Those of us who weren’t spending the night—Brian, Andy, and me, along with Saul and Barbie—all left together, hoping to stave off the press by sheer numbers. We studiously ignored them as we fought our way through the gauntlet, but that didn’t seem to discourage them.

Most of them stayed camped out in front of Adam’s, but a splinter group started following us. Then the splinter group splintered again when Saul and Barbie veered off. We had about five of them on our tail when we reached my apartment building. They’d been quiet for most of the walk, but when the doorman opened the door for us and we were about to enter private property—where the vultures couldn’t follow—the questions started up again.

If they thought they were going to wear any of us down, they were sorely mistaken. Wear us out, maybe, but there was no chance in hell we were going to talk to them.

Once we were safely inside my apartment, Andy announced his plan to sleep for the next week and a half and disappeared into the guest room. I was tired, but not sleepy, if you know what I mean. I guess Brian felt the same way, because instead of heading for the bedroom, he said, “Have you got anything to drink around here?”

I blinked at him. “You’ve been living here almost a week. You know what’s in the fridge as well as I do.”

He rolled his head back and forth, his neck making little popping noises in protest. “I was hoping for something stronger than what was in the fridge. Don’t you have an emergency supply of booze somewhere?”

I’m not much of a drinker. Not for any philosophical reasons, but just because I hate the taste of alcohol. But every once in a while, I can be persuaded to force it down for the greater good of humanity. (When I feel bad enough to want a drink, it isn’t safe to be near me.)

Today had been enough of a strain that I had to agree with Brian that a drink was just what the doctor ordered. In the back of the cabinet over the refrigerator—the one that I could barely reach into despite my greater-than-average height—was a single, lonely bottle of rum, about three-quarters full. I pulled it down and set it on the kitchen counter. My fingers left an outline in the dust that coated the bottle. Guess it had been a while since I’d dragged it down.

I got a Coke out of the fridge, because I’d have to be desperate indeed to drink straight rum. Brian merely threw some ice cubes in a glass and poured himself a healthy shot. He took a tentative sip, then made a face.

“I’m not a connoisseur of rum,” he said, his nose wrinkled, “but I’m guessing this isn’t exactly the good stuff.”

I shrugged. “I bought the cheapest I could find. The good stuff and the bad stuff both taste like shit to me, so why waste the money? Besides, unless I missed my guess, you’re drinking it for medicinal purposes, not for pleasure, so who cares how it tastes?”

I took a sip of my own drink and made a face I suspected was very similar to Brian’s. But I’d have made the same face if it had been the most expensive rum on the face of the earth. Brian gave a resigned sigh, then tossed back the rest of the contents of his glass, the ice cubes audibly clinking against his teeth. He shuddered, then put the glass down.

“Vile stuff,” he said, and I had to agree with him. The look on his face suggested he was thinking of pouring another shot, but he resisted the urge.

I took another swallow of my own drink. The first taste had numbed my tongue a bit, so the second wasn’t quite as repulsive.

“Lugh really means to fight a duel with Dougal, no matter what anyone else thinks, doesn’t he?” Brian asked.

I waited a beat to see if Lugh would answer the question in my head, but he didn’t. I sighed. “Like he said, let’s take this one problem at a time. We have to get Dougal to the Mortal Plain first.”

He gave me an annoyed look. “Don’t brush me off. You know where I’m going with this.”

Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. The rest of the council was worried about whether Lugh would survive a duel. Brian was wondering about me. Truth to tell, so was I. Demons are extremely strong, and their hosts can withstand a great deal of abuse. And the more powerful the demon, the more damage the host could take. But with Lugh and Dougal equally matched, the size and strength of their hosts might be the crucial difference between them. I’m strong, but there were plenty of stronger, bigger people out there in the world, and you can bet Dougal’s host would be one of them.

“What do you expect me to say, Brian?” I asked. “If Lugh really does decide to fight a duel, I’m sure we’ll spend hours in a council meeting listening to everyone trying to talk him out of it. But in the end, he’s the king, and it’ll be his decision.”

A flush rose to Brian’s cheeks, either from the booze or from anger. “But it’s your body.”

Tell Brian that if it does come down to a duel, I won’t fight it in your body.

“Lugh says he won’t necessarily be in my body if he fights a duel,” I repeated, though I’m sure Lugh noticed my equivocation. It was true that using my body for a fight might put him at a disadvantage, but I would have a hard time pushing someone else into the line of fire in my place.

“That’s very comforting,” Brian said sourly. I was beginning to get the feeling he didn’t much like Lugh. I guess I couldn’t blame him.

“Let’s not borrow trouble. Or put the cart before the horse. Or whatever cliché you like best. I’m too tired and generally wrung-out to think about this now. I say some heavy-duty procrastination is in order.”

I’d have liked to procrastinate by taking Brian to bed and burying our powers of higher reasoning beneath physical pleasure, but the look on his face wasn’t what you’d call promising. He dumped the ice out of his glass and poured another shot of crappy rum.

“Come to bed, Brian,” I said, reaching out to cover the glass before he could raise it to his lips. “You still have to go to work in the morning. You don’t want to go in with a hangover, do you?” I bet that wouldn’t go over too well in the offices of Stuffy, Stodgy, and Serious, which was my nickname for Brian’s firm.

Brian made a face, but put the glass down. “It’s hard to care a whole lot about the day job with what I know about the war.”

“Yeah, but we have to hope that someday this will all be behind us, and we’ll get to go on with our lives. Before you got sucked into all this with me, you actually loved your job.” A fact that was completely incomprehensible to me, but different strokes and all that. “You need to make sure that job is still waiting for you when this is all over.”

Brian put his hands around my waist and pulled me closer to him, but it wasn’t a prelude to anything romantic, just the need for a reassuring touch.

“I somehow doubt our lives are going to go back to normal when it’s all over, even if Lugh does end up being the undisputed king. After all, it’s not like anyone is powerful enough to exorcize him and send him back to the Demon Realm. He’ll be with us for the rest of our lives.”

I had to suppress a shiver. No, there was no one strong enough to cast Lugh out; however, it occurred to me that that wasn’t the only way he could get back to the Demon Realm. My death would do the trick quite nicely.

I would never do such a thing! came Lugh’s shocked protest in my mind. Nor would I allow anyone else to do it, he continued, before I could say something about how Raphael wouldn’t have the same scruples. I believed him—after all, he had said he loved me. The fact remained that Brian was right, and my life would never return to what it had been like before Lugh came into it.

I leaned into Brian’s body, putting my arms around him and holding him close. “Let’s go to bed, okay?” I asked.

I knew Brian was far from appeased. But he let me lead him into the bedroom anyway.