The Devil You Know (9 page)

As tempting as the idea was, I nixed it before it took hold. I’d never had any warm, fuzzy feeling toward my parents, and I had even less right now. But I knew from cold, hard experience what could happen if I sicced Adam on them. My stomach tightened as I remembered Val’s scream when Adam’s whip had torn through her flesh. And I thought I might heave when I remembered the sickening crack of her neck breaking in his dispassionate hands.

No, the relationship between me and my parents wasn’t all flowers and bunny rabbits. And yes, they possibly had information I
needed
to learn. But never again would I willingly give someone over to Adam.

I half-expected to find my apartment looking like a war zone, but everything was just about how it should be when I stepped in. Adam reported that the afternoon had been uneventful. No one had stopped by, and the only phone call had been from my mother, who wanted me to call back so she could apologize for Dad’s behavior. Yeah, like
that
was going to happen.

I told myself I was relieved as I dropped the bag of takeout on the table and headed for the kitchen in search of plates. If Raphael had shown up, he probably could have beaten Adam in a fight. According to Lugh, he and his brothers were of an elite class, more powerful by far than most of the demons who walked the Mortal Plain—including Adam.

But though I was glad no disasters had occurred while I was gone, I couldn’t deny that my heart sank just a little lower on realizing that yet another day had passed without a word from Brian.

I took far longer than necessary to fish three clean forks out of the silverware drawer. My hands itched to reach for the phone, to call Brian’s apartment and assure myself he was all right. After all, the enemy had gotten to him before. But in my heart of hearts, I knew he had made the conscious choice not to call me again.

The love of my life had finally given up on me. The thought made my chest ache and my eyes burn, even as I reminded myself that it was for his own good. I wished I could proudly and nobly make the sacrifice, but instead I found myself spinning scenarios in my mind where I could somehow free myself from Lugh and resume my interrupted life.

I guess I kind of spaced out for a while, because I didn’t notice Adam joining me in the kitchen until he cleared his throat loudly. I jumped like a startled cat and barely kept from dropping the silverware.

“Do you have a concussion?” he asked, and for a moment I had no idea what he was talking about.

Then I remembered having my lights punched out, and I reached up to the swelling bruise on my chin. “I’m fine,” I said, though I thought I detected a hint of hoarseness in my voice. I hoped Adam didn’t hear it and couldn’t recognize my distress, but his knowing look said he saw straight through me.

“You should put some ice on that. It’s showy enough that Lugh can’t afford to heal it without giving himself away.”

I grimaced. I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror yet, but I took Adam’s word for it.

“May I ask what happened?”

I laughed. “Ask whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to answer.”

Having recovered my composure, or at least some of it, I tried to move past him into what my landlord optimistically called my “dining room.” As far as I was concerned, it was just a corner of the living room with barely enough space for a tiny table.

Adam stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Remember, we’re on the same team, love. Being on the same team means working together, which means sharing information.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Unless you’d like me to stick this fork into the back of your hand, I suggest you let go of me.”

I never for a moment expected him to actually let go, but he sighed and his hand slid away. I was so surprised I stood there gaping at him like an idiot.

“Must we be constantly at war?” he asked.

This was a side of Adam I’d never seen before. Usually, he was as much into the “take no prisoners” philosophy as I was. Enough so that I didn’t trust this apparent bid for truce.

“Let’s review a few facts,” I said. “You killed my best friend. You shot my brother. You tied me up and whipped me to within an inch of my life. How can you possibly expect us
not
to be at war?”

His eyes locked with mine as he enumerated his counterpoints on his fingers. “You exorcized my lover. You’ve repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between me and Dominic. And you tried to have me arrested and executed as a rogue demon. Neither one of us has any room to throw stones. The fact remains that we have a common enemy and a common goal. I spent a lot of time today talking with Andrew, and he’s convinced me that trying to hurt one another isn’t conducive to a successful working relationship.” His lips twitched up into a grin. “I can’t imagine you waving the white flag, so I decided I’d be man enough to do it myself.”

Everything he said sounded perfectly logical. He was even right. I mean, really, how well could we work together when we were both constantly taking verbal jabs at each other?

But I wasn’t buying it. Although I hated to admit it even to myself, Adam and I were a lot alike in some ways, and our warm, forgiving natures weren’t one of them. I didn’t know what his angle was, but I was damn sure there was one.

“You can wave as many flags as you like,” I said. “I have nothing to share with you. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

For half a second, his eyes seemed to glow, an effect I’d noticed before when he got really, really pissed. But the glow faded so fast I was almost able to convince myself it was my imagination.

He shook his head. “Fine. If that’s the way it’s got to be, then so be it. You’ll only be needing two of those forks.”

I went to bed that night thinking about Lugh, trying to will myself to fall asleep and wake up in his special room. I was seriously pissed at him for taking a joyride in my body last night, and though he already knew exactly how I felt about it, I was determined to tell him in my own words.

But I awoke the next morning from a long and dreamless sleep. When I got over the novelty of feeling rested, I cursed Lugh for what seemed suspiciously like a streak of cowardice. Grumbling to myself, I shoved the covers away and sat up. That’s when I noticed the note by the bedside, written in my own handwriting.

We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down. We wouldn’t accomplish anything useful in your present state of mind.

I crumpled the note and tossed it into the wastebasket across the room.

“Yeah,” I muttered to the empty room. “Hijack my body again to write me a note. That’s exactly the right way to make me calm down. I never took you for a chickenshit, Lugh.”

Andy was still asleep when I got up, so I made myself a pot of coffee and sat at the table, examining my options for the day. It was Saturday, but Adam was on duty today so he couldn’t stand guard over Andy. That left me in something of a quandary, because Saturday was meeting day for the Spirit Society, which meant there was a good chance my parents’ house would be unoccupied for at least an hour and a half this afternoon. It seemed unlikely I would have a better chance to take another shot at my dad’s study than that.

I was about halfway through the pot of coffee when Andy staggered out of bed. I was glad to see he’d gained enough strength to get from the bedroom to the dining room without leaning on me, though when he plopped into the chair, I could see that the effort had exhausted him.

Wordlessly, I slipped into the kitchen and poured him a mug of coffee, black with a teaspoon of sugar, just the way he liked it. I felt positively domestic. We sipped our coffee in companionable silence for about ten minutes, and I watched the caffeine banish the remnants of sleep from his face.

“What’s the plan for today?” he asked when he was fully awake.

“Good question,” I mumbled into my coffee cup.

“Are you going to go by Mom and Dad’s place while they’re at the meeting?”

I had told him last night about my adventure. He still maintained that he didn’t remember anything unusual or suspicious about my hospitalization, but he had agreed that it might be a good idea to get a look at the rest of the files.

“The idea has possibilities,” I admitted.

He nodded sagely. “But you’re afraid to leave me alone, and Adam has to work today.”

“There’s also the fact that I’m not real good at breaking and entering,” I said, trying to deflect any guilt he might feel about slowing me down.

He laughed. “It’s not that hard. Especially when I have a key to the house.”

I almost slapped myself in the forehead for that one. Of course Andy, as the favored son, would have a key to our parents’ house. He was always welcome there, unlike me. So we were back to the problem of how to keep Andy safe.

“Just give me a Taser and lock the door behind you when you leave,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Not if Raphael breaks the door down,” I said gloomily.

“If he does, I shoot him with the Taser and then call the police. Besides, he’s not likely to attack in broad daylight. He may be a demon prince, but he’d die as easily as a commoner if he’s convicted of going rogue.”

That made a certain amount of sense, but I still hated the idea of leaving Andy alone and undefended when he was so weak. What if he ran out of energy and fell asleep? Raphael could be in the apartment and on him before he ever woke up. Not to mention that giving Andy my Taser would leave me Taserless myself. I wished I had more than one.

Andy saw my uncertainty and reached across the table to pat my hand. “Look, if I were going to tell you all kinds of crap Raphael doesn’t want me to say, I would have done it by now. He knows that.”

“Yeah, but he’s under orders to kill you anyway.”

Andy shrugged. “You may have noticed he’s not too good at following orders.” He smiled at me. “You two have that in common.”

I couldn’t think of a good comeback, so I just reached out and cuffed him on the side of the head. “Jerk.”

“So are you going to go be a girl detective, or are you going to sit around the apartment being useless all day?”

I gave him a dirty look, but we both knew he’d won the argument. Fighting my reluctance, reminding myself that Andy was far more vulnerable than I, I handed over the Taser. I just hoped he was right about Raphael. If I came home from my little adventure and found out Andy’d been killed in my absence, I didn’t know if I’d ever get over the guilt.

The Spirit Society meeting starts at three-thirty and usually lasts until about five. Many of the faithful go out to dinner together afterward, but I wasn’t going to count on my parents spending the extra time.

The house was in one of the more heavily residential areas of the city, but there was a tiny grocery store across the street. I slipped inside for surveillance duty shortly after three o’clock—it would be pretty embarrassing to break into my parents’ house and discover that they’d decided to play hooky this week!

I browsed aimlessly through the shelves, keeping an eye on my parents’ house through the front window. I’d dressed in a conservative—for me—pair of jeans, with a light windbreaker that I kept zipped to cover the hint of belly that showed between the jeans and my blouse. I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but at five foot nine and with spiky red hair, it was kind of hard to miss me. I saw the geezer at the cash register watching my every move. The store was so small, it was hard to keep up the illusion that I was shopping for more than about five minutes.

Sensing that the guy at the cash register was getting more and more antsy, I snatched up a bottle of Tylenol, then went to the register.

“Will there be anything else?” he asked, still giving me the hairy eyeball.

“Nope, that’ll do it,” I replied cheerfully.

I watched my parents’ front door out of the corner of my eye while he rang up my purchase. Then I made a big deal out of rooting through my purse looking for exact change. I was almost completely out of reasons to stall when the door finally opened and my parents stepped out. Mom locked up behind them, and they began walking briskly down the street in the opposite direction from my vantage point.

Sighing in relief, I pulled out a twenty and handed it to the cashier. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and took the money. He shorted me on the change, but I figured I owed him the extra buck for rent.

I tried not to look furtive and sneaky as I climbed the three steps up to the door and slipped Andy’s key into the lock. I’d been half-afraid the key wouldn’t work, but the door opened easily, and soon I was inside.

The first thing I noticed was the way-too-strong floral air freshener. I sneezed three times in rapid succession.

What was that all about? My mom usually kept small bowls of potpourri sitting around, but they wouldn’t have this strong a scent. Then I ventured another sniff, stifling my need to sneeze again.

Under that cloying fragrance of pasteurized, processed flower product, there was something else. Smoke.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Ignoring Dad’s study for the moment, I made my way to the den at the back of the house. The focal point of the den was an oversized fireplace. Sure enough, there was an impressive pile of ashes in there. When I got close enough, I noticed the air around the fireplace was still warm, and when I pulled aside the curtain, I saw a glowing ember or two.

Having a sneaking suspicion what I would find, I went to Dad’s study.

Outwardly, it looked exactly as it had yesterday. But I wasn’t a bit surprised when I pulled open my drawer and saw that it was empty. I slammed it closed and recited as many curses as I could think of. Then I gave the drawer a swift kick for good measure.