“He said he was coming in to see me to let me know he’d accepted our invitation, as he called it. He suggested he and Lugh get together at six tonight in the food court at the Gallery to discuss terms. He figures that ought to be public enough that both he and Lugh would feel safe from an untimely attack.”
Crap! We’d all been expecting Dougal to drag his feet about this, not try to rush us. “What is he up to?”
I murmured, not really meaning for Adam to hear.
“At a guess, I’d say he’s trying to make sure we’re unbalanced. We’ve kind of got him by the balls, and he’s going to look for any advantage he can find.”
Tell Adam to get Raphael and Dominic and meet us here.
“What about the rest of the council?” I asked.
“Huh?” Adam said.
“Talking to Lugh,” I responded absently.
We don’t have time to gather them all and have a huge debate, not if we want to keep open the option of making the rendezvous.
I didn’t like the idea of keeping Saul, Barbie, and Brian in the dark. Especially Brian, who’d be pissed off at me later for not telling him immediately what was going on. Besides, it kind of made me wonder if Lugh was planning something he’d rather not have one or more of them hear.
Just tell Adam to get them here, Lugh said, his mental voice impatient.
I fought down my natural urge to dig in my heels when someone tried to order me around. It was already two in the afternoon, and four hours wasn’t a whole lot of time to plan this meeting, if we actually decided to go. And Brian would be at work until after five, so if I really wanted him to keep up his semblance of a normal life, I should do what Lugh asked. That is, ordered.
“Lugh wants you to bring Raphael and Dominic here to talk things over,” I said to Adam.
Adam hesitated for a beat. I’m not sure why. Maybe he was worried about leaving William alone—
although he’d been so badly beaten down by now it was hard to see him as much of a threat. Or maybe because he didn’t like the idea of Dom being included in whatever scheme Lugh was going to devise. But the alternative would be leaving Dom unprotected in the house, so bringing him was the lesser of two evils.
“I’ll be there in about a half hour,” Adam said.
I frowned. “Can’t you make it sooner? We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I can make it sooner if you don’t mind having the press on our tails for the rest of the evening.”
“Oh. Take your time, then.”
He snorted softly, then hung up. As usual, no polite good-bye.
I’m going to have to take control when everyone gets here, Lugh informed me once I got off the phone.
I always felt like a bit of a loony talking to myself, so I retired to the bedroom, where Andy couldn’t see me doing it. Lugh, understanding my way of thinking as usual, waited until the door had closed behind me to talk to me again.
I’d like you to promise to hear me out, he said, and every brain cell in my head went on red alert.
“Whatever it is you have to say, I already don’t like it.”
Lugh hesitated for a moment, then soldiered on. We need to have this meeting with Dougal. He’s as vulnerable as he’s ever been, but if we stand him up, he might get cold feet and go back to the Demon Realm.
“How would he do that? No one’s strong enough to exorcize him except maybe you or Raphael.”
Lugh was silent, and I shook my head as I recognized the faulty assumption behind my words: the assumption that Dougal had any scruples I’d understand. All he had to do to get himself back home was kill his host, and that wasn’t something he was likely to lose sleep over. Assuming demons actually sleep.
“Okay,” I said, “I get that we have to rendezvous with Dougal. Now tell me whatever it is you think I’m going to get upset about. Other than the fact that you want to have control for the second time in two days, which is going to give me a killer headache.”
To most demons—even royals like William—Dougal, Raphael, and I all look about the same on the Mortal Plain. But Dougal would be able to tell Raphael and me apart. Kind of like how human parents can see the difference between their identical twin children when others can’t.
My heart sank a bit. Letting the bad guys know that Lugh was inside me did not put me in my happy place.
You misunderstand, Lugh said. Raphael has already claimed to be me, in Tommy Brewster’s body. Even if William couldn’t give Dougal a very clear picture of what Tommy looks like, he’d at least know that I was supposed to be in a male body.
“So what?” I asked, though the hairs on the back of my neck were starting to stand up. My subconscious often understands things before my conscious mind does. I guess because denial doesn’t work on my subconscious.
So if I show up with you as my host, Dougal’s going to start wondering who William was really talking to.
I gave a little snort. “He won’t wonder. He’ll know it had to be Raphael.” I frowned. “Or that you’ve switched hosts since then.”
He’ll know it was Raphael. If I switched hosts, my new host would be a man, not a woman. Our natural inclination is to possess hosts of our own gender, and if Dougal thought I picked a female host, he would get very, very curious about why.
“I still don’t get it. He’s going to be suspicious no matter what. He knows we want to kill him. And what does it matter if he thinks it was Raphael who talked to William?”
It matters because it’s better for Dougal not to know that Raphael is working with us.
I frowned. “Newsflash: He already knows that.”
No. He knows Raphael didn’t want to let him kill me. There’s a big difference between interfering with Dougal’s plans to kill me and actually, say, being part of my royal council. And as you may have noticed, Raphael is a great deal more … devious than I am. Dougal thinks that makes me weak. I’d like to keep him thinking I’m weak, so I’d rather he not know I’ve got Raphael advising me.
My subconscious mind bitch-slapped my conscious mind until I let go of my denial. “You want to go to this meeting in Tommy Brewster’s body.” I sat on my bed and lowered my head into my hands. “But to do that, you’d have to get Raphael out. That’s why you want Dominic here. You want him to host Raphael.”
Only temporarily, Lugh hastened to assure me. It would be for a couple of hours, at the maximum. I don’t think they particularly like each other, but they don’t dis like each other, either.
A dull ache started behind my eyes, but I was pretty sure it was all in my mind. Lugh could stop me from having physical ailments—except for the ones that hit me after control changes. As Lugh had obviously known, I really hated the idea of letting Raphael into anyone else’s body. Especially someone as nice as Dominic. But our other human allies were Brian, Barbie, and Andy. I didn’t want to see how Saul would react to the thought of Raphael taking possession of Barbie’s body—and I suspect Lugh didn’t, either. Brian was at work, and I’d already decided he needed to stay there. And it would be cruel and unusual punishment to ask Andy to host Raphael for a third time when he hated Raphael as vehemently as he did.
How difficult do you plan to be about this? Lugh asked, and his mental voice sounded vaguely amused.
“Would being difficult about it change anything?”
No. It would just make things more difficult.
“I’m glad you’re finding this amusing,” I said in my most surly voice. But I knew he was right.
Lugh had to be in the driver’s seat to move from my body to that of another host. He could fight his way into control, given enough time, but that would be spectacularly unpleasant for me. And even if he couldn’t fight his way into control, as soon as Raphael arrived, he’d know what Lugh and I were doing. All he’d have to do would be to knock me out, and all my mental walls would come crumbling down.