“Stop right there!” Der Jäger barked.

I gave him my best innocent face. “I have to get my car keys,” I told him.

Der Jäger scowled. “Move very, very slowly, and keep your hands in plain sight. Get the keys and leave everything else.”

I did as he told me, moving practically in slow motion. I had to remind myself to breathe every once in a while. My fingers itched to reach for the Taser, but I knew if I did, Brian was dead. Lugh pounded at my head. He figured Brian was dead no matter what. But, damn it, I wasn’t giving up until all hope was lost.

All hope is lost, a voice that sounded disturbingly like Lugh’s whispered in my head. I shook it off.

I carefully unzipped the front compartment of my purse, then pulled it wide open so that Der Jäger could see that I wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Heart pounding in my throat, I drew out my keys and let the purse drop back down to the table.

Der Jäger kept his hand wrapped around Brian’s throat as he wiped blood away from his already-healing nose. “Lead the way,” he ordered.

And I did.

It was getting late, and we didn’t run in to anyone on our way from my apartment to the car. Der Jäger gave up his choke hold on Brian, instead grabbing him by the back of the neck and jerking him around like a cop with a juvenile delinquent.

“Don’t you dare try anything!” I growled at Brian when the three of us piled into the elevator. “You’re not faster than a demon.”

Der Jäger seemed to find that terribly amusing, and Brian gave me a mutinous look. My heart almost stopped in fear that he was going to try the heroics after all, but even testosterone poisoning didn’t completely fry his intelligence. I knew he was just biding his time, that if Der Jäger let go of him for even an instant, he would try something and get himself killed.

Der Jäger’s going to kill him anyway, Lugh’s voice whispered in my mind. A chill shivered down my spine. Was I just imagining what he would say if he had a chance, or was he actually talking to me? I didn’t want to know.

I drove out of the garage without incident, the attendant not even bothering to glance at me or my parking pass before hitting the button to raise the gate. What can I say, my building has great security.

It didn’t take me long to figure out where Der Jäger was taking me. It isn’t exactly easy to find privacy in the middle of a city the size of Philadelphia, but as the Art Museum loomed in front of me, I remembered that nearby Fairmount Park covered thousands of acres. Easily enough room for our little threesome to disappear into.

The lights of the boathouses along the Schuylkill River looked incongruously picturesque and cheerful as we drove by them and plunged into the depths of the park.

Once upon a time in the mid—nineteenth century, Philadelphia’s water supply had been in jeopardy because of the rapid development of the city. The Fairmount Park system had been born when the great estate of Lemon Hill had been dedicated as a public park. As the years went by, more and more estates, particularly those situated by the Schuylkill, were absorbed by the park, until it became one of the largest urban parks in the country. Technically, all the parks throughout the city—and several beyond it—are part of the Fairmount Park system, but when Philadelphians think of Fairmount Park, they think of the grounds that had once been those old estates by the river.

Like the city, the park sprawls, some of it beautifully landscaped, with bike trails and horse trails and picnic areas, and some as close to natural forest as you can get in such a major metropolitan area. On a sunny spring day, the place would be teeming, but at this time of night, it was eerily deserted.

Eventually, we pulled into a closed parking lot. I had to drive through the chain over the driveway, but Der Jäger didn’t seem too concerned about the damage to my car. I might have hoped a cop would drive by, see the broken chain and my illegally parked car, and call in the cavalry. However, Der Jäger had chosen this location carefully, and when I pulled into the farthest corner and killed the lights, I realized the chances of anyone seeing us from the road were slim and none.

Lugh pounded at my head again as I followed Der Jäger’s orders and opened the door for him and Brian. If I’d been any less determined to keep him out, I probably would have crumbled under that assault. But I didn’t care how much pain Lugh put me through—I was going to save Brian if it killed me.

You can’t! Lugh protested, and I felt more sure this time that it was really him rather than my imagination.

Fuck off! was my pithy reply.

Apparently, the parking lot wasn’t private enough for Der Jäger’s taste, for he dragged Brian deeper into the park, until the feeble moonlight could barely penetrate the dense canopy of the trees. It felt for all the world like we were in the middle of some remote forest, rather than within the Philadelphia city limits.

Finally, Der Jäger was satisfied with our location and pushed Brian up against a tree, hand at his throat once more. In the thick gloom of the night, I could barely see either of them. Brian’s dark shirt and jeans disappeared against the trunk of the tree, until he looked almost like a disembodied head floating in the air.

“Now,” Der Jäger said, “I think it’s time we have a chat, don’t you?”

“He’s going to kill me anyway,” Brian started, but the sound choked off when Der Jäger’s hand tightened on his throat.

“Only one thing is certain,” Der Jäger said. “If you don’t talk to me, I will kill him. I’m sure you know I’m not bluffing.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure he could see it in the dark.

“So,” Der Jäger continued conversationally, “you are still hosting Lugh after all. How interesting. It would seem that Raphael has not been entirely honest with us.”

I did a mental double take at that, though I hoped it didn’t show on my face. I had assumed Raphael had betrayed us to Der Jäger. Why else would he have told me Der Jäger was imprisoned, if it wasn’t to give me enough of a false sense of security to let him get close to me?

It was really easy to assume the worst of Raphael, especially after all I’d learned about his involvement in my life. But if there was one thing we good guys had on our side, it was that the bad guys didn’t seem to play nice with each other all the time. I had no idea who was lying to whom about what, and they probably didn’t, either. It was just as well it stayed that way.

I managed what I hoped was a sneer. “When has Raphael been completely honest with anyone?”

Der Jäger shrugged. “I suppose you have a point.” My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, for I saw the sudden flare of his nostrils as he breathed in deeply, then frowned. “I still can’t catch Lugh’s scent on you. I’ve never experienced anything of the sort before.”

I figured at least one of us was going to be dead before this was all over, so there was no harm if I did a little talking—and stalling. I didn’t know if time was going to be on my side, exactly, but putting off whatever nastiness was to come seemed like as good a plan as any.

“He can’t actually control me,” I explained. “We’ve got sort of a role reversal going, where the demon gets to be the passenger and the host drives. I guess that’s why you can’t sense him.”

Der Jäger looked appropriately fascinated. “I wonder why his dear brother would have neglected to mention that.”

I shrugged. “If I understood Raphael worth a damn, I’d do my best to explain it.”

Der Jäger’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark. “Don’t worry. I’ll enjoy persuading him to explain it all in his own words. Unlike myself, he seems to find physical pain an unpleasant experience. A shameful weakness in a royal.”