“You don’t want to be declared an illegal demon in this state,” Raphael said, hammering home his point.

I’d exorcized Saul once before, and I hadn’t had any real difficulty doing so, but Lugh contended it was only because Saul hadn’t resisted, and because I’m a particularly powerful exorcist. But if the court were to order Saul exorcized now, when I was under suspension, would another exorcist be able to cast him out? Like I said, Pennsylvania is not demon-friendly, and we’re one of only ten states that executes illegal demons that can’t be exorcized.

Saul looked indecisive.

“Whatever you think of me,” Raphael continued, “I wouldn’t want you to be killed.”

Saul gave him an unfathomable look. “It’s too late to pretend fatherly affection.”

Raphael shrugged casually. “Does it require a great deal of affection not to want to see someone burned alive? At the moment, I can’t think of a single person I hate enough to wish that fate on. Even Dougal, who would not hesitate to do it to me if he ever catches me.

“Morgan can have my guest bedroom, and you can have the couch,” Raphael continued, as if everything were settled. “I’ll stay out of the way as much as possible so you don’t have to suffer my presence.”

Saul glanced at me. “Do you have an opinion, or are you just window dressing?”

“If you’re trying to get a rise out of me,” I answered, “then give it up. I’m tired, I’m scared, and the love of my life rejected me again. I don’t have any energy left for petty quarrels.” I turned to Raphael.

“Point me toward the guest bedroom so I can go collapse. You two work out your differences without me. Or don’t. I honestly don’t care.”

I must have looked as bad as I felt, because neither Saul nor Raphael argued.

CHAPTER 19

That night, I slept like the dead. I half expected Lugh to interrupt my sleep for a little strategy meeting or a seduction attempt, but he didn’t. I should have been well rested when I woke up the next morning at around ten, but I still felt almost as exhausted as I had when I’d turned in.

“Lugh, please tell me you weren’t driving my body around during my sleep,” I muttered to the empty air.

My defenses were obviously still down, for I had no trouble hearing his response: I wasn’t driving your body around during your sleep. The exhaustion isn’t physical.

Great. At least physical exhaustion I knew how to fix. This emotional breakdown, or whatever it was, I had no idea what to do with.

I’d slept in my clothes, so I was looking less than my best when I dragged myself out of bed. I took a quick shower, which failed to make me feel any more lively, then pulled on the same outfit and wandered out into the main room.

There was a plaid blanket neatly folded over one arm of the sofa, but that was the only visible evidence that Saul had ever been here. I wondered where he’d gone, but I wasn’t interested enough to call him and find out.

There was also no sign of Raphael, which I couldn’t see as anything but a positive. In the kitchen, a pot of coffee at least an hour old languished on the burner. I helped myself to a cup anyway. Even stale coffee is better than no coffee, and I was too lazy to brew a fresh pot.

I sat on Raphael’s couch for I don’t know how long, sipping coffee and staring off into space, trying not to brood. I was surprisingly successful at it, unless sitting around doing nothing while white noise filled my head could be considered brooding. I might have been able to sit there all day, but the sound of a ringing phone snapped me out of it.

It was my cell phone, which, of course, was in my purse, which was in the bedroom. I had to sprint to get to it in time. Considering the stupor I’d been in, I moved remarkably fast. I hate to admit it, but the only reason I moved so fast was the faint hope that it might be Brian, that he might be ready to talk. I wondered if that spike of hope meant that I’d be able to get over my own irrational anger if Brian would only come back to me.

If my brain had been even marginally functional, I’d have known it wasn’t Brian. I’d assigned him a special ring tone on my cell, and this wasn’t it. When I answered the phone and heard a female voice on the other end of the line, I was so disappointed I felt almost dizzy with it.

“Morgan? Hello?” It was PI Barbie—just the person I wanted to talk to first thing in the morning.

I frowned. First thing in the morning was long gone. It could be afternoon for all I knew. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was eleven-thirty.

“Hello?” Barbie queried again. “Can you hear me?”

I sighed. “Yeah, I can hear you.”

“This is Barbara Paget. I talked to Maguire’s ex-girlfriend, Jessica Miles, this morning, and I found out something very interesting.”

She sounded kind of excited. I couldn’t muster any excitement myself, but I managed to make an encouraging noise that prompted her to continue.

“Your whole … situation started when Jessica accused Maguire of beating her up. But it turns out that wasn’t what really happened.”

This was what she was getting all excited about? “So what? Maguire always claimed it was the new guy in her life who hit her, not him.” I’d even felt sorry for him for a while, until after I’d exorcized the demon and seen the wreckage that was his host. The demon might not have hurt Jessica Miles, but he’d sure done a job on Jordan Maguire Jr.

“Turns out Maguire was right, and it was her new guy who hit her. But get this: It was a setup, on both their parts. The new guy, Tim Simms— great name, huh? — convinced her Maguire had been cheating on her. He even produced photographs for proof.”

Okay, I had to admit my interest was piqued now.

“Simms whipped Jessica into a frenzy about Maguire, the two-timing jerk, and they came up with a plan to get revenge. They waited until after she’d argued with Maguire, then she called Simms over and he gave her a couple of showy bruises. And that was all it took to get Maguire’s demon exorcized.”

I shuddered. The general public thinks demons die when they’re exorcized, which meant Jessica and her boyfriend had committed what they thought was cold-blooded murder.

“And here’s the really weird part,” Barbie said. “Simms disappeared on the day you exorcized Maguire’s demon. He didn’t pack up a bag or anything, and his car’s still in his apartment’s parking lot. But no one has seen or heard from him since.”

I had a sneaking suspicion that Simms would eventually be found, and that he wouldn’t be breathing. Psycho Demon—as I’d now dubbed the demon who had it in for me—seemed to have no qualms about using “disposable” hosts. I frowned, wishing all the information I had would line up and add up to a clear and tangible threat.

It sure seemed like Psycho Demon had possessed Tim Simms. His method of fabricating evidence was too familiar to be coincidence. Then he’d moved to Jack Hillerman after the exorcism, and he’d come after me with every gun in his arsenal. He’d then burned through both Hillerman and the hapless David Keller and was now in yet another host, still aiming to up my misery quotient.

But why? And why would he choose such a bizarre, elaborate scheme for his revenge? Why did he have to induce Jessica to frame Maguire? He couldn’t have known Maguire would be brain-dead at the end, could he?

Too many questions, too few answers.

I settled for asking a question I thought Barbie would be capable of answering. “How the hell did you get Jessica to basically confess to murder?” Barbie had said she was good at her job, but that was downright miraculous.

“I pretended to be Simms’s little sister, desperate to locate him. As Simms had discovered, Jessica’s biggest asset is definitely not her brain. She was pretty easy to, um, mislead.”