Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

The hysterical laughter wanted to come back, but I swallowed it. “I don’t have to know anything. You can know everything I’m thinking, everything I’m feeling, everything that lies hidden under my surface. And I can know what you tell me. That’s it! Am I just supposed to take it on faith that this isn’t all some kind of game?”

He smiled ruefully, but if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn there was a hint of hurt in his eyes. “I understand your point. And no, I would not expect you, of all people, to take anything on faith.”

And with that, I jolted awake.

I lay in my bed a good fifteen minutes after I woke up. My finger was back to normal, and though I still sported the bruise my father had given me, the bumps and bruises I’d gotten this afternoon had vanished.

Lugh’s words seemed to echo in my brain, as did the hurt look in his eyes. It made me feel like a cold-hearted bitch, and for a little while, I wallowed in my own inadequacies. Then I mentally slapped myself upside the head and sat up.

Lugh could lay all the guilt trip he wanted on me. The fact remained that he had seduced me under false pretenses. A familiar glow of indignation warmed my belly. I had every right to be upset with him!

Being possessed was such a pain in the ass.

I rubbed the remains of sleep out of my eyes, then taped my pinkie and ring fingers together. Probably more loosely than I would have if the finger had still been broken, but I hoped to leave myself at least a little mobility. Afterward, I wandered out into the living room just as my phone started ringing. Andy was still sitting exactly where I’d left him, CNN babbling unheeded on the TV. His eyes were on the screen, but there was a vacant expression in them that suggested he didn’t see a thing. My heart contracted in my chest. Had he slipped back into catatonia? He didn’t seem to be reacting to the ringing phone, even though it was about two feet from where he was sitting.

“Andy?” I asked, and I didn’t realize how rigid every muscle in my body had gone until he blinked, and the tension seeped out of me.

Without a word to me, he turned to the phone and picked it up. He exchanged about four or five words with the caller, then hung up.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Adam. The police found a catatonic man near the scene of the attack at Mom and Dad’s house.”

My knees felt a little wobbly, so I hurried over to the sofa and sat down. “Let me guess,” I said, my voice raspy. “Young punk, ratty clothes, lots of tattoos on his arms?”

Andy nodded.

“Well, shit,” I said, and that about summed it up. Der Jäger had now hijacked a new host. Which meant he could walk right up to me in an unfamiliar body, and I’d never know it was him.

A bolt of pure terror shot through me at the same moment pain stabbed through my head. The pain let up immediately—Lugh knew I’d come to the same alarming conclusion he had. Sweat suddenly trickled down the small of my back as I looked at Andy in horror.

“If you were Der Jäger, and you wanted to get to me, what would you do?”

I could tell from the pallor of his face the moment Andy figured out what I was thinking. “Since he doesn’t seem to care how many hosts he goes through, he’d want to take over someone who was already close to you.”

I was diving for the phone before the sentence was even out of his mouth.

I called Adam back first, fearing Der Jäger might go after Dominic. Then I retreated to my bedroom, the phone clutched in my hand, my heart hammering.

Maybe Brian was in no danger whatsoever. After all, I hadn’t seen or talked to him since Der Jäger had entered the Mortal Plain. But I didn’t dare take any chances. Mouth dry, palms sweaty, I dialed his number. I had to remind myself to breathe as the phone rang.

There was no answer. Brian often worked tons of overtime, so I tried his office number. No luck.

Finally, I resorted to dialing his cell phone. I hoped like hell I wasn’t interrupting a date. Of course, since I’d cut him loose, I should theoretically be happy if he’d moved on with his life and found a new woman. Theoretically being the key word.

The phone rang three times, and I was afraid I was about to be dumped into voice mail. Then the voice I’d missed more than I could express said, “Hello, Morgan.”

My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t even answer him at first. I tried to interpret the tone of his voice. Was he furious with me? In dire pain? Or had he found a measure of acceptance? I couldn’t figure it out from two words.

“Morgan? Are you all right?”

Five more words, and I still couldn’t figure it out. But I found a scrap of my voice. “Yeah.” I realized with a jolt of alarm that I had no idea what to say to him. Though he had suffered dreadfully on my account, he had no idea why. He knew only the police interpretation.

“Are you going to speak to me, or are you expecting a monologue?”

I cleared my throat, my mind still frantically searching for what to say. “Sorry,” I said. My voice sounded crackly, and I cleared my throat again. When in doubt, stall. “Look, something’s come up and I need to talk to you. Can you come over?”

There was a moment of silence as he processed that. “What kind of ‘something’?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.” I wondered if my nose was growing longer.

He chuckled. “You never tell me ‘all about’ anything. And I’m kinda busy right now.”

I hated the way my stomach clenched as I imagined just what “busy” might mean. Please, God, don’t let him be on a date, I thought, then hated myself for it.

“It’s important.”

He sighed dramatically. “You do love keeping your cards close to the vest. I still love you, but if you expect me to drop everything and come running without anything more to go on, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.”

I couldn’t tell if hearing that he still loved me made me feel better, or worse. “It’s too much to explain over the phone.” Especially when I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was going to say. “But I think you may be in danger. I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt because of me again.”

He was silent for a long moment, and I held my breath. Then he sighed again and said, “I’ll be there in about a half hour.”

There was nothing more to say after that, so we hung up. When I wandered back into the living room, the TV was finally off. Andy watched me as I plopped down on the love seat and curled my feet up under me.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

His lips twitched in a hint of a smile, quickly banished. “What are you going to tell him?”

I hunkered down lower in the love seat. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“And your plan to keep him safe from Der Jäger is…?”

“See previous answer.” I closed my eyes, laying the back of my head against the back of the love seat. Why did everything always have to be so fucking complicated?

“You might want to work something out before he gets here.”

I opened my eyes and glared at him. “Thanks for the tip, Einstein.”

My snarkiness didn’t seem to bother him, which wasn’t much of a surprise. After all, I’d probably been snarky in the womb, and he’d known me all my life. He met my glare with a neutral expression.

“And have you considered the possibility that Der Jäger might have gotten to him already?”

“No!” I shouted, though the very vehemence of my denial proved what a liar I was. “I refuse to consider it.”

Apparently, Andy had some wax buildup in his ears, since he went right on talking.

“When he comes in, I’ll keep him contained,” he said, patting the Taser that lay beside him on the couch. “Then you check out his aura, make sure he doesn’t have company.”