Free The Devil You Know by Jenna Black Page A

been much good at trusting anyone, and there was a part of me that longed to let go of my constant suspicions, my constant search for ulterior motives. I wanted to trust Lugh with not just my body, but my soul. And I knew I could never do it, no matter how much I liked him, no matter how much I believed in his cause. It’s hard enough for a person to really know another human being all that well. It’s impossible for a human to really understand a demon.
    I didn’t know what else to say, so I let the subject drop.

    Andy and I had settled into an uneasy silence. He turned on the TV and stared at CNN while I puttered around the apartment trying not to notice the awkwardness. I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, but after Adam’s disturbing report, I didn’t dare leave Andy alone. Even if I sort of wanted to kill him myself for being such a pain in the ass.
    It wasn’t that I didn’t understand his reasons for not talking to me. It’s just that I have approximately zero patience. I wanted to find out what the hell he knew, and I wanted to find it out right now .
    At around six, I ordered a pizza for dinner. Andy wasn’t up to going out, and I wasn’t up to cooking. At six forty-five, the security desk called to let me know the pizza guy was on his way up. I muttered under my breath about the delights of cold pizza as I rooted through my purse for cash.
    I was still digging through the purse when I opened the door, scraping loose change off the bottom in my quest to cobble together a decent tip. I expected the pizza guy to wait impatiently for me to get the money out, but instead he pushed past me into the apartment.
    “Hey!” I yelled indignantly, dropping the purse and the money as it occurred to me that something most definitely wasn’t right.
    The intruder tossed the pizza box onto the nearest table, and I prepared for battle as he turned to face me. It took me a moment to recognize him, and when I did my head spun with confusion.
    “Dr. Neely?” I said, blinking at him. He’d been carrying the pizza box, and he wore a baseball cap with the pizza place’s logo on it, but how anyone could have mistaken him for a pizza delivery guy was beyond me.
    He doffed his cap and bowed. “At your service.”
    I was still a couple of steps slow, trying to figure out a) why the doctor was here, and b) why he was pretending to deliver pizza.
    The TV went silent, and I glanced over at Andy, whose face had gone pale.
    “Raphael,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice.
    Dr. Neely smiled and performed another fancy bow. “In the flesh, as it were.”
    I might have been slow on the uptake at first, but now that I understood what was happening, I moved damn fast. Before Raphael had risen from his bow, I closed the distance between us and jerked my knee up, catching him squarely in the nose. He howled in pain and clutched his face, blood seeping between his fingers.
    I glanced over at Andy again. “Is he one of those demons who gets off on pain?” I asked. Being incorporeal in their own world, some demons find physical sensation so fascinating that they greatly enjoy even unpleasant sensations—hence Adam’s fascination with pain, both his own and others’.
    Andy chuckled, and there was more life in his eyes than I could remember seeing since he’d awakened. “No.”
    “Oh, good,” I said, then planted my fist in Raphael’s gut. He made a loud “oof,” then collapsed to the floor. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to clutch his nose or his stomach. As he was thinking about it, I made a dash for the coat closet where I kept my Taser, arming it in record time.
    I put a respectable amount of distance between myself and Raphael, assuring myself I’d have time to pull the trigger if he launched himself at me when he’d recovered. Then I waited.
    Being a relatively smart guy for a son of a bitch, he remained on his knees even after he got his breath back and the bleeding in his nose