The Devil's Playground (34 page)

It wasn’t the most relaxed of car rides. Saul rode shotgun, and I got to share the backseat with Raphael. They were relatively civilized, and they only stuck verbal pins in each other four or five times during the long drive to the location Adam had selected. But at least they didn’t get into a brawl in the car.

There was nowhere within the city limits we could have the isolation we needed to hold this duel. But as it turned out, Adam had found a place already guaranteed to be an effective demon-killing field. It was an industrial-sized farm out in the Brandywine Valley. The farm had once been owned by Jeremy Wyatt, who had at the time been the leader of God’s Wrath. He’d also been possessed by one of Dougal’s demons.

The last time I’d been there, it had been a working farm, and Lugh and I had been destined to be burned at the stake—which in this instance was a basketball hoop set into a concrete court behind a large barn. But the night had ended with Wyatt and all his fanatical followers dead, and it looked like the farm had died with them. Locked gates featuring a “for sale” sign blocked the driveway, but the fields and buildings beyond screamed of neglect. It didn’t look like anyone had been in a hurry to buy the place out.

There isn’t much that can stop a demon from going where he wants to. Saul got out and broke the lock on the gates, then Adam drove through. We left the gates closed behind us. Unless someone were to get out and
examine the gate, no one would be able to tell we’d come through it. Not that it seemed likely anyone would be looking

I tried my hardest not to flash back to my last trip out here, tried not to remember the horror of the fate that had awaited me at the end of the drive. But it’s damn hard to forget about the threat of being burned alive. I cast a sidelong glance at Raphael, wondering what his memories were like. He must have been pretty distressed during that drive himself, since it was looking at the time as if all his plans to keep Lugh safe were going to fail. But he hadn’t let a bit of what he was really feeling show back then, and he wasn’t showing it now.

The concrete basketball court was still there, behind the barn, though the net was gone. The barn loomed between the court and the road, so no one would be able to see us. A big plus. Another plus—and the primary reason Adam had selected this place—was the stand of trees about fifty yards from the court. The rest of the farmland was, well, farmland—flat, and severely lacking in hiding places. Because the farm wasn’t in use, the fields were overgrown with weeds, but they were low and sparse enough that they would make an ambush impossible.

Raphael shook his head. “Dougal’s people are going to search those trees,” he said. “There’s almost nowhere else within sight that someone could hide, other than in the barn. And that makes the trees damn obvious.”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “But they’re going to be worried about bombs and incendiary devices, not snipers.
Remember, it does us no good to kill Dougal’s host without killing Dougal himself, and they know that. Besides, even if they search, I bet they’d have a hard time finding him.” He turned to Saul. “Why don’t you go see if you can find a good spot to hide while the rest of us check out the barn? When we’re done, we’ll come looking for you and see if we can spot you.”

Saul nodded and trotted off toward the trees. Checking out the barn was a formality at best, but since the point of the exercise was simply to give Saul time to pick a spot without us watching, we dutifully trooped in and looked around. Nothing quite so exciting as examining an empty, smelly barn.

We gave Saul a good ten minutes to get himself concealed, then we all went out into the stand of trees and started looking. I knew practically from the first moment I passed under those branches that it would be nearly impossible to spot anyone. The trees were tall and leafy, the canopy dense enough to make it dark and murky between them. When I peered upward, all I could see were leaves, leaves, and more leaves. I doubted anyone else was having any better luck, but I crisscrossed the entire patch of woods anyway and couldn’t spot Saul.

No one found him, but Raphael insisted we walk all the way around the perimeter of the woods as well.

“No chance anyone’s going to see him,” Adam declared when we finally got all the way around. “Come on down, Saul,” he yelled.

There were some rustling noises up in the canopy, even though there was no breeze. We all looked up and
watched Saul magically appear from the cover of the branches, climbing nimbly down the tree as only a demon—or maybe a monkey—could manage.

Wiping the sap from his hands onto his jeans, Saul sauntered toward us, looking mighty proud of himself.

“Satisfied?” he asked his father with a smug smile. Obviously, putting one over on Raphael just made his day.

The look on Raphael’s face said he was anything but satisfied, but he nodded anyway. “This is probably the best place we’re going to find. But we’ll have to see if Dougal will go for it.”

“No reason he shouldn’t,” Adam said.

Raphael looked at me. “Is Lugh all right with it?”

Tell him it’s perfect. And tell him to stop worrying so much or he’ll be the first demon in history to have a heart attack
.

I relayed the message, and everyone had a good laugh at Raphael’s expense—even Raphael. It was a laugh I think everyone needed, because the drive back into the city wasn’t nearly as tense as the ride out.

The place had now been chosen. All that was left was to determine the date and time. Adam would call Dougal as soon as he got back home. It was getting late for Dougal to come out and look at the place tonight, but maybe as soon as tomorrow he would put his stamp of approval on it. After that, it would probably take no time at all to agree on a date and time. Which meant the duel wasn’t far in the future.

For someone who hates waiting as much as I do, I was beginning to think there wouldn’t be anywhere near enough of it before the day of reckoning.

T
HE CLICHÉ FOR DUELS IS THAT THEY’RE HELD AT
dawn, or thereabouts. The duel between Lugh and Dougal, however, was to be held at nine o’clock on Saturday night. There were several reasons for the late start, none of them being my reluctance to get up at oh-dark-thirty. The first was that Dougal’s minions needed time to do a thorough check of the location to make sure Lugh didn’t have an army of accomplices tucked away somewhere ready to charge the moment Dougal appeared. The second was that it would take some time to build the pyre on which the loser of the duel would be burned. The most important reason, though, was that we wanted to minimize the risk that a prospective buyer might want to view the property and stumble upon the duel. From the looks of the place, buyers weren’t exactly beating down the door to snatch it up, but it was safer not to trust to luck.

Which meant getting up at oh-dark-thirty anyway, because Saul needed to be in hiding before there was a chance of a buyer or real estate agent stopping by, and Raphael insisted we accompany Saul so we could confirm he was well hidden. The sun was just rising when
we arrived at the farm. We drove past it and parked about a mile away, then came at it on foot from an oblique angle. It was still dark enough that we could cross open fields without being spotted, and we got to the woods without seeing—or, hopefully, being seen by—anyone. We sent Saul into the treetops once more, this time with a high-powered rifle slung over his shoulder, a canteen on his belt, and pockets full of granola bars and trail mix. He had dressed in army-surplus chic, and his face looked pretty damn awful beneath a thick layer of camouflage makeup.

We spent a good half hour trying to find Saul after he had hidden, but none of us spotted him. Lucky that we were putting on this little shindig in the summer, with all those leaves for cover.

By the time we left, there were people moving around in the vicinity of the barn. They had a couple of dogs and a metal detector, and we figured they were Dougal’s people, checking for booby traps. They gave no sign of having seen us, their attentions much more focused on the search for potential bombs.

After getting Saul situated, the rest of us drove back to the city. We had already determined that Adam and Dominic would accompany Lugh to the duel, leaving William locked up in their guest room. Obviously, the lock wouldn’t hold him if he really wanted to get out, but Adam and Dom were going to neglect to mention that they were leaving the house, and William was too much of a coward to attempt an escape when he might get caught. Raphael, residing in Andy’s body, would remain at my place with Barbie and Brian and me. The
three of them would form the “circle” around me as I awaited the signal that Lugh was in trouble and I needed to summon him. The demons all assured me that three people were enough to form the circle needed for the ritual—though it looked more like a triangle to my untrained eyes—and I had no choice but to believe them.

Adam and Dom went back to their place—I suspected so they could have a final frolic, just in case one or both of them didn’t come back—but they would be back to pick up Lugh in plenty of time to reach the dueling ground. Raphael, too, went home for a while, which was probably a good thing, since the tension level in my apartment was high enough as it was.

I spent about an hour in the late afternoon practicing the incantation. I had no trouble with the Latin—though I wasn’t sure how well I’d do under stress—but I was really worried about Lugh’s True Name. To say it was a mouthful was an understatement. I counted twenty-six syllables that sounded like one nonsense sound after another. Lugh said it translated roughly into “he who shines in the darkness,” which seemed too simple for twenty-six frickin’ syllables.

“What language
is
this?” I complained to Lugh as I stumbled over it for the umpteenth time. “Please tell me it’s dead; otherwise I’ll have to go kill it.”

I heard his soft chuckle inside my head. If he was at all concerned that he might find himself burning at the stake in a few hours’ time, it didn’t show.

It’s how we express our own native language with human
mouths, so I’m afraid the language is not dead. Luckily, you only have to learn this one phrase
.

Even when I learned it, I was terrified that I would muff it under pressure. I remembered the painful efforts Jonathan had made to summon William, and how very long they had taken.

You’re not Jonathan
, Lugh assured me.
You’ll do fine. But let us hope you don’t have to do any summoning after all
.

Yeah, I sure as hell hoped that!

Adam and Dom were due to pick Lugh up at seven-thirty. Raphael—for once showing up on time—arrived promptly at seven. At seven-fifteen, I let Lugh take control so he could move into Tommy Brewster. Raphael hadn’t transferred into Andy yet, although Andy was holding out his hand, his face as set and hard as a soldier going into battle.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lugh asked. He sounded impatient to get going.

Raphael heaved a sigh, which didn’t seem to lessen the tension in his face or posture any. But instead of reaching for Andy’s hand, he drew the Taser that was meant to be Lugh’s weapon for the duel.

None of us had a chance to react in time. Not even Lugh.

The Taser made its trademark pop, and the probes hit Lugh firmly in the chest and belly. He collapsed to the floor, though even in his surprise, he acted quickly enough to block me from feeling more than a fraction of a second of the pain.

Brian and Barbie both gasped. Brian took a step toward me, and Barbie drew a gun from a holster I
hadn’t realized she was wearing. Unfortunately, Raphael had a gun in addition to the Taser. I didn’t want to know where he’d gotten it. Holding the Taser—its probes still attached to my body—in his left hand, he menaced the others with the gun.

“I don’t want to shoot anyone,” Raphael said, his jaw set grimly, “but I will if I have to.” A faint sheen of sweat glowed on his brow.

Brian gave him a murderous look, but the only person in the room at the moment who could offer Raphael any threat was Barbie. And even her threat was minuscule, considering how little a bullet would harm him.

“Put the gun down, Barbara,” he said. “Lugh would have been the only one here who could stop me, and he’ll be out of commission for a while.”

“Stop you from
what
?” Brian asked, outraged.

“From going to the duel in Lugh’s place.”

Lugh couldn’t move a single muscle in my body, but I heard his howl of protest in my head. Raphael came to loom over the two of us. His face was paler than usual. He still held the gun out, though he wasn’t pointing it at anyone in particular. He ejected the cartridge from the Taser and stuck the Taser into the waistband of his pants.

“You said once before that there was no foolproof plan to defeat Dougal,” Raphael said. “But there is.” He reached up with one hand and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, just enough to show us that he had something—a large flask-shaped bottle—stuck to his chest with adhesive tape.

“This bottle is full of napalm,” he said, and once again I heard Lugh’s wail of protest in my head as we both guessed what Raphael was planning to do. I sensed Lugh trying to transfer me back into control, since I would be less debilitated by the effects of the Taser than he was, but it didn’t seem to be working. Perhaps the electricity was mucking with that ability as well as all his others.

“Dougal’s minions will examine my aura and think I’m you. Dougal will know the difference when we check each other’s auras, but by the time he realizes who I am, it will be too late.” He pulled a miniature lighter out of his pocket, then palmed it so it looked like his hand was empty. “I’ll break the glass and light it, then I’ll grab Dougal. His followers may try to put the fire out, but fires fueled by napalm are really hard to kill.” His eyes glimmered with a hint of tears, and I noticed a slight tremor in the hand that held the gun. Raphael was scared shitless, and I couldn’t come close to blaming him.

“You’re going to kill yourself,” Andy said, the first reaction he’d shown to Raphael’s turnabout.