by Jenna Black
“Lugh really means to fight a duel with Dougal, no matter what anyone else thinks, doesn’t he?” Brian asked.
I waited a beat to see if Lugh would answer the question in my head, but he didn’t. I sighed. “Like he said, let’s take this one problem at a time. We have to get Dougal to the Mortal Plain first.”
He gave me an annoyed look. “Don’t brush me off. You know where I’m going with this.”
Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. The rest of the council was worried about whether Lugh would survive a duel. Brian was wondering about me. Truth to tell, so was I. Demons are extremely strong, and their hosts can withstand a great deal of abuse. And the more powerful the demon, the more damage the host could take. But with Lugh and Dougal equally matched, the size and strength of their hosts might be the crucial difference between them. I’m strong, but there were plenty of stronger, bigger people out there in the world, and you can bet Dougal’s host would be one of them.
“What do you expect me to say, Brian?” I asked. “If Lugh really does decide to fight a duel, I’m sure we’ll spend hours in a council meeting listening to everyone trying to talk him out of it. But in the end, he’s the king, and it’ll be his decision.”
A flush rose to Brian’s cheeks, either from the booze or from anger. “But it’s your body.”
Tell Brian that if it does come down to a duel, I won’t fight it in your body.
“Lugh says he won’t necessarily be in my body if he fights a duel,” I repeated, though I’m sure Lugh noticed my equivocation. It was true that using my body for a fight might put him at a disadvantage, but I would have a hard time pushing someone else into the line of fire in my place.
“That’s very comforting,” Brian said sourly. I was beginning to get the feeling he didn’t much like Lugh. I guess I couldn’t blame him.
“Let’s not borrow trouble. Or put the cart before the horse. Or whatever cliché you like best. I’m too tired and generally wrung-out to think about this now. I say some heavy-duty procrastination is in order.”
I’d have liked to procrastinate by taking Brian to bed and burying our powers of higher reasoning beneath physical pleasure, but the look on his face wasn’t what you’d call promising. He dumped the ice out of his glass and poured another shot of crappy rum.
“Come to bed, Brian,” I said, reaching out to cover the glass before he could raise it to his lips. “You still have to go to work in the morning. You don’t want to go in with a hangover, do you?” I bet that wouldn’t go over too well in the offices of Stuffy, Stodgy, and Serious, which was my nickname for Brian’s firm.
Brian made a face, but put the glass down. “It’s hard to care a whole lot about the day job with what I know about the war.”
“Yeah, but we have to hope that someday this will all be behind us, and we’ll get to go on with our lives. Before you got sucked into all this with me, you actually loved your job.” A fact that was completely incomprehensible to me, but different strokes and all that. “You need to make sure that job is still waiting for you when this is all over.”
Brian put his hands around my waist and pulled me closer to him, but it wasn’t a prelude to anything romantic, just the need for a reassuring touch.
“I somehow doubt our lives are going to go back to normal when it’s all over, even if Lugh does end up being the undisputed king. After all, it’s not like anyone is powerful enough to exorcize him and send him back to the Demon Realm. He’ll be with us for the rest of our lives.”
I had to suppress a shiver. No, there was no one strong enough to cast Lugh out; however, it occurred to me that that wasn’t the only way he could get back to the Demon Realm. My death would do the trick quite nicely.
I would never do such a thing! came Lugh’s shocked protest in my mind. Nor would I allow anyone else to do it, he continued, before I could say something about how Raphael wouldn’t have the same scruples. I believed him—after all, he had said he loved me. The fact remained that Brian was right, and my life would never return to what it had been like before Lugh came into it.
I leaned into Brian’s body, putting my arms around him and holding him close. “Let’s go to bed, okay?” I asked.
I knew Brian was far from appeased. But he let me lead him into the bedroom anyway.
twenty-four
I EXPECTED TUESDAY TO BE ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE tense, miserable days of waiting. Brian headed out to work first thing in the morning, looking none the worse for his late night. Andy and I were, once again, stuck with each other. It was beginning to feel a bit like house arrest for both of us. It did seem that Andy had lightened up a bit on the doom-and-gloom crap, but he still wasn’t exactly fun to be around. Frankly, I didn’t know how much longer this whole buddy-system thing was going to work. If I was tired of hanging out with my big brother, I couldn’t imagine how Adam and Dominic were dealing with Raphael and William the Wimpy—whom they had summoned back as promised, only to find him even more hysterical than last time. Surprise, surprise, Dougal hadn’t taken the message well.
The news stations were still buzzing about Adam’s press conference, so watching TV was out, even if the Spirit Society had suspended their recruitment campaign, which I suspected they had. I was glad I didn’t get the paper, because I knew damn well what the lead story would be. Whether this gamble paid off in the end or not, there was still plenty of fallout yet to come.
I was reading a book—well, more like staring at the pages of a book until the type all blurred together—and Andy was doing who-knows-what on the Internet when my phone rang. I expected it to be press, but the number that popped up on caller ID was Adam and Dom’s, so I picked up.
“Hello?” Since Adam was at work today, I assumed the caller was Raphael or Dom. Alarm spiked through me when it was Adam’s voice that answered.
“We’ve got a situation,” he said.
Why was it that Adam never had good news to deliver? “What now?” I asked. “And what are you doing home? I thought you were working today.”
“I was,” he responded, and I could hear the grimace in his voice. “It’s been suggested that now might be a good time to use some of those vacation days I’ve accrued. It wasn’t quite an order, but I think it would have turned into one if I made an issue of it.”
I sighed. “Is this because of the press conference, or because you didn’t cooperate as much as they wanted when they questioned you about the shooting?”
“Both, I suspect. I get the feeling that I’m lucky I haven’t been fired. Yet. But that doesn’t matter. Like I said, we have a situation. I had a visitor at the station before I left for home. You won’t believe this: It was Dougal.”
“What?” I cried, my voice coming out an embarrassing squeak. Andy shut down whatever he was doing on the Internet and turned to me in alarm.
“He just strolled into the station and told them he wanted to speak to me. I assumed it wasn’t really Dougal himself, despite what he’d claimed, but when he came up to the office, he let me check his aura. And unless Lugh or Raphael has changed hosts and is playing an elaborate practical joke, it was Dougal.”
“Holy shit.” It was all I could think of to say.
“What?” Andy demanded, still looking worried.
“Adam’s talked to Dougal,” I said, because if I didn’t answer Andy, he’d never shut up. “Let me talk, and I’ll tell you all about it after I get off the phone.” I waited a second to see if Andy would mutiny, but he didn’t.
“So what did he have to say?” I asked Adam.
“He said he was coming in to see me to let me know he’d accepted our invitation, as he called it. He suggested he and Lugh get together at six tonight in the food court at the Gallery to discuss terms. He figures that ought to be public enough that both he and Lugh would feel safe from an untimely attack.”
Crap! We’d all been expecting Dougal to drag his feet about this, not try to rush us. “What is he up to?” I murmured, not really meaning for Adam to hear.
> “At a guess, I’d say he’s trying to make sure we’re unbalanced. We’ve kind of got him by the balls, and he’s going to look for any advantage he can find.”
Tell Adam to get Raphael and Dominic and meet us here.
“What about the rest of the council?” I asked.
“Huh?” Adam said.
“Talking to Lugh,” I responded absently.
We don’t have time to gather them all and have a huge debate, not if we want to keep open the option of making the rendezvous.
I didn’t like the idea of keeping Saul, Barbie, and Brian in the dark. Especially Brian, who’d be pissed off at me later for not telling him immediately what was going on. Besides, it kind of made me wonder if Lugh was planning something he’d rather not have one or more of them hear.
Just tell Adam to get them here, Lugh said, his mental voice impatient.
I fought down my natural urge to dig in my heels when someone tried to order me around. It was already two in the afternoon, and four hours wasn’t a whole lot of time to plan this meeting, if we actually decided to go. And Brian would be at work until after five, so if I really wanted him to keep up his semblance of a normal life, I should do what Lugh asked. That is, ordered.
“Lugh wants you to bring Raphael and Dominic here to talk things over,” I said to Adam.
Adam hesitated for a beat. I’m not sure why. Maybe he was worried about leaving William alone—although he’d been so badly beaten down by now it was hard to see him as much of a threat. Or maybe because he didn’t like the idea of Dom being included in whatever scheme Lugh was going to devise. But the alternative would be leaving Dom unprotected in the house, so bringing him was the lesser of two evils.
“I’ll be there in about a half hour,” Adam said.
I frowned. “Can’t you make it sooner? We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I can make it sooner if you don’t mind having the press on our tails for the rest of the evening.”
“Oh. Take your time, then.”
He snorted softly, then hung up. As usual, no polite good-bye.
I’m going to have to take control when everyone gets here, Lugh informed me once I got off the phone.
I always felt like a bit of a loony talking to myself, so I retired to the bedroom, where Andy couldn’t see me doing it. Lugh, understanding my way of thinking as usual, waited until the door had closed behind me to talk to me again.
I’d like you to promise to hear me out, he said, and every brain cell in my head went on red alert.
“Whatever it is you have to say, I already don’t like it.”
Lugh hesitated for a moment, then soldiered on. We need to have this meeting with Dougal. He’s as vulnerable as he’s ever been, but if we stand him up, he might get cold feet and go back to the Demon Realm.
“How would he do that? No one’s strong enough to exorcize him except maybe you or Raphael.”
Lugh was silent, and I shook my head as I recognized the faulty assumption behind my words: the assumption that Dougal had any scruples I’d understand. All he had to do to get himself back home was kill his host, and that wasn’t something he was likely to lose sleep over. Assuming demons actually sleep.
“Okay,” I said, “I get that we have to rendezvous with Dougal. Now tell me whatever it is you think I’m going to get upset about. Other than the fact that you want to have control for the second time in two days, which is going to give me a killer headache.”
To most demons—even royals like William—Dougal, Raphael, and I all look about the same on the Mortal Plain. But Dougal would be able to tell Raphael and me apart. Kind of like how human parents can see the difference between their identical twin children when others can’t.
My heart sank a bit. Letting the bad guys know that Lugh was inside me did not put me in my happy place.
You misunderstand, Lugh said. Raphael has already claimed to be me, in Tommy Brewster’s body. Even if William couldn’t give Dougal a very clear picture of what Tommy looks like, he’d at least know that I was supposed to be in a male body.
“So what?” I asked, though the hairs on the back of my neck were starting to stand up. My subconscious often understands things before my conscious mind does. I guess because denial doesn’t work on my subconscious.
So if I show up with you as my host, Dougal’s going to start wondering who William was really talking to.
I gave a little snort. “He won’t wonder. He’ll know it had to be Raphael.” I frowned. “Or that you’ve switched hosts since then.”
He’ll know it was Raphael. If I switched hosts, my new host would be a man, not a woman. Our natural inclination is to possess hosts of our own gender, and if Dougal thought I picked a female host, he would get very, very curious about why.
“I still don’t get it. He’s going to be suspicious no matter what. He knows we want to kill him. And what does it matter if he thinks it was Raphael who talked to William?”
It matters because it’s better for Dougal not to know that Raphael is working with us.
I frowned. “Newsflash: He already knows that.”
No. He knows Raphael didn’t want to let him kill me. There’s a big difference between interfering with Dougal’s plans to kill me and actually, say, being part of my royal council. And as you may have noticed, Raphael is a great deal more … devious than I am. Dougal thinks that makes me weak. I’d like to keep him thinking I’m weak, so I’d rather he not know I’ve got Raphael advising me.
My subconscious mind bitch-slapped my conscious mind until I let go of my denial. “You want to go to this meeting in Tommy Brewster’s body.” I sat on my bed and lowered my head into my hands. “But to do that, you’d have to get Raphael out. That’s why you want Dominic here. You want him to host Raphael.”
Only temporarily, Lugh hastened to assure me. It would be for a couple of hours, at the maximum. I don’t think they particularly like each other, but they don’t dislike each other, either.
A dull ache started behind my eyes, but I was pretty sure it was all in my mind. Lugh could stop me from having physical ailments—except for the ones that hit me after control changes. As Lugh had obviously known, I really hated the idea of letting Raphael into anyone else’s body. Especially someone as nice as Dominic. But our other human allies were Brian, Barbie, and Andy. I didn’t want to see how Saul would react to the thought of Raphael taking possession of Barbie’s body—and I suspect Lugh didn’t, either. Brian was at work, and I’d already decided he needed to stay there. And it would be cruel and unusual punishment to ask Andy to host Raphael for a third time when he hated Raphael as vehemently as he did.
How difficult do you plan to be about this? Lugh asked, and his mental voice sounded vaguely amused.
“Would being difficult about it change anything?”
No. It would just make things more difficult.
“I’m glad you’re finding this amusing,” I said in my most surly voice. But I knew he was right.
Lugh had to be in the driver’s seat to move from my body to that of another host. He could fight his way into control, given enough time, but that would be spectacularly unpleasant for me. And even if he couldn’t fight his way into control, as soon as Raphael arrived, he’d know what Lugh and I were doing. All he’d have to do would be to knock me out, and all my mental walls would come crumbling down.
“I won’t be difficult,” I finally conceded.
Thank you.
I wasn’t sure he had much of anything to thank me for. Fighting over control would be unpleasant for me, not for him. But though I was tempted to pick a fight, I realized I didn’t have the energy for it. There was too much going on for me to waste my mental resources on pointless sparring.
Lugh let me stay in control until Adam, Dom, and Raphael arrived. As soon as I closed the door behind them, Lugh tapped politely on the barriers of my mind, and with a resigned sigh, I let him in.
“Will we be making the rendezvous with Dougal?” Raphael as
ked before Lugh even managed to turn around.
“Yes,” Lugh said shortly. “Let’s all take a seat, shall we?”
It was kind of scary that with only one full sentence and some body language, everyone knew it wasn’t me in the driver’s seat anymore. But it was obvious from the way they looked at me that they knew.
Adam, Dom, and Andy sat on the couch. Adam put his arm around Dom and pulled him closer, giving Andy a little extra breathing room. Apparently guys-straight ones, at least—get antsy when forced to sit too close together on a sofa. Raphael, in his usual lone-wolf style, sprawled on the love seat. Lugh remained standing.
There was a pregnant pause, and then Lugh launched into the same spiel he’d given me. He was a lot less apologetic-sounding when he explained to the guys. I guess apologizing wasn’t very kingly.
No one interrupted him, though it was easy to see from the expressions on their faces that they figured out where Lugh was going long before he got there.
“And so I need to meet with Dougal in Tommy’s body,” Lugh finally concluded, putting it into words, although I was sure he could see the comprehension in their eyes just as well as I could. “Which means someone else is going to have to host Raphael for a few hours.”
Dom’s face paled, and Adam’s arm tightened around his shoulders. Andy folded his arms across his chest and lowered his chin, refusing eye contact.
Raphael laughed, a brittle, bitter laugh. “Ah, what a joy it is to be welcomed with open arms.”
“Try not to make things worse, brother,” Lugh muttered, giving Raphael a scathing glance. His attention didn’t stay on Raphael for long. Andy wouldn’t meet his gaze, but Lugh spoke to him anyway. “I know how poorly you and my brother get along,” he said. “I would not ask you to host him again.”
Andy’s eyes closed, and his shoulders slumped as a long breath of relief hissed out of him. However, something akin to mutiny flashed in Adam’s eyes.
“You can’t ask Dom to do it!” he said. I suspect his hold on Dom was getting hard enough to hurt, but Dom seemed disinclined to complain. His breath was coming short, and his hands were clenching and unclenching in his lap.
