The Devil's Playground mk-5 Read online

  She watched us with wary eyes, her back against the wall, her shoulders hunched.

  “You can go now,” Adam told her, and we all moved away a little bit, giving her room to get out without having to pass too close to any of us. “I assume it goes without saying that we never had this conversation?”

  She nodded, then slowly backed her way toward the door, eyes darting this way and that, showing too much white. When she reached the door, she yanked it open then threw herself through it, slamming it behind her. Even over the din of the music, we could hear the crowd on the balcony protesting as she shoved her way through in her rush to get away from us.

  six

  WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I NEED A SHOWER AFTER THAT?” Barbie asked, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering.

  No one answered her. I wished I hadn’t pushed her into picking Mary. Yes, anyone we’d picked would probably have looked pretty puny, but it was hard to imagine a more beaten, miserable creature than Mary.

  “So,” I said into the awkward silence, “we assume Dougal and/or his cronies are behind this, right?”

  “It’s the logical assumption,” Adam agreed. “And if he’s sent one prisoner through, he’s doubtless sent others.”

  “Cannon fodder,” Raphael muttered.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “They’re cannon fodder,” he said more loudly. “I don’t know what he plans to use them for, but the fact that he’s sending prisoners through—perhaps ahead of others who’ve been on the waiting list for decades—suggests he’s going to use them on missions that require demons he considers expendable. Maybe missions his real supporters aren’t willing to undertake.”

  The only thing that can kill a demon is fire. The thought that popped into my mind at that moment almost made me sick to my stomach.

  “Suicide bombers,” I whispered.

  Barbie gasped and covered her mouth. Adam sat heavily on the bed. And Raphael stood there looking grim.

  “Do you really think …” Barbie started to ask, but her voice died before she got the question out.

  We all turned our gazes to Raphael, who knew Dougal best.

  “I don’t know about suicide bombers,” Raphael said. “He wouldn’t need demons for that, considering how fanatical his human followers are. But I can’t help thinking that maybe he doesn’t want to be king of just the Demon Realm. Maybe he wants to rule the Mortal Plain as well. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “So he’s just going to ignore Lugh completely?” I asked, wondering if the covert war had just passed us by.

  “I doubt it,” Raphael said.

  “It’s a challenge,” Adam said. “He meant for Lugh to find out about this. He thinks it will bring Lugh out of hiding.”

  “Maybe,” Raphael said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He looked at me. “Has Lugh got anything to say?”

  I waited a beat to see if Lugh would answer, but he didn’t. I shook my head. “He appears to have declared radio silence.”

  “Don’t even think about doing anything stupid, Lugh,” Raphael said. “Even if Dougal is tweaking you, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Still no response from Lugh. I found that as unsettling as Raphael did, and I wished I could see into Lugh’s mind like he could see into mine.

  “Before anyone goes off half-cocked,” Adam said, “let’s find out what’s really going on. Maybe Dougal’s emptying the prisons because he wants to use them as cannon fodder to help him take over the Mortal Plain. Or maybe he’s trying to flush Lugh out of hiding. Or maybe he’s planning something we haven’t even thought of.”

  The possibilities are not mutually exclusive, Lugh said, breaking his silence.

  Yeah, I don’t know if mentioning that is a good idea, unless we want to have Raphael and Adam sitting on us for the rest of my life to make sure you don’t “do something stupid.”

  “So what do you, in your infinite wisdom, suggest we do?” Raphael asked Adam with one of his trademark sneers.

  Adam can be a hothead at times, but he kept his cool, despite Raphael’s attempt to provoke him. “We wait until Thursday and have a talk with Mary’s handler. He’ll be a step higher on the totem pole, and will know more.”

  “Do you really think she’ll call you?” Barbie asked.

  “She’ll call.” Adam’s tone said there was no doubt in his mind, and I tended to believe him.

  “So once again, we sit around and wait,” Raphael grumbled.

  “Do you have a better idea?” I countered. “Because I don’t think jumping up and down and screaming

  ‘The sky is falling’ is all that useful unless there’s something you plan to do about it.”

  Raphael shot me a glare that would have frozen molten lava, and I was glad I wasn’t within his easy reach. He’d slugged me before, and he looked like he wanted to do it again. But he obviously didn’t have a better idea, because he kept his mouth shut.

  “All right then,” I said. “Let’s all go home and fill in our significant others before they worry themselves to death.”

  The only way we’d been able to keep Brian, Dominic, Saul, and Andy from coming to the club with us as “backup” was by promising a full report as soon as it was all over.

  Raphael laughed. “Our significant others, eh? Does that mean I should give Andrew a call when I get home? He’s the closest thing I have to a significant other.”

  “You leave Andy alone!” I snapped. “I’ll call him as soon as I’ve talked to Brian.”

  Raphael shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever you want. Let’s get out of here. I’ve had quite enough of this place for one night.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  It was after two A.M. when I got home. I’d kind of hoped that Brian would be waiting there for me, preferably in my bed, but he wasn’t. Trying to deny the hurt that stabbed through me, I changed into my PJs then sat cross-legged on my bed as I dialed Brian’s number.

  He answered on the first ring, which suggested he’d been waiting by the phone. Even if he was suddenly struggling to deal with my dual personality, he still worried about me, I guess. That couldn’t be a bad sign.

  I filled him in on what had happened at the club, though I left out some of our more alarming speculation. He’d probably come up with the same ideas on his own, but until we had solid facts, I didn’t want to worry him any more than necessary.

  If Brian had any theories of his own, he kept them to himself. I thought about trying to talk a little more about our Lugh issue, but like I said, it was after two. I was exhausted, and I was sure Brian was as well. The likelihood that we’d have a productive conversation was low.

  After an awkward and uncomfortable good-bye, I called Andy.

  “I just got off the phone with Raphael,” he told me as soon as he picked up.

  You know how in cartoons, steam blows out of characters’ ears when they’re pissed? That’s how I felt at that moment.

  “I told that asshole to leave you alone,” I said through gritted teeth. If I’d thought Raphael was serious about calling Andy, I’d have done it myself first thing and let Brian wait.

  “It’s okay,” Andy said. “He was relatively civil. No harm, no foul.”

  Maybe, but Raphael had harmed Andy so much already …

  “Morgan? You still there?”

  “Yeah,” I said, releasing a deep breath and trying to relax. “I just don’t want you around him any more than absolutely necessary.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want that, either. But all he did was call and tell me what happened at the club. No big deal. Honest.”

  “Okay,” I answered, unconvinced. It was hard not to look at everything Raphael did upside down and sideways, searching for a self-serving motive.

  Andy and I never did too well with chitchat, so we hung up shortly after that. Tired as I was, I didn’t feel like sleeping yet. I’d have said I was afraid of having nightmares, but Lugh had put a stop to all nightmares, even all regular dreams. I plopped do
wn on the couch and turned on the TV. The chance of finding anything interesting to watch at this hour was approximately zero, but channel surfing at least gave me something to do.

  I practically dropped the remote when I came upon a commercial I’d never seen before. It looked like one of those glorified army commercials—the kind that made it look like joining the army automatically transforms you into Macho Hero He-Man, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Only I knew immediately this wasn’t an ad for any of the armed forces.

  It was a montage of scenes, strung together with rousing orchestral music in the background.

  A fireman leapt out of a blazing building, carrying a small child in his arms.

  An EMT bent the twisted frame of a wrecked car just enough so his team could extricate an unconscious woman from the driver’s seat.

  A policeman chased an armed thug, catching up to him and tackling him even though he’d taken two shots to the chest.

  Another uniformed man—National Guard, I thought—helped shore up a levee in a blinding rainstorm, carrying so many sandbags his feet should have sunk into the ground from the weight.

  There was no narrative, no voice-over. But the commercial ended with the words “Make a difference”

  in stark white letters on a black background. Below that was an 800 number and a Web address.

  I stared at the TV in horror. We’d speculated that the Spirit Society might be persuaded to lower their standards for demon hosts, but we hadn’t thought about a national recruitment campaign.

  Make a difference. It was what ninety-nine percent of all demon hosts wanted to do, and I could easily see it as a siren call to people with self-esteem problems.

  I tried to tell myself that they wouldn’t drum up much business running the ad at two in the morning, but of course I knew they were likely running it in prime time as well. A century ago, belonging to the Spirit Society had been a federal offense, punishable by life in prison; now they were recruiting on national TV.

  I clicked off the TV and dropped the remote on the coffee table. Then I convinced myself I had a headache and downed a couple Tylenol PM before climbing into bed and pulling the covers over my head.

  I woke in the morning to the sound of the phone ringing. I’m always groggy in the morning when I take something to help me sleep, so instead of answering, I snuggled deeper into the covers. A minute passed, and then the phone rang again. I groaned and jammed a pillow over my head to drown out the noise. Whoever it was could leave a message, damn it!

  When the phone started ringing a third time, I dragged myself into a sitting position and glared at it. The clock told me it was only seven-thirty, which meant I’d had about five hours of sleep. So it wasn’t just the Tylenol PM making me groggy.

  The phone in my bedroom doesn’t have caller ID, so I had no idea who to expect when I picked it up and growled, “If you’re selling something or looking for a donation, or doing a survey, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you.”

  “And good morning to you, too,” Adam said.

  I groaned again and fell backward onto my bed, the phone still pressed to my ear. Adam calling at this time of the morning was not a good thing. And whatever not-good thing it was, I didn’t know how I could face it before I had my coffee.

  “What is it?” I asked, closing my eyes and thinking wistfully of sleep.

  “Mary’s dead.”

  His words banished most of my grogginess, and I sat bolt upright. “What? How? And when?” It wasn’t that many hours ago that we’d been having our guilt-inducing interview with her.

  “Not very long ago, and slowly.”

  I swallowed hard. “What happened?”

  “She was beaten to death. I haven’t been to the crime scene—officially, she was a human murdered by another human, so therefore it’s not in my jurisdiction—but I talked to one of the officers on the scene. Sounds like whoever beat her broke practically every bone in her body.”

  I winced, trying not to picture Mary’s miserable, frightened face. Whoever killed her must have had a heart of stone. Of course, since she was a demon, the beating had really killed Mary’s human host, not Mary herself, who would have returned to the Demon Realm when her host died. “What are the chances it’s a coincidence that she was murdered shortly after we talked to her?”

  “Pretty damn low,” Adam said with an unhappy sigh.

  “Did she still have your card on her when she was found?”

  “Yeah. That’s why the officer called me. I told him I met her at the club and gave her my card in case she witnessed anything hinky there. It’s not the first time I’ve done that, but she’s not the type I’d usually approach. I’m still going to have a bunch of explaining to do. The cops don’t know she was possessed, and it’s best if it stays that way.”

  “Why? If the cops know she was an illegal, then the crime will fall under your jurisdiction. Surely that would be better for you.”

  I could almost hear Adam squirming. “You know there have been … questions about my conduct lately.” Thanks to me, though he was kind enough not to say it. “I’m not sure how safe it is to call attention to myself by admitting I failed to follow standard procedure.”

  I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Whatever. I’ll trust your judgment on that. But where does that leave us?” I hadn’t felt like we’d gotten as much as I’d hoped out of last night’s interrogation, but without Mary to lead us to her contact, we had nothing.

  “Back at square one,” Adam confirmed. “I think another council meeting is in order.”

  Great. One problem with this concept of having a council is that they expect to be kept in the loop, and even to take part in decision-making.

  “Guess I’ll be spending the rest of the morning on the phone again,” I grumbled.

  “Better than how I’m going to spend the morning,” Adam quipped back, and I had to agree, no matter what he decided to tell his comrades.

  seven

  BECAUSE ADAM WAS TIED UP WITH POLICE BUSINESS, our second council meeting in two days didn’t convene until after four. As I waited for the council to arrive, I watched a Phillies game on TV, hoping to keep myself from thinking too much. It even worked, for the first couple of innings. Then I saw another Spirit Society recruitment commercial, and I lost all interest in the game. I turned off the set and wondered if I’d ever enjoy watching TV again.

  The council members straggled in by ones and twos, just like the day before. And just like the day before, Raphael was the last to arrive and was about ten minutes late. But no one said anything to him about it, so at least we didn’t immediately start the hostilities.

  Adam filled us in on the details of Mary’s murder. Not surprisingly, Mary’s host, Helen Williams, had a long rap sheet, even though she’d been only twenty-two years old. Arrests for drugs and prostitution riddled her record, and, as is unfortunately often the case with people like Helen who live high-risk lifestyles, the police weren’t going to spend lots of manpower and taxpayer money to hunt down her murderer. So far, there’d been no sign of any friends and family beating on their doors demanding justice. The prevailing theory was that she’d run afoul of a drug dealer and been “punished.”

  If Helen Williams had been a different sort of person—the kind the police saw as valuable members of society—the authorities might have pressed Adam harder about why she’d had his card. His explanation, after all, was a bit thin. But there was only so much time and effort they were willing to put into the case, and Adam was a high-profile, upstanding citizen, so he was getting something of a free pass. Damn convenient for us, but I couldn’t help feeling a surge of disgust at the police department’s lack of interest in the death of a young woman. I understood all the reasons why it wouldn’t be a priority, but I didn’t have to like it. It gave me another reason to really hope we caught up with whoever had forced Helen Williams to summon a demon she didn’t want. A little vigilante justice might hit the spot.

  How many
more people like Helen Williams were out there right now? I shuddered to think.

  “I guess we need to go on another hunting expedition,” Raphael said. His compassion for the dead woman was underwhelming, but then I hadn’t expected anything more from him.

  “No,” Barbie said. She sat rigidly on her straight-backed chair. “We just got that poor woman killed. I’m not doing that again.”

  “Fine,” Raphael said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “We’ll use someone else as bait.”

  “No, you won’t,” Barbie retorted. Anger flushed her cheeks, but her voice remained level and reasonable. “The only reason to do it would be to try to get to the next rung in the ladder, which isn’t going to happen if whoever we question gets murdered within hours of us talking to them.”

  It was a very reasonable-sounding argument, though I felt certain Barbie’s refusal to take part was out of something other than cold logic. She’d felt guilty last night, when Mary had only been roughed up a bit. I bet she felt really horrible right now, knowing that Mary … no, that Mary’s host had been killed.

  I glanced over at Andy, the guilt king. He might not have been present for the interrogation, but he’d raised no objections during the council meeting where we’d concocted the plan. Sure enough, he was staring at his feet, his lips pressed together in a thin, unhappy line.

  “I don’t feel good about getting Helen Williams killed, either,” I said, still looking at Andy, “but it’s not like we could have guessed it would happen.”

  Raphael followed my gaze to Andy, then rolled his eyes dramatically. I clenched my teeth and ordered myself not to tell Raphael what I thought of him. Never mind that Andy and his hangdog act were getting on my nerves, too.

  “We’ll just have to pick a better mark this time,” Raphael said, quickly losing interest in his former host. “Mary had only been on the Mortal Plain a couple of days. She hadn’t had a chance to meet with her contact yet. If we can question someone who’s been here at least a couple of weeks, he or she might be able to give us a name, or at least a description.”