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.
I supposed the only reasonable thing to do was to search through the rest of the files, hoping to find something Dad missed. However, I wasn’t optimistic about my chances of success.
I was just bending to open Andy’s file when I heard the front door open and close. I froze. Now what?
Footsteps moved down the hall, and I realized at once that whoever this was, it wasn’t my mom or my dad. When they went to Spirit Society meetings, they went dressed in their Sunday best, which meant high-heeled pumps for my mom and leather-soled dress shoes for my dad. Whoever was in the house was wearing squeaky rubber soles.
Now I wished I’d brought the Taser with me, even if that
would have meant leaving Andy vulnerable. My instincts insisted the intruder was one of the bad guys. I tried to convince myself I was just being paranoid because I was trespassing myself, but I didn’t believe it.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I heard those footsteps coming closer.
There was no exit from this room save the door, which would lead me straight into the intruder’s arms. And there were no closets or other convenient hiding places.
I backed to the far side of the room, searching frantically for anything I could use as a weapon. I almost laughed as I picked up the only thing I could find that was even remotely weapon-like—a letter opener. If I got attacked by a giant, rabid envelope, I was prepared.
The study door swung open, and an unfamiliar man stepped in. Dressed in faded, tattered jeans and a wife-beater that showed off about a zillion tattoos on each arm, he looked very much like your stereotypical city-dwelling predator. If this were someone else’s house—and someone else’s life—I might suspect he was a burglar, hoping to clear the place out while my parents were gone. But I knew that wasn’t the case even before he smiled at me.
“Ms. Kingsley, I presume?” he asked, and the voice sounded strangely cultured in that decidedly déclassé body.
I blinked and brandished the letter opener, feeling vaguely ridiculous. “Who the fuck are you?”
His smile stayed in place. “I’ll take that as a yes. And you might as well put your, er, weapon down. You won’t find it terribly useful against me.”
On the one hand, I couldn’t expect him to be intimidated by a letter opener. On the other hand, something about the way he said that made me think he wouldn’t be much more intimidated by a big-ass hunting knife. Which meant he was probably a demon. And considering what I’d learned from Raphael, I had a pretty good guess just which demon this was.
Of course, I wasn’t supposed to know anything about Der Jäger, so I didn’t let on that I had any idea who I was facing.
“I think I’ll keep it, thanks.” With my left hand, I rummaged in my purse, hoping to find my phone. I didn’t think I’d have an opportunity to call in the cavalry, but I figured there was no harm in trying.
Der Jäger kept smiling at me, but it was an eerie, cold smile. “Put it down, or I’ll be forced to take it from you. Trust me, you would not enjoy the experience.”
“You seem to know who I am,” I said as my questing fingers finally found the phone. I could hardly hear my own voice over the pounding of my heart, but bravado was so natural to me I was pretty sure I sounded less scared than I was. “If you know that, then you know I’m not just going to roll over for you.”
His smile broadened. “Yes. I was counting on that.”
I had just flipped open my phone when he flung himself at me. I was ready for him, so I made sure my makeshift knife was between us. He ignored it, slamming into me and knocking me to the floor, his own momentum forcing the letter opener in to the hilt.
My head slammed against the floor, and I wished my parents had opted for more padding under the carpet. Both my hands opened against my will. As I struggled for breath, Der Jäger grabbed my purse, flinging it across the room. The hilt of the letter opener protruded from his chest, just below his sternum, but though blood flowed from the wound, he didn’t seem to mind.
When I had enough wind to manage it, I struggled weakly. Pain stabbed through my eyeball. Don’t you dare, I mentally told Lugh. He can’t possibly know you’re here, so don’t give yourself away.
It was quite a predicament. I was no use against a demon in hand-to-hand combat, but if I let Lugh take over—even presuming I was able to let him take over—we’d completely blow his cover. Unfortunately, if Der Jäger managed to kill me, not only would I be dead, but Lugh would be forced to abandon my body and return to the Demon Realm. Which would be all well and good if Dougal didn’t know Lugh’s True Name. But he did, so until we’d taken out Dougal, he could have his followers summon Lugh to the Mortal Plain at will—into a sacrificial lamb of a host who would be immediately burned at the stake, thus killing Lugh and letting Dougal claim the throne he coveted.
I kept struggling, but though I was strong and a passably good fighter, Der Jäger was unimpressed. He flipped me over onto my stomach, pinning my hands behind my back and sitting on me. His grip on my wrists was crushing, and I knew he could break the bones easily if he wanted to.
“Now that we’ve established that fighting me is not worth your while,” he said, “let’s have a nice chat.” Holding my wrists easily with one hand, he plucked the letter opener from his chest and dropped it to the floor by my face. Blood dripped from the blade, soaking into the beige carpet.
“Who are you?” I asked, though it was hard to talk with his weight on my back and my face pressed against the floor.
“That is irrelevant. Suffice it to say I am aware that you were once the host of a demon known as Lugh. I would like you to describe for me the host you transferred him to. And, of course, tell me his or her name.”
I could easily make up some bullshit description and name, but I had a feeling he would know it was bullshit if I gave in too easily. My stomach lurched as I wondered just how much abuse I would have to withstand before I could pretend to give him what he wanted. I certainly wasn’t under the impression that he was just going to ask nicely and then go away.
“You aren’t exactly endearing yourself to me. Why should I want to help you?”
His laugh was dark and made me shudder. “Do you have any idea what I can do to you if you annoy me?”
“I’m an exorcist, so yeah, I know what a demon is capable of. I also know there’s no way in hell the Society would have accepted the body you’re in as a host.” The Society favored the fit and attractive as hosts—not street punks like this guy. “Which means you’re an illegal. Which means you have the morals of a cockroach. Why should I believe talking will do me any good?”
My mind was still frantically searching for an escape route, but it wasn’t looking good at the moment. I was thoroughly pinned, and I wasn’t getting up until he let me.
Der Jäger slid lower down my body so that he was straddling my ass. He pressed down hard so I could feel that he was enjoying himself. I wished I could suppress my shudder, but I couldn’t. Der Jäger laughed.
“This body is infected with any number of diseases. Were I planning to use it for the long term, I would fix it, but I have not bothered. If I were to rape you, you would get them all, and eventually they would kill you.”
I closed my eyes and tried to control the panic. I didn’t give a shit about the diseases, figuring Lugh could cure them, but while I was to some extent prepared to deal with pain, I wasn’t so sure I could deal with rape.
If I blurted out a name and description now, would he believe me? Or did I need to let this go further before I caved? More important, would he actually let me go if I did? I remembered Raphael describing him as a sociopath, so if he was jonesing for me, he’d do whatever he damn well wanted to. A chill shivered through me as I realized the best way for him to get the information out of me was to transfer into my body and rape my mind. He didn’t seem to have any compunction about leaving brain-dead hosts in his wake. What would happen when he tried it and couldn’t get in was anyone’s guess.
Apparently, I was quiet too long. I was brought back to myself when he grabbed one of my hands with his free hand.
“You will tell me what I need to know,” he said, prying my clenched fingers apart and wrapping his hand around my pinkie. “If I’m pleased with you, I’ll let you go. I will give you no guarantees, however, except that if you refuse to talk, I will make you regret that decision.”
He jerked on my finger, hard, and I heard the bone snap at the same moment pain tore a scream from my throat. Sweat popped out over my whole body, and for a moment my vision swam. When it cleared, I still felt like I might barf. Who knew one tiny finger could cause so much pain? Lugh helped things along with another ice pick in the eye
, but though I appreciated his desire to help me, I knew that keeping him hidden was far more important. No matter how pissed I was at him at the moment.
“Are you beginning to get the message?” Der Jäger asked.
“All right, all right. You win,” I gasped. Tears burned at my eyes, and for once I didn’t try to suppress them. I needed him to believe I was well and truly beaten, and if squirting out a few tears would help with the illusion, then I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my dignity.
“That was a foregone conclusion,” he said. “Now tell me the name of the human you transferred Lugh into.”
“Peter Bishop,” I said, improvising. “But Lugh had to know someone would come looking for him, so I doubt he stayed in a host I could identify.”
“Where might I find this Mr. Bishop? He may no longer be Lugh’s host, but perhaps I can persuade him to tell me who is.”
I was about to launch into a story about the fictional Mr. Bishop’s probable location when the doorbell rang. Unfortunately, Der Jäger reacted faster than I did, clapping a hand tightly over my mouth before I could scream for help. I made as much noise as I could, but I had no illusions anyone standing outside the house could hear me.
The doorbell sounded again, followed by the pounding of the knocker. Followed by a shout announcing the persistent visitor as police. I didn’t know what the police could be doing here—I was sure my parents didn’t have an alarm system that I tripped, and even if someone had heard me scream and called the police, there wouldn’t have been enough time for them to arrive.
Der Jäger continued to pin me and cover my mouth, his whole body tense. I suspect he was hoping the police would go away and let him go about his business, but the officer at the door knocked once again, and I heard a siren approaching. I tensed, even more sure Der Jäger was about to try to move into my body. And yet, he didn’t.
One of the questions that Raphael had refused to answer was how he had known that Lugh wouldn’t be able to control me the way demons can usually control their hosts. I was guessing that whatever that secret was, Der Jäger knew it, too.