Dead Demon Walking (7 page)

In the bedroom, I kicked
off my sandals and lost my toes in the ultra-thick cream carpet.
The cherry-wood walk-in closet could have held mine, Royal’s and
half Clarion’s clothes. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but
big
does not do it
justice. Is there such a thing as a bed larger than king-sized?
Royal lolled on an island-sized square draped in patchwork gold,
bronze and chocolate. It had a little fold-up step stool to help
the average-sized person climb aboard.

I grinned at Royal. “Does this come
with room service?”

He lay back on the satin pillows,
hands linked behind his head. “Sweetheart, it comes with anything
you want.”

***

Three hours after taking a shower and
a nap in a bed I could live in, I leaned on my elbow to gaze at
Royal’s face.

“
Mornin’,
sweetheart.”

I gave him the evil eye.
“Evening.”

He smiled up at me. “That does not
look like a happy, smiley morning - excuse me, evening -
face.”

I didn’t feel happy and smiley. My
head ached.

I refused to let his smile soften me.
“That could be because my partner set me up.”

He theatrically widened his eyes.
Wide-eyed innocence from Royal made me want to laugh, but I
resisted.

“
I wondered why we’re in
this luxurious suite.” I waved my hand at the room. “This is the
Embassy Suite, reserved for diplomats and extremely wealthy people.
It costs
twenty-five-hundred
dollars
a night!
”

“
We’re only here for two
days.”

I ignored that. “Then your friend
Chris Plowman sends up his compliments, with an invitation to join
him for supper.”

He didn’t even have the grace to look
abashed. “Supper? Not dinner?”

“
What has that do with
anything?”

“
There is a
difference.”

Seeing a poor attempt to distract me,
I gave him an eyebrow. “Christopher Plowman owns this place. I bet
we’re not paying a dime.”

Royal started to slide out the sheets.
I lay on him with a hand either side his body, making the sheet
taut across his arms and chest. “Mr. Plowman has a problem, doesn’t
he, Royal.”

He winked at me. “That’s my girl, best
detective in the American northwest.”

Yep, I figured it out, although I
might have taken longer had I not heard the gentle knock at the
door. A man in a white uniform wheeled in a trolley with a silver
coffee service, and a note for Royal from Plowman. I know, I
shouldn’t have opened the envelope, but I did, and look what I
found.

I waved the thick vellum paper in his
face. “’Royal, I hope you’re comfortable in the Embassy Suite. I am
eager to see you again, my friend. If you and your companion will
join me for a casual supper at six, we can discuss my problem. I do
hope she can help. Chris.’”

I held his gaze. “Problem?”

“
Mm, that does rather give
the game away,” he admitted. “Can I get up now?”

I made a sound through gritted teeth.
“Not. Yet.”

“
Your snarl is
very
sexy.”

I had one of those intuitions. “You
knew! You heard the coffee arrive and saw me read the
note.”

He closed his eyes,
inhaled. “And you smell
so
good.”

“
Royal - ” I began, but
before I knew what he intended, I lay on my back, swaddled in the
sheet like a mummy.

“
You are altogether too
sexy for me to resist, especially when you are annoyed.” He pulled
aside one edge of the sheet. “Now, what have we in
here?”

And that was that for a
time.

Chapter Six

We stepped in the foyer and
hunger roiled my stomach as the wonderful aroma of grilling steak
drew me like a magnet. I’m a food aroma junkie; let me get a whiff
of steak grilling on the barbecue, onions sizzling in the
pan,
bacon
, I’ll
track it faster than you can snap your fingers. I followed the
tantalizing olfactory trail to a restaurant just off the foyer,
except a sign on the wall called it
The
Dining Room
. We made to enter, but a guy in
a white tux intercepted us and spoke quietly in Royal’s ear. Royal
nodded, and we followed the guy past the
The Dining Room
, down a short hallway
to a small, windowless room like an alcove. Mellow light from an
overhead lamp bathed the small room, picking out the silver gilt
lines running down the teal wallpaper, making silverware on the
single round table softly gleam. A man rose to his feet as we
reached him.

A demon, with pale, shimmering gray
shoulder-length hair cut by glittering black strands, his eyes the
same pale gray with pupils black and glossy as hematite. His
pale-blue, light-weight suit and waistcoat beautifully draped a
lean body. His gaze on me ran a shiver down my spine. He smiled at
Royal, revealing the tips of his pointed white teeth, and reached
over the table to shake hands.

A low slow voice, a smooth,
upper-class English accent. “Royal, my dear friend. I cannot tell
you how good it is to see you again.”

He released Royal’s hand and made a
half-bow in my direction. “And this must be Tiff, as lovely as
Royal described.”

Hot little sparkly sensations tingled
over my skin and erupted inside me. I could listen to his voice all
day. I smiled warmly as I relaxed.

I came bolt upright as I
realized demon seduction had me in its sensuous, velvety grasp.
Plowman tried to charm me, right in front of Royal, and I let
him!
Yeech!
I bit
down on my lower lip and pasted a bland expression on my
face.

Royal smiled at his friend. “I hope we
did not keep you waiting.”

“
Not a problem. Do sit,”
Plowman said as he took his seat.

Royal sat on Plowman’s left with me
next to him, so I faced our host across the small table. “You’re
British?”

Royal’s eyes twinkled. “Chris is no
more British than I. He lived in London for a year, many years ago,
and decided to become an English gentleman.”

Plowman tossed his head,
making his hair sift to one side. “To each his own.
You
decided to become a
police officer and bury yourself in rural Utah.” He spread his
hands in a
need I say more?
Gesture.

We sat in silence as a waiter in a
neat white uniform with a folded linen cloth draped over his arm
put a fragile china coffee service on the white damask tablecloth,
plus a matching bowl brimming with raw brown sugar and small jug of
milk. Another waiter pushed in a trolley which held four heavy
silver chafing dishes and a silver tureen. He whisked off the
tureen’s lid to present squares of cheese-covered toast afloat in
French onion soup. The smell of slightly charred onion and rich
broth made my stomach rumble. The dishes held grilled steak,
vegetables oven-roasted in rosemary olive oil, sweet corn and
scalloped potatoes. Yet another waiter put down a large bowl of
green salad, a carafe of French dressing, a basket of bread rolls
and bowl of butter pats.

“
This looks good. I hope
you did not go to any trouble,” Royal said as he used heavy silver
tongs to transfer a slab of steak to his dish.

“
Not at all. With your
appetite, I knew you wouldn’t want to wait until eight for dinner,
so I ordered a simple supper,” Plowman replied. “But I hope you’ll
join me for dinner tomorrow evening. You did bring a
tux?”

And that meant? I cocked my head and
widened one eye at Royal.

“
No, I did not,” he told
Plowman.

He winked at me. “Dinner at The
Hermitage is something of an affair. Men wear tux, woman wear
cocktail dresses or evening gowns.” Then he busily helped himself
to everything else on the table.

No fancy dinner tomorrow night for us,
then. I brightened - we could go find a family diner, they serve
the best food.

Savory steam rose from the dishes. I
ladled soup into my bowl and loaded my plate with steak, corn,
veggies and potatoes. One thing missing. I smiled at the waiter.
“Can I get some ketchup, please?”

The man’s head went up, it kind of
reared, and he looked down his nose at me. I saw right up his
nostrils.

“
Madam?”

“
Ketchup. For the
steak.”

“
Um, Tiff. . . ,” Royal
murmured.

Oh, I knew what I said wrong. I smiled
at the waiter again. “Sorry. Tomato sauce.”

The fellow still stared at me with a
chilly countenance. I didn’t know what I did wrong, but his
expression indicated I committed a serious breach of etiquette, or
at least broke some minor law.

Royal made odd wheezing noises in his
throat. When he recovered, he leaned in and spoke low in my ear.
“How can I explain? Putting ketchup on food is considered an insult
in establishments such as this.”

“
My chef would be outraged
by the mere suggestion,” Plowman drawled.

I looked from Royal to Plowman, then
snorted. They were joking, weren’t they? I peeked at the waiter
from beneath my brows. He looked dead ahead, as if our conversation
swept beneath his notice.

“
Ketchup would mask the
flavor,” Royal said.

“
You are. . . .” I gauged
his expression. Not joking, although a tiny quirk of his lips
betrayed amusement.

I eyed the snooty waiter again and
growled under my breath: “Forget it.”

I unfolded my linen napkin, laid it
over my knees and spooned up the soup.

I caught Plowman’s eyes on me, a
dreamy look in them. I frowned back. His eyes narrowed as he stared
with more concentration. Then he reached over the table as if to
take my hand. I slapped his down. The nerve of the man!

Royal burst into laughter as he
overloaded his fork. “Chris, that does not work on
Tiff.”

I glared at Plowman, damping my temper
with an effort, miffed his lecherous pursuit didn’t bother Royal in
the slightest. Okay. I could play that game. Damned if I’d let
either know it aggravated me. I nonchalantly pushed my soup bowl
away and dug into my steak.

“
I don’t know what you
mean,” said Plowman, giving Royal a look meant to caution
him.

“
Your magic won’t work on
her. She sees us as we are, not the smoothed-over version her
people normally see.”

Smoothed-over?

The demon laid his knife and fork on
the edge of his plate. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“
I wanted to surprise
you.”

I crinkled my brow. “You knew he’d try
it on me?”

“
Of course; Chris never
changes.” Royal flashed his teeth at Plowman. “And I knew it would
not work on you.”

I swallowed buttery corn. “Why would
you want to influence me?” I asked Plowman.

He shrugged one shoulder fluidly and
smiled thinly. “Because I can.”

“
Not this time, buddy. Not
with this girl.” I scooped up more corn.

His smile tightened. “Apparently
not.”

His expression changed to uncertain as
he spoke to Royal. “Good grief. What did you do to your
teeth?”

Royal grinned, the better to show off
his even white teeth. “I had them capped.”

Plowman sounded stunned. “Whatever
for?”

Royal’s gaze softened. “I like to kiss
human women.”

“
Woman,
” I emphasized.

Plowman twitched an eyebrow and said
sourly, “So do I, old boy, and often. But I don’t feel a need to
mutilate my teeth.”

I contemplated him over my fork.
“Royal didn’t care to put his will on every woman he kissed to make
her forget the feel of his teeth.”

“
If you got out in the
world more, Chris, you would know many get their teeth capped, for
the same reason,” Royal said.

“
To kiss women?” I
asked.

“
I’ve not had complaints so
far,” Plowman said.

Royal pointed his knife at our host.
“You don’t have a family. Imagine having to endlessly charm your
wife and children so they don’t feel your teeth.”

“
Perhaps if I find a woman
as attractive as Tiff to settle down with, I’ll change my mind,”
the demon said with a calculated look at me.

He took a bite of potato, a little
half-smile hovering on his mouth and said no more on the subject of
teeth.

I didn’t trust demons and Plowman
validated my judgment when he tried to put his will on
me.

I learned about demons
years before I saw one. Lynn is the single person I know who sees
them as they truly are, as I do, and when she told me what she
knew, I hoped never to meet one. It was not a case of fearing what
I didn’t understand - I understood they were fast, strong,
and
used
people as
a means of sensual and sexual gratification - they were alien to my
world in both appearance and nature, a danger to my fellow human
beings. How can you trust a supernatural . . . whatever, who
masquerades as human?