Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (22 page)

“When
can we talk to him?” Chris asked.

River
said, “He went Upside a couple months ago. Last we heard, he and Freyda are
still in Monterey.”

“Who’s
Freyda?”

“His
companion. A human woman.”

“Are
there more fairies Upside or just him?” Maggie asked for me.

“If
others are there, they didn’t go willingly. Sióga lose their magic when they
leave Downside.” Rain tapped her knee. “We can’t guarantee he’ll help you. You
might be wasting your time. But believe me, if Bel agrees it’ll be worth it.”

Royal’s
nostrils flared. “And if not?”

“We
think again, although getting near Shan will be difficult without Bel’s help.”

“One
more thing,” I said. “Why must Royal take your weapons in Arthemy’s house? What
did you mean Shan and Arthemy won’t suspect a thing?”

And
she told us. Then, she showed us.

I
felt like the perpetual bearer of bad news when the thought struck me. “We may
have a problem. Will we forget everything when we leave like Felipe and his
father did?”

“Why
would you?” Rain asked.

She
didn’t know. “The Gelpha who’ve come here don’t recall anything after they
leave. Why should we be different?”

“You’re
sure?”

“Positive.”

“Interesting.”
River dropped his head and looked at Rain through his straggling hair. “You
didn’t know?”

“The
only people I’ve met who’ve been Upside live here. They didn’t forget while
they were up there. We didn’t.”

“Could
it be because Downside protects its own, yet we don’t belong here?” Chris
suggested. “Another safeguard, like the geas which prevents passersby from
investigating the alley.”

“What?”
from Rain.

Chris
told her about our experience entering Downside. “Royal and I felt it but it
barely bothered us. Walking in was much harder for Maggie.”

“I
have my notes.” Maggie waved her notebook. “My recorder wouldn’t work but I
wrote down a lot.”

Rain
smiled. “The recorder won’t work here because the technology is alien to
Downside. And sorry to tell you this, your writing will turn to gibberish when
you leave.”

Maggie
went boneless and let her notebook fall. “Chicken scratch?”

Chicken
scratch, yeah.” Rain unsuccessfully tried to squelch a grin. “I’ve seen it.”

“I
have an idea,” I said as it came to me. “From what Felipe said, memory loss
wasn’t instant. He knew it was fading but still retained enough to make that
one little recording when he returned to Manhattan. So it gradually went
between leaving The Station and setting foot in Manhattan. What if we talk
about Downside as we walk the bridge? We may forget what happened
here
,
but maybe we’ll remember what we said to one another on the bridge.”

“It’s
worth trying,” Royal agreed.

Chris
said, “All this is for nothing if we lose our memories.”

Rain
stood. “I’m sorry. We’ll wait for you anyway. I hope you make it back with
Bel.”

“How
do we recognize him?”

“Bel
and Freyda are tall. He’s slim, with white hair and pale-blue eyes. She is a
robust woman, a redhead.”

Not
much of a description and I said so through Maggie.

“Don’t
worry. You can’t mistake them, especially if you see them together.”

“Cut
gemstones and silver ingots,” I said through Maggie as we neared The Station.
“Makes sense. They can’t spend dollars.”

Royal
didn’t blink at the fee Rain and River named. It was high and he paid whether
or not the plan succeeded. He did remind them they’d be paid nothing if we
didn’t recollect what we had to do next.

Walking
from Rain’s apartment to The Station took an hour and although Royal and Chris still
strode briskly, Maggie wilted as she slogged along splashing through puddles. Neither
Rain nor River owned a car and cab drivers drove away when Chris waved American
money at them.

Maggie
kept her eye on me as I paced with them. I didn’t feel the heat, humidity and
rain. Walking didn’t tire me. Although Downside scared the crap out of me, I
enjoyed the freedom of movement it gave me. When we left here I’d again be
wrapped around one of them like a chiffon scarf.

So
River and Rain were wraiths.
Huh.
Folklore describes wraiths as apparitions,
insubstantial; in fact, ghosts. Or the likeness of a person seen before they
die. Or, in popular novels, a person returned to life using dark necromancy.

Rain
and River were nothing like the fables. What they could do was huge,
mind-boggling. Downside challenged everything I thought I knew.

“I
can’t believe we’re doing this,” Chris told Royal. He walked with his hands in
his pants pockets. “If you told me yesterday we’d trust a siren and two wraiths,
and look for a fairy to ask for his help, I’d have had you institutionalized.”

“I
would have committed myself,” Royal replied. “Tiff’s life is on the line and I feel
we are grasping at air.”

But
we had to believe. Seeing what walked the streets of Gettaholt, were wraiths
and what they did any more astonishing? Why should fairies not exist?

“I
thought they insulted the guy when they called him a fairy. But she means a
fairy
.”
Maggie said.

I
echoed my thoughts of a moment ago. “After what I’ve seen, I can believe anything.”

“Sióga.
Have you heard it before?”

“Nope.
I’ll look for it on Wikipedia when I have hands.”

Royal
cast a look at Maggie. She deliberately flared her eyes. “Don’t tell me again to
keep my mouth shut unless I’m repeating what Tiff says. If we want a
conversation, we damn well will.”

I
was about to defend Royal yet again. Bound with anxiety, he was going through
so much, enough to defeat a person with less determination. But as much as I
adored him and understood his torment, I could make excuses for him only so
many times.

After
seeing Shan and Arthemy, the streets didn’t feel as threatening. We hurried to
The Station and the guys paid no attention to the peculiar people we passed, though
Maggie and I gawked. A slim male in a houndstooth suit and vest, brown shoes with
white spats; his hairy tufted ears swiveled and a long nose twitched as his
eyes darted nervously. A short, squat, big busted woman half as wide as she was
tall, her mouth looked as if it belonged to a frog below a tiny nose and eyes like
round black pebbles, and weedy clumps of hair sprouted from on top of her
otherwise bald head. A tall, nude, genderless creature with long limbs seemingly
made of rough brown bark and knobby, twiggy protrusions on its head. To my
eyes, familiar human forms mingling in the crowd served to emphasize the others’
bizzarity.

The
Station Master stood outside the doors. “Are you finished with your business here?”
he asked without preamble.

“No,”
Royal said as shortly. “We will return.”

The
man led us inside The Station, went in his little cubicle, and the metal door opened,
followed by the wooden door. Suddenly, we were faced with the darkness swamping
the bridge, with the doors shutting behind us and the small lamp providing inadequate
illumination.

I
grasped Maggie’s aura before I got left behind.

We
started talking, all at once. Royal held up one hand and Chris and Maggie fell
silent. He spoke of Shan, Angelina, River and Rain. Chris began to speak when
Maggie gave out a little shriek.

“I’m
an idiot!” she said as she fumbled in her backpack and found her mini recorder.
She pressed the button. “Testing. Please work you stupid little machine.”

When
she played the recording, her voice came back loud and clear. She grinned.
“It’s working.”

They
continued talking as they walked on, Royal and Chris alternating with Maggie
putting in a word when they paused for breath.

She
suddenly stopped midsentence. “Whose hand am I holding?”

“Mine,
my sweet,” said Chris.

The
spell of repulsion apparently affected only those trying to enter Downside,
because Maggie didn’t hesitate as we strode through the darkness. I didn’t know
she still held the tiny machine aloft until we reached the alley’s murky light.
Again, I felt as if we walked a long way before we came free of the alley.
Chris already held his cell phone and dialed as we emerged.

Reentering
Manhattan strangely disoriented me, as if I stepped from a dream into reality. I
suppose, in a way, I did. We had returned to the mundane world, where legs
didn’t end in hooves and moth wings didn’t sprout from shoulder blades.

Royal
stopped dead. “The Gates are open.”

“So
Shan did it,” Chris said.

“Someone
should be there to tell them they will close in two days.”

Chris
lifted his hands and spread them apart. “And explain all this? I think Gelpha
will have to cope without our help, my friend. We have enough on our plate.”

“It
was strange back there, wasn’t it,” Maggie stated.

“It
was,” Chris agreed.

“You
can remember it? Because I can’t, not much. The more I try, the less I recall.”

Chris
arched one eyebrow. “How odd.” Then he frowned. “Was it. . . ? I can’t. . . .”

Royal
tapped one toe impatiently as he looked along the street. “We are forgetting,
as Felipe did. I see Shan and hear what he demanded of me, but . . . .”

I
recalled every second we spent Downside. “The Station? The stores and
apartments going up to the sky? The people, if they can be called people?”

“Guess
they can’t wipe a ghost’s mind clean,” said Maggie.

“Tiff’s
memory is intact?” from Royal.

“Angelina,”
Maggie said. “What she said but not her face and . . . everything is fading. I
try to zero in on a memory and it’s gone. It was busy, wasn’t it, people
everywhere. I can’t picture them.”

Royal
said, “The only face I see and words I hear are Shan’s. As for Downside itself,
nothing.”

Maggie’s
gaze flicked wildly between Royal and Chris. “Something about the sky. It was
different.”

I
butted in. “It’s red. Does anyone recall what you said after we left The
Station?”

“Not
what I said, but what Royal said to me, yes,” from Chris.

“And
if you need confirmation, it’s on Maggie recorder.”

Royal’s
response was unexpected. He strode several angry paces away from us, spun and returned.
“This
plan
is absurd.”

“I
agree,” Chris said. “A fairy in California?
Pshaw!”

Despite
all they’d done to make a record of their time Downside, without the memories
to back it up they doubted their own words. I was unsure, myself. Could the
sióg help us? Would the wraiths’ plan succeed?

But
I
remembered
Rain and River and didn’t think they deliberately sent us
on a wild goose chase.

“You’re
not suggesting we give up, are you?” I asked desperately.

“Never,”
Royal said fiercely as his fingers curled to make fists. “But this notion is—”

“Enough
of this flip-flopping! One minute you urge us on, the next you say it can’t be
true. I saw what you’ve forgotten. Everything you fed into that recorder, it
happened. Do you believe in me, Royal, me as I am now, that I’m no different
where it matters, inside of me? How many times have you trusted my gut
instinct? Because right now it’s telling me this fairy is our only chance.”

Royal
stood very still after he heard my words from Maggie’s lips. Then he replied
softly, “I believe in you, Tiff. We will go to Monterey.”

On
the jet, Chris and Royal listened to the tape almost nonstop until I wanted to
crunch it to little bitty electronic pieces under my feet. They tried to
consign every word to memory, though they had difficulty swallowing it even
with the proof of their own voices. Losing your memory must be terrible and forgetting
an adventure of this magnitude crushing.

Royal
rented a car in San Francisco and Chris drove. Royal sat in the front with him.
In the back, Maggie disconsolately flicked through her notebook, now covered in
squiggles instead of words, as we left San Francisco and headed for Monterey.

She
flung the notebook down. “Not fair!”

I
sat beside her. “We have the recording.”

“I
know, but I wore my fingers down writing all this.”

Royal
had phoned his fellow Enforcers to tell them the Gates were open for a limited
time. Two headed for the High House to appraise Lawrence and his father Gryphon
of the situation. Royal suggested Gelpha be put in place at the Gates to
organize crossings. If not handled properly, chaos might erupt as the Gelpha
trapped when the Gates closed rushed to return to where they belonged.

Royal
fretted but I didn’t give it a thought. As Chris said earlier, let Bel-Athaer deal
with any problems the open Gates caused.

Was
Baelfleur truly a fairy, as in sparkly wings and fairy dust? Could we trust
him? And how, exactly, could he help us? I supposed he must be a Lawrence look-alike.

I
hiked through California when too young to be adrift alone. I went through San
Luis Obispo, one of California’s oldest cities, and saw the Spanish mission
founded in 1772. From there I made for Monterey and explored Fisherman’s Wharf
and Cannery Row, and took the spectacular coast road to Carmel. A family of
artists took me in. Gweny sculpted wildlife, each piece unique. Her husband Sam
sat outside their small shop with his charcoal and easel and took requests, he
drew anything provided it wasn’t lewd. Patrice, Gweny’s sister, made the most beautiful,
delicate lace I have ever seen; people often came in the shop to watch her
tatting. I stayed with them for months, helped them in the shop, took odd jobs
in the evening to help pay for my keep. But I knew it was temporary. I didn’t
belong there any more than I belonged anywhere.