The Devil's Playground mk-5

by Jenna Black

  The demon’s red aura writhed around Cooper’s body, smothering the human aura underneath. Performing an exorcism is an exercise in visualization. The specific visualization technique you used didn’t matter, just so long as it worked. I always visualized a sudden gust of wind blowing the demon aura away. I gathered my energy around myself, then blasted it out at the demon, imagining a gust of wind blowing that aura to wisps.

  Usually, that first blast was all it took to drive a demon out of its host body. But apparently, this demon was stronger than average and wouldn’t be as easy to expel. Sudden fear tingled along my nerves. I was, as far as I knew, the strongest exorcist in the U.S., possibly one of the strongest in the world. But there still were some demons who were too powerful for me to exorcize—like Raphael, for example—

  and this would not be a good time to encounter one.

  I took a deep breath to calm myself and bury my doubts. Then I concentrated once more on drawing energy into myself. This time, I didn’t stop when I had “enough;” I just kept drawing more and more in—like taking a very deep breath, until your lungs feel like they’re about to explode. When I could draw in no more, I let myself unleash that energy and thrust it at the demon.

  To my intense relief, the demon aura shattered and disappeared, leaving a patch of human blue behind.

  I opened my eyes to find Cooper gasping in pain as he pressed his hands to the wound in his thigh. He wasn’t doing a great job of it—Tasers don’t bother humans as much as they do demons, though they certainly have an effect—but I was glad to see someone was still home in his body. If the demon I’d just sent back to the Demon Realm had made mincemeat of Cooper’s brain, this whole escapade would have been an exercise in futility. Not to say there was a guarantee it wasn’t even now.

  Cooper was moaning, his face shiny with sweat and tears. Weasel or not, I felt sorry for him.

  “Let’s get on with this,” I said.

  Adam seemed to have no objection. He dropped to his knees beside Cooper’s curled-up form and touched his hand to the back of Cooper’s neck. Instantly, Cooper stopped moaning. His hands fell away from the wound, and I saw that his movements had started the blood flowing faster again.

  Adam’s host—whose name was, confusingly, also Adam—rolled Cooper over onto his back. Losing his original demon hadn’t cured Cooper’s Taser problems, and Adam would be unable to control the body, at least for another few minutes. He could, however, still rummage through Cooper’s brain while he waited.

  “We need to get the bullet out of his thigh,” Adam’s host said. “Once we get the bullet out, Adam will heal the wound enough to save Cooper a trip to the emergency room that might be difficult to explain.”

  “Hello to you, too,” I said under my breath. It was decidedly weird to look at the person I’ve always known as Adam the demon and know that an entirely different person was looking out of his eyes.

  “Can’t Adam get the bullet out himself?” I asked out loud. “Demons don’t generally go to hospitals, so I assumed they somehow …” I made a vague motion with my hands.

  Adam’s host smiled at me. “If Adam were going to stay in there for a few hours, he could make the body expel the bullet without help. However, for reasons I can’t understand, he finds my body more appealing.” He grinned at his little joke—no one in their right mind would want to look like Bradley Cooper, especially not with a stud muffin like Adam’s host available.

  Adam’s host looked up at Raphael. “I need you to rip the pants leg for me so I can get to the wound.”

  Something sparked in Raphael’s eyes. I didn’t think he much liked being ordered around, but he didn’t argue. Who needs scissors when you’ve got demon strength?

  Adam’s host had orders for me, too. “I need a sharp knife.”

  I blinked at him. “You think Cooper has a scalpel sitting around somewhere?”

  “A kitchen knife will do.”

  My eyes widened. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Yes. Now go on before he loses any more blood.”

  I found my way to the kitchen easily enough, but then realized I should have asked Adam’s host what size knife he needed. I rummaged through Cooper’s drawers and selected a paring knife, a steak knife, and a utility knife. Surely one of them would be what he was looking for. The thought of him cutting into Cooper’s thigh with a steak knife brought back my urge to hurl, and for a moment, I didn’t think I could keep my gorge down. The nausea I experienced when Lugh and I exchanged control was bad enough without the blood and gore.

  When I returned to the foyer, Cooper’s pants leg was ripped all the way up to his hip, giving me a glimpse of his tightie whities, which I could have done without, thank you very much. Adam’s host was using a piece of material torn from the pants to wipe blood away from the entry wound.

  I laid my selection of knives on the floor beside Adam’s host. “Do you need me to find some alcohol to sterilize these with?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Adam will make sure there’s no infection.”

  He picked up the paring knife, and my stomach lurched again. I turned my back, figuring there was no way I could keep from throwing up if I watched the proceedings.

  Adam gave an incoherent grunt that I couldn’t help but interpret as a sound of pain.

  “Sorry,” his host said. “It’s going to get worse. Do you need something to bite on?”

  Adam is one of those demons who has a fascination with pain, but he’s more interested in other people’s pain than his own. Having a bullet removed without anesthesia by an amateur with a paring knife was not going to be fun, even for him. Again I fought the nausea, trying not to imagine what it would feel like.

  “You’d better be shielding Cooper from feeling this,” I told Adam, still without turning to look.

  He hadn’t regained enough control of the body to do more than grunt his answer. I had no idea if that meant he was or he wasn’t, but apparently his host could interpret his caveman grunts.

  “He’s shielding him. Unfortunately, he can’t shield himself.”

  The wordless cry that followed needed no interpretation. I supposed Adam had been too macho to accept the offer of something to bite on—or maybe he didn’t have enough control to bite—but he couldn’t keep himself quiet. The sound wasn’t particularly loud, his body still being too discombobulated to muster a whole lot of noise, but I flinched at it anyway.

  With my back turned to the drama in the foyer, I had a clear view of Barbie, lying on the living room couch with a big bag of ice covering her hand. Our eyes met, and Barbie smiled grimly at me. No doubt she was in plenty of pain herself, but she wasn’t enjoying the show any more than I was.

  After that last cry, Adam had fallen eerily silent. I fought the urge to turn around to see what was happening. I hoped he’d passed out, though I wasn’t entirely sure if a demon could do that.

  Finally, Adam’s host said, “It’s done,” with an obvious tone of satisfaction.

  I started to turn around. I’m not sure what I was thinking, because the scene was likely to be considerably messier than before, when it had almost made me toss my cookies. But I didn’t get all the way around, because Raphael—who’d been so quiet I’d almost forgotten about him—grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a little push toward the living room.

  “We already have quite a mess to clean up,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with puke all over the floor.”

  That was Raphael, all right. Always full of compassion. Too bad I couldn’t argue his point. Just listening to the impromptu surgery had my knees shaky and my face coated with sweat. Even if I managed not to vomit, I might pass out, which would be even more humiliating. So I didn’t object to Raphael’s callousness, and I didn’t turn around. Instead, I made a beeline for an armchair tucked in the far corner of the living room, one that would have no view of the foyer.

  eleven

  THERE WAS A L
OT OF ACTIVITY OUT IN THE FOYER FOR the next half hour or so. I participated in none of it, couldn’t even see what was going on. But I could guess from the sounds.

  Someone did his best to vacuum up the AFID tags the Taser had spewed all over the place. Someone else—or maybe the same someone—mopped the blood off the floor, sending the scent of bleach wafting into the living room. My stomach turned over yet again and I considered going to wait out in the car.

  Eventually Adam, still in Cooper’s body but wearing a clean pair of pants, limped his way into the living room, his host and Raphael bringing up the rear. If Adam was able to walk unassisted, then he must have gone a long way toward healing Cooper’s wound already.

  Adam drove Cooper’s body to the love seat catty-corner to the couch Barbie still occupied, and sat down.

  “Is Cooper still alive and kicking in there?” I asked Adam.

  “Yeah. He’s kicking pretty hard, in fact. And he’s healed enough not to require any medical assistance. Tommy, why don’t you come over here and make sure Mr. Cooper stays seated when I’m gone. And Adam, please come rescue me!”

  Adam’s host smirked at him. “Not enjoying your stay?”

  Adam made a growling sound that sounded all wrong—and not terribly threatening—coming from Cooper’s throat. His host laughed. But he crossed the floor and reached out his hand for Adam to grab.

  Adam clasped his host’s hand, but waited for Raphael to come loom over Cooper before transferring.

  Even before anyone spoke, it wasn’t hard to tell when the transfer occurred. Adam’s host, obviously, looked exactly the same whether Adam was in residence or not; however, there was a subtle shift in the body language, one I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t know Adam as well as I did. And if I hadn’t picked up that cue, the sudden hunching of Cooper’s shoulders would have been a dead giveaway.

  Adam came to sit on the edge of the couch, forcing Barbie to scooch over. “Let’s see that hand,” he said, lifting the ice bag without asking permission.

  I couldn’t tell how bad it was from where I was sitting, and I wasn’t about to stand up to take a better look. Adam frowned down at her.

  “Would you like me to heal it for you?” Adam asked. “It would take hours to get it fully mended, but I could get it far enough along so it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”

  Barbie regarded him with wide, wary eyes. She and I weren’t terribly alike, but I had no trouble guessing what was passing through her mind right now. She was remembering Adam’s performance at the club with poor Mary and wondering if she could stand the thought of allowing that creature into her body, even to heal her.

  “I think I’ll pass,” she said. “No offense, but if someone’s going to take over my body, I’d rather it be Saul.”

  Adam nodded, and I wondered if he’d seen what I’d seen in Barbie’s eyes, or if her excuse fooled him.

  “Just make sure no one sees your hand while you’re injured. Having an injury miraculously heal overnight tends to inspire questions.”

  Even in the most demon-friendly states, transferring a demon via skin-to-skin contact is illegal, even if both participants are willing. Those who hate and fear the demons—and that’s about half the population of the U.S.—feel safer with that kind of legal protection and don’t care how many lives could be saved and how much pain avoided if demons could be used as healers. Of course, I suspected Adam was far from the only demon to do this kind of illicit healing.

  “I’ll be careful,” Barbie promised, and Adam put the ice bag back on her hand. Her eyes squinched at the corners, but she made no other sign that it hurt.

  We all turned our attention to Cooper, who looked small and fragile with Raphael looming over him.

  “Did you get anything useful out of him?” I asked Adam.

  He nodded, but I got the impression that something about what he’d learned bothered him. “I have the name of the leader of the illegal recruitment drive: Jonathan Foreman. Cooper didn’t have an address for him, but I’m sure I can find it myself.”

  Raphael, standing behind the couch, bent and put his hands on Cooper’s shoulders, right next to his neck.

  “Oh, good,” he said. “That means we don’t need Cooper anymore.”

  Cooper let out a squeal of alarm as Raphael’s hands slid to encircle his neck. He clawed at Raphael’s wrists, leaving red marks on Raphael’s skin, but his efforts probably wouldn’t have dislodged Tommy, much less Raphael.

  “Don’t you dare kill him!” I said, glaring at Raphael.

  Raphael raised his eyebrows, looking mildly curious as Cooper continued flailing at his hands. “Why on earth not? After everything that’s happened tonight, he’s a considerable liability.”

  Cooper’s face was turning red, and he was making pathetic little gasping sounds. I loathed Cooper, had loathed him for all of my life. And I had good reasons to want him dead for some of the things he’d done to me in the past. But it turns out I haven’t yet found it in me to just turn my head and let someone be murdered. And I hope I never do.

  “Because we’re the good guys,” I said, “and good guys don’t go around murdering people. Now let go of him!”

  Raphael, of course, ignored me. I wished my Taser were charged, because there was nothing I could do against Raphael my own puny self without a weapon.

  “Adam!” I snapped. “Do something!”

  Adam gave me a look, at once impassive and full of meaning. He probably approved of what Raphael was doing. Even if he didn’t, Raphael outranked him. No, only Lugh could stop Raphael, and he didn’t seem to be volunteering for the job.

  I was trying to come up with a plan C, but Raphael suddenly dropped his hands from Cooper’s neck. Cooper sucked in great, gasping swallows of air, his hands going protectively to his neck as if to stop Raphael from choking him again.

  Raphael smiled pleasantly. “My advice would be to kill him and hide the body where it will never be found.” He looked at Adam. “You’ve had intimate contact with him. Do you think if I reminded him that I could change my mind and come back for him at any time he would see the wisdom of keeping his mouth shut?” Raphael turned his unnerving attention to Cooper. “You’d have to make yourself disappear so you wouldn’t have to tell your Spirit Society friends your demon is gone, but I know you have the means to do it.”

  Adam flashed Cooper a feral grin. “What do you think, Brad? Are you going to run around flapping your lips, or would you rather live?”

  Cooper, still gasping and coughing, managed to sputter out a promise that he wouldn’t say a word to anyone about what had happened here tonight. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed him. But Adam seemed to think he’d keep his mouth shut, and Raphael, for the second time in one night, was showing something that resembled mercy. I wasn’t going to be the one to start baying for Cooper’s blood, not when I’d been about to make a heroic effort to save him.

  We trooped out of the house together, leaving Cooper sobbing on his love seat. Adam carried a garbage bag that contained Cooper’s bloody clothes, the bag from his vacuum cleaner, the pillow that had served as a makeshift silencer, and the rags they’d used to clean the floor—the hard evidence that we’d been here tonight and done Cooper harm. Adam was going to have to “lose” his Taser somehow. It wouldn’t go over well with the brass—losses like that couldn’t help but be suspicious—but he’d have a hard time explaining why the Taser had been fired not just once, but multiple times, when he was off duty.

  As we closed Cooper’s front door behind us, Raphael turned to me with a little grin and a spark of what looked suspiciously like mischief in his eye.

  “You and I do a very nice good cop, bad cop act. We should do it again sometime.”

  “Fuck off,” I said, with my usual tact and grace. “He could have died before you decided to listen to my good cop.” And I still didn’t understand why he had listened.

  Raphael dismissed that with a wave. “Did you hear the little noises he was maki
ng?” he said with a chuckle.

  I curled my lip in a sneer. “You think that’s funny? Why, you despicable—”

  Raphael didn’t let me finish, cutting me off with a glare and a growl that made me take an involuntary step backward. He shook his head at me in what looked like disgust, then ducked into his car, pulling the door shut so hard I was surprised the metal didn’t crumple. I caught a glimpse of his face as he slammed the car into reverse and practically flew out of the driveway. He was seriously pissed, and I hoped he wouldn’t plow down any innocent passersby.

  I shook my head. “Why is he mad at me?” I asked of no one in particular. “He had to know gloating like that would offend me.”

  “He wasn’t gloating,” Adam answered. “He was pointing out that Cooper was making noise, which meant he could breathe. No air, no noise.”

  Adam didn’t glance at me after making me realize what an idiot I’d been, and Barbie didn’t either. So much for my efforts to give Raphael the benefit of the doubt. By the time I’d recovered my poise enough to follow, Adam and Barbie were halfway across the street and I had to run to catch up.

  The ride back into Center City was a quiet one. Barbie was in too much pain to make conversation, and neither Adam nor I was much into small talk. I still didn’t get why Adam and Raphael had let Cooper live. It seemed so … unlike them.

  Any ideas, Lugh? I asked, but apparently we were back to the silent treatment. I didn’t understand what was going on with that, either.

  My stomach still wasn’t happy, and I felt the beginnings of a headache stirring behind my eyes, so I let my questions go, for now. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the headrest, willing the nausea to recede. At least Adam drove with reasonable care, not screaming around any corners or jackrabbiting when lights turned green. He probably just didn’t want me puking in his car.

  Our first stop was at Saul’s apartment, where we dropped Barbie off. Saul lived in a small, intimate community. You had to buzz to get in, but there were no doormen, and there was no front desk. No one to see Barbie’s obvious injury before Saul swept her behind closed doors to heal her.