The Devil's Due mk-3

by Jenna Black

  “Never mind,” I told Adam. “It’s not important.”

  I’m sure he saw through my lie, but he didn’t challenge it. I glanced at my watch and was startled to discover it was already two in the morning. I hadn’t realized how long I’d sat in that damn club! The twenty-four hours Lugh had given me were almost up, which meant that if I didn’t tell Adam now, Lugh would hijack my body the next time I fell asleep.

  I took one more look at Adam, then decided it was time to get a refill on my coffee.

  Adam gave me a bit of a funny look when I returned to the table with my fresh cup of coffee. De spite a concerted effort, I still haven’t learned how to keep everything I’m feeling from showing on my face, and he probably knew something was wrong. Something other than his cheating on Dominic, that is. And though I fully understood why he was doing it, as long as Dom didn’t know, it seemed like cheating to me.

  “I gather you haven’t had a chance to visit with Sammy yet?” I asked, hoping that would stave off any questions he was tempted to ask.

  Adam raised an eyebrow. He knew a diversionary tactic when he saw one. Luckily, just this once, he decided to let me off the hook.

  “I dropped by his office today and found out he’s on vacation. I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back. But meanwhile, I’ll focus on Tommy. I suspect I’ll have no trouble getting some, uh, private time with him.” He stared at his cup of tea, though I suspected it had been empty for at least fifteen minutes.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant, and I had to fight my surge of disgust. “You mean he likes the hardcore shit,” I said, my voice rising, “and you’re going to cheat on Dom with him.”

  I was loud enough that a few people turned to look at me. I swallowed hard and lowered my voice. “I’d rather you let me question him myself.”

  Adam put his cup down and leaned toward me, anger glinting in his eyes. “I am not cheating on Dom,” he snarled. “And with your charming personality, you’ll have him clammed up and suspicious within the first five minutes. If I take him down into Hell, I can get him into a frame of mind where he’s not thinking straight. And since I’m a police officer, I can act on it if he tells me something he shouldn’t. You’ve done your part by bringing the case to me. Now stay out of it like a good little exorcist and let me handle it.”

  I was getting pretty damn tired of being told to stay out of it, but for once my common sense spoke up in time, and I kept that thought to myself. I doubt Adam expected me to heed his warning, but I didn’t think arguing about it was going to help my case.

  “Fine,” I muttered, slurping down more coffee. “You go on back to Hell. It’s where you belong anyway.”

  I stood up, meaning to make a dramatic exit, but Lugh sent a stab of pain through my eye, and I stumbled. I almost pitched face-first into Adam’s lap, but with demon-quick reflexes, he caught me. For a moment that felt like forever, I looked into those dark brown eyes, my nose inches away from his. I caught the scent of the spicy aftershave he favored, and beneath that, a salty undertone that reminded me of an ocean breeze. Despite my dislike of him, despite his sexual habits, despite him being a demon, I had to admit to myself that he was one hell of a sexy specimen of manhood. Against my every wish, images flashed through my mind. Images of Adam, naked and aroused, images of him with Dom, images of—

  With a jerk, I shoved myself away from him, shutting down that line of thought with all the ferocity I could. I did not want to think of Adam that way. I was already in love with Brian and in lust with Lugh. I didn’t need any more. . complications.

  One corner of Adam’s mouth rose in a half-smile, but it wasn’t a nice expression. There was no question in my mind that no matter how much I wanted to deny it to myself, Adam knew I found him attractive. I had a distinct feeling he would use his knowledge against me if he had half a chance.

  Knowing that anything I said would just make things worse, I settled for shaking my head before I turned on my heel and strode to the door. Lugh did the eye-stab thing again, but it was merely a brief annoyance. It wasn’t like this was a battle I could win. No matter how much caffeine I ingested, eventually I would fall asleep and he would take over. But eventually was better than now.

  Wondering how I was going to keep myself occupied during the wee hours of the morning, I made my way back to the garage to retrieve my car.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was past four when I finally let myself into my apartment, so I didn’t have as many wee hours to kill as I’d expected. The day was getting a head start toward being really shitty. On my way home, I’d gotten pulled over for speeding. Naturally, the cop who pulled me over was female and not a good candidate for the eyelash batting that had gotten me out of tickets with the testosterone brigade. I wasn’t really going that fast, but I guess she was bored and I made an easy target. Always happy to help our women in blue pass the time.

  I shoved the speeding ticket into a drawer with my growing pile of unpaid bills and then made myself a pot of coffee. My body ached for me to throw myself onto the bed and sleep for a week, but this was a case of mind over matter, and I wasn’t going to give in.

  I had to find a way to keep myself busy, otherwise the lure of sleep would be too much to resist, but I couldn’t think of anything useful to do on the Brewster case. I could drop by Tommy’s apartment again, but I didn’t think it would do me much good. Besides, I had semi-promised Adam I’d let him handle things. Not that I felt particularly bound by that promise, but I figured it would be decent of me to at least let him make first contact. Besides, for all I knew, he’d gone back to the club last night and convinced Tommy to confess everything.

  I settled for going in to the office again. This would be two times within the space of one week. I was being positively productive! Of course, I hadn’t gotten much work done the last time, Claudia Brewster’s visit having thoroughly interrupted my efforts.

  Doing paperwork wasn’t the best way to keep myself awake, I realized a couple of hours later as my eyes crossed and my mind wandered. I took an extended break to get a grande cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso from the nearest Starbucks, and felt marginally more alive after my first few sips. I had almost psyched myself up for the singularly unpleasant task of chatting up my insurance company when I stepped off the elevator into the hallway leading to my office. I was spaced out enough that I took two more long strides toward my door before I noticed the figure standing before it.

  In the pictures Claudia had shown me, Tommy looked like a typical sulky, rebellious teenager. Unkempt hair. Ill-fitting pants. Face fixed in a longsuffering expression that said his life was fucked up beyond recognition, but somehow he’d manage to muddle through.

  Apparently, demonic possession agreed with him. He still wasn’t exactly what you’d call a snappy dresser. His jeans were baggy, the fraying cuffs dragging on the floor, and his T-shirt had probably once been black but had been washed so many times it was an uneven and particularly unattractive shade of gray. But he carried himself entirely differently. His shoulders were straighter, his posture more confident, his expression much. . older.

  He was leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched me approach. I had no idea what he wanted, but I made an educated guess and decided it wasn’t anything good. I shifted my coffee into my left hand, then reached into my purse and fished out my Taser, arming it while keeping a close eye on him. I didn’t really think he was going to attack me in a public place, not when he’d gone through so much trouble to make himself seem like a legal demon, but I wasn’t one to take chances.

  Tommy was a little bit shorter than your average demon host. Most of them topped six feet, but I’d have put him at about five-ten. Give me a good pair of heels, and I’d be able to look down on him. He had the requisite good looks, though. His face was a little rounded, giving him an almost cherubic expression with his small, curvy mouth and apple cheeks. But all you had to do was look him in the eye to kill that illusion. T
hey were a deep shade of blue I’d have called beautiful if it weren’t for the malevolent presence I sensed behind them.

  Maybe it was all in my mind. Maybe the fact that I knew he was possessed by an illegal demon made that glint in his eye look evil. Maybe if I had no idea who he was and had just run into him on the street, I wouldn’t have given him a second glance. But I did know what he was, and I hated him before he even opened his mouth.

  Tommy pushed away from the wall and gave me an assessing look, one that made me bristle. He watched me pull the Taser from my bag but didn’t seem particularly concerned about it.

  “Morgan Kingsley, I presume?” he asked in a cultured tone that I suspected sounded nothing like Tommy Brewster.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I suppose I won’t win any prizes for politeness, but I couldn’t think of any pressing reason to treat him as a decent human being.

  “I’d heard you were looking for me,” he said.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where did you hear that?”

  “My roommate informed me that I had a visitor yesterday. He also said he suggested you look for me at The Seven Deadlies.” He grinned at me, a creepy expression that made my skin crawl—no doubt just the effect he was going for. “I am sorry I missed you last night.”

  I was trying to think of a good retort while simultaneously trying to keep my face from showing how much he was creeping me out, when the elevator dinged, signaling it was about to open.

  There was only one other tenant on my floor, a mid-sized and terribly respectable accounting firm. I doubt they were thrilled to be sharing space with me in the first place, and they would be even less so if a customer stepped off the elevator to see me holding a cherub-faced youngster at Taser point.

  With great reluctance, I turned the Taser off and stuck it back in my bag just in time. Tommy and I waited in silence for the professional young couple to step off the elevator and push open the accounting firm’s door.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer we take this conversation somewhere more private?” Tommy asked, jerking his thumb toward my own closed door.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be trapped in a closed room with him, but it wouldn’t do to risk having innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire if things turned ugly. My hand hovered near my bag, though if Tommy wanted to attack me, I was dead meat. I wouldn’t have time to reach into my bag, pull out the Taser, arm it, and fire before he was on me. Even knowing that, I felt better having it within reach.

  “Give me some space,” I demanded. Tommy hesitated, a smirk on his face as he waited for me to acknowledge that if he did as I ordered, he was merely humoring me. I gave him my fiercest scowl, which seemed to satisfy him, and he backed away.

  I was twitchy as hell as I approached my door, uncomfortable with the idea that between the coffee and the keys, both my hands were occupied. I needed a third hand for the Taser. But despite my worries, Tommy made no move to attack me, and his lips remained stretched in that infuriating smirk.

  As soon as I got my door open, I hurried into the office and put my desk between myself and Tommy. He humored my skittishness, keeping his distance while making it obvious how much he was enjoying himself. I threw my keys onto the desk and drew and armed my Taser once again. Now I felt safe.

  I leaned back into my chair and propped my ankles up on my desk, the Taser never wavering. I took a nice long gulp of my rapidly cooling coffee before addressing my surprise guest once again.

  “What do you want?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew.

  Tommy’s smirk hadn’t faltered at my newfound confidence. Moving slowly, and keeping a close eye on the Taser, he pulled out a chair and took a seat in front of my desk. “As I said, I’d heard you were looking for me. Perhaps I should be asking you that.”

  “Cut the crap and get to the point.”

  One corner of his mouth tugged downward in a hint of a frown. Maybe I was getting to him more than I thought. I surreptitiously glanced at my Taser, reassuring myself that it was fully charged.

  “Fine,” Tommy said with a pout he must have learned from his host. “The point is I know my parents want you to exorcize me.”

  “They aren’t your parents,” I snapped. “They’re Tommy’s.”

  He rolled his eyes. “All right. I’ll rephrase: I know my host’s parents want you to exorcize me. They are under the delusional impression that Tommy was coerced into hosting me. Let me assure you, that’s just their wishful thinking. Tommy is a legal, registered demon host, and if you exorcize me, you’ll be guilty of murder.”

  “Yeah, that’s a real news flash. Thanks for letting me know.”

  His frown was more pronounced now. Apparently that hadn’t been the reaction he was hoping for. “I have warned my. . associates that I have been threatened. If I were to leave Tommy’s body, you would be up on murder charges before you knew what hit you.”

  “Again, not a news flash. I told your parents no. I’m not a moron.”

  He raised his eyebrows as if surprised. “No? Then what were you doing looking for me at The Seven Deadlies last night?”

  “How did you know I was at the club?” I countered.

  He gave me a droll look. “Because Shae told me.”

  Warning bells clanged in my head. Shae wasn’t exactly my bosom buddy, and she hadn’t even bothered to question what I was doing at her club last night. How could she possibly have known I was looking for Tommy? My question must have showed on my face, because Tommy answered it before I had a chance to ask.

  “An exorcist who I know has been hired to exorcize me shows up at a demon nightclub and stakes the place out like an amateur detective. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together, especially since I asked Shae to tell me if you showed up.”

  I supposed that made a kind of sense, though it suggested a closer relationship between Tommy and Shae than I would have guessed. Of course, since they were both illegals, they had things in common that perhaps would lead them to be close friends. Nah, I didn’t think Shae was into the whole “friends” thing. She was a mercenary through and through. If she and Tommy had teamed up, it was because she was being well paid. The question remained, what for?

  “Now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity,” Tommy continued, “why don’t you satisfy mine and tell me what you want?”

  I’d had enough of my pseudo-relaxed pose, so I put my feet back down on the floor and sat up straight. “I sympathize with your host’s mother. If I were in her shoes, I’m sure I’d be doing the same thing she is. But I’m not stupid enough to perform an illegal exorcism. If you’d like to confess to me that you’re an illegal, I’d be delighted to hear it and I’d set up that exorcism so fast it’d make your head spin. But somehow, I don’t see you being that obliging.”

  He chuckled. “No, not likely. But none of this explains why you were looking for me.”

  At this point, I wanted nothing more than to get rid of him. I knew Adam was right, and that I should leave the investigating to the professionals. But it wasn’t like I was going to admit that to Tommy.

  I shrugged. “If I ignore your mother’s request without looking into it at all, I’ll never be able to live with myself. It’s hard for me to imagine a God’s Wrath fanatic agreeing to host you. I just wanted to hear your explanation firsthand for why he’s doing it.”

  His smile looked genuinely amused. “And if you don’t like my explanation?”

  I shrugged again. “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  He laughed softly. “You’re almost as entertaining as Shae said you were.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “It’s been lovely talking to you.”

  “If you’re here legally, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t explain to me why Tommy decided to host you.”

  “There’s also no reason why I should.” He smiled at me pleasantly. “And here’s a friendly word of advice for you: wasting your time trying to find evidence that Tommy didn’t summon me of his own free will is not yo
ur wisest career move.”

  Naturally, I bristled. “That sounded suspiciously like a threat.” Making a threat—even one more blatantly phrased than that—isn’t considered a “violent crime,” so I couldn’t earn the right to exorcize him that way. But in a manner of speaking, it could be considered a step in the right direction.

  There was a predatory gleam in Tommy’s eyes, though his smile remained firmly in place and he made no response to my accusation. He mimed tipping his hat, then turned to the door.

  For a moment, I considered shooting him just on general principle. But of course, the authorities frowned on that sort of thing.

  I’m not sure just what he’d hoped to accomplish by confronting me like this. If he thought I’d be intimidated and back off, then clearly he and his cronies didn’t know me at all.

  Reciting a list of curses under my breath, I let him go.

  CHAPTER 12

  I was still in my office at four o’clock that afternoon when Brian called. I hadn’t exactly gotten much done, and the ring tone I’d assigned to Brian jerked me out of a reverie that had been on the verge of becoming a doze. I cursed myself roundly, knowing that it would only take a few short minutes for Lugh to use my body to make the phone call I didn’t want him to make.

  On some level, I knew I was being needlessly stubborn about this. After all, I couldn’t go without sleep indefinitely. But so little of my life was under my control these days, I’d take any excuse I could find to hold on to the reins, even if just for a little while.

  I should have expected Brian’s call. He’d given me the requisite two days to think about what had happened between us, and now he was going to start pushing. It was an MO with which I was intimately familiar. I’d have liked to ignore the ringing phone and let him stew awhile, but I figured wrangling with him was sure to keep me awake. With a sigh of resignation, I dug my phone out of my purse and answered.