TheDevilYouKnow



 


Chapter 28



When I fell,
I curled myself into fetal position, desperate to escape the reality of my situation. If I’d had a blanket to pull over my head, I’d have done it.
The first hint that I was no longer in the oubliette was the distinctive crackling sound of fire. Then I noticed the smell of smoke in the air.
I forced my eyes open and found myself looking up at an unmarked police car, its bubble light streaking the scene with flashes of red. Adam moved into my line of vision, standing beside me to peer at my face.
“I’ll give you a hand up when you’re ready,” he said, and I could have sworn that was sympathy I saw on his face. “Take it slow.”
I closed my eyes again and sucked in a deep breath, but the smoke smell made me wish I hadn’t. From what I could tell, my real body was uninjured, despite all the damage I’d done to myself in the oubliette. I wasn’t even sweating or shivering, though my stomach wasn’t feeling too happy, and I felt like I could lie here for a week and be perfectly content not to move.
Letting out the deep breath, I opened my eyes and held out my hand. One corner of Adam’s mouth lifted in a lopsided grin.
“Never one to take it slow, are you, love?”
My only answer was a soft snort. He took my hand and hauled me to my feet, steadying me when I swayed. In the distance, I heard the sound of sirens.
We were standing by the side of the road. A few yards from us, the guardrail was twisted and broken, and at the bottom of the embankment, a burning car lay wrapped around an old oak tree. A little past the gap in the guardrail sat my own car, its bumper dragging on the ground amidst a smattering of broken glass and streaks of burned rubber. Brian stood by the car, staring down at the fire below.
My stomach threatened to revolt, but I swallowed hard. “I gather my dad was ‘driving’ that car?” I said, jerking my chin toward the fire.
Adam nodded. “He must have fallen asleep at the wheel. He was in the wrong lane, and when Brian honked at him, he swerved and lost control of his car.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You were asleep in the passenger seat when it happened, so you didn’t see a thing.”
“Uh-huh.” The sirens were getting closer. “The fire trucks will be too late to save him?”
Adam put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, and I was so desperate for comfort that I didn’t object.
I watched Brian watch the flames below. He didn’t turn to look at me, though he must have known I was myself again. I couldn’t interpret the look on his face, though it most definitely wasn’t a happy one.
Had Lugh overpowered him and forced him to participate in my father’s murder? Or had Brian held me down with the sole purpose of letting Lugh win our battle and take over? If it was the latter, I didn’t know Brian as well as I thought I did.
 
The next hour or two passed in a blur. I could barely string two coherent thoughts together, so when I heard Brian describe the accident to the cops, all I could manage was to nod my agreement. When one of the cops started pushing me to tell him what I thought had happened, I kept repeating that I’d been asleep and hadn’t seen anything until he was finally convinced he wasn’t going to get anything out of me.
Brian came to stand beside me as we waited for permission to get the hell out of there. Neither of us looked at the other as he reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice soft enough not to carry.
I didn’t ask him for what. I extricated my hand from his. “You killed my father.”
He didn’t look at me. “No, I didn’t.”
“But you helped.”
He let out a shuddering sigh and met my gaze. Horror and pain swam in his eyes, but his voice was firm and sure. “You would have gotten yourself killed if I hadn’t. I had to choose between you and your father. I chose you.”
Who was this man who stood beside me? Was he the same man who’d gone ape shit over the death of Dr. Neely? He was the law-abiding citizen, the goody-two-shoes who always did the right thing. For Christ’s sake, he was the lawyer who hated lying!
I couldn’t deal with the paradox that was the man I’d thought I’d known, so I put some distance between us and nagged the cops to let me go home. Eventually, they did, after Adam pulled off my bumper so it wouldn’t drag. The car was driveable, and I promised I’d get it to the shop tomorrow. I didn’t offer to give Brian a ride home.
I probably wasn’t the safest driver on the road that night. Luckily, it was late and the streets nearly deserted, because I had barely a tenth of my concentration on the road. My brain was on betrayal overload, although both my betrayers tonight had no doubt thought they were doing the right thing.
I shook that thought off as soon as it crossed my mind. Killing Der Jäger might have been the right thing, and I could excuse Brian’s methods even if I couldn’t forgive them. But Lugh hadn’t had to put me in that damned oubliette, no matter how pissed off he might have been!

I had to keep you from breaking my control, his voice whispered in my mind. I didn’t do it to hurt you.
I almost rammed into a parked car. “Shut the fuck up!” I snarled. For once, he actually listened to me.
My intention had been to go home, crawl into bed, and sleep for as long as I could manage to stay unconscious. Usually, the more miserable I am, the more desperately I want to be alone. But just this once, I couldn’t stand the idea of being alone with my thoughts. I knew Andy hadn’t forgiven me for siccing Adam on him, but there was no one else I could go to for comfort just now.
It was almost three in the morning by the time I reached his apartment, but there was light shining under his door. I knocked softly, hoping not to wake any of the other residents.
He answered the door quickly enough to let me know he hadn’t been asleep, though he was dressed in pajamas and had a bad case of bed-head. He ushered me into his apartment without a word, which was a good thing because I couldn’t think of anything to say.
He disappeared into the kitchen, then returned carrying two glasses with a couple fingers of amber liquid apiece. I made a face because I hated the taste of hard liquor, but I took the glass when he handed it to me. We both drained the contents in a single gulp, though I coughed and sputtered for about ten minutes afterward.
When I finally had the air to speak again, I stared at the glass in my hands and asked, “Did Adam call you about…?”
I heard the sound of his glass clinking on the coffee table, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the single drop of liquid that remained in the bottom of mine.
“Yeah.” Andy’s voice sounded hoarse, either from sleep, from grief, or from hard liquor.
A tear rolled down my cheek and dripped into my glass. Andy gently pried the glass from my fingers, then put an arm around my shoulders. That was all the encouragement I needed to let down my guard, to let my grief and pain batter and buffet me. He held me and rocked me, the perfect big brother even though he must have been grief-stricken himself. After all, he’d never had the problems I’d had with our father, and had always been closer to him than I had.
“Tell me the whole story,” he urged when the storm seemed close to subsiding.
And so I did, my voice stuttering along between hiccups and sobs. I told him how Raphael had betrayed me to Der Jäger. I told him how Brian had betrayed me to Lugh. And I told him how Lugh had given me firsthand experience in the oubliette that Adam had once described to me.
When I thought of the oubliette, a hint of anger stirred in my center, fighting its way up through the grief, then taking hold and growing. I seized it with the desperation of a drowning woman. Anger is so much easier, so much more comfortable for me than grief. I wanted to get good and pissed, so that at least for a few minutes, I wouldn’t have to feel the pain.
“I will never forgive him for doing that to me,” I declared, and was more thankful than I could say that Lugh didn’t interject any commentary in my brain.
Andy met my eyes, his expression both grave and guarded. “He was doing what he thought was best.”
Outrage swelled in my chest. “Don’t you dare defend him! You’re supposed to be on my side.”
A faint smile curled his lips. “I am on your side. I’m just trying to point out—”
“No! I don’t care why he did it. I don’t care if it’s some kind of abstract ‘right thing.’ He used me, just like any other demon uses and abuses its host. He pretends he’s better than the rest of them, that he cares about human rights, and it’s all bullshit!” I heard my voice rising and forced myself to quiet down for the sake of the neighbors. “I used to think he was different. I was wrong.”
Andy shook his head. “Lugh is different. He’s one of the good guys, and I think you know it, even if you’re angry with him.”
Now I was beginning to be as pissed at Andy as I was at Lugh. “Last time I talked about Lugh, you were warning me to be careful of him and telling me he was just like all the rest. What’s gotten into you?”
He shrugged. “I just have a little more perspective now.” He fixed me with a pointed stare. “If I offered to take Lugh from you, would you do it?”
The question sucked all the air out of my lungs, and it took a moment for me to find my voice. “Are you offering?”
“Let’s say I am. Would you give him to me?”
My head felt about two sizes too big, and I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Was he offering to take Lugh, or wasn’t he?
Andy smiled. “If you hated him as much as you claim, that wouldn’t be a hard question.”
I grunted. “I’m just trying to figure out if you mean it or not.”
He rolled his eyes. “You are such a hard case, Morgan.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “Yes, I mean it. Will you give him to me?”
Lugh had to be in control to transfer to a different host, but all I’d have to do is take a little nap and Lugh could surface and move out of my life. “He might not leave me even if I tried to give him to you,” I said.
“Are you fooling yourself? Because you’re not fooling me. Will you give him to me?”
I swallowed hard. Andy had always wanted to be a hero. That’s why he’d chosen to be a demon host in the first place. After his experiences with Raphael, he’d seemed to have soured on the idea, but perhaps the desire was too deeply ingrained in him to disappear entirely. If he was determined to be a hero, he’d be a hell of a lot safer with a demon to protect his fragile human body.
And hell, after living with Raphael for ten years, living with Lugh would be a piece of cake. Yeah, I was mad at Lugh, but I had to admit that between him and Raphael, he was very much the lesser of two evils. I could let Andy be the hero he’d always wanted to be, and I could let my life return to a semblance of normalcy. Had it been only a week ago that Andy had awakened from his catatonia and I had dreamed of doing just that?
It was on the tip of my tongue to agree, to take the unbearably heavy burden on my shoulders and shrug it off onto someone else.
But as Lugh had reminded me more than once, there was so much more at stake than just my own life. Lugh might find it inconvenient that he couldn’t control me as he could any other human host, but there were advantages to our partnership. As long as I was his host, no one would ever be able to find him, because no one can tell I’m possessed. That wouldn’t be the case with Andy. I wasn’t only Lugh’s host, I was his refuge as well.
I shook my head at myself. Since Raphael had decided covering his ass was more important than saving his brother’s life, that line of reasoning no longer worked. For all I knew, everyone in the Demon Realm now knew exactly who was hosting Lugh.
I imagined what my life would be like if I gave him up—assuming said life didn’t get cut really, really short when the rebel demons burned me alive on the assumption that I still had him. I could go back to being nothing more than a simple exorcist. I could send predatory demons to the Demon Realm, where they could find their way back to the Mortal Plain at a moment’s notice.
Was that really meant to be the sum total of my contribution to the human race? And how could I possibly find any hint of satisfaction in my futile endeavor, when I’d always know I’d taken the coward’s way out and shoved my big brother into the line of fire in my place?
I let out a deep breath as something settled inside me and I felt almost calm for the first time in forever. “No,” I said softly. “No, I wouldn’t give him to you. He’s my cross to bear now, so to speak.”
Andy nodded sagely and let go of my hand. Luckily for both of us, he refrained from saying “I told you so.”
It was time—past time, really—for me to go home. But something about the expression on Andy’s face made me hesitate.
“What is it?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.
He ran a hand through his hair, scrubbing at his scalp and looking remarkably uncomfortable. “I have something I need to tell you, and you’re not going to like it. I was going to wait until a better time, but it occurs to me that the longer I put it off, the more you’re not going to like it.”
I groaned. Nope, definitely not something I wanted to hear. But of course, now that he’d dangled that little delicacy in front of my nose, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it until I’d gotten the full story.
“Spill it,” I said.
He stood up and moved away from me as if in fear of physical violence. He even made sure there was a solid, bulky chair between us. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hear what he had to say over the alarm bells that were blaring in my head. I sat up straighter and waited for him to drop his bombshell.
Finally, he sighed and squared his shoulders like he was going into battle. “I didn’t betray you,” he said, and I frowned at the words.
“I never said you did.”
He met my eyes steadily. “It appears my cover is blown,” he continued. “They lied to me about Der Jäger. I swear to God I thought he was imprisoned.”
My jaw dropped, and I wished like hell I could come up with another way to explain the words that were coming out of Andy’s mouth. “Raphael?” I gasped.
His gaze dropped to the floor and he gave a quick, jerky nod. “I knew you’d think I betrayed you. So I returned to a host I knew you wouldn’t be willing to destroy.”
Tears blurred my vision yet again. I should have been furious, but I was just too beaten down, so I sat there shaking my head and crying, unable to encompass the idea that I’d lost both my father and my brother in the span of just a few hours.
“I swear to you it will be different this time,” Raphael said. “I will take very good care of Andrew. I am capable of it, despite what you think.”
“You tried to breed a race of empty vessels so you wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced by dealing with host personalities. You don’t give a damn about human beings. Never have, never will.”
He seemed to think he was safe from physical violence, for he moved out from behind the chair and took a seat. “I wanted empty vessels so I could walk the Mortal Plain without having to deal with a fragile human psyche in the process. Taking care of one’s host is hard work. Unrelenting hard work, and that’s not why I like being here.”
“Adam seems to think it’s worth the effort!”
Raphael shrugged. “I’m not Adam. As Lugh has kindly pointed out any number of times during my life, I am a selfish bastard.” He didn’t look particularly torn up about the fact, although I couldn’t help seeing the bitterness in his expression. “I wanted to enjoy the pleasures of life on the Mortal Plain without the responsibilities.”
“And so you headed up a project to treat people like prize breeding stock, mucking with their genes and destroying the rejects.”
“If the project had worked, demons would be able to walk the Mortal Plain without taking sentient hosts. People like Andrew would never have to give up their identities for us again.”
I snorted. “You expect me to believe your motives were pure? Not that it would matter if they were. Good intentions can only excuse so much.”
Raphael closed his eyes. “It would be nice if just once you or Lugh could cut me some slack. Maybe I’m not the nicest guy in the world, but I’ve risked—and now lost—everything to keep you safe. And do you know how my dear brother will reward me for my efforts if I ever manage to put him back on the throne? He will no doubt imprison me the moment I set foot in the Demon Realm again.
“But no matter how much the two of you may despise me, I am loyal. I will do as much as you let me to help you both, even when I know it’s not in my own best interests. And I will protect Andrew to the best of my ability—not for his sake, because as you can obviously tell we don’t much like each other, but for Lugh’s.”
“I could exorcize you right now,” I said, though without my Taser handy I somehow doubted I could convince him to hold still for it.
“No, you couldn’t,” he replied calmly. “As I suspect Lugh told you the last time Andrew was my host, as a royal, I’m too powerful for you to cast out. Lugh might be able to do it, but you’d have to let him take control first.”
I was too exhausted and traumatized to muster the kind of reply that would have felt morally satisfying. “Words can’t describe how much I loathe you,” I said instead, my voice flat and dull.
If I didn’t know better, I would have said a hint of hurt flashed across his face before he schooled his expression.
“Go home, Morgan. Get some rest. And try to forgive Lugh for what he did. I’ll be the first one to admit he has his faults, but he always does what he thinks is right, no matter how much it costs him. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
I couldn’t think of a good parting shot, so I just gave him one last scathing look before I got the hell out of there.
I hate demons. Every last one of them.
Then why, you might ask, did I choose to keep hosting Lugh when I thought I had a chance to get rid of him?
Beats the hell out of me.