Lugh closed his eyes, as if in pain. “So do I,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “So do I.”
And the dream slipped away.
Wednesday was the dawn of William’s first day stirring up trouble in the Demon Realm, but we didn’t expect to feel any ripple effects yet. Which was a good thing, because Wednesday night was the private training dinner at Dom’s restaurant. He’d invited all of Lugh’s council, and he’d also invited his family, which seemed to include approximately one third of the population of South Philly.
Despite his conservative family’s disapproval of Dominic’s lifestyle, just about everyone showed up. Even his wicked stepmother, who looked like she couldn’t wait to get out of there the moment she set foot inside. My guess was that Dom’s father had bullied her into coming.
Dom had put place cards on the tables, so we all knew where we were supposed to sit. Of course, that did make the few empty seats with place cards in front of them very conspicuous, but it wasn’t as bad as Dom had feared. He’d been afraid Wicked Stepmom would convince a bunch of the older women not to show.
The only no-show among Lugh’s council was Raphael, but that was by plan. Someone had to stay at Adam’s place and take care of William’s host, who so far had been so busy frothing at the mouth—
figuratively speaking, for the most part—that he could barely be considered a functional human being.
Lugh and I didn’t much like the idea of leaving Raphael alone. Not because we didn’t trust him—for once—but because he’d painted such a big target on his back. To my intense surprise, Andy had volunteered to stay behind with him. I guess his hero instincts were trying to come out of hiding. Maybe my stern talking-to had more effect than I thought, though perhaps I was flattering myself to think so. But Raphael had dismissed Andy’s offer with a careless wave of his hand.
“I’ll only be alone three hours, tops,” Raphael had said. “I’ll phone in an SOS at the slightest sign of trouble, and the restaurant’s less than four blocks from here. Besides,” he’d added with a feral grin,
“I’m not that easy to kill.”
Everyone had accepted that as adequate reassurance, but Lugh and I were both still worried. I understood why Lugh was worried—Raphael was his brother, after all—but I wouldn’t have expected it from myself. I suppose my attitude toward Raphael had softened even more than I’d realized.
Even Lugh and I had to admit, though, that the evening was a lot more pleasant without Raphael present. For one thing, Saul acted far more civilized when his father wasn’t around. For another, we didn’t have to listen to the subtle, but nasty, digs that Raphael invariably managed to interject into any conversation.
To my surprise, the evening ended up being fun. It wasn’t that I’d expected a dinner at Dom’s restaurant to be a chore. It was just that it’s hard to relax and really enjoy anything when you’re a key player in a covert war and the fate of the human race rests on your shoulders. I was habitually on guard, and about the only time I allowed myself to let any of that guard down was in bed. Now don’t get me wrong; letting down my guard in bed was fun. It just wasn’t the same kind of fun.
Without Raphael around to jab pins in anyone, all the members of Lugh’s council were more …
relaxed. Even Andy seemed to shake out of his stupor for a while. He still didn’t do a lot of talking, but I didn’t get the sense he was tuning the rest of us out, either. And every once in a while, I caught him smiling at something. Like when Adam took advantage of a momentary lapse in Dominic’s attention to pinch him on the ass. Dom jumped and gave a little yelp, but the restaurant was noisy enough to cover the sound, and his family members, at least, were engrossed in their food and their conversations. Dom turned to glare at Adam, who made innocent eyes at him.
“You promised you’d be on your best behavior,” Dominic scolded, and Adam gave him a wicked grin.
“This is my best behavior.”
Dominic rolled his eyes dramatically and heaved an exasperated sigh. Afterward, he was careful never to turn his back on Adam again.
The dinner went off without a hitch. But Dom and the rest of us had underestimated his family’s …
staying power. The restaurant didn’t have its liquor license yet—that took forever in Philly—but patrons were allowed to bring their own, and Dom’s family had brought enough wine to inebriate half of Philadelphia. They were having a jolly old time trying to drink each other under the table, and I started to get antsy again about leaving Raphael unprotected for so long, no matter how hard he was to kill, and no matter how unlikely it was that anyone was gunning for him yet.
Adam and Dom tried engaging in a slightly more obvious public display of affection, hoping Dom’s relatives would get uncomfortable and leave, but most of them were too drunk to care.
It was after eleven when Brian, Andy, and I excused ourselves from the festivities to go keep watch on Raphael. Dom was going to be stuck at the restaurant until the wee hours, and there was no way Adam was going to leave him there alone. It would be asking for trouble to send Saul and Barbie, which is why the three of us got the short straw.
My life had been so unpleasantly eventful lately that it was almost anticlimactic to arrive at Adam and Dom’s house and find no enemies waiting to spring out at us. We explained to Raphael what we were doing there, and he kindly fixed us a pot of coffee to help us stay awake until we could go to our own apartment. I guess I was pretty tired, because I fell asleep on the sofa before the coffee was even ready.
twenty
INCONVENIENTLY, RAPHAEL HAD PROMISED TO SUMMON William back to his host on the Mortal Plain three days after sending him to the Demon Realm. Which meant we had to summon him back on the night of the actual grand opening of Dominic’s restaurant. We’d debated whether to do the summoning before or after the opening, then finally decided on after. Dom was nervous enough without getting any worrisome news from the Demon Realm—and it was hard to believe the news wouldn’t be worrisome.
Just as we’d done on Wednesday night, all the members of Lugh’s council except for Raphael went out to dinner at Dom’s. It wasn’t the joyous, rowdy occasion that the practice dinner had been, but I was pleased to see that he got a pretty good crowd. And that the crowd seemed happy. Dom was a constant blur of motion, flitting from table to table to check on his customers’ satisfaction, then darting back into the kitchen to keep an eye on the cooking. I had to suppress a smile when I noticed more than one female customer trying her best to flirt with him. Although he was no longer a host, he still had the typical demon-host good looks. He was also modest enough not to realize it, which only added to his appeal.
We might have all stayed until closing time so we could walk back to the house together, but there seemed to be a crowd gathering at the door, and Dom needed the tables. We left Adam to escort Dominic home—with strict orders that Dom was to let his manager handle closing up instead of supervising it himself—then prepared for the ritual to summon William.
This was only the second time I’d been present for a summoning ceremony. They were usually the exclusive purview of the Spirit Society. But I was there when we’d summoned Saul, so I wasn’t quite as nervous or intimidated this time.
Jonathan Foreman, William’s ex-host, was still deep in withdrawal, but at least he had some grasp of reality. And William had been right: Jonathan was very, very anxious to have him back. To the point that I was tempted to tie him up and lock him in a closet somewhere just so we didn’t have to listen to him anymore. The constant refrain of “Is it time yet?” got old fast.
Appropriately enough, Adam and Dom arrived in time for us to start the ritual right on the stroke of midnight. Dom had a happy glow in his eyes when he joined us in the basement, and I was sad to see that glow die down as he transformed from Dominic Castello, restaurateur, to Dominic Castello, member of Lugh’s royal council.