Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

“Who died and made you king?” I asked, then grimaced at my choice of clichés.

“You’re probably right, and Der Jäger probably hasn’t gotten to him yet. But ‘probably’ isn’t ‘absolutely.’ You know we have to make sure.”

The problem was, I did know. And it didn’t make a damn bit of difference whether I liked it or not.

I was unhappy with this plan on so many levels I couldn’t even count them all. But I went along with it anyway.

As Andy and I waited for Brian to arrive, I pulled a single chair away from the dining room table, positioning it in the biggest open space I could find. I had to shove the coffee table and love seat to the side to make room. Then I dug into my supply of vanilla-scented candles, arranging them in a circle around the chair. When the security desk downstairs called, I told them to send Brian up, and I started lighting the candles, trying to pretend my hands weren’t shaking as I did so. I moved one candle out of alignment to give Brian room to enter the circle. Then, I waited.

Andy, his strength slowly beginning to return, propped himself against the dining room wall, giving himself a clear shot at the doorway. The Taser was armed and ready to go, and Andy’s face showed nothing but grim determination. I hoped he didn’t have an itchy trigger finger, but it was too late to reverse our roles now.

The ding of the elevator gave me advance warning of Brian’s arrival. I gave up trying to sort out the clamor of emotions that warred within me, steadying my nerves as best I could. I still had no idea what I was going to tell him.

I opened the door before he had a chance to knock, and the sight of him stole my breath.

In the looks department, Brian can’t compete with the perfection of Lugh or Adam, but he’s still damn good-looking, in a sort of all-American-boy way that seemed so wrong for someone like me. My heart fluttered in my chest at the sight of him, even though he wasn’t giving me the fabulous, warm smile that had melted away my cares so often.

He opened his mouth to say something, then caught sight of Andrew and the Taser. His whisky-brown eyes widened with shock and he gaped at me. Guilt gnawed at my guts, but I forced myself to meet his eyes.

“Step inside, please,” I said, moving back a bit and holding the door open for him.

He just stood there, staring at me. “What’s this all about?”

“Come in, and I’ll explain. I’m really sorry about this. Andy and I are just being paranoid.” When he still didn’t move, I gave him my most beseeching look. I was pretty sure that if he didn’t come in of his own free will, Andy was going to zap him, but if I could possibly avoid threatening him, I would.

Finally, Brian’s shoulders slumped. “This ought to be an interesting explanation,” he muttered.

Even though I didn’t really believe Der Jäger had gotten to him yet, I kept my distance from him as he crossed the threshold and I closed the door behind him. It was then that he saw the chair and the circle of candles.

“You think I’m possessed?” he cried, giving me a look that said I was out of my mind.

I shook my head. “No. But I’d hate to be wrong. Please just take a seat. I’ll take a quick look at your aura, and then we can talk.”

He scowled at me. Before my bad influence had rubbed off on him, he’d been one of the most even-tempered individuals I’d ever met. I hated the thought that being with me had changed that.

“I should have known when you called me that it would be something like this.” His face slightly flushed with his anger, he stomped over to the chair and plopped down on it, refusing to meet my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, but he didn’t look at me or acknowledge the apology.

Trying not to be hurt, because, after all, I’d be acting the same way in his shoes, I closed the circle. It wasn’t really necessary for the candles to be arranged in a circle, and often I dispensed with the formality, but I was so miserable that I fell back on the more traditional ritual.

I sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the man I loved while my brother held him at Taser-point. Letting myself drift into the trance state might turn out to be something of an issue when I was such an emotional wreck.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, drawing the calming scent of vanilla into my lungs. It was a scent my body and mind associated with the peaceful, dreamy sensation of the trance state, and some of my tension fled with that first deep breath. I could do this. And when I’d explained, Brian would understand.

Even as I thought that to myself, I remembered Lugh’s parting shot—No, I would not expect you, of all people, to take anything on faith. The memory almost dispelled the calm that had begun to settle, but after a quick spike of adrenaline, another breath of vanilla took me farther away from the physical world.

The trance descended on me like an altered state of consciousness. The real world fell away, and my mind opened to my otherworldly vision, the kind that did not rely on my eyes.

In the trance state, I can see nothing but living beings, the physical world around them nothing but a black, empty void. People show up as vaguely human-shaped patches of primary blue, their hue shaded by their emotions. Fear tends to tinge their auras with yellow, and though my focus was on Brian, I could see that Andy’s aura was almost green. I wondered if he was afraid because he thought Brian might be hosting Der Jäger, or if he was just in a perpetual state of fear after what Raphael had done to him.

I forced my attention away from my brother and examined Brian’s aura. There was no hint of demon-red in it, but it roiled with every shade of blue imaginable, his emotions raw and wild. I had a voyeur’s temptation to linger in the trance, staring at his aura and picking out the emotions, finding out exactly what he felt about me at this moment. But then, did I really want to know?

I opened my eyes, and the real world reappeared. “You can relax,” I told Andy. “His aura’s clean.”

Andy lowered the Taser, but I wouldn’t exactly say he relaxed. I started blowing out candles, and the acrid smell of smoke blended with the vanilla.

“May I get up?” Brian asked acidly, “or are you planning to handcuff me to the chair for interrogation now?”

Guilt stabbed through me for a moment, but I fought against it. I hadn’t done anything wrong. There would have been no other way to confirm that Der Jäger hadn’t possessed him.

I blew out the last candle and spoke without looking at him. “I’m not going to apologize again. I’ve got a rogue demon after me, and I’ve got reason to believe he might try to get to me through people I care about. I had to make sure he hadn’t gotten to you yet.”

I was on my knees, gathering up the candles. I heard Brian stand up. I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked up at him, the still-warm candles clutched to my chest. The steely look in his eyes told me he hadn’t forgiven me. I struggled to my feet.

“Please sit down,” I said. “We really do need to talk.”

His face closed and shuttered, he pulled the coffee table away from the couch so there was room for him to sit. It wasn’t hard to read from his body language that he didn’t want to hear what I had to say.

“I’ll take those,” Andy said, and I jumped a bit, not having noticed him approach. He reached for the candles, and I gratefully allowed him to take them from me. Then he mouthed “good luck” at me before he tactfully disappeared into the guest bedroom and closed the door.

I had a brief moment of worry, until I saw he’d left the Taser on the coffee table. Brian saw me looking at it, and before I could say anything, he grabbed it. At least he didn’t point it at me.