“I don’t believe in coincidence.”

Yeah, neither did I.

I frowned as a confusing thought occurred to me. “The bad guys, whoever they are, beat Mary to death, but they didn’t burn her, didn’t kill the demon. Why did they burn Shae?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I have a guess. You remember what Mary was like—about as weak and miserable a creature as there is. Shae was anything but weak. Maybe they thought they needed a more permanent solution than killing her host. I doubt she’s the kind of person anyone would want as an enemy.”

I could see his point. I dusted the coffee grounds off the palms of my hands, then glowered at the floor. I wondered if my vacuum cleaner would work on the linoleum. I didn’t feel like doing the broom-anddustpan thing.

“You’re not actually feeling guilty about Shae, are you?” Adam asked.

I winced. “Of course not. Why should I feel guilty that I’ve gotten one woman beaten to death and another burned alive?”

I bent to open the cabinet under the sink. At least if I did the broom-and-dustpan thing, I could keep my hands occupied. I was pretty sure I had a whisk broom under here somewhere.

Adam bent over me and closed the cabinet door. I barely got my hands out in time. I was very aware of his body as he loomed there behind me.

“I wouldn’t have wished that on anyone,” he said. “But the truth is, Shae was bound to get into trouble eventually, considering who she consorted with.”

I remained where I was, squatting on the floor with my forehead leaning against the cabinet doors. “So that makes it okay that someone burned her alive? She led a high-risk lifestyle, so she was bound to be tortured to death?” My voice was rising, but it wasn’t just from anger. “That’s like saying Helen What’s-her-name was bound to be tortured into summoning Mary because she turned tricks and did drugs.” I’m not given to fits of hysterics, but one might have hit the spot right then.

Adam grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Go sit down for a bit,” he ordered, giving me a little shove toward the living room. “I’ll handle the cleanup, and I’ll brew some coffee.”

I could have argued with him, but I just didn’t see the point. I trudged into the living room and sat on the couch, pulling my feet up and wrapping my arms around my legs. I ordered myself not to cry over Shae’s death, no matter how horrifying it was, and no matter how responsible I felt.

Eventually, Adam brought a couple mugs of coffee into the living room. Since the good stuff was now down the drain or scattered on the kitchen floor, we were reduced to plain old Colombian, but at least it was fresh, and the mug was a soothing warmth in my hands.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with The Seven Deadlies now that Shae’s gone,” Adam said as he sat beside me on the couch. “What I do know is that it won’t be open tonight, or likely anytime in the near future.”

I grimaced and inhaled the fragrant steam from my coffee. I wasn’t heartbroken that I couldn’t go to The Seven Deadlies tonight, but … “If we can’t troll for illegal newbies in the club, that puts us back at square one. Again.”

The corners of Adam’s mouth tightened. “That about sums it up. I don’t know about you, but I have a bad feeling about all this. Like we don’t have all the time in the world to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late.”

I had to agree with him. But without the club and without Shae, I didn’t know how we could get our hands on one of these new illegals.

Then I thought of the new Spirit Society ad campaign, and was struck by an idea. “Did you know the Spirit Society’s been running recruitment ads on TV?” I asked.

Adam nodded, his lip curled with distaste. “Yeah, and it’s not just on TV. They’ve got recruitment posters all over the buses and subway stations.”

My idea of public transportation is a taxi, so I hadn’t been aware of the posters. But I imagined there were plenty of citizens of our fair city who were less than pleased to see these Satanist (in their worldview) advertisements leering at them wherever they went. I hoped they outnumbered the impressionable young people who saw those posters and thought, “Hey, I could be a hero!”

“What do you think the chances are that the Spirit Society is behind the illegal recruitment campaign as well as the legal one?” I asked.

Adam cocked his head to one side as he thought about it. “It’s possible, I suppose,” he said, though he sounded mildly skeptical.

“They had no moral qualms about helping Dougal and Raphael with their sick experiments,” I pointed out. Although the Spirit Society supposedly worshipped all demons, there was no doubt that their leadership favored Dougal. Hard to believe they would sell out the entire human race to appease the

“Higher Powers,” but all the evidence suggested that was exactly what they were doing.

“Do you really think they wouldn’t be happy to help Dougal and his allies take over humans that even the police sometimes think of as expendable?” I asked.

Adam scrubbed the top of his head—a gesture of frustration. “Damn it! Of course they’d be happy to help. I keep wanting to think the Spirit Society at least gives lip service to the law, but I know you’re right. Maybe the rank-and-file members know nothing about this, but the upper echelon almost certainly does.”

I nodded. “Well, then, at least we have a lead we can follow up on.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Cooper again?”

Bradley Cooper was a regional director of the Spirit Society. Adam and I had questioned him once before about his involvement in Dougal and Raphael’s experiments. Cooper had been less than cooperative, and Adam had ended up taking temporary possession of his body so he could rummage through his mind.

I nodded. “Might as well go straight to the top.”

Adam grinned. “What do you think the chances are he’d open his door if you and I paid him a visit?”

I suppressed a shudder. I loathed Cooper, both because of what he stood for and because he was such a nasty little weasel of a man. But Adam’s amusement at Cooper’s expense still made me uneasy. It was true that possessing Cooper had been more … humane than some of the other ways we might have gotten information out of him, but I would never be comfortable with allowing anyone to be possessed against their will, even temporarily.

“Slim and none,” I answered, fighting down my unease. “Which is why we won’t be the people he sees on his doorstep.”

BARBIE IS ABOUT AS HARMLESS-LOOKING A PERSON AS I can imagine, which made her the perfect candidate to charm Cooper into opening his door when he shouldn’t. We kept our raiding party small—just me, Adam, and Barbie—for the sake of simplicity.

Cooper was divorced and lived in the suburbs in a house that was meant to hold a family, not a single man. A rich family. Possibly with live-in help.

The lights were on inside when we drove up, and there were no other cars in the driveway. It looked like we would have Cooper all to ourselves, which was just the way we wanted it.

We parked by the curb across the street, not wanting to attract Cooper’s attention by pulling into his driveway. If he caught a glimpse of me or of Adam, there was no way in hell he’d open the door without a scene, so we were going for maximum stealth. Instead of walking up the well-lit path to his door, we picked our way across the lawn in the shadow of the decorative privacy hedge that blocked the view from the neighbor’s house. Then we ducked down under the window and crept up to the front porch.

Adam and I plastered ourselves against the wall beside the door. Cooper wouldn’t be able to see us without sticking his head outside, and if he did that, we’d be inside before he knew it. Barbie raised an eyebrow at us, and we both nodded to indicate we were ready. Then she rang the bell.