Jenna Black: The Devil's Due

“Yes, I’m allied with him,” Adam interrupted. “But believe it or not, he’s allied with Lugh. It seems his allegiance with Dougal was another one of his lies.”

Raphael laughed. “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose you’re right.” Saul didn’t look any happier. “But come now!” Raphael said with patently false cheer. “Why don’t you tell everyone why you hold me in such high regard? Tell them who I am to you that I know your True Name.”

A premonition tingled at the edges of my mind. I’d never gotten around to asking Lugh why Saul had a True Name. He’d told me once that True Names were granted to the extraordinary. And one definition of “extraordinary” was apparently “royal.”

Saul’s lips twisted into a teeth-baring snarl. “You are no one to me!”

Raphael put on a look of mock hurt, but I was pretty sure he was using it to camouflage a very real pain. “This would have worked so much better if I’d named you Luke,” he said, then cleared his throat noisily and continued in a truly terrible Darth Vader impression. “Saul, I am your father.”

Sometimes I really hate it when I’m right. “Wait a minute,” I said, realizing that, despite my premonition, this revelation made no sense. I pointed what probably looked like an accusing finger at Saul.

“I exorcized you. Everyone keeps telling me I’m not powerful enough to exorcize a royal.”

Saul started to answer, but Raphael cut him off. “Don’t get him started talking about my shortcomings as a father,” he said. “He’ll go on about it all day, and it can get rather tiresome.”

Saul’s mother was not a royal, Lugh told me. Raphael could have contributed some of his own power at Saul’s conception, but he chose not to. Even so, I doubt you could have managed the exorcism if Saul had fought you. And I doubt another exorcist could have done it at all.

It sounded like I needed to get Lugh to give me a course on Demon Reproduction 101. But now was not the time. Saul had taken a couple of steps closer to Raphael, and I didn’t think it was to give him a filial hug.

“Let me get this straight,” I said before things could erupt into violence. I pointed at Saul. “You hate Raphael because he’s a lousy father. I hate Raphael because. . well, just because he’s Raphael. Brian and I are pissed off at the lot of you for letting a simpleminded innocent be possessed. Adam is pissed at me for any number of things, and the feeling is mutual. Andy is a charter member of the ‘We Hate Raphael’ club, and he’s mad at me either for letting Raphael get to him the second time or for sacrificing Tommy Brewster to save him, or maybe both.

“And we’re supposed to put all those differences aside and work together as a team to put Lugh back on the throne?” I felt one of those annoying bouts of hysterical laughter coming on, but I managed to squelch it. I shook my head. “We’ll be lucky to get out of this basement without bloodshed.”

The fate of the entire human race rests on the ability of this council of angry, antagonistic misfits to work together, to be honest with one another, and to watch each other’s backs. I have two words for you.

We’re doomed.