So far, this wasn’t the clearest explanation I’d ever heard.
“Raphael…” Lugh said, a warning in his tone.
Raphael shook his head. “I knew Dougal was up to something. He wasn’t upset enough at the prospect of you taking the throne. He should have been rabble-rousing as hard as he could, but he wasn’t. So I started dropping hints to him that you would make a lousy king. You and I get on poorly enough that he had no trouble believing I would stand against you. And so he let me in on his plan.”
“The plan to force me into a mortal host and then burn me and my host alive.”
Raphael rolled his eyes. “Yes, that one. And before you ask, if I’d run to you and told you all this, you wouldn’t have believed me. You’d have thought I was just starting trouble. And even if you had, there was nothing you could do about it once Dougal gave your True Name to his human followers.
“The only thing I could do was try to preempt them by summoning you into a human who wasn’t under their control. I’d hoped Morgan would be able to keep you hidden until I’d figured some way out of this mess.”
I felt my eyebrow raise. “And how did you know I wouldn’t be able to take her over? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Raphael hesitated. “Block Morgan out, and I’ll tell you.”
Block me out? I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but before I could start panicking, Lugh spoke.
“I don’t have enough control to do that,” he said. “Whatever you have to say, you can let her hear.”
Raphael shook his head. “Then all I can tell you is that Dougal has been up to more mischief on the Mortal Plain than anyone could have guessed. I’m not sharing state secrets with Morgan, no matter what you order.”
Lugh advanced another step toward his brother. “You don’t get to make that decision.”
Raphael’s chin set stubbornly. “Yes, big brother, I do. Do you think you can torture me into talking?”
I kind of liked the sound of that. After all, Raphael might have just saved me from burning to death, but his methods sucked big-time. I remembered the burns under Brian’s arms, and the blood fountaining from Dominic’s leg. Unfortunately, revenge didn’t seem to be Lugh’s top priority. He clenched his fists in what I took for frustration, but dropped the subject.
“Once your friends knew I was in Morgan, why didn’t you help her?”
“I did help her. I arranged for her to be arrested so she’d spend some time in jail where no one could get to her. I’ve also arranged for the key evidence to be ‘lost’ so they’ll have to drop the charges. And I called her house to wake her up when Wyatt tried to burn it down around her ears.
“I couldn’t prevent tonight’s rendezvous without blowing my cover, but I stalled as long as I could by being a temperamental bastard when she called. I figured if you couldn’t surface under these circumstances, you’d never be able to.
“And don’t tell me that either one of you would have believed me if I’d come to you and told you I was on your side. Morgan doesn’t trust any demon, and you’ve never trusted me. I was better off staying on the inside.”
Lugh swept the battlefield with a contemptuous gaze. “And if I hadn’t managed to surface tonight, Morgan and I would both be dead.”
But Raphael shook his head. “No, brother. Only Morgan. If they’d lit the fire, I’d have had no choice but to shoot her.” He looked into Lugh’s eyes, and I could tell he was looking through them at me. “I’m truly sorry, Morgan. I did everything I could to goad Lugh into surfacing and goad you into letting him. But if I’d failed, I’d have had to kill you and send him back to the Demon Realm. It would have been a temporary solution at best, since they’d still have Lugh’s True Name. They’d just call him into another human victim, and I’d have thoroughly blown my cover. But I couldn’t have taken on everyone here by myself. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.”
I, of course, didn’t say anything. Panic beat at me as I realized I’d probably never be able to say anything again.
“It’ll be all right, Morgan,” Lugh said, speaking to me with my own mouth. “I know what I did to take control, and I know how to let go.”
Raphael looked shocked. “You’re going to let her back into control?”
Lugh shrugged. “Even if I didn’t let her, I suspect she’d figure out how to do it herself. She always managed to kick me out of her dreams when she wanted to. This will have to be a partnership, rather than a dictatorship.”
“The gallant knight again, eh, brother?” There was a hint of disgust in his voice.
Lugh didn’t seem to appreciate it. “You should try it sometime.”
The slight tightening around his eyes suggested Lugh had actually managed to hurt Raphael’s feelings. He lowered his gaze. “Do I get no credit for anything I’ve done? Can I never do anything right in your eyes?”
Lugh sighed. “Forgive me. I truly am grateful, even if I don’t appreciate your methods.”
Wyatt groaned, and the brothers both turned to look at him. He couldn’t move yet, but he stared up at Lugh with a mixture of scorn and fear in his eyes.
“This is only one cell of Dougal’s revolutionary army,” Raphael said, his voice quiet and studiously neutral. “I tried my best to find others, but everything started to move too fast. You cannot return to the Demon Realm until we’re sure Dougal’s supporters can’t summon you to your death. And our best hope of wiping out the conspiracy is if I stay on the inside.”
Lugh was silent for a long time. I wished I knew what he was thinking, but our communication went only one way. I’m sure he “heard” me yammering questions at him, but he chose not to respond. It pissed me off, so I tried visualizing shutting the door in my mind.
Lugh winced, and I felt a fleeting spark of triumph. Yay! I knew how to make his head hurt!
Unfortunately, he had his foot firmly in that door, and I couldn’t seem to shut it.
Wyatt made another pathetic groaning noise. It seemed to snap Lugh out of his moment of indecision, if that’s what it was.
“He mustn’t be allowed to warn anyone of your loyalties,” Lugh said, looking at Wyatt. Wyatt’s eyes widened in terror, and he fought to regain control of his limbs.
Raphael gave him another jolt from the Taser, then went to kneel beside him. “Trust me, my friend,” he said. “You don’t want to heal this.”
He punched Wyatt so hard you’d have thought his head would go flying. Not hard enough to kill him, however, for I could see his chest rising and falling, though his eyes were closed and his jaw slack.
It wasn’t until Raphael picked the unconscious man up and carried him toward the stake that I fully realized what they were about to do. I shoved harder on the door, though it wasn’t as if I could stop Raphael my own puny human self.
Again Lugh winced, though I didn’t feel like I was making any progress. But I couldn’t let the two of them just burn a guy to death without trying to stop them, could I?
“Don’t feel too bad for him, Morgan,” Lugh said. I hated when he used my own mouth to talk to me. “Both the human and the demon are responsible for many, many deaths, most if not all of them by fire. This is a fitting end.”
Yeah, I knew all that. And in a Biblical, eye-for-an-eye sense, it was hard to argue that the man didn’t deserve it. But I didn’t have the demon ability to shrug off necessary evils. I didn’t want to be party to burning a man alive, no matter how evil that man might be-no matter how dangerous he would be to me in particular and mankind in general.
I kept shoving hopelessly on that door in my mind, knowing I didn’t have enough time to figure out how to shut it before the deed was done. It had taken Lugh weeks to figure out how to gain control. How could I expect myself to figure it out in minutes?
Didn’t stop me from trying, though.