“I don’t know.”
Adam growled, and Mary raised her head for the first time since I’d entered the room. I thought she’d looked pathetic before. She looked positively hideous right now—mascara-stained tears leaving tracks across her battered face, a line of blood snaking down her chin from a split lip, and a look of terror and hopelessness in her eyes.
“Please,” she begged. “Please! I don’t know. I’m nobody. I’d been imprisoned for centuries. They pardoned me and let me out early, but as soon as I was out, I was ordered to come to the Mortal Plain.”
Adam was still circling her, and Mary followed him with her eyes until he was out of her line of sight. She didn’t turn her head to watch him, instead closing her eyes and tensing, every muscle in her body quivering.
Was this what happened to demons who were imprisoned? Or had she been this pathetic beforehand? I had a nasty suspicion it was the former. I couldn’t imagine this terrified bundle of nerves having the gumption to break a law.
“Again I ask you, who are they?” Adam said. “Name some names for me.”
But Mary shook her head. “I don’t know who they were. I only know they were elite, and they told me if I was still in the Demon Realm when they came looking for me next, they would destroy me.”
Barbie frowned, interested in spite of herself. “I thought there was a decades-long waiting list to come to the Mortal Plain. How did you get here so fast?”
Mary cringed. “I jumped,” she said in a whisper, tensing even more, like she expected to be hit.
I cocked my head to one side. “What does that mean?”
Adam’s jaw tightened. “It means she cut into the line. We can all feel the call of a general summoning, but it’s against the law to answer when it’s not your turn.” He glanced down at Mary, a knowing look on his face. “What were you imprisoned for?”
She hesitated, but answered before Adam had to bully her. “Jumping.”
He nodded. “Right. So no one would be particularly shocked that you’d jump again as soon as you were out.”
“I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t made me!” she protested. “I don’t want to go back to prison.”
Adam ignored the protest. “And what were you told to do once you reached the Mortal Plain? Because I don’t believe for a moment that ‘they’ sent you here with no strings attached.”
“No,” she said with a wet snuffle. “There are strings.”
“Go on,” he prodded when she didn’t continue.
“There’s a demon. I don’t know his name. I’m to check in with him once a week, and he may have orders for me.”
“This just gets better and better,” Raphael muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
Adam ignored him. “So when are you supposed to check in with him next?”
She flinched. “Please. I’ll go back to prison if I betray him!”
Adam reached out and grabbed her by the throat. The poor creature was too mousy even to fight against that.
Great. Now I was thinking of a demon who’d taken an unwilling host as a “poor creature.” Talk about your bleeding hearts!
“There are worse things than going back to prison, Mary,” Adam said, his voice once more that menacing croon. “When do you meet with him next?”
“Thursday.”
Adam kept his hold on her throat, but he didn’t seem to be squeezing. The threat was enough to keep her compliant. “And where will you meet?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. He’s supposed to call me at two and tell me where to meet him.”
Her eyes widened with renewed terror, like she was sure Adam wouldn’t believe her and was going to hurt her again.
Adam processed that a moment. “All right. Here’s the plan: I’m going to give you my card,” he said, letting go of her throat and reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. “As soon as you hear from the mystery man, you’re going to call me and tell me where you’re meeting him.”
“Please—”
“Don’t even think about running, or not calling, or lying to me. I can get to you wherever you go, and believe me, you wouldn’t like that.”
Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. She didn’t say anything, just nodded, her body language a picture of defeat and misery. I felt another pang of pity.
I think even Adam was starting to feel sorry for her, because his voice, when next he spoke, was surprisingly gentle.
“The bathroom’s right there,” he said, pointing. “Why don’t you go wash your face? Then you can get going.”
I think if Mary’d had a choice, she’d have bolted from the room immediately, bloody, mascarasmeared face or no. But she interpreted Adam’s offer as a command and slunk into the bathroom. If she’d been a dog, her tail would have been tucked firmly between her legs.
The four of us waited in silence as Mary washed her face in the bathroom sink. No one was making eye contact. Was it possible that even Raphael felt pity for our soon-to-be informant?
Mary looked a lot better when she emerged from the bathroom. Not only had she washed off the mascara and the blood from her cut lip, but she’d washed her face clean of makeup entirely. The lack of eyeshadow made her eyes look less sunken. And the cut had already sealed itself, though there was still an angry red line where it had been.
She watched us with wary eyes, her back against the wall, her shoulders hunched.
“You can go now,” Adam told her, and we all moved away a little bit, giving her room to get out without having to pass too close to any of us. “I assume it goes without saying that we never had this conversation?”
She nodded, then slowly backed her way toward the door, eyes darting this way and that, showing too much white. When she reached the door, she yanked it open then threw herself through it, slamming it behind her. Even over the din of the music, we could hear the crowd on the balcony protesting as she shoved her way through in her rush to get away from us.
six
WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I NEED A SHOWER AFTER THAT?” Barbie asked, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering.
No one answered her. I wished I hadn’t pushed her into picking Mary. Yes, anyone we’d picked would probably have looked pretty puny, but it was hard to imagine a more beaten, miserable creature than Mary.
“So,” I said into the awkward silence, “we assume Dougal and/or his cronies are behind this, right?”
“It’s the logical assumption,” Adam agreed. “And if he’s sent one prisoner through, he’s doubtless sent others.”
“Cannon fodder,” Raphael muttered.
“Huh?” I said.
“They’re cannon fodder,” he said more loudly. “I don’t know what he plans to use them for, but the fact that he’s sending prisoners through—perhaps ahead of others who’ve been on the waiting list for decades—suggests he’s going to use them on missions that require demons he considers expendable. Maybe missions his real supporters aren’t willing to undertake.”
The only thing that can kill a demon is fire. The thought that popped into my mind at that moment almost made me sick to my stomach.
“Suicide bombers,” I whispered.
Barbie gasped and covered her mouth. Adam sat heavily on the bed. And Raphael stood there looking grim.
“Do you really think …” Barbie started to ask, but her voice died before she got the question out.
We all turned our gazes to Raphael, who knew Dougal best.
“I don’t know about suicide bombers,” Raphael said. “He wouldn’t need demons for that, considering how fanatical his human followers are. But I can’t help thinking that maybe he doesn’t want to be king of just the Demon Realm. Maybe he wants to rule the Mortal Plain as well. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“So he’s just going to ignore Lugh completely?” I asked, wondering if the covert war had just passed us by.