I guess I must have drifted off to sleep despite the pounding in my head, because time seemed to pass without all the hours of the day being accounted for. One moment, I was curled into a little ball of misery with my pillow over my head, as if that could somehow keep the pain from getting to me. The next, I was listening to a ringing phone and deciding to let my answering machine get it. I had no idea I’d fallen asleep until Brian came in and sat on the side of the bed.

“Adam and Raphael are on their way up,” he said, keeping his voice low in respect for my headache.

“They said you were expecting them.”

I groaned and rolled over, lifting the pillow off my head and squinting at Brian as if there were a bright light shining in my eyes. “I’m not expecting them until six,” I said, then made to hide under the pillow again.

“Morgan, it’s ten after six.”

I let out a little squeak of alarm, sitting up so fast it made my head throb even worse. I glanced at the bedside clock, even though I knew Brian wouldn’t be playing games with me when I wasn’t feeling well. Sure enough, it was after six.

“Shit,” I said, with feeling.

Brian frowned at me. “Should I have told them to go away?”

I started to shake my head, then thought better of it. “No. Besides, they’d have come up anyway.”

Adam’s badge worked like an all-access pass to my apartment when he wanted it to. It was probably illegal to use the badge under false pretenses, but Adam wasn’t about to sweat legalities.

“Can you go let them in while I get dressed?” I’d taken off my top and bra so Brian could get his hands on bare skin while he massaged me.

“Sure,” he said, but I caught the quick little glance he gave my bare breasts. It almost made me smile.

I took my time getting dressed. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of leaving Brian in Adam and Raphael’s company for very long, but whenever I tried to move too fast, the pain in my head spiked.

Eventually, I made my way out into the living room. The guys had been arguing about something, but they all shut up the moment I stepped into the room. Brian was sitting on the couch, looking pissed off again. Adam was sitting on the arm of the couch, looking neutral. And Raphael was sprawled on the love seat, looking smugly amused.

I remembered belatedly that I was planning to chew Raphael a new one, but it was hard to build up a head of steam when I felt so lousy. It also occurred to me that I might not be in the best shape to join this interrogation squad, but there was no way in hell I was letting Adam and Raphael do it without supervision. Never mind that they would ignore my “supervision” whenever they found it convenient.

“You up to this?” Adam asked, right on cue. I didn’t want to know what Brian had told them about why I was sick.

I held my head a little higher, squaring my shoulders. “No, but let’s do it anyway.” Adam and Raphael stood up, but I wasn’t ready to get going yet. “Before we leave, I want to know what the plan is, both for this demon and for his host.”

Adam and Raphael shared a glance, then turned nearly identically bland faces toward me.

“Our choices are somewhat limited,” Adam said. I guess he’d appointed himself the spokesperson.

“Then let me make this abundantly clear to both of you,” I said, mustering every scrap of authority I could find. “We are not killing anyone tonight. And you,” I continued, pointing at Raphael, “are not going back later to kill anybody.”

Raphael raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not?” I glared at him, but he met my gaze steadily and without flinching. “And how, exactly, are you planning to stop me?”

He had me stumped there. If I could count on Lugh to back me up, I’d have had at least some hope of making Raphael toe the line. But if Lugh had condoned Bradley Cooper’s murder, there was no reason to assume he wouldn’t condone the murder of Jonathan Foreman, the illegal recruitment czar, too. I put my fingers to my temples and tried to massage away the damned headache. I had enough deaths on my conscience! I didn’t know if I could stand any more.

“If we can find a way around killing anyone,” Adam said, “we will.” I wasn’t sure if he could legitimately speak for Raphael, but I was pretty sure he was telling the truth. I was also pretty sure he’d already determined there was no way around it.

“Remember, Dougal’s the one with total disregard for human life,” Brian said, putting his arm around my shoulders in solidarity. “We’re supposed to be better than that.”

Raphael gave Brian a contemptuous glance. “What would you have us do? Reveal ourselves as Lugh’s supporters to a high-ranking demon under Dougal’s control and then release him so he can destroy us?”

“You’re going to exorcize the demon, aren’t you?”

Raphael shrugged. “Probably.”

“So he’ll be back in the Demon Realm, where he can’t hurt us. And his host is not our enemy.”

Raphael looked even more contemptuous. “How the hell do we know that? There’s every chance he volunteered for the job, just like Cooper. A human bearing tales is just as dangerous to us as a demon. Maybe even more so, since he can accuse us of various crimes. You know the human courts would take his side if at all possible.”

Brian looked uncomfortable and frustrated. I knew how he felt. It was hard to feel like the angels were on your side when you were contemplating murder. But it was hard to argue Raphael’s logic. As far as I could tell, there was no moral high ground to be found.

My head pounded steadily, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Let it go, Brian,” I said. “You’re not going to win these guys over. They’ll do whatever they think is necessary, and they don’t give a rat’s ass what we think about it.” I looked back and forth between Adam and Raphael. “Does that about sum it up?”

Raphael flashed a sardonic grin. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Adam didn’t look as happy about it, but he still nodded.

“Enough talk,” Raphael decided. “Adam and I are going to go question Mr. Foreman. Morgan, you can come with us or not; it’s your choice. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can stop us from doing whatever needs to be done.”

“I’m coming,” I said with a resigned sigh. Brian opened his mouth—I think to say he was coming with us, even though we hadn’t invited him. I silenced him with a quick kiss.

“Will you wait for me?” I asked, desperately wanting him to say he would. I had a feeling when this little field trip was over, I was going to need his loving arms around me.

“Do you want me to?”

I put my arms around him and hugged him fiercely. “Yes, I want you to.”

His hug was more tentative than mine. “Then I suppose I’ll wait. But be careful, okay?”

Head still pounding, stomach still giving the occasional lurch, I pulled away from Brian’s arms and nodded.

Jonathan Foreman lived in South Philly in an overwhelmingly Italian neighborhood, which consisted of one cookie-cutter row house after another, differentiated only by the trim. Some had painted brick, some had plain brick; some had shutters, some didn’t; and a couple actually had window boxes with flowers in them, though those were only on second-or third-story windows. Growing up, I’ve learned from my parents’ experiences that if you planted anything within reach of the street, someone would eventually dig it up and take it as a souvenir. Ah, the joys of living in the big city!

Even postage-stamp-sized backyards are almost nonexistent in the city proper, so the only approach to Foreman’s house was from his front door. Adam knocked on the door while Raphael and I stood on the stoop a couple of steps below him. It was a rare city dweller who would open the door for an unknown and unexpected visitor, but since Foreman was a legal, registered demon host, we figured he might not be as cautious as us mere humans tended to be. Of course, he might also recognize Adam’s face—