buried at the bottom by now. I dug through all my junk and reminded myself I had to clean out my purse someday. I finally got my fingers wrapped around the phone, and I knew it was seconds before the call would go to voice mail. I answered just in time, but I hadn’t had the chance to check caller ID yet.
“Hello?”
“Dominic tells me you’re not where I left you,” Adam said, and though my hackles immediately rose, I couldn’t deny the relief that surged through me. I was glad Adam couldn’t see me. I had the feeling I’d never hear the end of it if he thought I’d been worried about him.
When uncomfortable, get angry, that’s my motto. With Adam, it was never a hard one to live by. “Where the fuck are you?” I asked, too loudly. I saw the cabbie glance at me in the rearview mirror. Like about ninety percent of the cabbies in Philadelphia, he wasn’t born in the good old U.S. of A. By the looks of him, he’d been born in a place where they cut out a woman’s tongue if she let such a filthy word leave her mouth. I lowered my voice, and vowed to edit my language.
“Dom and I have both been trying to reach you for hours!”
“So I heard. Let’s just say I needed a little me-time.”
“When those children—” I stopped myself before I finished the sentence. The driver was obviously listening, so it seemed prudent for me to be a tad more discreet.
“I was explaining why I had the phone turned off,” Adam growled. “I don’t mean I’ve been gazing at my navel. I’ve presently got a good friend of ours passed out in the backseat.”
“Oh.” The good news was, I wouldn’t have to go back to The Seven Deadlies. The bad news was. . Well, I wasn’t sure what the bad news was yet. All I was sure of was that there would be some seriously bad news soon. “How did that happen?” I asked, because demons don’t just have attacks of the vapors.
“He had a little too much to drink.”
“Oh,” I said again. A brilliant conversationalist, that’s me. Demons are as capable of getting drunk as humans, although they usually metabolize the alcohol faster so their drunkenness doesn’t last long. Still, it seemed awfully careless of Tommy, especially if he had any inkling that Adam was investigating him.
“I helped him along a bit,” Adam explained. “We’re on the way back to the house now. I thought you might want to meet us there.”
No, I wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me home. But I supposed that would be irresponsible. I sternly ordered myself not to think about what would happen to Tommy when whatever knockout drops Adam had given him wore off. I didn’t think it was going to be pretty.
“I guess I have to,” I said. I didn’t actually mean to say it out loud.
“Yes. We might need Lugh.”
I closed my eyes for a second, wondering just what Adam thought we might need Lugh for. To exorcize Tommy’s demon? I supposed it was in the realm of possibility that whatever demon had taken Tommy was beyond my ability or Adam’s ability to exorcize. But I suspected that wasn’t what Adam meant. We would need to know Saul’s True Name if we wanted to summon him, and the only people who would know it were his close family members. . and his king.
“I’ll be there soon,” was all I said. I hung up abruptly, because I didn’t want Adam to hear anything suspicious in my voice. Then I gave the driver Raphael’s address and braced myself for one very nerve-wracking phone call.
CHAPTER 23
Convincing Raphael to come with me to Adam’s wasn’t exactly difficult. Even over the phone, I heard what I could swear was repressed excitement. I knew he and my brother didn’t get along, and if he really was treating Andy better this time around, it meant he had to interact with him more than he’d like. Perhaps he was just excited at the thought that he might find a new, more enjoyable host. But I didn’t think that was it.
No matter how loyal Raphael might be to Lugh, I had to agree with Lugh’s assessment of him: he was a liar. He knew more about the Houston project than he’d admitted, and for some reason he was very, very eager to have Tommy host him.
What was it about Tommy that made demons everywhere fall over themselves in order to acquire his body? I suspected I wouldn’t know unless and until one of Lugh’s allies ended up in possession of Tommy’s body.
And therein lay the crux of my moral dilemma. Could I really stand to let anyone, even a fanatic like Tommy Brewster, be possessed against his will? Demonic possession had been my own worst nightmare, and though I had learned to live with it to some extent, I still longed for the days when I was alone in my body. And not only was I a hell of a lot more compatible with Lugh than Tommy would be with Raphael, but I also still had control of my body. It wouldn’t be the same for Tommy, and he would suffer. If I let this happen.
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br /> I hadn’t reached anything that resembled a conclusion by the time the cab pulled up in front of my brother’s apartment building. Raphael was waiting at the curb and quickly slipped in while the car behind us honked in indignation at the delay. Gotta love Philadelphia drivers. Always so polite and understanding.
I gave the cabbie Adam’s address, and we were off again.
“Does Adam know I’m coming?” Raphael asked.
I grimaced. “In this case I decided to adopt your philosophy of asking forgiveness rather than permission.”
He looked like he was about to say something, but then his gaze darted to the driver and his mouth thinned into a hard line. I, of course, was not at all unhappy to have our own personal censor available. I didn’t want to talk about what I was contemplating. I’d put off deciding what to do for as long as I could manage it. And maybe even longer.
We rode the rest of the way in silence. I wished Adam lived farther away, though I don’t suppose having more time would have made me any more prepared. I gave the driver a generous tip, which I couldn’t afford, and then stood on the pavement for a long moment, staring at Adam’s house, not wanting to go in yet.
Raphael had no such problems, and before I was ready, he’d hurried up the steps and rung the bell. My throat felt tight with panic, but I fought it off as best I could.
It was Dom who answered the door. I supposed Adam was keeping an eye on our prisoner. Dominic raised his eyebrows when he saw Raphael, but didn’t comment.
“Come on in. The party’s just getting started.” There was a hint of strain in his voice. He was too nice a guy to like Adam’s interrogation methods, but though he disliked them, he didn’t seem inclined to protest. Then again, maybe he already had.
“Adam’s not going to be happy to see you,” Dom said to Raphael as soon as the door closed.
Raphael shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter. I’m a member of your merry band now whether you want me or not.”
