Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (14 page)

I
spoke in her ear. “He doesn’t mean to be rude. I think the way he acts with you
is a coping mechanism. He has a hard time separating us two.”

She
sucked in a sharp breath, let it out and rolled her eyes to one side. “I suppose
so.”

“What?”
from Royal.

“Forget
it,” Maggie said. “I’m turning it over to Tiff now.” She closed her eyes.

“Tiff
Banks,” I said. “Glad to meet you.”

“I
hope you do not change your opinion when you hear Royal’s plan,” Felipe said, composed
for a man plunged in the middle of this.

Plan?
We had a plan?

“What
you are about to hear . . . you may think it less than rational,” Royal said.

A
snappy retort involving comatose girlfriends, clairvoyants and how he imagined
anything
could be irrational came to mind, but I let it slide.

“When
Kien and I were children, we heard our parents talk of a hidden place below where
people fled to a sanctuary long ago, a vast region, part of Earth but concealed
from most eyes.”

Below?
An underground cavern? “Seriously? Maybe a big empty area could stay hidden once
upon a time but not in the modern world. Sonar or radar or whatever should detect
it. And what about all the satellites orbiting and taking pictures?”

“So
you would think. Yet Felipe went there.” He turned to Felipe. “If you will, Felipe?”

Felipe
nodded and sat on a couch. He threaded his fingers together and studied them
for a moment before lifting his head. “You will, without doubt, think I have
lost my mind,” he began.

“My
father went Downside when I was a younger man. He returned home with no memory
of it, apart from going there and returning. Of Downside itself, nothing.

“So
I went myself and went prepared, or so I thought. I took this.” He took a small
square box from his jacket pocket, a recorder of the style used twenty years
ago. He pressed a button.

“This
is incredible,” his voice said from the recorder. “The people, their names, their
faces . . . everything is fading.”

The
recording stopped. Felipe said, “I recorded this when I returned to Manhattan.
To be precise, from the time stamp I recorded it just as I stepped back into
Manhattan after leaving Downside. I could have said more, I think, of what little
remained in my memory, but I assumed I had recorded the entire experience.”

I
eyed the recorder, waiting for him to turn it back on or tell us what he heard
on it.

He
held it up, his brow wrinkling. “Apart from those few words, the tape is blank.
And by the time I returned home, all memory of what I saw Downside vanished.”

It
was the feeblest attempt to validate a far-fetched story I ever heard. I could
have pulled it apart a dozen different ways.

“However,”
Felipe continued, “I do recollect going to Downside. I walked through darkness until
I saw a light, a lamp beside a door. The door opened when I reached it and I
looked through at what appeared to be the waiting room in an old train or bus
station. I stepped inside, and what happened after, what I saw or did, is gone.
The next thing I recall is looking back through the same door, at the same
room, as I walked in the darkness again.”

I
couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “What makes you think it was . . . what did you
call it, Downside? It could have been anywhere.”

“Only
what I recorded as I left, and my father gave me the directions to go there.”
He reached in his pocket again. “And this. I found it in my pocket after I got
home.”

He
unfolded a square of thick, creamy vellum paper and handed it to Royal. I
angled behind him. Small black squiggles covered the paper.

“Chicken
scratch.”

Maggie
came to peek. She squinted as if trying to make sense of the squiggles. “Yeah,
chicken scratch. Is it their writing?”

“I
do not know. Hopefully someone Downside can interpret it for you.”

“Why
go when you know you’ll forget everything?”

“I
suppose exploration is hard-wired into our nature, just as it is yours. To
boldly go where no man has gone before, or in this case, gone but cannot recall
going.” He grinned with a flash of pointed teeth. “I thought it would be
different for me, I would be the one to solve the enigma of Downside.”

Royal
asked, “You said Manhattan?”

“You
are
not
serious,” I burst out with. “At a time like this, you’re chasing
fables?”

Pain
creased Royal’s face and I knew I hurt him. “Yes, Tiff. I will investigate
every avenue, the most tenuous, the most bizarre.”

“And
if it is real, someone tampered with their memories. Do you want that done to
you?”

Felipe
said, “Think carefully, my friend. It is the reason I never returned.”

“I
am going,” Royal said quietly in a steely voice. “How do we get there?”

“I
will give you directions. But be warned, to reach the entrance you walk in
unnatural darkness, it is unnerving. Father called it a bridge, in the sense it
joins the two worlds.”

Another
world? A few years ago, if anyone seriously told me about other dimensions with
Gates and Ways to them, and another race lived in a plane of existence
connected to my world, I would have laughed my head off. Could I accept yet another
realm I knew nothing of? “So it’s another plane of existence, like Bel-Athaer?”

“No.
As I said, it is deep in Earth, but hidden.”

Felipe
had convinced Royal this place was real. What if it was? A knot formed in my
stomach and twisted. The thought of Royal going somewhere I knew nothing about,
a place I couldn’t imagine, chilled me. “Not without me. We’re partners, we
work well together. I may see something you miss.”

He
expected me to say that; he replied as my last word left Maggie’s mouth. “Tiff,
be reasonable. You cannot help me. You will be nothing more than an observer.”

“Royal,
I have to go with you.” I swallowed what I wanted to say; expressing my fears made
this business harder for him.
If the pale body in the hospital dies while
you are away, if something awful happens to you as you look for Shan . . . I
may never see you again after this night. If I go with you, at least we’ll be
together.
Every moment I spent with him was precious.

Did
his thoughts mirror mine? He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose
between thumb and forefinger; looked down, then to the side and spoke in a dry,
soft voice. “As you wish.”

I
would have fallen with shock if I knew how. He gave in sooner than I expected.

“She’ll
be more than a disembodied observer if I’m with you,” Maggie said as her eyes
popped open.

Royal’s
face got his stiff, exasperated look. “I cannot take you. I do not need the
distraction of a naïve young girl.”

“If
Tiff goes, she’ll need this naïve young girl,” she bristled.

“Not
on your life, young lady.” I saw the ugly things Shan did to his victims. Maggie
must not go with Royal.

He
said, “You are right, of course.”

I
groaned. “Royal, no!”

Maggie
didn’t repeat it, damn her.

Royal
said, “You will stay with me, do as I tell you with no questions asked.”

Maggie
nodded enthusiastically. “Anything you say.”

Unfortunately,
I didn’t believe her. She meant well, but it must be awful hard to keep silent
except to repeat what I said when much of it sounded inexplicable. The need to
question us became overpowering and I foresaw those questions breaking free of
their own accord.

Felipe
said, “I must be on my way.”

“Downside?”
An appropriate name for a place below ground. “Does that make here Upside?” I
joked and Maggie spoke for me.

“Indeed,”
Felipe said.

As
I frowned and wondered if he joshed me, Felipe and Royal went to the door. They
stood there a moment, Felipe talking, Royal nodding.

Felipe
presented his hand. “Good luck, my friend.”

They
shook hands and Royal let Felipe out. He left the door open.

He
cleared his throat. “Maggie, they way we travel is unconventional.” A faint
smile tickled his lips. “It gives Tiff motion sickness.”

“She
told me, calls it the demon dash.”

Yep,
undeniably a smile and good to see on Royal’s face. “Are you willing to try?”

“Sure.”

“Come.
We shall go where fewer people are. Let us see how you bear traveling with me
and if Tiff can stay with us at speed.”

What?
No!
“Maggie, listen to me. You are
not
going!” I yelled in her ear.

As
if I hadn’t tried to blast her eardrums, her face, turned to Royal, became
alert and inquiring.

“Have
you ever seen anyone kill with their bare hands? I don’t mean strangle or beat another
person to death. Imagine fingers with talons, punching into a woman’s chest and
pulling out her lungs, ripping a man’s backbone from his body. Shan did it and
more to his victims.”

Still
nothing. Man, she was good.

“Maggie,
you are supposed to help me, not pretend I don’t exist!” Frustration made me
want to shake her.

I
stomped to Royal and waved my hands in his face. “Royal, are you crazy? You
can’t take her with you!”

What
was I doing? Royal couldn’t hear me. I spun to face Maggie and eyed her, a pretty
little thing with no idea what she was doing. She looked pleased with herself,
too. My anger faded, instead I felt sad. My voice sank. “Maggie, I don’t want
to see you hurt.”

She
swallowed hard and for a second I hoped she’d change her mind, but she said
nothing.

I
sagged. I had rarely felt this ineffective. Being ignored as if the person you
speak to doesn’t hear is incredibly aggravating.

“And
what about Mac?” I piped up. “We can’t take off to who knows where for who
knows how long and leave him alone.”

Maggie
spoke for me this time.

“Maryanne
agreed to care for him.”

Huh.
Royal must have talked to Maryanne on the way back with Felipe. A student at
River Valley University, Maryanne’s schedule allows her to see Mac several
times throughout the day and tend to his needs. She grew up surrounded by dogs
at her mother Janie’s kennel; Mac doesn’t intimidate her and she doesn’t
tolerate any nonsense from him.

We
descended to the street. This time I held Royal’s aura. He cut across to the
residents’ parking lot and from there along an alley to Twenty-Third. Maggie
trotted to stay with him. We headed east for three blocks, then south, until we
reached the site for the new Juvenile Court. The building’s shell rose three
floors and a gigantic tarp covered the top. Heavy gauge hurricane fences
surrounded the lot. The street paralleling the site was deserted.

“Maggie,”
Royal said, “I’m going to have to hold you to me.”

Maggie
smirked. “I won’t object.”

I
tried not to snarl. “Watch where you put your hands.”

She
ignored me and held her arms away from her sides so Royal might slip his around
her. I am happy to say he did so tentatively.

“Ready,”
Royal asked.

“Ready,”
she confirmed.

“Ready,”
I echoed. I held to Royal’s aura with one hand and Maggie’s with the other as if
I hugged both.

Royal
sped away, but not as fast as he could. I saw the buildings whiz by and they would
have been a blur if he ran all out.

Damn.
I suddenly found myself alone on the sidewalk.

Now
what? Royal had to rely on Maggie to tell him where I waited.

Because
I knew what to look for, I saw the distortion in the air a second before they
popped into sight on the road nearby me. Maggie got free of Royal’s embrace,
huffing and puffing as if she had finished a fifty-yard dash. “Whooey! That was
. . . what a ride!” She wobbled over the sidewalk to the wall and leaned on it.
“I’m dizzy.”

Royal
searched the street with his eyes. “Where is Tiff?”

I
waved as Maggie pushed away from the wall.

Maggie
waved back. “Right here.”

He
visibly steadied himself. I couldn’t imagine how difficult this must be for
him, knowing I stood so near yet indiscernible from the brick and concrete and
glass on all sides.

Maggie
led him to me. “Did you slip away from us, Tiff? Or did the speed tear you
free?”

“I
didn’t feel torn away. I stopped moving. But if you’re asking if I lost my
grip, I guess so.”

Maggie
repeated me and Royal said, “Can we try again?”

I
was willing. “Yeah. Let’s see what happens this time.”

This
time, I concentrated on sensation and felt my hands pull from their aura’s from
the force of Royal’s movement.

Double
damn.

Royal
found his cell phone in his jeans back pocket. “Then we fly.”

Royal’s
conversation lasted less than a minute, with brief pauses when the other party
spoke, but I got the impression he barely listened to them.

“I
need you to fly me to Manhattan.”

“It
could be a matter of life and death.”

“For
Tiff’s sake.”

“I
will tell you when we meet.”

“Who
was that?” I asked when he’d finished.

“An
old friend. He has a private jet.”