“We have to question Bradley Cooper,” I blurted, and we both knew what I meant by “question.”

Adam nodded. “I have no problem with saying I told you so.”

“Yeah, you’re a fucking genius.”

Each word coming with an effort, I told Adam what Lugh had made me remember. I also told him about Raphael’s refusal to shed any light on the situation.

I concluded with “Maybe it’s not that important…”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Adam said. “If it weren’t important, Raphael wouldn’t give a damn if Lugh knew. Whatever it is, it’s so important that he thinks Lugh will punish him for it, despite all the help he’s been giving us.”

That made me frown. “Punish him how?”

“We have our own system of laws,” he answered vaguely. “Assuming we can ever get Lugh back on the throne, he’s going to be exercising a lot of them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “It means ‘ask Lugh.’ I don’t get to decide which state secrets to share with you.”

I shook my head in disgust. “The way you guys act, what you had for breakfast is a fucking state secret!”

“Ask Lugh,” he repeated, not perturbed by my pique.

I bit back any number of responses. I forced myself to change the subject back to that which I didn’t want to talk about.

“So I guess it’s important enough that we have to talk to Cooper.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, almost gently. “It may not be as bad as you think. You’ve met him. You know what a weasel he is. When you confront him with what you remember, he may break down and tell you everything.”

It made a nice fantasy.

“Intimidation also makes for a very effective interrogation technique,” Adam tried again. “One I’m very good at, I might add.”

Why he was trying to soothe my conscience, I didn’t know. I gave him a sad smile and patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate the effort, but the damage is already done. Even if we don’t have to lay a finger on him, even if all I have to do is tell him what I already know and he spews out everything, I know just how far I would go, and it’s not a good feeling.”

“When the idea starts to get to you, just remember what he was willing to do to you as a thirteen-year-old girl. And ask yourself if you could possibly be the only child he’s ever hurt.”

I winced. Was it terribly egocentric of me to think I was the only one? Or was it merely naive? “No one deserves to be tortured.”

To that, Adam had no answer.

Cooper lived in a charming Victorian house in the suburbs. When Adam and I pulled into the driveway, I felt a pang of longing for the house I had lost in the fire.

Of course, Cooper being a high muckety-muck in the Spirit Society, his house was on a different scale than mine had been. He was twice divorced, with no children, and I couldn’t imagine what he did with all that extra space. Maybe he held Society meetings there.

His car was hidden in the garage, but there were lights on in the house, so we figured he was home. Adam turned to me when we brought the car to a stop.

“Are you ready for this, love?”

I grimaced. “No, I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”

He reached over and patted my leg in a way I would have objected to if I weren’t so freaked out. “Then you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.”

I grunted something he took for agreement, and we both got out of the car. My skin was clammy with sweat, and my mouth was dry. Thoughts collided and fought in my brain, and I wished I could think of some reason to stall. With Adam standing beside me as if to block my escape, I rang the bell. As we waited, I bit the inside of my cheek to try to moisten my mouth.

When I’ve described Cooper as a weasel, it hasn’t been just because of his personality. He’s tall and thin, with small beady eyes he makes even beadier-looking with his round-rimmed glasses, and buck teeth he should have had corrected when he was a child. His hair had been gray and thinning for as long as I’d known him, and no one had told him the comb-over didn’t actually camouflage incipient baldness. It was no surprise that, despite his reverence for demons, he’d never had the “privilege” to host. Who the hell would want to spend a lifetime looking like that?

He blinked a couple of times when he saw me on the doorstep, his nose twitching in his most weasely manner. His eyes went wide when he looked past my shoulder and saw Adam standing there.

“May we come in?” I asked when it became clear he could stand there in silence for hours.

He frowned, causing his glasses to slide down his nose. “I’m very busy right now. If you’ll call my office in the morning, I’m sure we can schedule you in sometime.”

I put my foot in the door, just in case he was about to slam it in our faces. “This really can’t wait until tomorrow,” I said.

I thought I saw a flicker of unease in his eyes, but perhaps that was my wishful thinking. He looked back and forth between me and Adam and must have decided there wasn’t a chance in hell he was getting rid of us. With a long-suffering sigh, he held the door open and gestured us in.

While his house was lovely on the outside, the inside screamed “single male occupant with no maid.” There was clutter everywhere, stacks of books and papers, piles of junk mail, empty Diet Coke cans—though why a man as skinny as Cooper was drinking diet soda was anyone’s guess.

Surprisingly, the sofa and chairs in the living room weren’t serving as auxiliary tables, so Cooper didn’t have to move anything aside to let Adam and me sit. I blew out a deep breath, hoping against hope that this interview would be easier than I was expecting. And I tried not to think about what would happen if Cooper refused to talk.

“I remember what you did to me at The Healing Circle,” I said, and the words seemed to detonate like a land mine.

Cooper’s already pale face lost all its color, and his eyes went wide. Tension screamed through his taut muscles, and he looked like he was poised to make a run for it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Both Adam and I laughed. Cooper’s back straightened, and his face took on an expression that was supposed to imply hurt feelings. No doubt he was about to say something scathing, but I cut him off.

“If you saw yourself in the mirror, you’d know why we were laughing. Why don’t you save us all some time and cut the bullshit? You and Dr. Neely tortured me until I agreed to summon a demon, but it couldn’t possess me. So you tried again with another demon that was already on the Mortal Plain, and he failed, too. When he tried to kill me, you told him that someone named Raphael wouldn’t approve.” Adam and I had agreed in advance that it wasn’t in anyone’s best interests for me to admit I knew who Raphael was. I think I managed to keep my lip from curling in distaste when I said his name.

Cooper sat there stuttering and stammering, not exactly cool under fire.

“I’ve got a number of questions for you, Brad,” I continued, and saw him flinch at my use of his first name. I’d have been in big trouble growing up if I’d dared to call a man of his stature by first name, and I’d carried the habit well into adulthood. But after what he’d done to me, I’d be damned if I’d give him an ounce of respect.

“My first question is, who or what was my father?”

I could almost see him examining possible answers, then discarding them one by one. What finally came out of his mouth was “I think you should leave now.” But he didn’t say it like he thought we’d listen to him. I sat back on the couch and folded my arms, not saying anything. Beside me, Adam was also silent, but out of the corner of my eye I could see his malevolent stare.

Cooper might not be too worried about me, but I saw how his eyes kept darting in Adam’s direction, then looking quickly away. He was still deathly pale, and there was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He clasped his hands together in his lap, his knuckles turning white.