The Devil's Due Page 27

  “He’s not Tommy’s father. I suspect that Devon Brewster is dead and that Dick—or actually, Dick’s demon—used the ability I just showed you to mimic his appearance.”

  I shook my head, still unable to make all the pieces add up. “So Claudia’s been living with an imposter and didn’t notice? I mean, I know Dick is the spitting image of Devon at the moment, but…”

  “I don’t know how it was done. Tommy didn’t even know Devon was an imposter, so he can’t clue us in, either.”

  Something in his voice told me there was more. “But…?”

  Raphael was suddenly fascinated by his coffee cup. “But I can tell you how I would have pulled the trick.”

  “Not that you’d ever do something like that yourself,” I muttered, and Raphael’s lips twitched, either with a suppressed retort or a smile.

  “If I wanted to have a possessed superhost impersonate someone, I’d have the demon possess the person to be replaced for a little while. Just long enough to rummage through his mind, get enough of a feel for him—and enough of his memories—to do a good impersonation.”

  “But then why bother with this whole replacement bit? The demon could have just stayed in Devon if he wanted to play the ultimate inside man.”

  Raphael gave me a look that said I was an idiot. “Let’s see, I could be stuck in the body of a normal, middle-aged human being—or I could possess a super-host.” He tapped his chin as if thinking deeply.

  “I’m glad you’re finding this amusing,” I growled, but Raphael merely shrugged. I wished my stomach would settle down so I could have a cup of coffee. “How much of this did you know from the very beginning?”

  “I don’t really know anything even now. It’s all conjecture.”

  I opened my mouth to say something scathing, then let it snap closed. Lecturing Raphael on morality just wasn’t worth the effort. Strangely enough, he looked defensive anyway. Perhaps he did have a small, stunted conscience somewhere in his cold, black heart.

  “If I’d thought it was important information to help us put Lugh back on the throne, I’d have told the truth.” He looked back and forth between me and Dominic, I guess hoping he’d find someone who’d sympathize. He was out of luck.

  “How are any of us supposed to trust you when you’ve lied yet again?” I asked, surprised at how calm I sounded. I felt more like I should be jumping up and down and throwing things. But somehow I was just too tired, too wrung out. And too sick. My stomach was getting increasingly unhappy again, and I suspected I’d be making a run for the bathroom in a few minutes.

  Raphael picked up his coffee cup and stared into its depths. “Do I get any credit for helping you save those kids? I didn’t have to do that, you know. I already had what I wanted. I already had Tommy.”

  Raphael’s really a piece of work! This was exactly why he’d helped me save the children—so he could use it as evidence of what an upstanding citizen he was when he was forced to give up his current batch of secrets. I laughed a bit at the realization, though Raphael and Dominic both looked puzzled. I guess they couldn’t see the humor in it.

  Yes, Raphael’s morality would always be in question, and I could never be sure anything he told me was the truth. But he was a powerful demon of the royal line, he was now in possession of one of his lab-bred superhosts who clearly had properties that we might find useful, and he was loyal to Lugh. For all his faults, we were stuck with him. Sometimes, life just sucks.

  Chapter 30

  I was still sick as a dog the next day, and would have liked nothing more than to stay curled up in bed for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to answer the phone when Claudia called—I’d forgotten her insistence that we would “talk tomorrow.” Somehow, I ended up agreeing to meet her for lunch, although I doubted I’d be up to eating by then.

  I had to bring Raphael—with his nose now shifted back to normal—to lunch with me, because I knew I’d never be able to feed Claudia the pack of lies we’d concocted. I say “we,” but naturally it was Raphael who came up with the story. Although we assumed Devon was dead, we had no idea where the demons had hidden the body, so we had to let Claudia go on thinking he was on the loose somewhere, possessed by a hostile demon. I’d have preferred to have given her closure, but I honestly couldn’t think of a good alternative.

  I liked the story about Tommy even less. We told Claudia that when Raphael had tried to leave Tommy and transfer back to his original host, Tommy’s brain had shut down, just like Jordan Maguire’s. Raphael— the hero!—had quickly gone back into Tommy to save his life. And so, despite the fact that I had exorcized the demon who had originally possessed Tommy, Tommy was doomed to host a demon for the rest of his life.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurted to Claudia when Raphael finished talking.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed and glimmered with tears, but she managed a fragile smile. “Don’t be,” she said. “You did everything you could, and I’m sure Tommy’s in much better hands now with your friend.”

  I still hadn’t recovered from last night’s nausea, and I almost gagged at the thought of Raphael’s hands being better than anyone’s.

  “If it weren’t for you,” Claudia continued, “that horrible demon would still be in Tommy, and the girls and I would probably all be dead. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us!”

  I wished the floor would swallow me. Here she was thanking me, when I had willingly sacrificed her son to save my brother. I sat there choking on guilt, unable to say anything, unable to meet her eyes.

  “Ease up on the self-flagellation,” Raphael told me when we got back into Tommy’s POS car. “I didn’t tell you this earlier, because I figured you wouldn’t believe me, and you probably still won’t. But there are a lot of cancer genes bred into this strain, and all hell would break loose in Tommy’s body if he didn’t have a demon in residence to keep the cancer contained. He already had a couple of tumors beginning. Too small to give him any trouble yet, but a few months down the road…”

  I stared straight ahead through the windshield. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

  * * *

  One week later, Lugh’s council on the Mortal Plain gathered in the basement of Adam and Dominic’s house. That council consisted of me, Adam, Dominic, Raphael, Andy… and Brian.

  He and I had had a bit of a fight about my completely leaving him out of the loop when Raphael and I went on our dangerous rescue mission. Having been at the time still sick with the aftereffects of Lugh’s control, I was in a weakened condition and readily agreed that I should have told Brian all. I then in a fit of recklessness invited him to be part of this royal council, or whatever the hell we really were.

  I realized having him as part of the council was inevitable if he and I were going to stay together. And it seemed that, despite a whole lot of obstacles and problems that weren’t going away anytime soon, we weren’t ready to give up on each other yet.

  A lot had happened in the week since we’d rescued the Brewster girls. The U.S. Exorcism Board had suspended me, pending an investigation into my potential mishandling of the Jordan Maguire exorcism. It was bullshit, and they knew it, but Jordan Maguire Sr. had enough money to make them dance to his twisted little song. Besides, my name had already been associated with an illegal exorcism in the past, and though the charges had been dropped, I’m sure they raised a few of the Board members’ eyebrows. They were operating on the “better safe than sorry” theory.

  I’d received three more death threats on my answering machine, though so far no one had attempted to make good on them.

  And I’d confirmed that there was no one by the name of Barbara Paige working for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I’d hoped that meant she was law enforcement of some kind—which would be bad enough, but which I could at least deal with—but Adam had done some digging and hadn’t been able to find any evidence that she worked with the police or FBI.

  I had an uncomfortable suspicion that I h
adn’t seen the last of Reporter Barbie, whoever she really was. And I didn’t think she was in my corner. I couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection between Jordan Maguire’s death, the death threats on my answering machine, and the sudden appearance of Reporter Barbie on the scene. I didn’t like the implications if there was.

  But all of these problems paled in comparison to this very unsavory meeting of Lugh’s council. Because, you see, we were about to do something that I was convinced was morally wrong. Brian wholeheartedly agreed with me, but ours were the lone voices of dissent. I don’t think Andy was happy with the idea, either, but he didn’t put up much of an argument. He’d been subdued and unnaturally quiet ever since he’d come back, and so far my attempts to draw him out had met with no success. When I asked him what was wrong, I was met with the most stereotypical of all male answers: “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  Brian and I could have stayed away, boycotted this whole thing. But the fact was there was no way we could stop it, and if we weren’t going to stop it, then we would bear witness. So it was that we found ourselves in this basement, complicit with the other members of Lugh’s council even if we weren’t in agreement.

  Each of us held a bloodred candle, those candles providing the only light in the room. We sat in a circle, but we didn’t have to hold hands or anything.

  In the center of the circle, Dick lay on his back, with his hands clasped loosely over his midsection. The expression on his face was one of almost beatific joy, and eagerness seemed to flow out of him in waves.

  I blinked away a hint of tears. Dick’s eagerness didn’t make this right. It hadn’t taken more than about ten minutes of conversation with him to realize that by all legal definitions, he was not competent to make such a decision. We were none of us psychologists, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Dick had the emotional and intellectual maturity of a child.

  He had not been educated. He had not been taught any real social skills. He had not interacted with other, non-possessed human beings. And he’d been taught since the day he was born that he was merely an empty vessel, meant to be filled by a demon when his body was mature. Of course if someone asked him if he’d like to be the host of the demon Saul, he’d say yes.

  I’d tried calm, rational arguments. That hadn’t lasted very long before I’d transitioned to shouting and invective. But to Adam and Dom and Lugh, it seemed that they’d found an ideal host for Saul. When I’d questioned Dominic about how his morbidly masochistic former demon would treat poor, mentally challenged Dick, Dominic had dismissed my concerns.

  “Saul will take good care of him,” Dom had insisted, and I’d felt like slapping him.

  “If Saul’s such a fucking saint, then why was Lugh so worried about finding a compatible host for him?” I asked.

  Dominic gave me a hard look. “Because there are a lot of people out there who have a very judgmental outlook on BDSM practices, and Saul would not get along well with one of them, nor would one of them be happy to host him.”

  “And you think Dick is into S&M?” I cried.

  “No. I think Dick has never been taught to think of it as something sick and deviant, so it won’t bother him as it would some people.” There was no question which “some people” he meant. “And just like Saul shielded me from feeling it when things got rougher than I like, he’ll shield Dick. He’s really quite compassionate.”

  I’d managed to stop myself from arguing more, because it was clear even to a stubborn mule like me that I wasn’t changing Dom’s mind.

  I’d assumed that to initiate the ritual, I’d be asked to let Lugh take control so he could tell Dick Saul’s True Name for the incantation. Of course, my inclination was to refuse, but I didn’t think Raphael or Adam would have any problem with the idea of knocking me unconscious so Lugh could take over without my permission.

  But when the ritual began, it turned out my assumption had been wrong. Raphael put down his candle and broke the circle, kneeling on the floor beside Dick, then bending to whisper something in his ear. He straightened up and raised his eyebrows at Dick.

  “Got it?” he asked.

  Still smiling like this was the greatest day of his life, Dick nodded. Raphael returned to his place and picked up his candle. I had no idea what was going to happen next. Usually, summonings are performed only by the inner circle of the Spirit Society, so I had nothing to do with them.

  I expected there to be a lot of chanting and other mumbo jumbo. After all, the Spirit Society is big on ritual and formality. Then again, we weren’t the Spirit Society.

  In the center of the circle, Dick began to whisper, the words so soft I couldn’t make out anything except a breathy hiss. Even though I couldn’t make out the words, there was a definite cadence to the sounds, and I could tell that Dick repeated the sequence three times.

  No bells clanged. No lights flashed. There was no speaking in tongues, nor any sense of a malevolent presence. It was almost anticlimactic.

  After the third repetition of the chant, Dick fell silent. Seconds later, he blinked, and I could immediately see that it wasn’t Dick anymore. The vapid, vacant expression had faded, and though it could have been entirely my imagination, I thought I saw a keen intelligence in those formerly dull eyes.

  The demon Saul pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked around him. He grinned broadly when he saw Adam, then looked astonished when he caught sight of Dominic.

  “Many things have changed since you left the Mortal Plain, my friend,” Adam said. “And yes, Dom knows it’s you.” He put his arm around Dominic’s shoulders in a gesture I couldn’t help seeing as possessive.

  I think Saul saw it that way, too. He raised an eyebrow, then seemed to decide to leave that puzzle for later. He continued looking around the circle, scowling when he saw me, but he clearly didn’t recognize anyone else.

  “Welcome back to the Mortal Plain,” Raphael said, and there was a strangely ironic grin on his face.

  Saul turned his attention to Raphael, looking him up and down before he shrugged. “Am I supposed to know you?”

  “I look a little different than I did the last time you saw me.”

  Saul narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Raphael sighed. “Would it help you identify me if I told you that I’m the one who gave your host your True Name?”

  Saul scrambled to his feet, and the rest of us instinctively did the same. Can you give me a hint at what’s going on? I asked Lugh.

  I think you’re about to find out, he replied grimly.

  Saul stood stiffly in the center of the circle, fists clenched at his sides as he stared at Raphael. I think he’d forgotten the rest of us were there.

  “Please tell me you’re Lugh!” Saul demanded.

  Raphael grinned, but the expression was strained. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t terribly happy about it. “Would you have me lie to you?”

  Saul snorted. “Why not? Lying is your most practiced skill!” He suddenly turned to face Adam, who stood almost directly behind him. “And you’re allied with him?” he asked in obvious outrage. “I would never have believed—”

  “Yes, I’m allied with him,” Adam interrupted. “But believe it or not, he’s allied with Lugh. It seems his allegiance with Dougal was another one of his lies.”

  Raphael laughed. “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose you’re right.” Saul didn’t look any happier. “But come now!” Raphael said with patently false cheer. “Why don’t you tell everyone why you hold me in such high regard? Tell them who I am to you that I know your True Name.”

  A premonition tingled at the edges of my mind. I’d never gotten around to asking Lugh why Saul had a True Name. He’d told me once that True Names were granted to the extraordinary. And one definition of “extraordinary” was apparently “royal.”

  Saul’s lips twisted into a teeth-baring snarl. “You are no one to me!”

  Raphael put on a look of mock hurt, but I was pre
tty sure he was using it to camouflage a very real pain. “This would have worked so much better if I’d named you Luke,” he said, then cleared his throat noisily and continued in a truly terrible Darth Vader impression. “Saul, I am your father.”

  Sometimes I really hate it when I’m right. “Wait a minute,” I said, realizing that, despite my premonition, this revelation made no sense. I pointed what probably looked like an accusing finger at Saul.

  “I exorcized you. Everyone keeps telling me I’m not powerful enough to exorcize a royal.”

  Saul started to answer, but Raphael cut him off. “Don’t get him started talking about my shortcomings as a father,” he said. “He’ll go on about it all day, and it can get rather tiresome.”

  Saul’s mother was not a royal, Lugh told me. Raphael could have contributed some of his own power at Saul’s conception, but he chose not to. Even so, I doubt you could have managed the exorcism if Saul had fought you. And I doubt another exorcist could have done it at all.

  It sounded like I needed to get Lugh to give me a course on Demon Reproduction 101. But now was not the time. Saul had taken a couple of steps closer to Raphael, and I didn’t think it was to give him a filial hug.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said before things could erupt into violence. I pointed at Saul. “You hate Raphael because he’s a lousy father. I hate Raphael because … well, just because he’s Raphael. Brian and I are pissed off at the lot of you for letting a simple-minded innocent be possessed. Adam is pissed at me for any number of things, and the feeling is mutual. Andy is a charter member of the ‘We Hate Raphael’ club, and he’s mad at me either for letting Raphael get to him the second time or for sacrificing Tommy Brewster to save him, or maybe both.

  “And we’re supposed to put all those differences aside and work together as a team to put Lugh back on the throne?” I felt one of those annoying bouts of hysterical laughter coming on, but I managed to squelch it. I shook my head. “We’ll be lucky to get out of this basement without bloodshed.”