Speak of the Devil mk-4 Read online

  Why was nothing ever easy? “Do you have any better ideas?”

  “I’m planning to go have a chat with her later today. Maybe she’ll let something slip that will make me positive Abraham’s in there.”

  I frowned. “You can see auras, can’t you? More easily than an exorcist, I mean?” He’d examined my aura once in the early days, when I was first discovering that I was possessed.

  “Yeah, but I need skin-to-skin contact and maybe thirty seconds or so of quiet concentration. I doubt Jessica would allow that even if she’s not possessed. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And you’ll let me know.”

  “Of course.”

  The soup was ready now, and Dominic brought it to me on a tray he must have brought with him. I certainly didn’t own such a thing. He saw the suspicious look on my face and smiled.

  “Consider it a get-well gift. I expect you to eat most of your meals in bed until you’ve fully regained your strength.”

  It felt surprisingly good to be taken care of like this. It was an entirely unfamiliar situation, mainly because I usually pushed people away if they tried to pamper me. Hell, I just push people away, period. But just this once, I allowed myself to revel in it. Even Saul’s undisguised sulking and Adam’s brooding didn’t spoil the mood for me. And when all three of the guys left me so I could get some more sleep, I felt strangely bereft.

  I dozed on and off for maybe an hour or two. My head no longer hurt at all, though my mind still felt slow and clouded. My stomach seemed to have recovered fully, growling at me to get more food into my system. I dragged myself to my feet and shambled toward the kitchen, hoping there was more of Dominic’s chicken soup awaiting me in the fridge. And that was when I noticed the envelope, peeking out from under my door.

  Every once in a while, I get a premonition that my life is about to take a turn for the worse. I was getting one of those right now. Unfortunately, my premonitions are usually frighteningly accurate.

  My appetite vanished as I stared at that envelope. Nothing good ever seemed to come from mysterious envelopes, and I wondered if the universe would mind if I just pretended it didn’t exist.

  The envelope was unmarked and unsealed, and inside was a single sheet of white copy paper with a typewritten note. It wasn’t hard to guess who had written it.

  The note began with a long list of names, all of which were familiar to me: Adam; Dominic; Diane Kingsley, my mother; Raymond and Edna Griffith, my mom’s parents, who lived in Florida; Andy; Tommy Brewster; Saul; Barbara Paget; Blair Paget; Carl, the overly friendly clerk at the front desk. Even my lawyer, Brandon Cook, and Laura Maguire, whom I barely knew, were on the list.

  The rest of the note was brief and to the point. Abraham “requested the pleasure of my presence” at an abandoned building on the Schuylkill River tonight at midnight for some “fun and games.” Failure to show up—alone, of course—would result in the death of one of the people on the list, and a repetition of the invitation until I accepted, or all the people on the list were dead.

  My appetite completely forgotten, I trudged back to the couch and closed my eyes. Maybe if I went back to sleep and woke up again, I’d find that the note was just a dream. I sighed. If only!

  It seemed that finding my good friend Abraham wasn’t going to be much of a problem after all. It was one of those “Be careful what you wish for” deals.

  “I have to go,” I said, speaking as much to Lugh as to myself. I expected him to argue, to command me to summon the cavalry. Instead, he stayed silent so long I thought I’d somehow miraculously managed to resurrect the mental barriers that had once upon a time existed between me and him. But of course, that wasn’t the case.

  I agree, Lugh said, right when I’d decided I wasn’t going to hear his voice after all. I was actually startled enough to jump.

  “You what?” I asked, thinking maybe I was starting to hallucinate.

  I agree that you have to go. Abraham has already proven how little he minds killing people. I think his threat is genuine.

  “So do I, but I still didn’t expect you to agree with me that I have to meet him.” Lugh was anything but a coward; however, he was very much aware of how crucial his survival was to the human race. If I died, and Lugh returned to the Demon Realm, Dougal’s followers would summon him into a sacrificial host who would instantly be burned at the stake. No more Lugh, no more opposition to Dougal’s plans.

  Even if I were willing to let so many people die in order to protect myself, the fact remains that every member of my council, including my brother and my nephew, is on that list. I am as useless on the Mortal Plain without allies as I would be dead. We have to accept Abraham’s challenge. We have to go.

  I’d never expected to have to cast myself as the voice of moderation, but since Lugh didn’t seem to be taking on the role, I was the only other choice.

  “I can’t just show up at some derelict building at midnight with no backup,” I said. “That would be like hanging a raw steak around my neck and strolling through the lion exhibit at the zoo.”

  Abraham thinks you’re only human. We can use that to our advantage.

  “Yeah, great idea. Have you been with me these last three days? You feel everything I feel, right? Do you want another three days of that? Or worse?”

  Of course not. His voice took on a dry tone in my mind. Never before you became my host had I experienced any human illness. Reading it in someone’s memory isn’t quite the same as experiencing it myself. I could do without it. However, I think in this case, we’ll just have to risk it.

  “Okay, so we turn Abraham’s ambush against him. You take control, surprise the shit out of him, and hope you can take him down without killing his host. Then we exorcize him and send him back to the Demon Realm and he knows I’m possessed. We’ve been trying to avoid that, remember?”

  If he were after you because he was part of Dougal’s conspiracy, then I’d be worried. But he’s not politically motivated. He’s just after revenge. If he finds out you’re possessed, he won’t know there’s any special significance to it. He might think you’ve got spectacularly bad luck…

  “He’d be right,” I muttered.

  … but I seriously doubt that the general population of demons has any idea that Dougal’s making a try for the throne. As far as they know, I’m doing a stint on the Mortal Plain, and my brother is filling in for me while I’m gone. Only his inner circle and mine know he intends to make sure I never return. And trust me when I say that there’s no chance Abraham is part of Dougal’s inner circle. A demon that unstable—and that single-mindedly bent on revenge— would be of no use to my brother.

  “So you’re telling me your people don’t even know there’s a war on?”

  Right. Because there is no war, at least not yet. A conspiracy, yes. An attempted coup, yes. But not a war. The power of the demon throne travels from a king to his successor, and there is no way to usurp it. Dougal can’t get his hands on the power unless I die or abdicate, so open warfare would be meaningless.

  Even in the worst-case scenario, if Abraham somehow knows there’s been an attempt to seize the throne, and that you were once my host, and that you’re not supposed to be hosting me anymore, when he returns to the Demon Realm, it will be as a criminal, a killer. Imagine what would happen if a convicted murderer in the U.S. started blathering to the authorities that there was a conspiracy to overthrow the President and he knew where the leader of the conspiracy was hiding. Who would listen to him?

  I felt a little better about the plan now, but I still wasn’t exactly liking it. “Okay, so we probably won’t blow your cover if we succeed. But what if I show up at the warehouse and Abraham just shoots me in the head from a distance? You’re tough, but you can’t survive a bullet wound to the head.”

  He’s not going to kill you, Lugh said with a certainty that surprised me.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Do you think he’d go through all this elaborate work just
to go for a quick kill and put you out of your misery? The evidence suggests he would find that … unsatisfying.

  Not as unsatisfying as I would find it! “You know, we do know someone who can survive a shot to the head. Two someones, in fact.” I’d seen Saul’s current host survive two shots to the head when his previous demon was in residence, and Raphael’s host supposedly had the same abilities.

  And as soon as Abraham caught sight of Saul or Raphael, one of the people on that list would be dead. If he found he couldn’t kill whoever we sent after him, he’d just retreat and try someone else.

  I was running out of arguments, though the prospect of walking into a trap and crossing my fingers in hopes Lugh and I could turn the tables on Abraham didn’t exactly light my fire.

  What else can we do? Lugh asked.

  “Call in the troops and have a major powwow session. Maybe if we all put our heads together, we’ll come up with something better.

  Morgan, think about it a minute. What’s going to happen if we tell the council that we want to face Abraham alone? Even if they can’t think of a better option?

  “It’s not like they can stop you! You’re the king. What you say goes.”

  He laughed at that. I would trust my authority over my people in almost any situation. This isn’t one of them. As my advisors, they would feel justified disobeying me if they thought my safety was at stake.

  “They’ve let us do dangerous things before when you’ve ordered them to.”

  Not quite like this, though.

  And he was right. The human members of the council would certainly object, but they wouldn’t be able to stop him. However, if Raphael and Saul and Adam—and this was the only time I could imagine the three of them being in agreement about something—all ganged up on him, then we wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  So we didn’t dare ask for a second opinion, or even for backup. Only the thought of Abraham picking off everyone around me one by one was enough to convince me to go along with Lugh’s plan.

  CHAPTER 28

  Saul did not return to the apartment, which was a relief. I was feeling much better, but I’d have to fake a relapse and take to my bed if he were around, because even though he didn’t know me as well as the other members of Lugh’s council, he was bound to notice that something was up.

  My appetite had been severely put off by Abraham’s little love note, but I forced myself to eat another heaping bowl of chicken soup for dinner. The headache and queasiness were gone, but I was still weak, and I didn’t think starving myself was a good idea.

  Per Lugh’s suggestion, I took another nap in the early evening, conserving what little strength I had for tonight’s festivities. I was starting to feel that if I never fell asleep again, it would be too soon, but that didn’t stop me from conking out the moment I lay down. Probably Lugh’s influence, but I decided not to make a big deal out of it.

  A major case of cold feet hit me around eleven, and I had to reread Abraham’s note several times to remind myself of why I had to do something that seemed patently stupid, even to me. God, I was so sick of being caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, which is where I seemed to spend most of my life these days. But despite the cold feet, I called a cab to pick me up at eleven-thirty.

  At eleven twenty-five, I knew I couldn’t delay it any longer. It was time to go. Feeling a bit morbid, I grabbed the note from Abraham and scribbled on the back, “If I don’t come back, please tell Brian I love him, and I’m sorry I was such a rotten girlfriend.” Someone would find it eventually and know what had happened to me.

  If I’d thought of it earlier, I’d have written something more eloquent, but now there was no time. I left the note on the dining room table, then took a deep breath and headed out.

  The cab arrived on time, which was a nice surprise. I gave the driver an address near the building where I was to meet Abraham. He gave me a funny look—it wasn’t exactly a good place for a woman to hang out at any time, much less late at night—but he wasn’t enough of a Good Samaritan to try to talk me out of it.

  I walked the last couple of blocks, wanting to get a look at my destination before I arrived. The building was much like I expected it—a large brick monstrosity with boarded-up windows and colorful graffiti scrawled across every flat surface. It had probably been some kind of a warehouse in its heyday. The door had been forced open, the frame flapping loose. I couldn’t see any light inside, but I felt sure Abraham was there, with whatever nasty surprise he had in store for me.

  I looked all around me, checking to make sure no one was watching. I needn’t have bothered. The street was deserted, and while there were plenty of cars going by, they were all on the opposite side of the river. Although I didn’t think Abraham was going to make this so easy for me, I armed my Taser and held it out before me. I swallowed what I hoped was the last of my fear and pushed open the door.

  It was pitch-dark inside, and I wished I’d thought to bring a flashlight. If the windows hadn’t been boarded up, I might at least have had some moonlight to work with, but no such luck. Abraham could jump me, and I wouldn’t see him coming until it was way too late.

  My pulse kicked up as adrenaline surged through my system, anxious for me to fight or flee.

  “Drop the Taser, or this will get ugly fast,” said an unfamiliar woman’s voice from somewhere deep inside the darkness.

  Whoever she was couldn’t possibly see the Taser. It was too damn dark in here. My heart sank a bit. So dark that even the tiny indicator lights on the Taser glowed like beacons.

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” the woman said.

  I considered firing in the general direction from which the voice came, but then I heard a plaintive whimper. The woman wasn’t alone, and if she had a hostage, I didn’t dare shoot.

  You’d best drop it, Lugh advised. We want Abraham to think we’re helpless anyway.

  I’d rather look helpless than be helpless, I quipped, but I knew he was right. Gritting my teeth against my reluctance, I dropped the Taser.

  A match suddenly glowed in the darkness, and that little light seemed so blindingly bright that, for a moment, I still couldn’t see. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I took in the scene around me.

  I’d been thinking of this building as a warehouse, and had expected wide open spaces. What I got instead was a long, dark corridor punctuated at regular intervals by padlocked doors. At the far end of the corridor, one of the doors was open, and a figure lounged in the doorway.

  It was a woman, no doubt Abraham’s current host, but I didn’t know her. Maybe about thirty years old, reasonably pretty, except for the feral flicker in her eyes. Or maybe that was just the reflected light of the candle she held—in the hand that wasn’t holding a gun, that is.

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded, as if I didn’t know.

  “If you really have to ask, then my answer would be meaningless,” she responded.

  There was another whimper, and Abraham’s mystery host glanced into the room behind the open door. She apparently liked what she saw, because she smiled as she turned back to me.

  “Come on in,” she said. “See what I have planned for this evening’s entertainment. Move slowly, though. Sudden moves will have severe consequences. And stay where I can see you.”

  My hands itching for the Taser, I started to walk toward her. She backed up as I approached, keeping a substantial distance between us while making sure neither one of us lost sight of the other. Sweat trickled down the small of my back, though I wasn’t particularly hot.

  You want to take over now, Lugh? I asked.

  Not yet. I want to leave you in control as long as possible. Maybe that will make you less sick in the aftermath.

  I wasn’t holding my breath on that one, but since I preferred being in control anyway, I didn’t argue.

  Slowly, I crept forward as Abraham backed up, until I was finally able to see what awaited me in the room beyond. I’m not sure what I expec
ted, but it certainly wasn’t what I got.

  Another woman I didn’t know lay on the floor at the opposite end of the room. Pixie-cut blond hair framed a heart-shaped face, which was streaked with runny mascara. She was the source of all the little whimpers, though she barely seemed to be conscious. I could see no obvious wounds, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t seriously hurt.

  “Who is that?” I asked Abraham.

  “That is Jessica Miles. You know, Jordan Maguire’s ex?”

  I nodded to indicate that I recognized the name. “What is she doing here? And what’s wrong with her?”

  I wasn’t entirely surprised that he ignored my questions. “Tell me, have you figured out why I’m unhappy with you yet?” He frowned theatrically. “You have figured out that I’m a demon, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That part’s pretty clear. And you’re pissed at me because Jordan Maguire didn’t burn.”

  He nodded. Or should I say “she”? It was rather confusing. I decided since demons usually adopt their hosts’ names that I would think of my enemy as “she” for the time being.

  “Very good. I had no idea whether you were smart enough to put the pieces together or not. How nice not to have to draw you a picture.”

  I tried taking a cautious step closer, but her eyes narrowed, and her finger flexed on the trigger. I froze, and she smiled.

  “To make a long story short,” she said, “Jessica here helped me frame my good friend Jordan for hitting her. She’s a wicked, wicked person. A murderer. And a stone-cold bitch.”

  “None of that clarifies why she’s here.”

  “Patience, patience. You’ve fucked up everything I’ve tried to do, and if I want to take my own sweet time explaining how the game will end, then it’s my prerogative.” She looked at me expectantly.

  If she thought I’d argue, she had another think coming. I knew crazy when I saw it, and it was staring me right in the face. Reasoning with a crazy person seemed like more effort than it was worth. I made a zipping-my-mouth gesture and waited.