The Devil's Playground

twenty-six

THE GALLERY IS A GINORMOUS, SPRAWLING URBAN mall that, under normal circumstances, I’d avoid like the plague. Crowds are not my best thing, but the Gallery and crowds go together like chocolate and peanut butter. At least we weren’t within spitting distance of a holiday, or the place would have been unbearable.

We entered the mall at the street level. The babble of too many voices made the throbbing in my head worse, and I still felt that weird … hollow feeling in my chest. I remembered how Dom had rubbed his breastbone after I’d exorcized Saul, and now I understood why.

The food court was on the top floor, but we didn’t want Dougal and company spotting us until we were good and ready. Adam went up first, to make sure Dougal was there in the flesh, so to speak, and to make sure our meeting place was as secure as possible. Dom watched anxiously as Adam rode the escalator up. As a police officer and demon hunter, Adam put himself in danger on a regular basis, and Dom had to know that. But I guess knowing it in an abstract way was easier than watching it unfold.

After a very long few minutes, Adam called Raphael’s cell phone and let him know that he and Dougal were ready for us. There wasn’t anything on the face of the planet that could force Adam to give us the all clear if he saw something hinky, but that didn’t stop me from feeling a nervous flutter in my stomach. Dougal had been the bogeyman for so long now that I couldn’t help being scared shitless at the idea of meeting him face to face.

There wasn’t a whole lot of breathing room on the escalator, and I was glad I wasn’t claustrophobic. The four of us stayed close together, doing our best to keep the shoppers—and the teenaged mall rats—

from getting between us.

The food court, naturally, was mobbed. I looked at some of the lines in front of the restaurants and wondered why anyone would want to wait in line that long to get fast food. If I’d been in one of those lines, I’d be expecting nothing short of a filet mignon by the time I got to the counter. Though considering the lingering nausea from the control change, even a filet would have made me hurl.

Despite the mob, we had no trouble spotting Adam waving at us. Raphael and I led the way, one final layer of protection between Lugh and Dougal.

There were three people already seated at the long table, though I was pretty sure that the four people at the neighboring table belonged to Dougal’s entourage, too. They weren’t watching us, and they had food in front of them, but they all had the stereotypical demon good looks, and they were more playing with their food than eating it.

The three at the long table were all also demon-beautiful. There was a tall, slim Asian woman with shiny blue-black hair that trailed halfway down her back. There was a solidly built man who dressed like an MIB wannabe and whose face held the most neutral expression I’d ever seen.

And then there was contestant number three, a striking blond guy with piercing blue eyes and sensual lips. He slouched casually in his chair, while his two companions sat rigidly straight, their eyes busily scanning the area. Gee, I wondered which one was Dougal.

Apparently, Lugh blended in better than Dougal, because I could tell from the way Dougal looked from one of us to the other—mostly skipping me—that he was trying to figure out which one of us was Lugh. A long, silent staring match ensued, during which I noticed the foursome at the next table had stopped playing with their food, though they still weren’t overtly watching us.

“Everyone keep your hands where I can see them,” Adam said. “If I see anyone reaching for anything, I’ll shoot you.” His hand rested firmly on the gun holstered at his side. It was a good thing his superiors had merely pressured him into taking a vacation, rather than taking away his badge and gun. “I am a cop, so I can get away with it even if you’re just pulling out a hanky.”

My eyes darted around at the people sitting at nearby tables, but the noise level in the food court was so high it would be hard to hear anything unless you were listening closely.

“So paranoid,” Dougal said with a mocking smile. “I’m here under a flag of truce, remember?” But he laid his hands on the table, and gestured for his two companions to do the same.

“Them, too,” Adam said, jerking his chin toward the four at the other table.

Dougal rolled his eyes as if all these precautions were ridiculous. But he glanced over his shoulder and nodded at the demons at the other table, and they all kept their hands in plain sight. Dougal then turned back to the rest of us.

“Now, which one of you is Lugh? We have much to talk about, so let’s not waste time posturing.”

Lugh pushed past Raphael and me and stood towering over his brother. The rest of us kept up our careful scans of the people around us. We were each armed with a Taser, but this being a public place, we didn’t dare have them out. That didn’t mean we weren’t ready to draw them at a moment’s notice.

Lugh didn’t say anything, just held out his hand. To the human beings around us, it looked like a handshake that went on for an abnormally long time, but I knew they were checking each other’s auras, confirming their identities, although Adam had been tasked with confirming Dougal’s presence before calling us to come up.

“Sit down, all of you,” Dougal said when he let go of Lugh’s hand. “We can’t have a civilized conversation with you all looming over me like that.”

Lugh raised an eyebrow, but took the seat directly opposite Dougal. The rest of us took that as a cue and sat as well, except for Adam, who was keeping an eye on Dougal’s minions.

“There’s only so civilized this conversation can be, considering you’ve been trying to have me killed,”

Lugh said. Even in Tommy Brewster’s body, even with the effort he made to hide it, I knew Lugh well enough to hear the edge of pain in his voice. He refused to admit it—I’m not the only one who’s good at denial—but his brother’s betrayal had wounded him.

Apparently, Dougal knew him well enough to hear it, too. He lost his mask of polite disinterest and leaned forward, regret clear in his eyes. I was betting Dougal was as good an actor as Raphael, but there’s always a chance it might have been genuine.

“It was never anything personal, Lugh,” Dougal said. “I want what I want, and you’re in my way. If there had been a way to take the throne without harming you, I would have done it.”

Lugh snorted. “How very thoughtful of you. That makes it all better.”

“If you’d be willing to abdicate the throne in my favor, we could end this without any further bloodshed.”

Lugh actually laughed at that. “Come now, brother. Surely you don’t believe I’m that stupid. I’d have to return to the Demon Realm to formally abdicate, and I don’t for a moment believe that you wouldn’t have your friends summon me back to the Mortal Plain for a bonfire. Even assuming I’d be willing to entertain the idea in the first place, which I wouldn’t.”

Dougal smiled and held his hands out to his sides in a “Well, it was worth a shot” gesture. “I had to at least ask,” he said. The smile leaked away. “But I suppose there is no hope that both of us can survive this little squabble. It’s a pity. I would be happy to kill Raphael with my own two hands. But I’d prefer not to kill you if I could think of a way to avoid it.”

It took some serious effort for me not to glance at Raphael and see how he took that news, but I managed it. Which was a good thing, no doubt, because Dougal’s lieutenants were obviously searching all our faces, trying to figure out if one of us was Raphael. I’m pretty sure Raphael’s poker face held, since no one seemed to be staring at him in particular.

Lugh cocked his head to one side. “Is that so? I seem to remember William saying something about how you wished you could be here in person to watch me burn.”

Dougal waved that off. “I was angry when I said that.” He gave Lugh a wry look. “You’ve made this all rather more difficult than I was planning.”

“So sorry to be a bother.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are.” Dougal swept the rest of us with a glance. “So where is our baby brother anyway?” he asked, and he made no attempt to hide the hatred in his eyes. Apparently, Lugh wasn’t supposed to take it personally when Dougal betrayed him, but it was okay for Dougal to take it personally when Raphael did it to him.

Lugh made a face, and his voice dripped with contempt. “I have no idea where he is, and I don’t want to know.”

Dougal’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so? Had a falling out, have you?”

Lugh was still scowling. “He tried his best to cover it up, but I found out what the two of you were doing in your labs.”

“Ah,” Dougal said, and I had a feeling Lugh had just made a very convincing argument. “You do love riding on that moral high horse of yours, don’t you?”

“If I couldn’t convince Raphael that what he did was wrong, I certainly don’t expect to convince you. But what the two of you were doing was unconscionable.”

Dougal pinched the bridge of his nose, like the conversation was giving him a headache. “You see, that’s the thing about you, Lugh. You see the world in black and white, and you have no concept of compromise.”

“Oh, and compromise is your middle name? I think your worldview is just as black and white as mine.”

Dougal shrugged. “Maybe. But you’re wrong about one thing—I would have been willing to consider a middle ground, had I any reason to hope you could be reasonable.”

“I’m being unreasonable? I’m not the one who’s killing and torturing his own people in fits of pique!”

Dougal sneered. “Ah, yes. You’re the saintly brother who has never lost his temper. One would think to listen to you that you are the pinnacle of perfection—the ideal to which all of us lesser beings must aspire.”

I think Dougal scored a point with that potshot, though Lugh tried not to let it show on his face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “If we’re going to catalog one another’s faults, we’ll be here till closing time. Let’s talk about terms for a duel.”

Dougal stared at him intently. “You really mean to do this? To risk everything on the chance that you can defeat me in a fair fight?”

“Yes, I do. I’m sure I don’t know half of what you’ve been up to in the Demon Realm since I’ve been gone, but I know enough to see that you must be stopped.”

“And why would you expect me to risk fighting you? I’m confident that you’ll slip up eventually and my people will get to you and eliminate my problems for me. Since you’ve made William into your toadie, you must know my resources on the Mortal Plain are not inconsiderable these days. Why should I not just sit back and wait until they succeed?”

One corner of Lugh’s mouth tipped up. “If you thought you had that luxury, you wouldn’t be here right now. I hear tell you’ve made a lot of promises and you’ve had trouble keeping them. Your future in the Demon Realm is looking less than bright. And all I have to do to turn all of humanity against us is to tell them about the experiments you and Raphael conducted with your human subjects, which would mean you couldn’t escape your troubles in the Demon Realm by coming here.”

A muscle ticked in Dougal’s jaw, but otherwise his poker face remained steady. “You would really risk every demon on the Mortal Plain just to spite me?”

“To spite you? No. But to stop you? Absolutely. I’ve already put them at considerable risk by allowing Adam to announce the truth about exorcism. I believe humans have a right to decide whether to host demons or not. I will not sit idly by and watch you take that choice away from them.”

Dougal shook his head in amazement. “You would side with humans over your own people?” The lines of his face hardened, and his eyes glowed with his anger. “This is the greatest proof ever that you are not fit for the demon throne. Your loyalties should be to your own kind, not to them.” Grimacing as if disgusted, Dougal made a sweeping hand gesture to encompass the crowd that milled around the food court.

“You’ve made your point of view on the subject quite clear,” Lugh said, and his voice sounded calm and unruffled. Score one for the good guys! “Now, are we going to discuss terms or not?”

Dougal visibly tamped down his temper. “Fine. Have it your way. We’ll discuss terms. Where shall the grand event take place?”

Lugh shrugged. “I don’t have a location picked out yet. I’m sure we can find someplace sufficiently secluded for what we need, given a little time. I can have Adam find a suitable location and then contact you—or your lieutenant—to let you know where it is.”

Dougal laughed. “So that you can booby-trap it?”

Lugh rolled his eyes. “Let’s establish from the start that neither one of us is stupid. I won’t suggest anything that will insult your intelligence, and I hope you’ll do me the same courtesy.”

“But—”

“Obviously I would have to allow your people to examine the location once it’s been selected so that you need not fear a booby trap.”

From the look of him, Dougal was thinking furiously, trying to find the flaw in Lugh’s logic. He must have decided it was sound, for he nodded. “All right. I will not formally agree to a location until my people have had a chance to examine it, but I will … provisionally agree, as it were. What weapons shall we use?”

Lugh sat back and thought about it a minute. “It seems to me weapons won’t be of much use, since the point of this endeavor is for one of us to kill the other, not for one of us to kill the other’s host.” His eyes narrowed in a shrewd frown. “You wouldn’t be entertaining thoughts of trying to kill my host, now, would you?”

It would be a lot easier to kill Lugh’s host than to kill Lugh himself. And, of course, if Dougal killed Lugh’s host and Lugh was sent back to the Demon Realm, Dougal’s minions would summon him back into a host who was already subdued and ready for roasting.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a tempting possibility,” Dougal said. “But I presume you mean to give me some motivation not to?”

Lugh nodded. “You are fighting this duel to stop my supporters from revealing your special projects to the human public. The only way you can do that is by killing me in a fair and honest fight. If you cheat by killing my host, or if your followers interfere in any way, the agreement will be null and void.”

Dougal frowned. “And what would prevent them from doing so if you lost fair and square?”

“You can’t believe I or any of my supporters actually want to do this, can you?” Dougal shook his head, but still looked suspicious. “I told you I would not endanger our people like that out of spite, and I meant it.”

Dougal gave a little grunt that might have been a laugh. “And yet you would have your supporters tell all if I do not fight a fair fight. That sounds like spite to me.”

Lugh shrugged. “Call it what you will. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a deterrent, and a deterrent has no power unless I am willing to see it through. Make no mistake, Dougal: If you cheat, the truth will come out.”

Dougal thought about that a while, then nodded. “I believe you. Now tell me what’s to prevent you from cheating.”

“Firstly, it’s not as easy for me to cheat. Killing your host would do me no good, unless you’re planning to tell me your True Name so I can do to you what you plan to do to me.”

“Granted. But you can still let your supporters interfere with the fight.”

“Since I feel confident you won’t risk having our secrets exposed by cheating, I would feel comfortable limiting the number of my supporters who are present for the duel. You can bring as many as you like, and they can ensure that my own supporters do not interfere.”

Dougal smiled ruefully. “Nice move, brother. You make it sound like it’s a concession, when actually you need to have most of your supporters safely away from the duel so they can carry out your revenge if I cheat.”

“What does it matter, as long as I’ve set the conditions so I can’t cheat?”

I could almost picture the wheels in Dougal’s head turning as he tried to find a hole in Lugh’s proposal. I was beginning to think Lugh had already put a lot of thought into his plans for the duel—without ever discussing it with me or with his council.

Dougal sat up straighter, and I could tell he’d thought of something.

“Your supporters are loyal in the extreme,” Dougal said. “What’s to stop someone from coming to the duel in your place and then sacrificing himself with some kind of suicide bomb?”

Lugh thought about it for a moment before speaking. Apparently this was one contingency he had not previously considered. “You needn’t face me until one of your people has had a chance to confirm my identity.”

“Confirm that the demon who shows up is either you or Raphael, you mean.”

Lugh grinned. “Even if Raphael and I were on speaking terms at the moment, do you really imagine he would show up in my place? Since the plan is for your people to outnumber mine, it would be suicide for him. If you believe he would take a risk like that for anyone, then you clearly don’t know him as well as you think.”

Dougal conceded the point with a gracious nod. “It’s true I can’t imagine the little bastard sticking his neck out unless he felt sure no one was going to chop his head off. All right, so one of my people will confirm your identity before we begin, and when he has done so, I will enter the battlefield, as it were.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And we will fight each other with bare hands?” There was just the faintest hint of eagerness in his voice.

Lugh sighed. “No, I don’t suppose bare hands will work, since I’m sure your host is so … durable that disabling him enough for you to burn would be well-nigh impossible.”

Dougal didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “You have learned a lot about the experiments, haven’t you?”

Lugh ignored the comment. “We will have to use Tasers.”

“And whoever gets the first shot in is the winner.”

Lugh nodded. “We will need to have a pyre ready, since we both know Tasers don’t work as long on your lab-bred hosts as on human hosts.”

For a moment, Dougal looked irritated. Lugh obviously knew more about the superhosts than Dougal had hoped. He’d probably have a cow if he knew that Lugh’s host was a superhost himself. Then Dougal’s shoulders slumped slightly, and his gaze dropped to the table in front of him.

“We really mean to do this, then?” he asked quietly. “Really mean to condemn each other to death by fire?” He didn’t sound scared. He just sounded … sad.

Lugh’s jaw tightened. “Don’t pretend the thought distresses you! You’ve already tried to have me burned at the stake.”

“Yes, I have,” Dougal replied. “But I find thinking about doing it with my own two hands is a bit more

… troubling than merely ordering it done.” He met Lugh’s eyes. “Are you sure you can do it, brother?

Sure you could take my body, put it on a pyre, and let me burn?”

Lugh’s expression didn’t change. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Dougal’s face hardened, the melancholy fading as if it had never existed, which it probably hadn’t.

“Very well then. We have only to set a place and time.”

“Give me a contact number,” Lugh said, “and I will have Adam get in touch with you about the place. Once the place is set, we can choose the time.”

There was a little shuffling among Dougal’s minions until one of them came up with a piece of paper and a pen for Dougal to write his number down. Adam was very, very watchful, making sure no one reached for a weapon. I suppose he wasn’t as confident in the power of Lugh’s threat as Lugh was.

Once he had the contact number, Lugh rose without another word. The rest of us—who had not spoken at all during the war council—took that as a cue and rose with him. Adam stayed behind, guarding our backs, making sure we weren’t followed. And then we all went back to my apartment, where I was pretty damn sure Lugh’s council would have a lot to say.