Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

He didn’t say “unlike you,” but we both knew that’s what he was thinking. Admittedly, I had called the police on him and accused him of murder. But then again, he had actually murdered someone—my former best friend, Val, who’d turned out to be part of the conspiracy to kill me. With a little time and emotional distance, I had to admit to myself that he hadn’t had much choice at the time. But I would never admit that to him.

I once again annoyed the harried pedestrians by bringing us both to a stop. I looked up into Adam’s eyes and tried to decide whether I was up to dealing with him and Dom tonight.

“If I say no, will you actually let me go, or am I going to find myself in handcuffs?” I finally asked.

He didn’t give me the evil grin I was expecting. “You’ll have to talk to us eventually,” he said. “You know that as well as I. But no, I won’t drag you along by force. Not tonight, anyway.”

Maybe I was being a pushover, but I believed him. And because I believed I had free will, I found myself able to agree.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll come with you on one condition.” He raised an eyebrow and waited. “Let me enjoy Dom’s cooking in peace. We can talk business after dinner. Deal?”

He smiled. “Deal.”

Adam has more money than I can explain for a government employee. His house is huge, by Center City standards, and doesn’t share walls with the houses around it. Which is a good thing, considering just what his neighbors might hear if they were too close.

The scent of garlic and peppers and Italian spices hit me as soon as I stepped through the doorway, and I took a deep, appreciative breath. My mouth started watering immediately, and I almost forgot the distasteful price of admittance.

Dominic was in the kitchen, naturally. I saw the kitchen table was set for three, and I gave Adam a dirty look.

“You were that sure I’d come, huh?”

He grinned. “Only an idiot would pass up the chance to eat Dom’s chicken cacciatore.”

At the stove, Dominic chuckled. He was modest by nature, but I knew how much he appreciated the praise.

“It’s almost ready,” Dominic said over his shoulder. “Want to pour the wine, Adam?”

“None for me, thanks,” I said, holding up my hands. I’ve never been able to figure out the appeal of fermented grapes.

Adam poured for himself and Dom, then pulled out a chair for me. I gave him another dirty look—I was good at those. He shrugged and took his own seat. When Dom brought the food to the table, I followed like a dog desperate for table scraps.

I should have known Adam wouldn’t honor our agreement to wait until after dinner to talk shop. Unpleasant conversations never seemed to sully his appetite, unlike mine.

“I presume Andrew isn’t contradicting our story, or you would be in a more agitated frame of mind,” he said.

I stuffed my mouth with chicken so I didn’t have to answer right away. And I took my time chewing, too. I probably should have kept right on eating. He couldn’t force me to talk when I wasn’t ready. But then, maybe I’d find talking to him easier with Dominic’s cacciatore to help it go down.

“He knows how important it is to keep the truth to himself,” I said when I finally swallowed.

“Good.” Adam shared a look with Dominic. One of those looks that suggested they knew something I didn’t.

“How much did you get to talk to him?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why don’t you come right out and ask me what you want to know instead of beating around the bush?”

He shrugged. “Okay. I was wondering how much he knows about what Raphael learned during their years together.”

That thought didn’t exactly bring a smile to my face. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask, but of course there were many questions we had for Raphael—questions he hadn’t been willing to answer. Odds were, he’d kept Andy from learning anything he didn’t want him to know—a demon could prevent its host from seeing or hearing when it wanted to. But then Raphael had expected to be in Andy until Andy died, so perhaps he’d been careless. Of course, Andy hadn’t volunteered any information.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Things were kind of awkward and emotional.” Especially once my parents made their appearance. “We didn’t really talk much about what happened.”

Adam and Dom shared another one of those looks, and I had to grit my teeth to resist the smart-ass comment I wanted to make. It was never a good idea to let Adam know when he was getting to me.

“It’s occurred to me that we aren’t the only ones who might suspect Andrew knows more than he should,” Adam said.

The delicious chicken turned into a lump of lead in my stomach. “You think he’s in danger?”

Adam shrugged. “Maybe. It’s hard to know. We have every reason to believe that we’ve wiped out the cell that Raphael had infiltrated. If that’s the case, then there’s no one who knows just what a VIP Andrew was hosting. And what that VIP might have wanted to keep secret.”

My stomach cramped again. “Except Raphael.”

Raphael had returned to the Demon Realm when he’d fled my brother’s body, but he’d intended to find another host and return to infiltrate another cell of Dougal’s revolutionary army. While Raphael was on Lugh’s side, and therefore technically one of the good guys, I didn’t exactly trust him. He wasn’t what you’d call a nice guy, and I somehow doubted he and I shared the same moral code. He’d also made it clear that he knew more than he’d been willing to have me hear, and when Lugh refused to block me out, Raphael had clammed up.

Adam nodded. “Exactly. You might want to ask Lugh tonight what he thinks the chances are that Raphael will come after Andrew.”

I didn’t need to wait until night, because at that moment pain stabbed through my head, a nasty ice-pick-in-the-eye sensation that—so far—was the only way Lugh could communicate with me while I was conscious. Before I even had a chance to wince, the pain was gone.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I mumbled, and Adam gave me an inquiring look. “Lugh can give me a headache when I’m awake,” I explained. “He just did it, so I’m guessing that means he thinks Andy could be in danger.” I frowned, realizing once again how little I, as a supposed demon expert, really knew about demons. They were incredibly secretive by nature, which is one of the reasons I’ve always distrusted them.

I knew demons were summoned to the Mortal Plain via a ceremony where the potential host spoke a kind of incantation. I also knew that if you learned a demon’s True Name, you could summon it specifically. But I had no idea how the demons determined who would answer a generic summons, assuming it was more than just random luck of the draw.

“How would Raphael go about finding a new host?” I asked, and as I did, I also realized how thoroughly I’d tried to shut out the realities of my new life in the last several weeks. There were so many questions I should have asked before now, but in my desperate quest for denial, I’d suppressed them all. “And do you think he’s already back in the Mortal Plain?”

Adam shifted uncomfortably and stared at the tabletop. “I can’t answer that,” he said. “Not without Lugh’s permission.”

I grunted in frustration. “If you want me to cooperate with you, you’re going to have to give up some of your precious secrets.”

He met my eyes. “I can’t. Not without Lugh’s permission. He’s my king.”

Lugh wasn’t giving me any headaches at the moment, but I decided that was because he knew Adam wouldn’t believe me if I said he was. But you can bet your ass I’d have a bunch of questions to ask him tonight—assuming I ever managed to fall asleep.