The Devil's Playground

nine

BARBIE IS ABOUT AS HARMLESS-LOOKING A PERSON AS I can imagine, which made her the perfect candidate to charm Cooper into opening his door when he shouldn’t. We kept our raiding party small—just me, Adam, and Barbie—for the sake of simplicity.

Cooper was divorced and lived in the suburbs in a house that was meant to hold a family, not a single man. A rich family. Possibly with live-in help.

The lights were on inside when we drove up, and there were no other cars in the driveway. It looked like we would have Cooper all to ourselves, which was just the way we wanted it.

We parked by the curb across the street, not wanting to attract Cooper’s attention by pulling into his driveway. If he caught a glimpse of me or of Adam, there was no way in hell he’d open the door without a scene, so we were going for maximum stealth. Instead of walking up the well-lit path to his door, we picked our way across the lawn in the shadow of the decorative privacy hedge that blocked the view from the neighbor’s house. Then we ducked down under the window and crept up to the front porch.

Adam and I plastered ourselves against the wall beside the door. Cooper wouldn’t be able to see us without sticking his head outside, and if he did that, we’d be inside before he knew it. Barbie raised an eyebrow at us, and we both nodded to indicate we were ready. Then she rang the bell.

Footsteps echoed in the foyer. Barbie stood up a little straighter and licked her lips, adding a faint wet sheen.

The footsteps stopped by the door. Cooper was probably checking out the view from the peephole. Like I said, it was hard to imagine anyone more harmless-looking than Barbie—though, of course, she wasn’t as harmless as she looked. I expected Cooper to open the door right away. What middle-aged, heterosexual male wouldn’t open the door when a twenty-something blond bombshell was standing there?

Apparently, Bradley Cooper.

“Who is it?” he asked through the closed door.

Barbie batted her eyelashes. It probably looked pretty sexy, but I knew it was a sign of surprise rather than a come-on. “My name is Barbara Paget,” she said. There was no point in using an alias, since Cooper would recognize Adam and me anyway. “My car broke down, and I was wondering if I could use your phone. I’ll only be a minute.” She smiled up at the peephole hopefully.

Cooper hesitated a moment longer, but apparently even he wasn’t immune to Barbie’s charms. I heard his faint sigh, then the rattle of chains and locks being undone. Barbie stepped back a bit, and the moment the door started to open, Adam jumped in front of her and gave the door a hard shove.

Cooper, having been knocked back on his ass by Adam’s shove, cried out in surprise as Barbie and I slipped in through the door that Adam held open.

“Get out of here!” Cooper commanded, but it was hard to sound too commanding when you were sprawled on the floor. Especially when your looks were a perfect match to your weaselly personality, complete with the buckteeth and beady eyes.

Cooper scrambled to his feet, glaring at the three of us. “Get out or I’ll call the police!”

Adam laughed. “Are you forgetting that I am the police?”

Cooper sneered at him. “It doesn’t mean you’re above the law. Or do you have a warrant you’d like to show me?”

Adam took a step closer, smiling. It wasn’t a nice smile, and a sheen of sweat broke out on Cooper’s forehead. He took a corresponding step backward and held out his hands.

“Stay away from me!” Cooper shrieked.

Adam stopped his advance. “No need to get your panties in a twist,” he said, still smiling. “We just want to have a little chat with you is all.”

“I remember our last ‘little chat,’” Cooper said, taking another step backward. “I think I’ll pass.”

I frowned. Cooper’s eyes were darting about nervously, and he was backing away from Adam like he was a dangerous predator, but his words didn’t match his actions. Ordinarily, Cooper wouldn’t know dry sarcasm if it bit him in the ass.

“Don’t take another step, Brad,” I warned, wondering if he was trying to get within reach of a weapon. Maybe our last visit had made him a little more cautious. “And keep your hands where we can see them.”

Cooper stopped retreating and put his hands out to his sides, fingers splayed. It was just what I’d expect Cooper to do, but something about him was … bothering me. Still keeping my eye on Cooper, I opened my purse and started rummaging for my Taser. I pretty much never went anywhere without my Taser anymore, but since I hadn’t expected to use it tonight, it was buried somewhere in the depths of the black hole.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about the Spirit Society’s new recruitment campaign,” Adam said.

Cooper blinked like he was surprised. “What kind of questions? There’s nothing terribly mysterious about it. You can go to our website for the details.”

“Not that recruitment campaign,” Adam said. “The other one.”

Cooper shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s only one campaign, and the information is all very public. I think you should leave now.”

Adam clucked his tongue. “Are we really going to have to have a repeat performance of my last visit? I was pretty gentle with you last time because I knew you had every reason to be afraid of Raphael, but I’m not feeling as charitable tonight.”

Cooper blanched and swallowed hard. “I can’t stop you from having a ‘repeat performance,’ as you call it, but it won’t get you anywhere.”

My questing fingers finally found my Taser as my paranoia spiked again. Cooper looked appropriately terrified, but his words … They were too calm, too measured. Something was wrong, I felt sure of it. Maybe Cooper wasn’t alone in the house after all. Threatening him or illegally possessing him in front of witnesses would be really bad.

Adam didn’t seem to feel the same qualms. He surged forward, slamming into Cooper and tackling him to the floor. I armed the Taser by feel as Adam grabbed both of Cooper’s wrists and pinned them above his head.

That should have been all it took for Adam to slip out of his host’s body and into Cooper’s. The transfer via skin-to-skin contact takes about a millisecond to complete.

Adam’s eyes widened at the same time I realized Cooper might be alone in his house, but not in his body.

“Shit!” Adam said.

Cooper smiled and drew his legs up, sharply, catching Adam in the gut with both knees. Adam grunted in pain and lost his grip on Cooper’s wrists. Cooper then tossed him halfway across the room as if he weighed no more than a child.

I tried to fire my Taser, but nothing happened. Damn it! I’d let the charge run down. Cooper grinned at me, then advanced on Adam, who was still looking woozy.

Barbie leapt between Cooper and Adam. I hadn’t known until this moment that she was carrying a gun. Unfortunately, guns aren’t the best weapons to use against demons. If your first shot isn’t lethal, you might not get in a second.

Barbie didn’t even manage to get in that first shot. Cooper’s demon-enhanced reflexes allowed him to knock the gun out of her hand before she squeezed the trigger. She yelped and collapsed to the floor, clutching the hand that had been holding the gun. When demons hit, they tend to break things.

“Get out of the way!” I screamed at Barbie. There was nothing she could do to help Adam—all she’d do was get herself killed. Not being the airhead some people assumed she was because of her looks, she scrambled out from between the two demons. At least she’d distracted Cooper enough to give Adam a little recovery time.

“Surprise,” Cooper gloated as he grinned at Adam.

In retrospect, it should have occurred to us that if the Spirit Society was recruiting as heavily as it seemed they were, Cooper would finally get his wish and become a host himself.

“Geez, you must have been really desperate to come to the Mortal Plain if you were willing to take a host who looks like that,” I said with an exaggerated curl of my lip. It was true, though, that Cooper was about as unattractive a specimen of manhood as existed.

The demon snarled at me. Somehow, he managed to make that rodentlike face look threatening.

“You two get out of here,” Adam said to me and Barbie as he advanced on Cooper.

Adam should have had an advantage on Cooper, since his host outweighed Cooper by maybe seventy pounds. And though I didn’t like the idea of leaving him to fight Cooper on his own, with my Taser not working, I wasn’t much more use than Barbie.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Cooper said, and instead of engaging with Adam, he launched himself at Barbie and me.

Lugh surfaced without warning or conscious thought on my part. One moment, I was just a puny human trying to brace against an attack that would probably break me in half; the next, my body was no longer my own.

Despite the imminent danger, I couldn’t help one exasperated burst of thought: Where have you been?

Later, was his only answer. He pivoted to avoid Cooper’s charge, moving just barely slow enough to be within the realm of human possibility. He then “accidentally” lost his footing and plowed into Barbie. She screamed in pain when her wounded hand hit the floor, but at least Lugh was now between her and Cooper.

Cooper skidded to a stop, and I was reminded of a bull circling round for another try after charging the matador’s cape. Barbie, whimpering in pain, was trying to wriggle out from under us, but Lugh kept her firmly pinned. If Cooper came for us again, Lugh was going to have to use his supernatural strength and quickness to protect us, and that would make this whole encounter a hell of a lot more complicated.

But Adam hadn’t just been standing there twiddling his thumbs while Cooper attacked. He was required to carry his sidearm at all times, and now that he and Cooper weren’t grappling, he’d had a chance to draw his gun.

“Don’t even think about it!” he shouted at Cooper, drawing his attention.

Guns might not be the weapons of choice against demons, but Adam had the reflexes to get a shot off in time, unlike Barbie. And he was close enough that he could make that one shot count.

Cooper froze, staring at the gun that pointed unwaveringly at his head.

Lugh decided his services were no longer needed and receded into the background. Predictably, the change of control made my stomach lurch and made my head ache like a son of a bitch. I rolled off Barbie, then regretted the motion as my stomach protested. I swallowed hard and managed not to puke. Score one for me!

Cooper stood with his hands open at his sides, looking awfully relaxed for a man who had a gun pointed at his head. Of course, the gun could only kill Bradley Cooper, not the demon, so I supposed the demon had no reason to sweat. Then he smiled, and a shiver trailed down my spine.

“I do wonder what you plan to do now, Director White,” the demon said to Adam. “You’ve forced your way into my house without a warrant, and now you’re threatening me at gunpoint. I’ll have you know Mr. Cooper is a legal, registered host, and your attack is completely unprovoked.”

Adam grunted a laugh. “Tell that to Barbara,” he said, indicating Barbie with a point of his chin. She was sitting with her back against the wall, clutching her wounded arm to her body, her face white with pain.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “You mean the young woman who tried to shoot me? Strangely, I interpreted that as a provocation.”

“The law says you can’t hurt a human even in self-defense,” Adam said, but he sounded less certain.

It was true that the laws in Pennsylvania were draconian where demons were concerned. Self-defense was generally not an acceptable excuse if a human was badly injured. But even if Barbie’s hand was broken, it wasn’t really that bad an injury considering she’d been meaning to shoot. Even a Pennsylvania judge might let Cooper slide on that.

“Of course you can always shoot me,” Cooper continued. “I’m sure you’d have no trouble explaining to your comrades why you shot an unarmed man.”

I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but that wasn’t my style. “You’re a demon. You don’t need a weapon to be dangerous. And he’s got two witnesses who can testify that you attacked us.”

“And you’ll have no trouble whatsoever explaining to the police why you all decided to pay me a visit and ended up shooting me,” Cooper countered with a smug smile. “If that’s the case, then go ahead and shoot, Director White. Don’t worry—I won’t hold it against you and come back for revenge against your little friends after the state has brought you to justice.” He frowned theatrically. “Though on second thought, that might be fun.”

Whose great idea had it been to come and question Cooper? Oh, right, it was mine. Shit.

“Grab me a pillow off the couch in there,” Adam ordered me, jerking his head toward the living room.

“Planning to take a nap?” I asked under my breath, but I did as he asked. If I’d been Sherlock Holmes, I would have noticed as soon as we’d gotten here that the living room was way too neat—Cooper had the aesthetic sense of a typical single guy, and the last time I’d been here, the place had been a mess. Now it was spotless. Of course, even if I’d noticed, I’d have assumed he’d hired a maid, not been possessed by a demon.

I brought the pillow to Adam. I’d seen enough TV to guess he was going to use the pillow to muffle the sound of the shot. Did that mean he was planning to shoot? And if he didn’t, what was our next move?

Shoot, or don’t shoot? I didn’t like either option. We’d have to revisit the question eventually, but I was always big on putting off till tomorrow what I didn’t want to do today.

“Don’t kill him unless you have to,” I said to Adam. “We still have plenty of questions for him, don’t we?”

Adam managed a feral grin as he buried the hand holding the gun in the pillow. His grin didn’t have quite the edge it usually had, but I think only someone who knew him real well would have noticed. Cooper’s argument had Adam spooked. Not a comforting thought.

Cooper crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d be curious to see how you’re planning to convince me to answer your questions.”

The look Adam gave me out of the corner of his eye said he was a bit curious himself.

“Where are the car keys?” I asked, and I could see by the look in his eye that Adam immediately understood. We’d driven out here in his unmarked, and I happened to know he kept a Taser in his trunk. He wasn’t required to carry the Taser all the time, but he needed to have one readily available, seeing as he often found himself chasing down demons. I couldn’t tell from the look on Cooper’s face whether he got it, too.

“Right front pocket,” Adam said.

I cursed under my breath. I really didn’t want to be reaching into his pocket, especially not when he wore his jeans so damn tight. But he needed both hands—one for the gun, one for the pillow—and it didn’t much matter what I wanted.

“Can you hang in there a while longer?” I asked Barbie. I was probably stalling, but I couldn’t help it.

She nodded. “I’ll be fine. The leg hurt much worse.” She managed a pained smile. The last time we’d faced down a demon together, said demon had kicked her legs out from under her and broken one of them. Human against demon is never a fair fight.

With a little grimace, I approached Adam to get the keys. I was pretty sure the expression on his face could be called a smirk, but since he didn’t take his eyes off Cooper for an instant, I didn’t feel like I had legitimate grounds for complaint.

The fact is, Adam is drop-dead gorgeous, so it was impossible for me to reach into his pants pocket without being painfully aware of him as a man. The spicy aftershave he wore. The well-toned thigh muscle I had to brush over to get to the keys. And his ill-disguised, um, enthusiasm at my touch. Have I mentioned that Adam swung both ways? He was one hundred percent loyal to Dominic, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have impure thoughts now and then.

I’m pretty sure I blushed, but I tried to play it cool as my fingers closed around the keys and I withdrew my hand. Cooper snickered, but I refused to look at him or at Adam.

Cheeks still flaming, I hurried out to the car. I hoped Cooper would find it entertaining to stand there with Adam’s gun pointed at his head while I dug out the Taser.

I moved as fast as I could, not sure how long the impasse in the house could possibly last. I ran across the street to the car, hoping I didn’t look as conspicuous as I felt, then opened the trunk. Unlike mine, Adam’s Taser was fully charged. I tried to close the trunk quietly, but it still made a solid thunk.

Firing the Taser might be as damning as letting Adam fire the gun, Lugh said.

I was glad to see we were back on speaking terms, but though I was anxious to question him about his mysterious silence, I had better things to do at the moment. He was right about the Taser. If I fired it, it would release a flurry of confettilike ID tags that could be traced to Adam. Not to mention that the Taser would store a record of exactly when it was fired.

Unless you’ve got a better suggestion, I thought at Lugh, keep your comments to yourself. Yeah, I was getting a bit testy, but I was beginning to think the odds of Cooper surviving this interview were very low. If he lived, he could make a lot of trouble for us—particularly for Adam. If he died … Well, if he died, and we did a good job of disposing of the body, then it was possible we could get away with it.

“I can’t believe what I’m thinking,” I muttered under my breath. Surely I drew the line at cold-blooded murder. Didn’t I?

I let out a hiss of breath. Yeah, maybe I drew the line at murder, but I knew for a fact Adam didn’t. He’d do whatever was necessary to protect Lugh, and even though Cooper didn’t know I had Lugh, Adam would see him as an indirect threat.

Dithering over my moral qualms had caused me to slow down. I had my hand on the front doorknob when I heard a muffled bang from within, followed by a cry of pain.

Holding the Taser at the ready, I rushed through the door, not knowing what I was about to find. My heart hammered in my chest, and adrenaline surged through my system.

The sound I’d heard had to be a gunshot, and I assumed that meant Cooper had tried something. I also assumed it meant either Cooper was dead, or Adam was in deep trouble. Neither assumption turned out to be correct.

The first thing I saw when I burst through the door was Adam standing calmly in the foyer, his gun in his right hand, pointed at the floor, the pillow in his left. Then I saw Cooper.

He was crumpled on the floor halfway between where I’d last seen him and where Adam stood. He was rocking slightly, a soft moan escaping his throat, and his hands were clamped over a bleeding wound in his thigh. Based on the sounds Cooper was making, his demon wasn’t a big fan of pain, but a nonfatal gunshot wound on a demon would heal completely in a matter of hours, and might only keep Cooper incapacitated for a few minutes.

“What happened?” I asked.

Adam looked grim. “He decided to call my bluff. I thought he might still be useful, so I went for the leg instead of the head shot.”

Cooper’s voice was gaining strength, and I was pretty sure the moan would soon turn into a scream. I didn’t think the neighbors would have heard that gunshot—or realized what it was even if they heard it—but we’d be in even deeper shit than we were already in if Cooper started screaming. We’d made enough noise as it was. It felt a little less than sportsmanlike, but I pointed the Taser and pulled the trigger.

Electricity mucks with a demon’s ability to control its host body. So much so that they can’t even talk, much less move. Cooper might feel like screaming, but he wouldn’t be able to control his voice enough to get the sound out.

“In for a penny …” I muttered. “Now what?” I asked out loud.

“Now we call in reinforcements,” Adam said, and he tucked the gun back into its holster, dropped the pillow, and grabbed his cell phone.