Jenna Black - The Devil Inside

“Why don’t you give her a call,” Adam suggested. “Ask her to meet you here.”

I widened my eyes at him. “And just how would I explain that I was asking her to meet me at the home of the Director of Special Forces?”

“I’m sure you can come up with something.” He leaned forward, putting an elbow on the table and propping his chin on his fist. “You could tell her you’ve decided to throw your boyfriend over for me.”

Dominic laughed and shook his head. I resisted the urge to kick Adam under the table.

“Ha-ha, very funny. But all jokes aside, I think I’d rather meet Val in a public place.” It occurred to me to wonder why Adam wanted her to come to his house. I didn’t like any of the answers I came up with.

He sat up straight, his face gone neutral. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We need to control the meeting place, make sure she doesn’t have backup.”

“She’s not going to burn me to death in the middle of a public place, no matter how much backup she has with her. Besides, she might have nothing to do with any of this. She might have been telling me the truth.” I didn’t really believe that, but I tried to allow myself to hope.

Adam didn’t challenge my delusion, though the look he gave me told me exactly what he thought about it. “If it’s just you and her meeting in a public place, why would you think she’d tell you anything? She’ll just claim innocence, and you might want to believe it enough to be convinced.”

My temper tried to make an appearance, but I tamped it down. He was right, but I still didn’t want to bring Val to Adam’s house. I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t like his interrogation techniques.

“I’ll ask her to meet me for lunch at Reading Terminal,” I said. “If I can’t get her to tell me anything, then we’ll switch to Plan B.”

Adam looked exasperated. “And after you’ve had your cozy little lunch and she knows you’re on to her, what do you think the chances are that she’ll come meet you here for further questioning?”

I figured it was time to be blunt. “I’m not bringing her here so you can torture information out of her, and don’t tell me that’s not what you have in mind. I’ll either meet her for lunch, or we figure out another plan.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Well, you’re a — ”

“Morgan,” Dominic interrupted, reaching across the table and laying a hand on my arm.

I ground my teeth and glared at his hand until he moved it away. But he’d gotten his message across. I swallowed my opinion of Adam and crossed my hands over my chest in a classic I’m-not-open-to-your-suggestions pose.

Adam pushed away from the table with enough force to rattle the dishes.

“Fine! Do it your way. But when they catch you and burn you at the stake, don’t blame me.”

He stomped out of the room like a kid having a temper tantrum. I really wondered what Dominic saw in him. It seemed to take about five minutes of conversation for me to want to put a bullet through his hard-as-rock head.

“Well,” Dominic said with a little grin, “I’m glad to see you and Adam have patched things up.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah. We’re best friends now.”

“Do you want me to come with you when you go meet Valerie? If she might have backup with her, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to have it, too.”

His offer touched me, especially considering what I’d done to him. “That’s very nice of you, Dominic, but I think this is something I have to do on my own.” My throat tightened. “She’s been my best friend since high school. I need to find a way to deal with what she’s done, you know?”

He nodded. “Let me at least give you a Taser, just in case.”

That made me raise an eyebrow. “Why do you have a Taser?”

He laughed. “I don’t, but Adam does. I’m sure he won’t mind you borrowing it, as long as he doesn’t know.”

I was really starting to like Dominic. If I could just forget that he had some pretty sickening tastes, I might even say we could be friends.

“Thanks, Dominic. You’re definitely one of the good guys of this world.”

That seemed to both please and embarrass him. He muttered some self-deprecating remark that I didn’t quite catch, then slipped out of the kitchen to go steal a Taser.

Val was only too happy to meet me for lunch. When I called her, she practically tripped over her own tongue with all her copious apologies and pleas for forgiveness. I tried to seem open to it, because if I didn’t, she might decide not to come.

Reading Terminal used to be a train station, until they converted it into an indoor version of a big open-air market. You can buy just about anything there. Cheesesteaks. Fresh flowers. Exotic spices. Produce. Baked goods. Meat, fresh from the flank of a living cow…Okay, just kidding on that one. The place is a total madhouse at lunchtime. The convention center is right next door, so the market fills with tourists as well as native Philadelphians.

I met Val at one of the Mennonite lunch counters, fighting my way through the throng to get there. Val was there before me, and had somehow managed to save me a seat at the counter despite the press of people. We greeted each other cautiously as I boosted myself up onto the stool. I ordered a turkey sandwich and coffee, having to shout to be heard over the echoing roar in the building. Then I turned my stool and faced Val.

She’d gone with her off-duty look today, her hair loose around her shoulders, contacts instead of glasses. A crisply ironed blue Oxford shirt tucked into a pair of tailored chinos. Her sneakers were sparkling white, fresh out of the box.

“I’ll buy your lunch,” she said to me, leaning forward so she didn’t have to shout. “It’s the least I can do.”

My best friend tries to Taser me, and she thinks buying me lunch is going to make up for it?

I let that thought show on my face, and she had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I’m really sorry, Morgan.” She looked down at her manicured hands, twisting her fingers around each other. “It was an unbelievably stupid thing to do, and I — ”

“Let’s just cut the crap, okay?” Her head jerked upward and she gave me those wide, innocent eyes. Maybe if all this other shit hadn’t happened after she’d attacked me, I’d have fallen for it. But the shit had happened, and I wasn’t buying what she was selling.

“You tried to Taser me because you recognized the name of the demon who’d possessed me.”

Her eyes widened even more. “You mean you really are possessed?”

I was glad the market was so damn noisy. I’d have hated to have this conversation in a quiet little café. No one even looked our way, though Val had practically shouted that.

I leaned into her personal space, my hands clenched into fists to help me resist the urge to wrap them around her neck and squeeze. “And after you Tasered me, you were going to take me to your friends — whoever the hell they are — so they could burn me to death.”

The color leeched from her face, and she couldn’t meet my eyes anymore. “Morgan,” she said, her voice hoarse and whispery, “how could you possibly believe something like that?”

She sounded convincingly hurt, but her facial expression was all wrong for it.

“If I’m being so unreasonable, then why do you look so guilty?” She didn’t seem to have an answer for that. My food arrived, but I wasn’t feeling in the least bit hungry. I’d told myself that I’d already abandoned the last vestige of hope that Val was still my friend, but the hurt that crushed my chest now told me I hadn’t.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Val, how could you?”