The Devil Inside

CHAPTER 3

Guess who met me at the airport despite my very clear instructions not to? I should have known he wouldn’t give up so easily. Brian’s about as good at following orders as I am. When I saw him standing there waiting for me at baggage claim, I couldn’t decide if I was more pissed off he’d come or happy to see him.

“He’s a keeper,” Val said out of the corner of her mouth, and I gave her a dirty look. She winked at me, then hurried away, leaving us two “lovebirds” alone.

Val thinks I should have married Brian by now, and she rarely misses a chance to tell me so. He hasn’t asked me to marry him yet, but he has hinted-broadly-that we should move in together. Sometimes I think he and Val are tag-teaming the matchmaking game. Lucky for me, I see through their evil plan.

I hugged him when he came to me, but I didn’t exactly melt into his arms.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want you to meet me,” I muttered by his ear, then pulled away.

Brian flashed me one of his all-American-boy smiles — the kind of smile that almost always defused me. Sometimes it was just easier to bask in the warmth of that smile than to fight with him.

I sighed, still a little peeved, but that one damn smile had taken the edge off. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

He snorted. “If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.” He bent to pick up my suitcase, and I just shook my head in defeat.

“If I’m such a pain in the ass, why are you here?” I asked as I followed him out to the parking lot. I stayed a couple steps behind him, not because I couldn’t keep up but because I was annoyed.

“Because you give such fantastic blow jobs,” he called over his shoulder, loud enough for everyone in a ten-yard radius to hear.

My face went red hot, and I kept my eyes locked on the back of his head so I wouldn’t see how many people were giving me speculative looks. Brian loves to embarrass me. He thinks it’s funny that he can make this tough broad with the multiple earrings and the tattoo blush. When I’m in a good mood, I think it’s funny, too. I wasn’t in a good mood.

I’d taken the train in from Bryn Mawr, so my car wasn’t here. Brian would drive me all the way out there, then drive all the way back to his condo in Center City. If I was a good girlfriend, I’d ask him to spend the night, spare him that extra drive. I doubted I would, though: not tonight.

We didn’t say a word to each other when we got in the car. He was still grinning a little, enjoying my lingering embarrassment. I curled my sour mood around me like a security blanket.

After he’d paid the exorbitant parking fee and got onto I-95, he opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off immediately.

“If you’re planning to make another blow job comment, you won’t get another one for at least three years.” I can hold a grudge that long, easy.

He laughed and put his hand on my thigh. I was irritated enough to push him away, but like I said, there is a lot of physical chemistry between us. The touch of his hand on my thigh instantly raised my pulse. And when his hand came right back, I let it stay.

“There are only two ways to coax you out of a bad mood,” he said, watching the road instead of me. “Teasing and sex. You looked like you were in a bad enough mood to need a little of both.”

I wanted to argue with him, but his fingers were moving up my thigh, finding their way to my zipper. When he started sliding the zipper down, I gathered my wits enough to grab his wrist.

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on driving?” I said, but my voice came out a little breathy. There’s always a lot of traffic on I-95, and technically he really should have had both hands on the wheel.

“I’m concentrating enough. What are you wearing under these jeans?”

My face heated. I really didn’t want to be jollied out of my mood, but it was hard to stay pissy when I was squirming with desire. Still, I tried.

“White cotton granny panties.”

A taxi cut us off, and Brian had stomp the brakes to prevent us from rear-ending the cab.

The near-death experience didn’t faze him. “You don’t own a pair of white cotton granny panties.”

Yes, Brian is that well acquainted with my underwear. “I didn’t pack enough underwear for an extended stay, so I bought some in Topeka.”

“That so?” He gave me a sly look out of the corner of his eye. “Show me.”

I grimaced. “Knock it off, Brian. I’m not in the mood.”

He grinned at me. “I’ve noticed. And I’m doing my best to change that.”

Why is it I never come out on top when arguing with Brian? Maybe because he’s a lawyer? Never stops me from trying, though.

“Is that why you came to pick me up?” I asked. “Because you want to get laid?”

“No,” he said slowly, patiently, “I picked you up because you’ve just been through hell and you don’t need to be alone tonight.”

I crossed my arms and hunched down in the seat. “You don’t get to make that decision.”

“You could have told me to shove off. But you didn’t.”

I groaned and shook my head. The guy was like a little yappy dog that sinks its teeth into your pants leg then refuses to let go. Which is why he wins so many arguments with me-most sensible people would run the other way when I was in this bitchy a mood, but not him.

“So are you going to show me these new white cotton granny panties of yours?” he continued. Yap, yap, yap. Grrr. Grrr.

“Have I mentioned that you’re a pain in the ass?”

“Yup,” he said cheerfully.

And, damn it, I couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, you win. I’m not wearing any panties. There. Happy?” I tried to sound grumpy, but it didn’t work.

“Ecstatic!” He reached for my zipper again. I batted his hand away.

“Please can the foreplay until we get off the Expressway, okay?” Those of us who know and love it refer to the Schuylkill Expressway as the Sure-Kill Expressway, because you take your life in your hands every time you get on it. And I’d rather Brian take my life in both his hands instead of just one.

Hot-blooded though he was, Brian didn’t have a death wish, so he kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel until we’d gotten all the way past the Main Line and were on our way out to the suburbs. Then the banter and suggestive comments started again. And yes, he coaxed me into showing him my invisible panties. We’re lucky he didn’t slam into a tree while he inspected them.

By the time we reached my street, my jeans were distinctly damp, his khaki trousers were about ready to explode, and I was seriously considering jumping his bones in the car.

Until we pulled into my driveway, that is, and I saw a very familiar, very unwelcome car parked there.

I muttered about twenty-three curses under my breath. Brian’s shoulders slumped, and he groaned in frustration. Nothing could kill the mood better than a visit from my big brother, Andrew.

Andrew got out of his car and leaned against the driver-side door, waiting.

Brian shook his head. “I guess this means I’m not getting laid tonight, huh?”

“Apparently not.”

“Bummer.”

He startled a laugh out of me and I turned toward him as I undid my seat belt. I reached out and touched his face.

“Thanks for coming to meet me,” I said. It was a bad precedent to thank him for doing something I’d specifically asked him not to do, but I couldn’t deny I felt better now than when I’d gotten off the plane.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, turning his head to plant a kiss on my palm.

His kiss seemed to burn, and I realized I would need a cold, cold shower tonight before going to bed.

I reluctantly lowered my hand from his face and reached for the door. He touched my arm, and I raised my eyebrow.

“Your zipper,” he reminded me with an evil grin.

I mumbled a curse and zipped up.

“I love you,” Brian said as I slipped out.

“Love you, too,” I replied automatically, then dragged my luggage out of the backseat. “Drive safe.”

“Your place or mine tomorrow night? We have unfinished business.” He leered at me, and I probably leered back.

“Mine,” I told him, and he nodded agreement.

I took a slow, steadying breath as he pulled out of my driveway. Then I turned and headed for my front door without sparing a glance for Andrew.

I felt him following me, but I didn’t turn around until I’d unlocked my front door and turned the lights on.

“Wait here,” I said over my shoulder, then closed the door in his face.

I dropped my bags by the front door, then retrieved my Taser from the coat closet. I don’t carry it very often — by the time I’m called in to deal with an illegal demon, it’s already in custody and contained. But sometimes it’s comforting to own the one weapon that can bring a demon to his knees.

I checked the battery — good to go — and turned off the safety. When I opened the door again, I pointed the Taser smack-dab at Andrew’s chest.

Now, you might think this is a strange way to greet my own brother, but the last time he’d paid a visit, we’d gotten in one hell of a fight, and the bastard had punched me. Knocked me out cold. When I came to, I’d seriously considered filing assault charges against him. In the end, it hadn’t been worth the hassle, and I knew nothing would come of it. Yes, technically assault was a violent crime, and the state could throw the book at him. But though he’d knocked me out, he’d hit me with only human strength. If he’d hit me with his full strength, I’d be dead.

Oh, did I forget to mention my brother is a demon host? Ever since he turned twenty-one, the legal age of consent. I’ve never forgiven him.

We were pretty close as kids. Well, as close as a brother and sister can be when only three years separate them. Up until I was about ten, I practically worshiped him. But when he hit puberty, the Spirit Society’s brainwashing started him seriously thinking about becoming a demon host, and he changed.

He’d always been more into the Society than me — no doubt a large reason why he was the family favorite — but when he started thinking about hosting, he became almost a fanatic. My parents were so proud of him, but I knew it meant I’d lose my big brother someday soon, and I hated it.

Andrew looked at the Taser and raised his eyebrows. “Are you planning self-defense, or revenge?” he asked, his voice mild.

I thought about that a moment. I didn’t think he was going to hit me again. I’d had to work really hard to get him that angry last time. Now that I knew he had a temper under his usually calm exterior, I wasn’t anxious to bring it to the surface.

“Revenge, I guess,” I said, then shot him. The probes latched onto his leather jacket, and fifty thousand volts slammed into him.

He gratifyingly collapsed into himself, landing on the doorstep in fetal position, screaming.

When I got my Taser license, one of the requirements was to take a shot yourself, just so you’d have a real clear understanding of the power you hold in your hands. I’d seen two-hundred-pound macho men scream like little girls. I wish I could say I’d taken it in stoic silence, but I’d screamed as loud as anyone. Never felt anything like it. Never want to again.

“Sorry, Andy,” I said softly, talking to my real brother, the one who was imprisoned somewhere in that body. I wasn’t clear if the host could feel the demon’s pain or not, but just in case it could, I felt the need to apologize.

It took the demon more time to recover from the shot than it would have taken a human. The electricity really fucks up their control of the nervous system. He lay in a panting heap for a while, then uncurled and pushed himself to his knees, looking up at me from behind a lock of reddish blond hair that had fallen over his eyes.

“Should I bother getting up,” he asked, “or am I in for some more fun?”

He was still so infuriatingly calm it made me want to zap him again. But he’d only hit me once. Fair’s fair. That didn’t mean I was putting the Taser away, but I ejected the cartridge and let him pluck the probes out of his jacket.

“Remember,” I warned him, “I can still use this like a stun gun without reloading.”

He laughed and pushed his hair out of his eyes, then stood up slowly, keeping a close watch on the Taser. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, what, the pain doesn’t even bother you? You just laugh at it?”

He shrugged. “It bothers me. But I deal with pain all the time on the job. If I fell to pieces every time something hurt, I’d be useless.”

Andrew is a firefighter. Almost all of the legal demons make themselves into ultra-useful members of society, using their powers for good, justice, etc. They know they have to do a lot of good deeds to make up for their occasional bad eggs, like the one I’d encountered in Topeka. Because demons can heal the bodies of their human hosts, they often take on really dangerous jobs. Andrew is always rescuing people from burning buildings. He’s a fucking hero.

Okay, so maybe it’s not fair to be mad at him for being a hero. But, see, I’m not a hero, and I never will be. Sometimes that makes me feel small and selfish in comparison. I’m all for doing good deeds. Just not at the price Andy paid.

“What do you want, Andrew? I’ve had a really shitty couple of days, and I so don’t want any family drama right now.”

He ran a hand through his hair — a very human gesture, but then if you just met him on the street you’d never know he wasn’t human. “It’s been two months since our, uh, problem. I thought maybe it was time we buried the hatchet.”

Oh, yeah. This was a conversation I wanted to have right now. Personally, I’d have been just as happy if we never spoke to each other again.

“Andrew-”

“Morgan, we’re family, whether you want us to be or not.”

This was somewhere along the lines of the conversation we’d had last time. I wondered if slamming the door in his face would be my best option right about now.

“Andy’s my family! You’re just a parasite using his body, like a big, lethal tick sucking the life out of him.”

He grimaced. “Lovely image. You’ve always had such a way with words.”

I went for the door slam, but he stopped it with the flat of his hand. I was pissed enough that I tried to use my Taser like a stun gun, but he saw it coming and knocked the Taser out of my hand. He could have broken bones in the process, but somehow he hit just the right spot to make my fingers loosen without even hurting me.

I cradled my hand to my body anyway, hating him, wishing it wasn’t illegal to exorcize a demon from a willing host. But it’s considered murder, and no matter how strongly I felt about Andrew’s demon, I wasn’t willing to go to prison or face execution.

Andrew pushed past me into my house, shutting the door behind him. Anger glinted in his eyes, and there was a steely set to his jaw that Andy would never have been able to pull off.

“Violence isn’t the answer to everything,” he said, sounding disgusted. “Stop acting like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum!”

I glared at him. “I wasn’t the one who threw a punch the last time we argued.”

He lost some of his righteous indignation, and his lips pursed like he’d tasted something sour. “I really am sorry about that, Morgan. The last time I walked the Mortal Plain, my host was an inherently violent man, a warrior. We may suppress our hosts’ personalities, but some of it does leak through, and a lifetime of it can affect our behavior. I am…embarrassed that I allowed that to happen. It won’t happen again.”

I cocked my head at him. “So you’re saying it wasn’t really you that hit me? That it was some remnant of your last host?”

As an exorcist, I’m technically an expert on demons. And being raised by a Spirit Society family, I have a little bit of extra expertise from up-close-and-personal experience. But even us “experts” don’t really know all that much about them. We only know what they tell us, and I would bet my life that they’re not telling us everything. That’s one of the things that scares the shit out of me. What aren’t they telling us? And why?

Andrew took my question as evidence that I was ready to have a lovely little heart-to-heart chat and invited himself into my living room.

My house looks nothing like me. I look like the sort of woman who should live in some kind of ultramodern condo with spare, sleek lines and uncomfortable furniture. Instead, I live in a little cottage that could have been plucked straight from the English countryside, complete with hedge roses and a cobblestone walk. My living room features an overstuffed floral chintz sofa and a butter-yellow love seat capable of swallowing a medium-sized adult whole.

Andrew is not medium-sized, though he’s not huge, either. He’s right around six feet tall, two hundred pounds of pure muscle. If he weren’t my brother — sort of — I’d think he was pretty nice to look at. He sank into the love seat, but managed not to be smothered by it.

Bowing to the inevitable, I sat on the sofa and clutched a throw pillow to my chest. My nerves were too raw from the nightmare in Topeka. I didn’t feel like coping, and I didn’t feel like having any deep conversations with this creature I despised.

Andrew clasped his hands between his knees and stared at them intently. “I take the full blame for what I did, Morgan. I’m not a Viking anymore, and I should have had better control over myself. Yes, Einar affected my personality, but I’ve been with Andrew for ten years. I should have been able to readjust by now.” He looked up at me, and his lips twitched with a hint of a grin. “Though you could bring out the devil in anyone.”

I laughed, though grudgingly. Then I swallowed back the moment of humor and fixed him with my steeliest gaze. “Like I told you before, I’ve had a really lousy couple of days. I just want to take a long hot bath and then go to bed. Can you hurry this along a bit?”

His raised eyebrow made me blush, because of course he’d seen me drive up with Brian, and he’d known that meant it wasn’t relaxing I’d had in mind. Luckily for both of us, he let it drop without teasing.

“All I want is to make things right between us. Or at least as right as they can be. What can I do to apologize for my horrendous behavior?”

My first instinct was to tell him to shove his apology where the sun didn’t shine. But I must be gaining a little maturity in my old age, because I managed to squash that first instinct. Things would never be “right” between us as long as he possessed my brother’s body. But since he was offering me something…

“You can tell me your name,” I said, almost holding my breath, wondering if he would do it. The demons adopt their hosts’ names when they’re in the Mortal Plain, but they have names of their own. Names have power for them, though I’ve never been clear what kind of power. Another one of their damned mysteries.

He gave me a long, searching look. “If I tell you my name, will you promise not to address me by it in public or tell it to anyone else?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I said glibly.

He thought for another moment, then nodded. “My name is Raphael,” he said, and I had to fight not to let my jaw drop in amazement.

He’d believed me? I sure as hell wouldn’t have!

Damn. If he was actually trusting me with the knowledge, I might feel honor bound to keep his secret.

“I’ll be your friend, if you let me,” he continued.

“Hell will freeze over first.” Maybe that was mean-spirited of me after he’d just made such a nice peace offering, but I tend to be honest to a fault. And I wasn’t going to pretend we’d be best buds.

The pronouncement made him look very sad, which made me feel like a heel, but I wasn’t about to take it back. He sighed and stood up.

“Be that as it may, I’m here if you need me, Morgan.” He flashed me a sad smile. “I think your Taser landed under the couch.”

“Thanks,” I said, and walked him to the door. He took a step out, and I found myself reaching out and grabbing his arm. I let go hastily, surprised at myself.

He turned back to look at me, waiting patiently for whatever I was going to say. I cleared my throat, wishing I’d just let him go.

I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a coward, at least not most of the time. So I held my head high and met his sad brown eyes.

“I just want you to know, it’s nothing personal,” I said. “You seem like a decent guy, for a demon. But my brother’s dead because of you, and that’s just not something I can forgive.”

“He’s not dead,” Raphael said, his voice gentle.

“He might as well be.” As far as I was concerned, Andy was worse than dead. He was a prisoner, his mind alive in a body he couldn’t control. He could never speak to anyone, never touch anyone, never have any human interaction whatsoever. And I would never understand how anyone could willingly submit to such an invasion, no matter how many heroic deeds it allowed him to do. Maybe that makes me shallow and selfish — that’s certainly what my family thinks — but I can’t change who I am.

Raphael looked like he might say something else, but thought better of it. With a little shake of his head, he turned away and walked to his car.