Jenna Black - The Devil's Playground

“Why not? My host severed ties with his family even before he became a host.”

Adam had told me about this before. His host had come out of the closet when he’d turned eighteen, and his family had been so appalled that they’d kicked him out. And, as far as I knew, they hadn’t spoken to him since.

“Not everyone’s that much of a homophobe,” I said.

Adam shrugged. “You saw the expression on that harpy’s face. And she’s probably the most accepting of them. After all, she wanted to help out in the restaurant, as long as she could live in the land of denial and pretend Dom and I were ‘just friends.’” He shook his head in disgust. “I simply can’t understand why you humans are so hung up on this sexual orientation thing.”

I remembered the crucifix Dom’s stepmother had fingered. “I’m guessing they’re old-school Catholics. According to Catholicism, homosexuality is a sin. If she thinks he’s going to burn in Hell forever because of his lifestyle, then …”

“Don’t get me started on religion,” he said grimly. “I understand that even less.”

Despite all the contact I had with demons, despite the fact that I should know better by now, I still sometimes found myself thinking about them as if they really were human. They are similar to humans in so many ways that it’s easy to forget that they’re not .

“Demons don’t practice religion?” I asked, curious despite myself.

Adam shook his head. “No. My host has tried to explain it to me, but he was never religious himself, so his understanding isn’t so great.”

I held up my hands. “Don’t look at me for an explanation. I was brought up in a Spirit Society household.” The Spirit Society practically worships demons, but they’ve never gone so far as to declare demons deities. Perhaps it’s a religion in its own right—actually, in my opinion it’s more like a cult—

but since it had failed to indoctrinate me, I can’t say I have that great an understanding of it.

I was in danger of having a nonessential conversation with Adam—something I tried to avoid at all costs—but I was saved by Adam’s sudden change of subject.

“It’s late and I want to get back home. Tell me why Shae came to see you.”

So I told him everything, watching his face carefully for a reaction, but I could read nothing in his expression. Despite his distaste for Shae, Adam was a member of The Seven Deadlies, and I knew he still visited there on occasion to satisfy some of his more dangerous urges with demons who could heal whatever damage he caused. Dom wasn’t exactly happy with the arrangement, but he seemed to have accepted it as necessary, knowing that Adam was not having sex with his playmates at the club.

“Have you noticed an increase in illegal demons at the club?” I asked.

Adam shook his head. “I don’t go there as a cop—unless I’m meeting Shae. I don’t socialize there, either. I try to get in and out as fast as I can. But the next time I’m there, I’ll pay attention. And I’ll do some discreet inquiries at work, see if there’s any rumbling on the street about people ‘disappearing.’”

“What do you think it means, if Shae is right?”

His expression was troubled. “Nothing good.”

“Yeah, that much I figured out on my own.”

“I don’t have enough information to be making guesses, but I’ll make one anyway. Dougal’s got to know that Lugh won’t stay in hiding forever. Even if Dougal’s abandoned his quest to kill Lugh, he can still take advantage of Lugh’s absence.”

I followed Adam’s line of thought easily. “By sending more of his supporters to the Mortal Plain.”

Adam nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. There are a limited number of willing hosts available, so maybe he’s institutionalized a program to funnel demons into un willing hosts.”

“Using people from the fringes of society so no one will kick up a fuss. Or possibly even notice.”

Adam nodded again, and I shivered in a phantom chill. The more I thought about this, the less I liked it.

“And if that’s really what’s going on, what are the chances it’s only happening in Philadelphia?”

Adam didn’t have to answer that, because we both knew the answer was zilch.

“Just how many demons are there who want to come to the Mortal Plain?” I asked.

He met my eyes with a steady stare. “Enough that the waiting list is decades long.”

“That’s a lot,” I muttered, wondering how many of these demons had managed to come to the Mortal Plain in the months that we on Lugh’s council had been growing complacent. Sure, we knew that eventually we were going to have to take some kind of action against Dougal. His original plan had been to use Lugh’s True Name to summon him into a host who would be immediately burned at the stake. Raphael had foiled the plan by summoning Lugh into me , but Lugh could not afford to return to the Demon Realm while Dougal and his followers had his True Name, or the original plan would go into effect again. Since I’m not immortal, Lugh will have to go back to the Demon Realm eventually, and if we haven’t wiped out every trace of the coup by then, his goose is cooked. So to speak.

With Lugh in residence I was likely to live to a ripe old age, so there had been no great urgency to find a solution. But if Dougal really had created some kind of illegal pipeline onto the Mortal Plain—if it wasn’t just some localized anomaly—then we needed to get our act together and soon.

As king of the Demon Realm, Lugh should know the True Name of every demon who had earned one. If theory were reality, we could simply use Dougal’s own strategy against him. However, in a moment of naivete, when Lugh had ascended to the throne, he’d tried to reconcile with his brothers by not forcing them to reveal their True Names. Ah, the famed twenty-twenty hindsight!

“I guess we need to call a council meeting,” I said.

“I’d suggest tomorrow,” Adam responded, clearly feeling the same urgency that I did.

“I’ll call everyone first thing in the morning,” I agreed, suppressing a yawn. Adam gave me a look that said I shouldn’t be yawning at a time like this, but it was after midnight and I couldn’t help it.

“We can meet at noon,” I said when I finished yawning. “That ought to give me enough time to catch everyone. Now go home to Dom and let me get some sleep.”

“I should go to The Seven Deadlies,” he responded, looking less than thrilled with the prospect.

“Maybe I can spot one of these illegals Shae was talking about, and we can have a little chat.”

“You can go tomorrow night. Dom needs you tonight.”

Adam’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Lugh’s needs come before Dom’s. Or mine.”

Tell him to go home , Lugh said. If he’s going to go to The Seven Deadlies, he should wait until after the council has had a chance to discuss it .

I relayed the message to Adam, who accepted it without question. Once upon a time, he would have questioned whether the message really came from Lugh, but he knew from experience that I was a shitty liar, so these days he usually took what I said at face value. Someday I’d have to learn to take advantage of that.

I wasn’t surprised that Lugh didn’t let me sleep peacefully until morning. Unlike me, he was a big fan of the therapeutic conversation—though his therapy methods were highly irregular.

I “woke up” in Lugh’s living room, though in reality, my body was still sound asleep and the room was a figment of my imagination. An imagination over which Lugh had total control, I might add. I saw what he wanted me to see, and usually the setting gave me some hint about what kind of conversation we were about to have.