by Jenna Black
They are watching my every move, and most likely yours, too. I can’t contact you personally, but I will try to get this letter to you in a roundabout fashion that will avoid detection. I just hope it doesn’t reach you too late.
I love my son, more than I can say. I desperately wish there were something I could do to save him. But I can’t risk my daughters. They are helpless children, and I can’t bear to do anything to endanger them. The kidnappers have pointed out that with two hostages, they can afford to kill one as a message if anyone “misbehaves,” as they put it. Please, Ms. Kingsley. Drop the case. Don’t ask any more questions. These are very bad people, and I believe they won’t hesitate to hurt the girls. Don’t give them an excuse.
Claudia
My heart dangled somewhere around my knees. Just what I needed. A hostage crisis. And after I’d spent last night questioning Shae about Tommy. Please, God, don’t let the bad guys retaliate against those children!
My throat knotted up, and I swallowed to try to loosen it. There was nothing I could do to change the past, and if Tommy’s friends had found out what I’d been up to last night, then at least one of those children might already be doomed. Tears stung my eyes, and I cursed Tommy Brewster and all his demon friends. While I was at it, I cursed Raphael for having enabled the whole breeding program and for whatever information he might be withholding at the moment.
I heard Brian turn on the TV in the living room and wondered if I should show him the note. Would he have any better idea what to do about it than I did? I let out a heavy sigh and closed my eyes. This was Mr. By-The-Books I was talking about. His natural reaction to seeing this letter would be to call the police. He and I rate on opposite ends of the cynicism scale. Most likely, he’d believe the police could actually help in this situation. Myself, I believed the police would get those kids killed. Which meant I couldn’t tell him.
Your Mr. By-The-Books helped me arrange your father’s death, Lugh’s voice whispered in my mind, and it was all I could do to suppress a groan. Obviously I was reaching stress overload, since my subconscious firewall appeared to be failing me.
Stay out of my head, Lugh, I thought furiously at him. I had the faint impression of laughter, but he didn’t otherwise respond. Maybe that had been just a momentary fluke, a glitch in my defenses.
He was right about the tarnish on Brian’s suit of shining armor. But that didn’t mean Brian wouldn’t go to the police about this. He’d helped Lugh with my father out of a desperate desire to save me when all other hope had failed. In this situation, he was much more likely to put his hope in the police than in me.
The TV clicked off, and I heard Brian’s footsteps approaching. I guess he’d gotten tired of waiting. Wishing I could calm the racing of my heart, I folded the photographs back into the letter and stuffed the letter into the envelope just as Brian rounded the corner into the kitchen.
We engaged in a long staring contest that ended in what I interpreted as a draw. Brian’s eyes were shadowed with pain.
“You’re not going to tell me what this is all about, are you?” he asked, and the hurt in his voice was almost more than I could bear.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice thick with genuine regret. I wished I trusted him enough to tell him the whole story. It seemed patently unfair, even to me, that I should love him this much and still not be able to give him my trust. But part of what I loved about him was his basic goodness. I loved that he was always willing to do the right thing, even when it wasn’t in his own best interests. I loved his sense of honor and decency, even though sometimes I cursed him for it. I loved his faith in mankind’s goodness, even though I didn’t share it.
Brian’s gaze dropped to the kitchen floor, and he shook his head. “Why do I bother hoping?” he muttered to himself, and the words hurt like a stab to the heart.
“Brian—” I started, reaching out to him, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to make this better.
He twitched away from my reaching hand. I flinched at the rejection, then flinched again when he put on his damn lawyer face. Even so, I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“I guess I know you better than you know me,” Brian said.
I frowned in puzzlement. “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, hoping to come off angry instead of hurt. I think I succeeded, but if Brian knew me as well as he claimed, he’d see right through it.
He folded his arms over his chest, still meeting my gaze, still hiding his feelings behind his lawyer face. “Was it because you were trying to ‘protect’ me again, or was it because you’re afraid I’ll go to the police? I couldn’t decide which it would be.”
I’m capable of being pretty dense at times, but now I had no trouble figuring out what he meant. The fake anger turned into real anger.
“You opened the letter, you asshole!”
Brian unfolded his arms, then covered his eyes with one hand as he barked out a bitter laugh. “You’re absolutely priceless, you know.”
“What?”
“It’s amazing how you can turn any situation into an opportunity to get mad at someone no matter what you yourself have done.”
I scowled at him. “If you’re just figuring this out, then you don’t know me as well as you claim.”
He nodded sagely. “Right. So we’re going to have a big blowup about me reading the letter, and we’ll just gloss over the fact that once again you decided to shut me out of your life.”
I love Brian to death, but right now, I wanted to smack him. “Don’t be a drama queen about this. There are a couple of children whose lives are in imminent danger, and you want to argue about the lack of openness in our relationship? Get a sense of proportion already.” He puffed up indignantly, and no doubt if I’d let him get a word out he’d have put me right in my place. So I didn’t let him get a word out.
“I didn’t want to tell you because yes, I was afraid you’d want to go to the police, and yes, I think that’s a piss-poor idea. If I’m wrong and you’d never dream of calling the police, then by all means please, continue to tar and feather me. Otherwise, stuff a sock in it.”
His lips quirked into a grin that seemed completely out of place given the situation. “May I use your stove?”
“What?” I asked, wondering if he’d suddenly misplaced his mind.
“To heat up the tar.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but my brain went on strike and refused to feed me any pithy replies.
“Here’s my suggestion,” he said, and I swear even though he was pissed at me he was enjoying my discomfiture. “Since you’re such bosom buddies with the Director of Special Forces, you call him. I suppose technically that’s calling the police, but he’ll probably be able to make a better judgment on whether to take this on in an official capacity or whether to keep it off the books.”
Once again, I couldn’t think of a good reply— unless it was duh! Maybe the sleep deprivation had stolen more brain cells than I realized. Or maybe I’d just been picking a fight, because hey, I’m ornery that way.
“You still shouldn’t have read it,” I said, but there was no heat left in my words.
“Are you going to call Adam, or aren’t you?”
I wanted to ask what he would do if I said no, but I was too chicken. I was pretty sure he’d say he’d call Adam himself, and that would lead to more arguing. For once, I wasn’t up for that.
“Yeah, I’ll call him.”
Chapter 21
I should have known better than to expect Brian to trundle on home like a good little lawyer. I hoped he was sticking around for the reason he stated—that he wanted to help me—not because he didn’t trust me to make the call. Not that I had any room to throw stones where trust was concerned.
I hated the idea of calling Adam when he and Dom were in the middle of their own personal crisis— assuming Adam had done as he’d said and let Dom know about the crisis. But Claudia Brewster’s daughters couldn’t wait until the love boat sailed on smooth wat
ers, so I picked up the phone and dialed his number.
No one answered, and this wasn’t exactly the kind of message I could leave on an answering machine. I figured he was probably at work, so I called his cell phone, but that went straight to voice mail. I bit my lip. It seemed silly, and maybe even a bit hypocritical, to worry about Adam. If there was anyone more capable of taking care of himself than Adam, I didn’t know him. I left a terse message for him to call me ASAP, then decided to try his office number. I hated calling his office. Everyone who’d ever answered the phone there was an asshole—including Adam, now that I thought about it—but I called anyway.
“He called in sick today,” said the man who answered the phone. He had a nasally voice that made everything he said sound like a whine, though so far he’d been perfectly polite.
I held the phone away from my face for a moment and stared at it as if it were somehow responsible for the crap I’d just heard. “He’s a demon,” I said with forced patience when I decided the phone wasn’t to blame. “Demons don’t get sick.” One of the fringe benefits that went with being possessed, though giving up your entire life seemed a bit too much to pay.
“No,” the officer whined, “but they do get sick days. And Director White took one. I’ll put you through to his voice mail.”
“No, that’s not—” But he’d already hit the transfer button. Like I said, assholes all. “…necessary,” I finished, hanging up the phone. This was a shitty time for Adam to go AWOL. He was probably at home, just ignoring the phone. I so didn’t want to go there in person looking for him. If he and Dom were in the Dreaded Black Room, they probably wouldn’t even hear the bell.
However, I didn’t have any better ideas, and I was all too conscious that the clock was ticking. I didn’t know what the chances were that the kidnappers were ever planning to let those kids go, but I figured that as with all missing persons cases, our best hopes of finding them were in the first forty-eight hours.
“Road trip,” I said to Brian, and he followed me without question.
When we got to my car, I found I had a flat tire—a nuisance I so didn’t need right now. I didn’t feel like taking the time to change the tire, so we took a cab to Adam’s place. It was past rush hour, so it didn’t take long to snag one, and since the cabbie drove at somewhere around the speed of light, we were at Adam’s practically before we left my apartment. A peek at the small parking lot across the street showed me that both Adam’s and Dom’s cars were in residence.
Ever the gentleman, Brian paid the cabbie—which was probably a good thing, since I didn’t think I had any cash on me—and together we climbed the steps up to Adam’s door. I pressed the doorbell, but I didn’t hear any sound. I pressed again, harder. Still nothing. Great! A broken doorbell reduced the chances of anyone hearing me from about twenty percent to about zero.
I grabbed the knocker and gave it a few heavy thumps. The sound was gratifyingly loud, but after a good sixty seconds of waiting, no one came to the door. I tried again, with the same result.
“I guess no one’s home,” Brian said.
“Their cars are in the lot.”
He shrugged. “It is actually possible to get places in this city without driving.”
“Remember, I’m the smart-ass. You’re the nice guy.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot about that.”
I rolled my eyes at him, then backed down the steps and craned my head upward. There didn’t appear to be any lights on in the house, but then it was the middle of the day.
“You don’t happen to know how to pick locks, do you?” I asked. Brian just gave me a look that said I was crazy. It was my turn to shrug. “Never hurts to ask.”
Any moment now, Brian was going to decide it was time to give up on Adam, and I felt sure his next suggestion would be a call to 911. I couldn’t let that happen.
If you let me in, I can break the door, Lugh whispered in my head.
I hesitated. The fact that I could hear him at all meant my defenses were already weak. Weak enough for me to voluntarily let Lugh take over? A shiver crawled down my spine then back up again. I grabbed Brian’s arm and dragged him around the corner. I didn’t want too many people watching us as we cased the place. The last thing I needed was some Good Samaritan calling us in as suspicious loiterers.
“Let’s go sit down for a moment,” I said, jerking my chin toward a bus stop half a block down. A bus was just pulling away, so the bench was empty when we got there.
“Okay,” Brian said slowly, watching me suspiciously. But he didn’t press until we’d both sat down. “What’s up?”
I took a deep breath and ordered myself not to panic. “I’m going to try to let Lugh take over so he can break the door down.”
Brian’s eyebrows shot up in almost comical surprise. “That’s ridiculous! They’re almost certainly not home, and I doubt Adam would appreciate having you vandalize his house.”
“Not me, Lugh. And I’m pretty sure they’re home.”
“They can’t be. You knocked loud enough to raise the dead.”
Brian had been in Adam’s house once before. He’d even been on the second floor, but I didn’t know if the door to the black room had been open at the time.
I cleared my throat. “When you were in Adam’s house, did you see his, uh…” I didn’t know what to call it. I supposed “dungeon” was the proper term, but I couldn’t make myself say it. I cleared my throat again. “Did you see the black room?”
“Black room?” Brian asked in a voice that told me the answer was no.
I stared at the pavement, trying not to remember too much about that damn room. “Yeah. At the head of the stairs. It’s where Adam keeps his, uh, S&M stuff.” I’d never told Brian about what Adam had done to me in that room, what I’d let him do to me. I didn’t want him to feel guilty about the hell I’d gone through to get Adam to help me rescue him.
“What about it?” Brian asked softly.
“I think they’re in there now. And I think I could shoot a cannon through the front door and they wouldn’t bother to come check it out.”
“Oh,” Brian said. Thankfully, he left it at that.
“Wish me luck,” I mumbled, then let out a deep sigh and tried to relax. I closed my eyes and visualized opening the doors of my mind. The wail of a siren broke my concentration, and my eyes popped open in time to see a police car zoom down a cross street.
I closed my eyes again and ordered myself to focus. Which lasted about ten seconds. Then a pimpmobile cruised by with its stereo blasting rap loud enough to make the sidewalk vibrate. After that, I was distracted by the roar and stink of a bus traveling in the opposite direction.
All typical city sounds. Sounds that I ignore with ease every day of the week. But each was an excuse to let my mind shy away from what I asked it to do. Just this once, I cursed the strength of my subconscious defenses. I tried reminding myself that the lives of two innocent children might lie in the balance, but although stress had helped erode the barriers of my mind before, it wasn’t working now.
Sorry, Lugh, I thought. I just don’t know how to let go. He didn’t answer me, which was just as well.
Regretfully, I opened my eyes. “No dice,” I told Brian. He probably gave me a reproachful look, but since I was staring off into space, I didn’t see it.
“So what’s plan C?” he asked.
I was about to admit that I didn’t have a plan C, but then I realized that I did.
The only reason I’d tried to let Lugh take control was because I needed a demon’s strength to break Adam’s door. There was nothing to say it had to be my demon’s strength.
“I guess I call in the cavalry,” I said, though in my case the cavalry wore very black hats. Trying not to clench my teeth too hard, I fished out my phone and called Raphael.
“Morgan or Lugh?” he asked as soon as he answered.
I was severely tempted to say it was Lugh, thinking perhaps Raphael would be more willing to help if he
thought he was getting orders from his king. I managed to resist the temptation, though, not sure if I could pull it off.
“It’s Morgan,” I said. “I need your help.”
“Where are you? Are you in trouble?”
The alarm in his voice might have been gratifying if I thought it had anything to do with concern for me. “No more trouble than usual,” I assured him. “But I need your help just the same. How fast can you make it to the corner of Twenty-Second and Walnut?” His apartment building was only about five blocks away, so I figured it would be pretty fast.
“I’m on my way now,” he said, and I could hear his hurried footsteps. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, tops.”
He hung up before I had a chance to say thank you. Not that I’d been going to thank him anyway, not until after he’d actually helped me. I figured he might be a bit peeved when he got here and found out what I wanted him to do. And why. Somehow I doubted he’d be anxious to play the white knight and rescue those little girls. In fact, he’d probably blow a gasket when he found out what I’d been up to.
For all his many faults, I didn’t think Raphael would like the idea of any harm coming to those children. His moral compass was severely bent, but I didn’t believe it was completely broken. However, he would consider protecting Lugh a higher priority, and making any attempt to rescue the children was bound to put Lugh in some kind of danger. I just had to get him to break that door down before he knew why I wanted him to.
I was planning out my argument when my cell phone rang. When I saw the call was from Adam, I felt a rush of mingled relief and irritation.
I answered the phone, practically shaking with outrage. “Isn’t there some kind of rule that you have to be available by phone at all times?” I snapped. Saying hello is highly overrated.
“I am,” he said simply.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!” An exaggeration, but it sure felt like hours.
I could almost hear him shrug. “My office has my emergency number.”