“You up to this?” Adam asked, right on cue. I didn’t want to know what Brian had told them about why I was sick.
I held my head a little higher, squaring my shoulders. “No, but let’s do it anyway.” Adam and Raphael stood up, but I wasn’t ready to get going yet. “Before we leave, I want to know what the plan is, both for this demon and for his host.”
Adam and Raphael shared a glance, then turned nearly identically bland faces toward me.
“Our choices are somewhat limited,” Adam said. I guess he’d appointed himself the spokesperson.
“Then let me make this abundantly clear to both of you,” I said, mustering every scrap of authority I could find. “We are not killing anyone tonight. And you,” I continued, pointing at Raphael, “are not going back later to kill anybody.”
Raphael raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not?” I glared at him, but he met my gaze steadily and without flinching. “And how, exactly, are you planning to stop me?”
He had me stumped there. If I could count on Lugh to back me up, I’d have had at least some hope of making Raphael toe the line. But if Lugh had condoned Bradley Cooper’s murder, there was no reason to assume he wouldn’t condone the murder of Jonathan Foreman, the illegal recruitment czar, too. I put my fingers to my temples and tried to massage away the damned headache. I had enough deaths on my conscience! I didn’t know if I could stand any more.
“If we can find a way around killing anyone,” Adam said, “we will.” I wasn’t sure if he could legitimately speak for Raphael, but I was pretty sure he was telling the truth. I was also pretty sure he’d already determined there was no way around it.
“Remember, Dougal’s the one with total disregard for human life,” Brian said, putting his arm around my shoulders in solidarity. “We’re supposed to be better than that.”
Raphael gave Brian a contemptuous glance. “What would you have us do? Reveal ourselves as Lugh’s supporters to a high-ranking demon under Dougal’s control and then release him so he can destroy us?”
“You’re going to exorcize the demon, aren’t you?”
Raphael shrugged. “Probably.”
“So he’ll be back in the Demon Realm, where he can’t hurt us. And his host is not our enemy.”
Raphael looked even more contemptuous. “How the hell do we know that? There’s every chance he volunteered for the job, just like Cooper. A human bearing tales is just as dangerous to us as a demon. Maybe even more so, since he can accuse us of various crimes. You know the human courts would take his side if at all possible.”
Brian looked uncomfortable and frustrated. I knew how he felt. It was hard to feel like the angels were on your side when you were contemplating murder. But it was hard to argue Raphael’s logic. As far as I could tell, there was no moral high ground to be found.
My head pounded steadily, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Let it go, Brian,” I said. “You’re not going to win these guys over. They’ll do whatever they think is necessary, and they don’t give a rat’s ass what we think about it.” I looked back and forth between Adam and Raphael. “Does that about sum it up?”
Raphael flashed a sardonic grin. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Adam didn’t look as happy about it, but he still nodded.
“Enough talk,” Raphael decided. “Adam and I are going to go question Mr. Foreman. Morgan, you can come with us or not; it’s your choice. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can stop us from doing whatever needs to be done.”
“I’m coming,” I said with a resigned sigh. Brian opened his mouth—I think to say he was coming with us, even though we hadn’t invited him. I silenced him with a quick kiss.
“Will you wait for me?” I asked, desperately wanting him to say he would. I had a feeling when this little field trip was over, I was going to need his loving arms around me.
“Do you want me to?”
I put my arms around him and hugged him fiercely. “Yes, I want you to.”
His hug was more tentative than mine. “Then I suppose I’ll wait. But be careful, okay?”
Head still pounding, stomach still giving the occasional lurch, I pulled away from Brian’s arms and nodded.
Jonathan Foreman lived in South Philly in an overwhelmingly Italian neighborhood, which consisted of one cookie-cutter row house after another, differentiated only by the trim. Some had painted brick, some had plain brick; some had shutters, some didn’t; and a couple actually had window boxes with flowers in them, though those were only on second-or third-story windows. Growing up, I’ve learned from my parents’ experiences that if you planted anything within reach of the street, someone would eventually dig it up and take it as a souvenir. Ah, the joys of living in the big city!
Even postage-stamp-sized backyards are almost nonexistent in the city proper, so the only approach to Foreman’s house was from his front door. Adam knocked on the door while Raphael and I stood on the stoop a couple of steps below him. It was a rare city dweller who would open the door for an unknown and unexpected visitor, but since Foreman was a legal, registered demon host, we figured he might not be as cautious as us mere humans tended to be. Of course, he might also recognize Adam’s face—
being the Director of Special Forces meant that Adam occasionally made the local news—and that could make him cautious anyway.
We waited breathlessly to see what Foreman would do—assuming he was even home. He could even now be out hunting the city streets for another “expendable” human being who could be coerced into hosting a demon.
I didn’t hear any sound of movement from behind the door, but Adam must have heard something, because his posture stiffened ever so slightly. I expected someone to open the door, or tell us to go away, but nothing happened.
Raphael climbed the last step, I guess in case Adam needed help breaking down the door. Whatever the reason, it was a damn good thing he did, because the next thing I heard was a loud bang, like the sound of a car backfiring. Raphael apparently heard something before that, because he shoved Adam out of the way just in time to avoid the bullet that punched a hole in the door.
Raphael cried out in pain and doubled over, clutching his gut. Adam did an involuntary backflip over the railing that bordered the landing. He went down hard on the pavement below, but it was no doubt better than being shot.
Without needing anyone to tell me, I vaulted over the railing myself and pressed my back against the stoop, which gave me some semblance of cover. The door to the house burst open, and a fist smashed into Raphael’s face, sending him tumbling to the bottom of the steps. He left a brilliant trail of blood in his wake.
Compared to demons, I move practically in slow motion. I was fumbling through my purse, trying to find my Taser, as someone—Foreman, I presumed—barreled down the steps, gun in hand, and took off running down the street. Adam, apparently not hurt by his fall, drew his gun and dashed off in pursuit. They were both out of range before my hand closed on the Taser.
People around us had noticed the commotion—and the guns—but no one seemed to be panicking. I could see the people driving down the street glancing out the window at the action, but they kept driving, and the pedestrians—most of them, anyway—just changed directions and walked hurriedly the other way. And they call Philadelphia the “City of Brotherly Love.” Yeah, right.
A gum-cracking teenaged girl called 911 on her cell phone while she stared, wide-eyed, at the trail of blood Raphael had left on the steps. I was way too shaken up to walk, so I crawled over to where he lay on the sidewalk, his arms wrapped around his belly, his body curled around itself. He was making little moaning sounds as if he were in dire pain, but when I got close enough, he made eye contact and I could see he was fine.
You see, Tommy Brewster isn’t just any old demon host. He was a product of Raphael and Dougal’s genetic experiments, and he healed even more quickly than normal demons. In fact, I’d seen Dick—