But if Abraham had been in Jessica all along, who was the woman with the gun? Whoever she was, she still lay in a heap on the floor, but her body was wracked with sobs.
“Now that I saved both your ass and your soul,” Barbie said, “do you think you’re ready to level with me?”
Lugh turned to her, though we were both keeping a careful eye on the two Taser victims, just in case. Even in the light of the single candle, I could see the sweat that coated Barbie’s face. Her eyes were squinched almost shut with pain, and her cheekbones stood out in stark relief.
I mentally reviewed everything Barbie had seen and heard, and it was not good news. She’d probably have been able to explain away the inexplicable quickness that had stopped me from stabbing Jessica, but not the strength it had taken for me to throw Jessica across the room, nor the midair acrobatics that had kept me from hitting the wall when Jessica threw me.
We’re screwed, I said to Lugh.
“I’ll get back to you in a moment,” Lugh said to Barbie. He grabbed my cell phone and quickly called Adam.
“What?” Adam said when he answered, sounding groggy and grumpy.
“I need your help, immediately,” he said, then rattled off the address. “Get here yesterday.”
Adam was instantly awake. “What’s going on?”
“Too much to explain. Just get down here. And get Raphael down here, too. We may need his inventive storytelling abilities.”
Adam must have realized he was speaking to Lugh, not me. If it had been me barking orders at him like that, he’d have balked. Instead, he hung up with a promise to be here ASAP.
“What, no ambulance?” Barbie asked.
“Not yet. We’re going to need Adam to be a bit creative about what happened here, so we need him here before anyone else.”
Her gaze was shrewd. “Because you need to hide that you’re somehow still possessed.”
“Among other things.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Lugh looked back and forth between the two Tasered women, and Barbie said, “Oh.”
He crossed the room to her, squatting by her side and dropping his voice to the softest of whispers. “Morgan will explain everything later,” he said.
I will?
“For now, just know that she and I don’t have the typical demon/host relationship.”
Are you sure about this? I asked.
Yes, was his succinct reply.
“When Adam arrives and my strength is no longer required,” he continued, “I will put Morgan back in control. She will no doubt become violently ill again, but that can’t be helped. Please contain your curiosity for now, and go along with whatever story Adam and Raphael—that’s Tommy Brewster’s demon—come up with.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “Deal?”
She managed a smile, though pain was written across her face. “I’d do just about anything to find out the real story behind all this. I’m just dying of curiosity.” She shook Lugh’s hand, and her palm was clammy with sweat. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to pass out now.” And true to her word, her eyelids fluttered, and she slumped to the side. Lugh lowered her gently to the floor.
Then he took the Taser and gave Abraham another jolt, just to make sure he was down for the count. I suggested the unknown woman could use another jolt herself, despite the fact that she was curled up in fetal position and crying.
She wouldn’t have enough control to curl up and cry if she were a demon, Lugh reminded me. As usual, he was right.
Adam arrived in less than fifteen minutes. Lugh quickly took him aside and told him the whole story. Raphael arrived only a couple minutes later, and while Adam shared the story with him, Lugh drove my body over to a corner and sat down.
Are you ready? he asked.
God, no. The idea of going through another three days or more of the hellish sickness was almost enough to make me leave Lugh in control for the rest of my life. Well, no, not really, but you know what I mean.
Then Lugh shifted control back to me, and I was so violently ill I had no idea who said what to who or what exactly happened afterward.
I have only the haziest of memories of the next few days. I know I was in the hospital—The Healing Circle. You’ve got to love the irony. And I know that an exorcist was brought in to the hospital to examine my aura. But I was mercifully unaware of whatever tests may have been performed on me in an effort to figure out why I was so damn sick. All things considered, I was probably a lot less miserable staying in the hospital than I had been when I’d stayed home. After all, they have way better drugs.
I had visitors every day, although I was rarely clearheaded enough to know the difference between dreams and reality. The first time that I woke up and was actually coherent, it was Adam who sat at my bedside. I might have been touched that he cared, only he was really there just to fill me in on the official story about the showdown at the warehouse so I wouldn’t say anything to contradict it.
Apparently, everything had gone down approximately as I remembered it, only it was Tommy Brewster who’d gotten into the nasty fight with the possessed Jessica. He’d come with me to meet Abraham because I was ill, and he’d defended me against the attack, the stress of which had somehow made my illness ten times worse. Jessica had, of course, disputed the story, but since all the other witnesses—even the mystery woman—corroborated it, and since the examination by the exorcist had proven I wasn’t possessed, her claims were dismissed.
I listened to Adam’s version of what happened and decided that even with my meager lying skills, I could pull it off. It was close enough to the truth not to make me squirm too badly. But what I really wanted to know was who the hell the woman with the gun had been. Luckily, Adam was in an expansive mood and was happy to tell me.
“Her name is Susan Harvey,” he said. “She’s an actress. A pretty good one, too, with aspirations of Broadway. She’s also a single mom, and Abraham kidnapped her son. She was ordered to put on the show of a lifetime, and if she failed to convince you, then she’d never see her son again. Ms. Harvey was contrite enough that she needed little persuasion to remember things the way we wanted her to.”
I remembered the nearly hysterical look in her eyes when Lugh had been about to stab Jessica. At the time, I’d interpreted it as Abraham’s excitement at seeing his revenge come to fruition, but the truth was it was unadulterated horror. Despite the fact that she’d held a gun to my head, I felt sorry for her.
“Is her son okay?” I asked, my voice weak and raspy from disuse.
Adam’s lips tightened with displeasure. “For the most part. Jessica had tied him up in her basement. She hadn’t exactly been gentle with him, and she hadn’t bothered to feed him or give him any water while she held him, but the doctors say he’ll make a full recovery.”
I shuddered, thinking that, with Abraham’s callous disregard for human life, the boy was lucky to be alive. Certainly he wouldn’t have survived once his mother had completed her mission. Nor would his mother, for that matter. I remembered how “Abraham” had held onto Jessica’s ankle, supposedly to keep her from getting away. I should have realized how strange that was at the time, seeing as Jessica was pretending to be so out of it she could barely move, much less make a run for it. If Lugh had gone through with it and stabbed Jessica, Abraham would have used that physical contact to transfer into Susan.
“Jessica had a child, too!” I gasped as I suddenly remembered.
Adam nodded. “But luckily she was visiting her grandparents for the week, so Jessica didn’t have to deal with her.” Because we both knew exactly how she would have dealt with such an inconvenience.
And now for the biggest question of all. “I assume Jessica was exorcized while I was out of it?” I shouldn’t have cared what happened to her. After all, she was a killer herself, or at least she thought she was. But no matter what the human host was like, I couldn’t help feeling sympathy for someone who’d had Abraham
rampaging around in her head. “Is she one of the lucky ones?”
Adam’s face was hard, his expression stony. “Three different exorcists tried to cast Abraham out, but he was too strong for them.”
Horror stabbed through me. “Oh, no.”
His lips tipped into a smile, but his face retained that feeling of hardness. “It was poetic justice, Morgan. The only exorcist in the country—possibly even in the world—who could have cast him out is under suspension by the U.S. Exorcism Board because of the lawsuit Abraham himself put into motion.”
“Was poetic justice?”
He nodded. “Yeah. He was executed this morning at around eight, when the third exorcist failed to cast him out.”
“And so was Jessica,” I murmured, feeling cold.
Adam shrugged. “I can’t get too worked up about that,” he said. “She was no innocent bystander.”
Even though I saw his point, even though she’d kinda had it coming, in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way, I still wished I’d been available to do the exorcism myself. I hated the idea of anyone being incinerated to destroy a demon.
My eyes slid closed, and I realized I had used up my meager strength. “I’m going to go back to sleep now.” Maybe when I woke up, things would look brighter.
I had the vague feeling that Adam stayed at my side until I fell asleep, but that was probably just my imagination.
I managed to fight my way out of the hospital the next day, against medical advice. Although I was feeling much better, my doctor still wanted me to stay for observation, because she had no idea what was wrong with me. She never would, either.
Dominic picked me up at the hospital to take me home, but since it was around lunchtime, and I was eating again, he took me to his and Adam’s place instead so he could set me up with some nourishing Italian food. Adam wasn’t home.
“It’s just leftovers,” Dominic said apologetically as he seated me at the kitchen table.
“After you were nice enough to come pick me up and to feed me, I can hardly complain about leftovers. Especially not if you made them.”
As usual, the praise made him blush. I lavished more on him when he served me the most delicious stuffed shells I’d ever eaten. I almost cried in gratitude when he put together a care package to take home with me.
When I say I almost cried, I mean it literally. Now that the crisis was over, the emotions I’d been holding at bay with a vengeance were eroding away my shields. I felt like there was an aching hole in my chest where Brian had once been. Even when I tried to summon some anger to bolster my defenses, I failed miserably. I couldn’t blame him for finally giving up on me. I just wished with all my being that he hadn’t. Or that I could go back in time and force myself to open up to him, to tell him the truth. To trust him, because he was right, and I’d often withheld my trust even when I knew in my heart he deserved it.
“Do you realize you’ve been staring off into space for almost ten minutes?” Dominic asked, startling me out of my reverie.
I blinked, then glanced at my watch. However, since I hadn’t thought to check the time when I spaced out, it didn’t do much good. “You’re shitting me.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
I can’t count how many times in my life I’ve answered the “what’s wrong” question with “nothing,” even when the sky was falling. I almost did the same now by sheer reflex, but the words died in my throat.
“I need help trying to figure out how to win Brian back,” I blurted, and I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Dom.
He blinked at me like I had to be an imposter. “What kind of drugs do they have you on?”
I tried to laugh, but it was a pathetic effort. “If desperation is a drug, then I’m overdosing on it.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I love him too much to give up on us yet, but I don’t have a clue what to do.”
Dom looked at me long and hard. I couldn’t read the expression on his usually open book of a face. “I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is between you, but will you put it into words for me anyway?”
It was so unlike me to talk about my feelings that I almost wondered if I’d been brainwashed or put under hypnosis. But I kept talking anyway. “The problem is that I have major trust issues, and I’ve given Brian every reason to believe I don’t trust him to look out for me, to look out for himself, to make the right decisions …” My eyes blurred with tears. What an unholy mess I’d made of everything!
“So to have a hope to win him back, you’re going to have to prove that you trust him after all.”
“Just like that, huh? How can I prove it? I tried promising him I’d—”
Dominic cut me off, meeting my eyes and capturing me with an intense gaze. “Ask yourself why you’re asking me how to win Brian back.”
“Because you’re the only one I know who wouldn’t laugh at me, or patronize me, or tell me I was reaping what I sowed.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it, Morgan,” he said in a gently chiding voice.
“What do you mean? Of course that’s it!”
“I’m not going to do all the work for you. If you can’t dig the real reason out of your subconscious, then I can’t help you.”
I swallowed the next denial that wanted to spring to my lips. I had a funny feeling a part of me knew exactly what Dom was talking about—a part of me that wasn’t always on speaking terms with my conscious mind. A part of me I wasn’t sure I was willing, or even able to acknowledge. A part of me that had some inkling of what gesture I could make to symbolize my trust.
Despite the sudden panic that screamed through me, I started putting the pieces of my own thoughts together. Brian had dropped me for my lack of trust. The only way I could hope to get him back was by proving that I did trust him. And the person I was asking advice from was the M half of an S&M relationship, a man who routinely made himself completely helpless before his lover and liked it.
“Oh shit,” I said in a near whisper as the tumblers in my mind lined up and the safe opened.
Dominic smiled. “I believe you’re beginning to get the picture.”
My only response was a loud gulp of fear. Brian and I had danced around the edges of some fairly kinky sex—thanks to Lugh giving Brian some pointers—but what I was thinking of now wasn’t dancing around the edge anymore.
“When you submit to someone you trust completely,” Dominic said softly, still smiling, “you open yourself up more fully than you can possibly imagine. Every part of you becomes vulnerable. It’s not just an act of the body. You’re opening up your emotions, the very essence of yourself.” The smile turned a bit sheepish. “Of course, I’m speaking specifically of myself. Not everyone experiences it the same way.”
I took a slow, deep breath and tried to push my panic out when I released it. “But if I’m looking for a metaphorical way to symbolize my trust …”
“Only if you think Brian is open to it,” Dom hedged. “It’s possible he’d be too weirded out to even realize there’s a message, much less understand it.”
But instinct told me he wouldn’t be weirded out. He’d shown no hint of discomfort when things had gotten a bit kinky between us—hell, he’d been a lot more comfortable about it than I was—and he’d clearly enjoyed himself.
“He’d get the message,” I said. Assuming I was willing to deliver said message, and he was willing to receive it.
Dom nodded. “I can’t guarantee it will be enough,” he reminded me. “But it would say a hell of a lot more than a bunch of words ever could.”
I had to agree with him there. I cleared my throat. “So what would I, uh, do?”
There was what I could only describe as an evil glint in Dominic’s eye.
“One of the reasons falling in love can be so scary is that you’re basically giving the other person your heart, along with all the weapons he needs to destroy it. You’re giving him the means to hurt you terribly, and trustin
g him not to do it even though you have no tangible guarantee. So, think about how you can symbolize that to Brian.”
I squirmed. “I have no experience with this S&M stuff.” My face burned. If you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago if there was a chance in hell I’d ever have a conversation like this, I’d have laughed.
Dom shook his head. “This isn’t really about SM. SM is about the giving and receiving of pleasure, just in unconventional ways. You can work out a lot of trust issues during SM play, but it’s still about pleasure for everyone involved. I’m not sure you’re ready to do it for pleasure yet.”
I bristled. “What do you mean, yet?”
His smile was both placid and disgustingly knowing. “You know how some of the most vehement homophobes sometimes turn out to be gays who’ve refused to come out of the closet?”
My cheeks were so hot I feared I might spontaneously combust. The harder I tried not to, the more I found myself thinking about the fantasies Lugh had created for me—and about some of my more … adventurous sexual forays with Brian. I decided my wisest course of action was to pretend I hadn’t heard what Dom had just said.
“This asking-an-expert-for-help thing isn’t working too well,” I muttered.
“If you want my advice on how to dip your toes into the BDSM pool, I’m happy to help. But if you’re just looking to make a grand symbolic gesture, then I think the ideas have to come from you or the gesture loses a lot of its power. That doesn’t mean I can’t help out—it just means I can’t tell you what you should do.”
Dom’s words resonated somehow, and I knew he was right. This was my gesture to make. The idea had to come from me.
My heart fluttered erratically in my chest as an idea began to form. Dom had described falling in love as giving the other person the means to hurt you and trusting them not to. And that was just what I was going to do.
I dug my courage out of hiding and met Dom’s eyes. “I’d like you to pack me up another care package, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to know what’s in it, but it shouldn’t be wimpy stuff.” I’m not sure there is such a thing as wimpy S&M gear, but that’s beside the point. “I’ll take it to Brian’s, and if he doesn’t slam the door in my face, I’ll give him carte blanche to use whatever’s in the package.”