Pride glowed in his eyes as I took in the abundance of healthy plant life that gave this room an almost junglelike feel. “I’m impressed,” I told him. “If I so much as touch a plant, it generally dies within a couple of days.”
He laughed. “Then may I request that you don’t touch mine?”
I laughed with him, though in truth it was hard to move in that room without brushing a leaf or tendril. Luckily, my assessment of my effect on plants was a slight exaggeration—but only slight.
“Would you like some tea?” Dr. Williams asked, and I belatedly noticed that the coffee table was set with a delicate china tea set, complete with a plate of lemon wedges.
I’m a coffee person myself, but he seemed eager for me to accept, so I did. He poured me an aromatic cup, then poured one for himself, flavoring it only with a wedge of lemon. I creamed and sugared mine half to death, but he didn’t seem insulted by my abuse of his offering.
The china was clearly feminine, and he wore a wedding band on his left hand. However, he made no mention of his wife, and I was left with the impression that he was probably a widower. And, based on his eagerness to make this interview into a social occasion, a lonely one at that.
My impressions could have been dead wrong, but I didn’t think so. Despite the urgency of my mission, I sipped at my tea and made small talk for a good fifteen minutes, exclaiming some more over his plants and over the beauty of the view.
I was running out of friendly chatter when he finally smiled at me and put his teacup down.
“It’s very kind of you to spend time entertaining an old man,” he said, “but I’m sure you didn’t come here solely for the pleasure of my company.”
I squirmed a bit, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea that I’d thrown any suspicion onto his shoulders. No way was this sweet little old guy part of some evil conspiracy to…Well, I didn’t actually know what the goal of the evil conspiracy was, if it even existed.
Dr. Williams leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach and regarding me with polite curiosity. “Is something wrong?”
I forced a smile and shook my head. “No. I just…have some questions for you.”
He thought about that one for a moment, and I thought I saw a hint of unease flicker in his eyes. “Ah.” He cast an almost longing look at the teapot, then seemed to decide against another cup. “What would you like to ask me about?”
I had the sinking feeling he already knew, but I tried my best to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I wanted to ask you about my bout with encephalitis.”
The corners of his eyes tightened ever so slightly, and he nodded. “What would you like to know?”
Everything. Or perhaps nothing. I swallowed hard. “I don’t remember anything about my stay at the hospital. Literally. Is that…normal?”
“Based on the medications you would have been on at the time, I’d say that’s perfectly normal.”
On the one hand, he was clearly telling me my memory loss was expected. On the other hand, he’d used an awful lot of words to say what amounted to “yes,” and that’s the way people talk when they’re lying.
“What medications were those, exactly?” I wished I’d thought to bring a pad of paper with me so I could write down his answers.
He met my eyes steadily. “I don’t know.”
I blinked at the unexpected answer, then frowned. “What do you mean?”
“As your primary care physician, I was the one who admitted you into the hospital. However, I wasn’t the one who treated you.”
My stomach felt suddenly queasy, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. “Why wouldn’t you have treated me?” I asked. One of the things that made The Healing Circle different from other hospitals was its emphasis on personal, consistent patient care, which meant keeping patients with the same physician as much as possible. They might have brought in a specialist or three to work with Dr. Williams, but he still should have been the director for my treatment.
He twisted his wedding ring around his finger absently, though aside from that one nervous gesture, he seemed mostly at ease. “On the night you were admitted, I was mugged on my way home from work.”
My stomach gave another unhappy lurch.
“I was badly beaten,” Dr. Williams continued. “I was in the hospital myself for the duration of your stay.” He patted his knee. “I’ve got enough metal in this leg to set off the metal detectors at the airport.”
If our doctor determines that she is, in fact, intractable, then other, more desperate measures may be needed.
I remembered that damning line from Bradley Cooper’s letter verbatim.
“So who was the doctor who treated me while you were in the hospital?” I asked, but a strange, uneasy premonition had settled over me.
“He’s one of The Healing Circle’s top physicians,” Dr. Williams said. “His name is Dr. Frederick Neely.”
Chapter 16
After Dr. Williams dropped his bombshell, I got out of there as fast as I could. I had way too much to think about to concentrate on pleasantries and small talk.
What were the chances it was just a coincidence that Raphael had chosen Dr. Neely as his host? Personally, I’d put them at approximately zero. What the hell was he trying so hard to hide? I’d assumed it had something to do with the plot to overthrow Lugh, but now it seemed it had something to do with me, and with what had happened to me as a teenager.
I walked home slowly, considering my options and not liking what I came up with. Because all the evidence pointed to my brother knowing more than he should about whatever Raphael was up to.
Much as I wanted to respect his privacy, and as bad as I felt for him in his fear of Raphael, I knew now that I had to convince him to talk to me. I had a stomach-curdling suspicion I’d need to threaten him to open him up, but honestly, what choice did I have? It wasn’t just my own life I was trying to protect. According to Lugh, Dougal couldn’t be king until Lugh was dead, even if he was sitting on the throne as regent. As long as he was only regent, his powers were severely limited. But if he should become king, he’d rescind any protections his predecessors had established for humans. Demons were powerful enough to practically enslave the human race if they wanted to. And Dougal wanted to.
Maybe whatever Raphael was hiding had nothing to do with the palace coup. But my every instinct screamed it was something I—and Lugh—needed to know.
It was dinnertime when I got back to my apartment, and the guys had ordered about twelve servings of Chinese food from the nearby take-out joint. It looked like, between the four of them, they’d gone through the food like a school of piranhas. If I were even remotely hungry, I might have been annoyed. As it was, I ignored their requests for information—and Dominic’s offer to put together a plate of leftovers for me—and pointed at Andy.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
My tone of voice must have been pretty brittle, because Andy paled. “Why don’t you have something to eat first?” he suggested.
“Now!” I jerked my thumb toward the guest bedroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam and Dom share a significant look, but I ignored them.
Doing his best condemned-prisoner impersonation, Andy slowly rose from the table and trudged toward the bedroom. I gave everyone else my most quelling glare.
“You three stay here and stay out of it.”
One corner of Adam’s mouth lifted in a hint of grin. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”
Neither Dom nor Brian seemed to think it necessary to make similar declarations. But then, I wasn’t worried about them so much.
I followed Andy into the guest bedroom and closed the door behind us. The dirty clothes were back on his chair, and he didn’t bother to move them off. Instead, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze fixed on the carpet.
“I suppose you already knew Dr. Neely treated me when I was in the hospital,” I said.
He didn’t raise his eyes, but his chin dippe
d slightly in what I took for a nod.
“And you didn’t think this was something important that you should tell me?”
He shrugged. “I figured it would lead to a conversation I didn’t want to have.”
I tried to control my temper, but I didn’t have much success. I wanted to cross the space between us and slap him so hard his teeth rattled.
“It’s been pointed out to me more than once that there’s way more than my own life at stake here,” I growled between clenched teeth. “That’s true for you, too. So I’m sorry you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m sorry you’re scared of Raphael, but you’re just going to have to get over it.”
Now he did meet my eyes, and for the first time, I saw a flash of fire in his gaze. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! You don’t know what I’ve been through. It’s not something I can just ‘get over.’”
That was true, but at this point it didn’t matter anymore. “Tough shit, Andy. You may have been through hell, but so have I. And I didn’t volunteer for it.” He winced, but I pressed on. “You volunteered to host because you wanted to be a hero. So be a hero. Tell me what you know.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t do that.”
Internally, I let out a sigh of regret, even as I continued to give him my hardest glare. I’d hoped to shame him into talking, but I could see that wasn’t going to work. That left only one option. “You either talk to me, or you talk to Adam,” I said, figuring I’d hate myself for this later. “Adam won’t ask nicely.”
Andy’s eyes widened in shock. “You went out of your way to protect Cooper from your buddy the demon, but you’d turn your own brother in to him?”
My heart ached at the hurt in his eyes, and at the knowledge that I was capable of doing something so cruel. But I couldn’t afford to let sentimentality stop me from doing the right thing—especially when I knew Adam was going to come up with this idea on his own the moment he heard what I’d learned. I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be any more than a scare tactic. I couldn’t imagine Andy standing up to Adam’s threats, no matter how much he feared Raphael. I refused to think about what would happen if I was wrong.
I was preparing as diplomatic an answer as possible, but before any words made it out of my mouth, the bedroom door swung open. I hadn’t heard anyone approaching, so I jumped a bit.
“Actually,” Adam said from the doorway, “she’s just bluffing to scare you into talking. However, since I decided to eavesdrop, it becomes a moot point.”
“You bastard!” I said as Adam stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I told you to stay at the table!”
He gave a little snort of laughter. “And what made you think I’d do what you told me to?”
He had a point there. And as my mind scrambled to adjust to the changed situation, I realized he’d done me a huge favor by bursting in at this moment. Because I hadn’t been bluffing. I was pretty sure Adam knew that, and I was pretty sure his decision to interrupt at that moment had been deliberate.
Adam’s eyes had an eerie, demonic glow to them as he stared Andy down. “As Morgan has no doubt told you, I find inflicting pain to be quite an enjoyable pastime. Ordinarily, I would only play with consenting adults, but I’m perfectly willing to make an exception for you. Believe me, I have a good deal of experience, and I can make you talk.”
Andy was white and trembling. I wanted to cry.
“If I tell you anything, Raphael will—”
“Raphael isn’t here at the moment,” Adam insisted. “I am. We can keep him away from you. But right now, there’s nothing that can keep me away from you. Understand?”
Andy’s knees seemed to give out, and he sank down onto the edge of his bed. His eyes haunted, he nodded. A single tear escaped from the corner of my eye, and I wiped it away angrily. We didn’t have a choice here. We had to make Andy talk.
But God, how I hated this. How I hated the look on my brother’s face, the misery in his eyes. How I hated the realization that I had put it there, even if it was with a little help from my friends.
Adam shoved Andy’s clothes off the chair and sat down, making himself comfortable while still keeping an eye on my brother. I just stood there and brooded.
“I don’t know the full story,” Andy said, staring at his feet, his voice barely audible. “I only know the bits and pieces Raphael let me hear, and that only happened when he first possessed me and got careless every once in a while.”
“So tell us what you do know,” Adam prompted when it seemed like Andy was about to clam up again.
Andy’s hands gripped the side of the bed, his knuckles white. “Morgan’s real father wasn’t human, at least not exactly.”
“Huh?” I said intelligently.
“Like I said, I don’t know the whole story. I don’t know who or what he was, only that he was impervious to demons. And that the demons were very, very interested in him.”
I gave that a moment to sink in, but there wasn’t enough information for me to make much sense out of anything. I knew there had to be more to it. “Keep talking,” I said.
“When they found out Mom was pregnant by your father, they were really excited. They had high hopes that, because you were some sort of hybrid, you’d be able to host.”
I shared a puzzled look with Adam, but he didn’t seem to be making any more sense out of this than I was. “I don’t get it,” I said.
Andy shook his head. “I don’t, either. At least, not really. I don’t know what they wanted, other than that they wanted you possessed.”
I couldn’t suppress my shudder. “What happened to me at The Healing Circle?”
“I swear to God, I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed to visit more than once or twice, and you were out of it when I did. But I do know you didn’t have encephalitis.”
Not that big a shock, I suppose, but it made my heart skip a beat anyway. I found myself holding my breath as I waited for Andy to continue.
“Cooper gave Mom and Dad some kind of drug, and they put it in your orange juice so you’d have symptoms and they could take you to the hospital.”
My knees felt shaky, so I leaned my back against the wall for support. I didn’t know what was worse: the realization that Mom and Dad had drugged me, or my brand-new suspicions about what had happened at the hospital.
“They were trying to give me to the demons, weren’t they?” I asked in a scratchy whisper. Andy nodded, looking miserable.
They had tried to force a demon into my body, into the body of an unwilling, thirteen-year-old host. Something hovered on the edge of my memory. I knew if I concentrated, I might be able to bring it to the surface, but I couldn’t bear to try. I didn’t want to remember. If it was my own mental defenses that had locked up that memory and thrown away the key, then it was for a damn good reason.
“It didn’t work,” Andy said. “And they figured that like your biological father, you were incapable of hosting. That’s how Raphael knew you’d be a very different sort of host for Lugh.”
I frowned. “But if I’m so resistant to possession, how’d Lugh manage to get in?”
“Because he’s not just any demon,” Adam answered. “We aren’t all created equal. There’s a reason Lugh’s line is the royal one. So he was powerful enough to get in, but not powerful enough to take over.”
That certainly seemed to make sense, but something still eluded me. “I know once this all sinks in I’m going to have a nervous breakdown about it. But why is it some kind of deep, dark secret? Why does Raphael care if you tell us?” I directed the question to Andy, but once again it was Adam who answered, his voice grim.
“Because he knows exactly what happened at The Healing Circle. Hell, he might even be the one who gave the orders. And it’s something he knows damn well Lugh won’t like.”
Andy nodded. “Like I told you before, he’s got some personal loyalty to Lugh and doesn’t want him killed. But that doesn’t mean he feels compelled to up
hold Lugh’s ideals and protect the human race.”
A long, uncomfortable silence filled the room as we thought about that. Then Adam said what I suspect we were all thinking.
“I guess it’s time to have a long talk with ‘Dr. Neely.’”
Andy closed his eyes, and his hands clenched even more tightly around the edge of the bed. I finally found the will to go to him, to put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze.
“We won’t let him hurt you,” I promised, hoping I was up to keeping that promise.
Andy jerked away from me. “Coming from a woman who’d have let her demon friend torture me, that isn’t very comforting.”
“I told you she was bluffing,” Adam scoffed. “Why do you think I felt the need to listen at the door?”
“She wasn’t bluffing,” Andy said in a flat voice.
I wished like hell I could contradict him.
Chapter 17
Keeping Brian in the dark about what was going on was getting harder. He’d managed to keep his questions to a bare minimum so far, but I knew if he sensed an opening, he’d take full advantage. He wasn’t a trial lawyer, but I suspect he has the skill set for one. When he starts asking questions, he tends to learn far more than you mean to reveal.
Which meant I really didn’t want to meet with “Dr. Neely” in my apartment. I couldn’t imagine any explanation I could give Brian that would satisfy his curiosity. Nor could I imagine how we’d keep him from overhearing things he didn’t need to hear. Not unless we tied him up in the closet. I’d threatened both Andy and Brian with violence. I wasn’t going to do it again. Ever.
After my conversation with Andy and Adam, I went to my own room and locked the door behind me. Then I dragged my cell phone into the closet—call me paranoid—and closed that door after me, too. I didn’t exactly have Dr. Neely on speed-dial, but I called The Healing Circle and got semi-lucky. He was actually in his office to take my call.