Lugh shrugged. “Hillerman was making my new life … annoying. And Keller was trying to make it even worse. How did you find me, by the way?”
I doubted Adam would have answered that had Lugh been your average, everyday rogue demon, but I’m sure he knew how important that question was to both Lugh and myself. I could only think of two people who could have sent the cops our way: Barbie… and Brian.
I’d shown myself to be a lousy judge of character in the past, but I really hated the thought that I’d started to like Barbie and she might have betrayed me. Of course, I liked the idea of Brian doing it even less. And though he was angry with me and was usually a stickler for the letter of the law, I just couldn’t see him siccing the cops on me. Even my trust issues weren’t that bad.
“We got an anonymous call from The Seven Deadlies last night,” Adam said. “Your friend Tommy Brewster is a regular, so when the report came in that you were seen together, the police came to the natural conclusion that you might be hiding out at Tommy’s house.”
If I’d been in charge of my body, I’d have heaved a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been betrayed after all. I’d merely been recognized. Somewhat surprising, since I hadn’t seen a single police officer during Raphael’s and my foray. And it was downright odd that someone other than a cop would not only recognize me in disguise and in the dark of the club, but know I was a wanted criminal. The only person I’d seen at the club who actually knew me was Shae, and she’d have to be certifiably insane to risk Raphael’s wrath.
There might have been someone else there who recognized you, Lugh suggested. Someone who’s taken a particular interest in your life.
I cursed—not literally, of course, since my mouth wasn’t my own at the moment. Despite the threats we’d considered, we hadn’t taken into account that my good buddy Abraham might be hanging out at The Seven Deadlies in his new body. I hoped like hell he made the mistake of confiding something to Shae while he was there so we could get a bead on whom he’d possessed now.
Lugh twisted my lips into an unpleasant smile. “I do hope my dear friend doesn’t get into any trouble over this little … misunderstanding.”
Adam shrugged. “He’ll be charged with harboring a fugitive, but it’s hard to prove he knew you were a fugitive.”
And either way, harboring a fugitive was not a violent crime, so there was no danger of Raphael being executed. Which I supposed was a good thing, though I wasn’t sure I’d shed a tear if he finally got his just deserts.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say in your own defense?” Adam asked.
Lugh made his laugh sound bitter. “Would it matter?”
The answer, of course, was no, but Adam dutifully spouted the party line about justice being served, yada, yada, yada. He left shortly afterward, but it didn’t take more than maybe four hours for the verdict and the sentence to be read. Lugh was declared both an illegal, for possessing me against my will, and a rogue, for the murders of Jack Hillerman and David Keller.
It was another four hours before the court-appointed exorcist arrived. Those were possibly the longest four hours of my life. Despite Lugh’s calm assertions that we were in absolutely no danger, and despite my confidence in both his judgment and his logic, it was impossible not to be scared. Not when the consequences of failure included being incinerated alive in a cremation oven. Of course, if it somehow came to that, they’d anesthetize me first, and Lugh would block out the pain anyway, but that didn’t take away the primal terror.
Add to that the necessity to leave Lugh in control of my body, and I thought I might go quietly insane before this was all over. Lugh did his best to comfort me, and he tried to give me the illusion that I was under control after all. When I longed to stand up, he did it. When I felt the need to pace to work off my nerves, he did that, too. But it wasn’t the same, and we both knew it.
Frightened as I was, it was still a relief when the exorcist made an appearance. I didn’t get the baby exorcist who’d examined me last night, but Ed Rose, a competent but unspectacular exorcist. He was also experienced enough to have dispensed with some of the formalities, so the whole affair didn’t take more than about fifteen minutes.
But maybe it was those fifteen minutes that were the longest stretch of time in my life, rather than the previous four hours.
What if Ed wasn’t fooled? What if we got the timing off, and Lugh disappeared from his radar before he’d even made an effort to exorcize him? What if my need to be in control suddenly kicked in and I reflexively tossed Lugh out before the ritual even began? What if Lugh had been in control for too long and somehow I couldn’t get back?
If I’d had control of my stomach, I’d have been puking with anxiety, never mind the dreaded aftereffects I was about to endure. At least, I hoped I was about to endure, because the alternative was unthinkable.
But despite all the horrors my mind could conjure, Lugh’s ruse worked almost perfectly. I say “almost,” because Ed looked slightly puzzled when it was all over, like something about that ritual hadn’t been quite right. But whatever it was, Ed shrugged it off. Which was the last thing I noticed before I started vomiting my guts out.
CHAPTER 26
“Someone please kill me now,” I moaned as pain hammered at my skull and nausea roiled in my stomach.
I was lying on my very own bed, finally able to return home now that Lugh had been convicted and supposedly punished for my crimes. It wasn’t much of a comfort, not the way I felt. Saul, who was playing nursemaid, laid an ice pack on my forehead. It didn’t really help, but I couldn’t stand just lying there, suffering without trying to make it go away.
“You’ll feel better soon,” Saul assured me, but he was wrong. The last time I’d gotten this sick, it had lasted a solid three days, though admittedly the intensity had eased over time.
The doorbell rang, sending a spike of agony through my head. For a moment, I thought I’d black out, but no such luck.
“Sorry,” Saul murmured, then sprinted out of the room.
I threw the useless ice pack aside, then pulled my pillow out from under me and hugged it to my face, hoping blocking out the light would make the pain go away. The pillow muffled my hearing, but not so much that I couldn’t hear Saul greeting Barbie at the door. When he’d invited her to come over—against my wishes, though I was too sick to put up much of an argument—he’d considerately let the front desk know in advance and asked them not to call up to the apartment. I wished he’d told her not to ring the bell, though how he would have known she’d arrived, I don’t know.
My nose told me she’d brought dinner, which made my very empty stomach heave again. I couldn’t even keep down a couple sips of water, and if I didn’t get the vomiting under control, I was going to end up in the hospital so I could get IV fluids. And wouldn’t it just be great fun to have the doctors there trying to figure out what was wrong with me? I’d be poked, prodded, and probed for the duration of my stay, and it would all be for nothing.
“Saul!” I yelled, as loudly as I dared. I didn’t think my voice carried at all, but the sound still made my head pound.
“Did you call?” Saul asked a few moments later.
“Yeah. Can you please close the door? The smell of food is not doing good things for me.”
“Oh. Sorry. Sure.”
The door closed, and I was left by myself, fighting the pain, wishing I could fast forward my life. Through the closed door, I heard the soft murmur of Saul’s and Barbie’s voices, punctuated by the occasional laugh. They were getting along famously. I tried to be glad about that, although I thought it was risky for any of us to hang out with her for any extended period of time. She was just too perceptive, and I feared she would begin poking holes in our story in no time. Hell, considering how she had Saul thinking with his little head instead of his big one, he was probably spewing all our secrets right now. I was in no shape to stop him if he was.