twenty-eight

FOR THE FIRST FEW MOMENTS AFTER I WOKE UP THE next morning, I lay in my bed in blissful ignorance. The fuzz of sleep kept my mind free of any inconvenient thoughts, and I just snuggled into the covers and considered allowing myself to drift back to sleep.

But when I tried to relax, I remembered the upcoming duel between Lugh and Dougal—the duel on which the fate of two worlds depended. The memory forced back the last vestiges of sleep, and I pushed myself into a sitting position. Brian’s side of the bed was empty. I rubbed at my gritty eyes and looked at the bedside clock. It was nearly eleven. He must have gone in to work this morning, as usual. I’m not sure I could have managed it under the circumstances, but then I’d never been as career-driven as Brian. I hoped the fact that he didn’t wake me before he left didn’t mean he was still mad at me.

I’d woken up less than five minutes ago, and already I was in major grouch mode. Probably just as well that Brian wasn’t around, or I might have picked a fight with him just to work off my frustrations. My nerves were buzzing with anxiety and good old-fashioned fear.

Perhaps coffee wasn’t the best idea when I was so on edge I could barely sit still, but I feared I might spontaneously combust without it. I drank way more than was good for me and found myself pacing my living room as if it were a cage.

I was absurdly grateful when Andy emerged from his room. Yeah, we’d been getting on each other’s nerves, but I needed a distraction from my worries.

“Did Raphael behave himself last night?” I asked my brother as I poured him a cup of coffee. He hadn’t seemed any worse for wear when Raphael moved back into Tommy, but I’d decided then that I’d rather wait for a private moment to make sure he was all right.

Andy gratefully took the coffee I offered him and took a sip before speaking. “He was Raphael,” he said, but he didn’t sound particularly bitter when he said it. “But he was right. I’m kinda used to him, and we managed to tiptoe around each other without throwing off too many sparks.”

I felt my brows lift at that. “Raphael doesn’t seem to tiptoe much.” I remembered him laying on the brutal guilt trip last night, and tried not to imagine what it must have been like for Andy to have had that in his head for ten years.

Andy smiled a bit. “No, not his strong suit. Mostly we just both kept our metaphorical mouths shut so we didn’t have anything to fight about.”

“That was a brave thing you did,” I said, looking into my coffee instead of at Andy’s face. “Allowing Raphael back into you to protect Dom.” I raised my head, and it was Andy’s turn to stare at his coffee. Guess neither one of us was real comfortable with this touchy-feely stuff.

Andy licked his lips, and I couldn’t tell if it was a nervous gesture or if he was just thinking. “It’s so easy for me to think the worst of him. Whenever he suggests something, my instant reaction is to not want to do it. And when he tells me something, I assume it’s a lie or that he’s wrong or that he’s somehow trying to manipulate me.” He grimaced. “Don’t you dare tell him I said this, but every once in a while, he gets one right. If I’d let him take Dominic to spare myself …” He shook his head. “That’s not the kind of man I want to be.”

He took another sip of coffee. Not knowing what else to say, I did, too.

“I became a host because I wanted to do some good in this world,” Andy said. “When I let Raphael take Tommy …” He shook his head and swallowed hard. “I couldn’t help wanting Raphael out of my head, and logically, I know it was only human. But I felt like I could never … consider myself one of the good guys again.”

“Well, shit, Andy. You’ve always been one of the good guys.”

He smiled at me, and I thought there was a little more light in his eyes than there had been in the last few months. “Little sisters are required to think their big brothers are heroes, so your opinion doesn’t count for much.”

I gave him a mock scowl. “Well, big brothers are required to be assholes, so you’re doing your fraternal duty.”

He tried to cuff me on the side of my head, but I managed to evade him. And I didn’t even spill my coffee. Go me!

Then the moment of levity faded, and the smile disappeared from Andy’s face. But even without the smile, I thought he looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Maybe—just maybe—he was considering the possibility of respecting himself again. I couldn’t exactly thank Raphael for that—since it was Raphael who’d almost broken Andy’s spirit in the first place—but I was glad for it, nonetheless.

    Late that afternoon, Adam called to let me know he’d found a location he thought would work well for the duel. He came to pick me up around six, with Saul and Raphael in tow. I wasn’t excited to share a car with the terrible twosome, but we needed Saul to check the location out and make sure he had a place he’d be comfortable watching from. And we needed Raphael’s devious mind to make sure we didn’t overlook any potential pitfalls. I doubt I would have been invited to go myself, except Lugh was adamant that he needed to see the place to give it his personal stamp of approval. Since he was the one who’d be risking his life—at least, risking his life the most—I supposed it was a fair request.

It wasn’t the most relaxed of car rides. Saul rode shotgun, and I got to share the backseat with Raphael. They were relatively civilized, and they only stuck verbal pins in each other four or five times during the long drive to the location Adam had selected. But at least they didn’t get into a brawl in the car.

There was nowhere within the city limits we could have the isolation we needed to hold this duel. But as it turned out, Adam had found a place already guaranteed to be an effective demon-killing field. It was an industrial-sized farm out in the Brandywine Valley. The farm had once been owned by Jeremy Wyatt, who had at the time been the leader of God’s Wrath. He’d also been possessed by one of Dougal’s demons.

The last time I’d been there, it had been a working farm, and Lugh and I had been destined to be burned at the stake—which in this instance was a basketball hoop set into a concrete court behind a large barn. But the night had ended with Wyatt and all his fanatical followers dead, and it looked like the farm had died with them. Locked gates featuring a “for sale” sign blocked the driveway, but the fields and buildings beyond screamed of neglect. It didn’t look like anyone had been in a hurry to buy the place out.

There isn’t much that can stop a demon from going where he wants to. Saul got out and broke the lock on the gates, then Adam drove through. We left the gates closed behind us. Unless someone were to get out and examine the gate, no one would be able to tell we’d come through it. Not that it seemed likely anyone would be looking

I tried my hardest not to flash back to my last trip out here, tried not to remember the horror of the fate that had awaited me at the end of the drive. But it’s damn hard to forget about the threat of being burned alive. I cast a sidelong glance at Raphael, wondering what his memories were like. He must have been pretty distressed during that drive himself, since it was looking at the time as if all his plans to keep Lugh safe were going to fail. But he hadn’t let a bit of what he was really feeling show back then, and he wasn’t showing it now.

The concrete basketball court was still there, behind the barn, though the net was gone. The barn loomed between the court and the road, so no one would be able to see us. A big plus. Another plus—and the primary reason Adam had selected this place—was the stand of trees about fifty yards from the court. The rest of the farmland was, well, farmland—flat, and severely lacking in hiding places. Because the farm wasn’t in use, the fields were overgrown with weeds, but they were low and sparse enough that they would make an ambush impossible.

Raphael shook his head. “Dougal’s people are going to search those trees,” he said. “There’s almost nowhere else within sight that someone could hide, other than in the barn. And that makes the trees damn obvious.”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “But they’re going to be worried about bombs and incendiary devices, not snipers. Remember, it does us no good to kill Dougal’s host without killing Dougal himself, and they know that. Besides, even if they search, I bet they’d have a hard time finding him.” He turned to Saul. “Why don’t you go see if you can find a good spot to hide while the rest of us check out the barn? When we’re done, we’ll come looking for you and see if we can spot you.”

Saul nodded and trotted off toward the trees. Checking out the barn was a formality at best, but since the point of the exercise was simply to give Saul time to pick a spot without us watching, we dutifully trooped in and looked around. Nothing quite so exciting as examining an empty, smelly barn.

We gave Saul a good ten minutes to get himself concealed, then we all went out into the stand of trees and started looking. I knew practically from the first moment I passed under those branches that it would be nearly impossible to spot anyone. The trees were tall and leafy, the canopy dense enough to make it dark and murky between them. When I peered upward, all I could see were leaves, leaves, and more leaves. I doubted anyone else was having any better luck, but I crisscrossed the entire patch of woods anyway and couldn’t spot Saul.

No one found him, but Raphael insisted we walk all the way around the perimeter of the woods as well.

“No chance anyone’s going to see him,” Adam declared when we finally got all the way around. “Come on down, Saul,” he yelled.

There were some rustling noises up in the canopy, even though there was no breeze. We all looked up and watched Saul magically appear from the cover of the branches, climbing nimbly down the tree as only a demon—or maybe a monkey—could manage.

Wiping the sap from his hands onto his jeans, Saul sauntered toward us, looking mighty proud of himself.

“Satisfied?” he asked his father with a smug smile. Obviously, putting one over on Raphael just made his day.

The look on Raphael’s face said he was anything but satisfied, but he nodded anyway. “This is probably the best place we’re going to find. But we’ll have to see if Dougal will go for it.”

“No reason he shouldn’t,” Adam said.

Raphael looked at me. “Is Lugh all right with it?”

Tell him it’s perfect. And tell him to stop worrying so much or he’ll be the first demon in history to have a heart attack.

I relayed the message, and everyone had a good laugh at Raphael’s expense—even Raphael. It was a laugh I think everyone needed, because the drive back into the city wasn’t nearly as tense as the ride out.

The place had now been chosen. All that was left was to determine the date and time. Adam would call Dougal as soon as he got back home. It was getting late for Dougal to come out and look at the place tonight, but maybe as soon as tomorrow he would put his stamp of approval on it. After that, it would probably take no time at all to agree on a date and time. Which meant the duel wasn’t far in the future.

For someone who hates waiting as much as I do, I was beginning to think there wouldn’t be anywhere near enough of it before the day of reckoning.