Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four (12 page)

“I will. Later. Lance, I promise, you
want
to see this.”

A pause, then, “Okay. Send it over. As long
as you know it’s not a priority.”

I bet it would be when he saw it. “Fine.
You’ll have it in a few.”

The phone went dead. I grabbed the book and
sheet of paper, went through the hall and upstairs to my bedroom. I
copied what could be the book’s preface, then fed the pages and
Lawrence’s page into my fax/copier. Hopefully it would be enough.
Lance is ornery and if I sent too much he’d likely scowl and toss
it to one side without looking.

That done, I went back downstairs, thinking
of Royal again. Maybe he was in Bel-Athaer, maybe not. It was a
long shot, but perhaps Cicero knew something which could help me
find Royal. I’d have to track down the Seer without the Council’s
help.

Jack and Mel had disappeared, no doubt
sulking in their rooms. Disconsolate, I took my seat at the table,
letting my gaze drift around my familiar kitchen.

I needed backup, someone who knew
Bel-Athaer. Someone who was a match for demons.

My gaze settled on Gia’s book. She was in
Clarion.

Don’t go there, Tiff.

I got nowhere else to go.

You can’t trust her.

But she owes me.

So do Lawrence’s councilors, and see how far
that got you.

Lawrence looks older than his age and
perhaps Gelpha mature earlier than human children, but he is still
a child. He asked for my help and by damn he’d have it. But in two
worlds, I had no resources at my fingertips, nobody to whom I could
turn for help. I had to find Royal for Lawrence’s sake as much as
for mine.

I surged to my feet. Hands braced on the
tabletop, I leaned over the book and stared at it a long minute
before taking Gia’s business card from between the pages.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As I neared Bayle Court, I remembered my
surprise when Gia told me she and Rio kept an apartment there as a
convenience for when he visited his family in Clarion. Bayle is
across from the railroad tracks, near The Salvation Army and Saint
Margaret’s Mission homeless shelters. Many homeless, who must leave
the shelters in the morning, hang about the street all day long.
They gather in knots outside a small Mexican market, hoping someone
who wants cheap labor will drive up and hire them for the day. They
squat with their backs to the walls, possessions around them.

Not a location you would expect a
best-selling author to occupy. But maybe that was the point.

Men and women made their way to the shelters
as the sun touched the horizon. Muffled in layers of clothing, they
toted huge duffel bags or laboriously pushed shopping carts which
held their life’s possessions along the icy sidewalks. Some watched
me drive past, but most kept their eyes on the buildings ahead
where they would find a meal and bed for the night. I saw a few
dogs. Homeless people care for their pets; they will go without
food so their little friends can eat.

I know what it is to walk the streets on
bitterly cold nights. It keeps the blood circulating and a little
warmth in your body. I know what it is to dig in dumpsters and wait
in alleys for restaurants to throw out uneaten food. Scared they
would turn me in to Child and Family Services, I avoided shelters
during my years of homelessness.

I pushed the memories away. Didn’t want to
think about it.

Bayle Court is a cobbled square surrounded
by brown brick buildings three floors high. Windows of all sizes
are protected by iron bars or grills. The large display windows on
the ground floors are boarded over now. Gia’s apartment was above
what was once an industrial cleaning supply store.

That she happened to be here when I needed
help seemed opportune, almost as strange as her sending the book
and business card.

I parked at the curb, locked the Xterra and
made for the entrance on the side of the building. A strong wind
channeled by the tall brick structures gushed down the Court; it
picked up dust and trash, sending it skittering along the sidewalk.
I pressed the doorbell. Soft footsteps approached behind the
door.

Rio Borrego opened the door and moved back.
His plain, long-sleeved blue T-shirt, molded to a nicely muscled
chest, was tucked into blue jeans hung low on his hips. He closed
the door as I came inside and passed him.

“Miss Banks, welcome,” he said. His smile, a
flash of white teeth, lit up his entire face. “I never thanked you
for saving my life.”

I’d seen Rio Borrego twice; a dying,
brutalized young man in a bathtub, and again in a dim motel room.
Now, for the first time, I saw him with the benefit of bright
electric light, a handsome, dusky-skinned Latino with dark slanting
eyes and high cheekbones. With his long black hair pulled back in a
tail, the gang tattoos crawling up his neck to below his ear were
faded stained-glass colors, a contrast to the black letters inked
on his knuckles.

“I didn’t do all that much.”

He smiled again as he indicated the
staircase with a sweeping hand. I went before him, our feet making
the old, uncarpeted wood creak. A door at the top of the stairs
stood ajar; I pushed it open and went through.

I expected a huge, sumptuous apartment, but
entered a small, sparsely furnished studio dimly illuminated by a
small ceiling lamp. Tall, narrow windows in the west wall looked
over the street and railroad tracks beyond. A green leather couch
and loveseat separated by a heavy, dark, marble-topped coffee table
sat next to a small kitchen with maple cabinets and a breakfast
bar. A king-sized bed with a black satin spread and two bedside
cabinets perched on a square platform a few paces away. Notebooks,
paper, reference books, laptop, printer and miscellaneous office
supplies littered a large desk behind the couch. A closed door near
the bed must lead to a bathroom.

She sat on a stool with her spine to the
breakfast bar, dish and fork in her hands. Her long black hair,
glossy in the mellow light, was drawn back from her porcelain-pale
face and gathered on the crown of her head by a turquoise-blue and
green enamel barrette. As I stood between the loveseat and windows,
suddenly at a loss, she swung the stool so she could put the plate
on the counter, then swung back with a red napkin in her hand. She
delicately patted the bright-red material on the edge of her
bright-red lips.

Her eyes are black below thin, arched black
eyebrows. You don’t see they are actually dark brown until you are
close to her. I never wanted to get that close to her again.

On a turquoise background, a shimmering
dragon crawled up her form-fitting, ankle-length, sleeveless dress,
its rich gold and blue scales curving over her hip, winding up her
torso over one breast to the high Oriental collar, the tail
circling her nipped in waist. Gold and onyx earrings swayed on her
lobes and wide gold bangles jangled on her wrists as she put the
napkin on the counter, crossed her legs and folded her hands
together on her knee.

She focused on me and I changed my mind. I
didn’t want to be in this shadowed room with Gia Sabato. “I
interrupted your supper. I’m sorry. Why don’t I take off and come
back later. Or tomorrow if you’d prefer,” I blurted.

“No, please stay. We were about to have
dessert. Would you care to join us?”

“Uh, no thanks.” I stuck my hands in my
pockets and backed up.

She slid off the stool, walked past the
counter and opened the fridge. “I made chocolate bombé. Are you
sure you don’t want a taste?”

Rio sauntered past me and joined Gia in the
kitchen. They rubbed shoulders as he delved in a cabinet for dishes
and she found a knife to cut the bombé.

Dessert with Gia Sabato? I couldn’t get more
uncomfortable. This was so not what I expected.

“Please take a seat.” She leaned into Rio
and spoke too low for me to hear. A second later he came around the
counter with a loaded plate in his hand and sat on a stool. Gia
came back empty handed. She sat in the loveseat and looked up at
me.

I perched on the edge of the couch and
unbuttoned my quilted jacket.

Gia lifted her chin and smiled; the small,
knowing, mirthless curve of deep red lips which haunt my dreams and
makes gooseflesh pebble my skin.

“What?”

“Do you still believe you can draw your gun
before I take it away from you?”

Heat prickled up my neck and stained my
cheeks. I couldn’t claim I unbutton my jacket for another reason,
and I should know better. Her buddy Dark Cousin, Daven Clare, once
took my gun right out my hand. I deliberately spread my fingers on
my knees.

“What, no comeback, Miss Banks? You
disappoint me.”

“I thought I’d give you a break.”

She smiled again as she shifted back on the
loveseat. “As pleasant as they are, I think we can dispense with
the formalities. Why are you here?”

Behind her, Rio leaned forward as he forked
a wedge of bombé into his mouth.

“Lawrence is in trouble and I can’t find
Royal,” I began.

I told her the little I knew and what I
suspected. I didn’t hold anything back. I finished by handing her
Lawrence’s note. “This Burning Man, I think Mel and Jack saw him in
my backyard earlier this year.”

Finally she said, “Well, that is a fine
puzzle.” She gently gnawed on her lower lip.

“I. . . .” I had to swallow to go on. “I
don’t know what to do.”

She looked me squarely in the eyes.

I shifted my gaze to her nose. Happily,
although I have no more resistance than another person, I do know
when a demon tries to beguile me and can shake out of it. However,
a Dark Cousin’s mojo can suck me in if I’m not careful. Gia proved
that the first time I met her. She asked to meet me at my house and
I agreed. I wondered at the incongruity, for I
never
saw a
client at my house. I believed she planted a compulsion in my mind,
but Royal refused to discuss the notion, or the Dark Cousins.
Later, I understood she cast a geas on both me and Royal. He
could not
speak of them to me. I didn’t understand at the
time. We nearly parted ways because of it.

I will never forgive Gia for what she did to
us. Coming as it did on the heels of my encounter with the demon
Phaid, when he tried to make me quiescent, make me want him, Gia’s
use of her ability had a sickening impact.

She put her head on one side. “Why do you
come to me with this?”

My fingers were clenched like talons on my
knees; I forced them to relax. “I’m going back to Bel-Athaer, but I
don’t know where to start. I need someone who knows Bel-Athaer and
the people, who can guide me and be my backup.”

“Me?” She leaned over her knees, hands
clasped on them, then lifted one hand to fan her face. “I hardly
believe what I hear.”

I was poised to walk out. I must be mad,
coming here for help “I helped you find the Charbroiler, and Rio.
Think of it as returning a favor.”

“Well, yes, I
am
grateful for what
you did, but. . . . Enter Bel-Athaer, break the pact. . . .” She
lofted one dark eyebrow. “I would need a singularly good reason to
do so.”

“The High Lord is afraid, and I don’t think
Lawrence is one to jump at shadows.”

“And he has reason. Orcus, known as the
Burning Man, is a mysterious figure, the Gelpha bogeyman. He’s
rarely seen, but death follows in his footsteps when he makes an
appearance. Cicero is relatively benign, yet both work for the High
House and surely collaborate. However, I cannot interfere in Gelpha
politics.”

“Politics? Since when has a little boy in
danger been political?”

“Since the little boy became High Lord of
Bel-Athaer.”

“Then help me find Royal. Or at least tell
me where I can find Cicero and how to get there.”

Rio set his plate on the counter, slid off
the stool and came to stand behind Gia. His hand rested on her
shoulder; he squeezed gently.

She reached across her breast to lay her
hand over his. Her voice dropped, a musical hush, a lullaby. “Give
me a reason, Miss Banks.”

Hadn’t I given her enough? What did she want
from me?

As I watched the small, mesmeric motion of
her fingers caress the back of Rio’s hand, I knew the feel of his
skin was familiar as the breath in her lungs. I heard again the
utter desolation in her voice when it appeared he was dead, how she
bit through her lower lip until bright blood beaded there.

Memory took me back to a smoke-choked
street, broken glass powdering my hair and shoulders as flame
gouted from Royal’s apartment. The cold which took over my body, as
if ice sheathed me, the desolation of knowing I would spend the
rest of my life without him.

I drew in a slow breath, let it seep out and
looked at Rio. “Because you love him. Do you remember how you felt
when you couldn’t find him?”
Remember the despair as it built,
day by day, hour by hour, then minute by minute until you thought
of nothing else but how life would be if you never saw him
again.

She stared at me. I waited out the silence,
until her lashes dipped over eyes gone true black. “Yes, I
remember.”

Her mouth softened. She turned her head to
Rio, smiled. “I would tear the world apart for Rio. Would you do
the same for Royal?”

I made to reply, but she stiffened and held
her hand up, palm out. “Someone is outside.”

Rio tried to move away but Gia’s hand
tightened on his. She spoke to him over her shoulder. “No, my love.
He’s Gelpha. And. . . .” She frowned as if listening. “. . . he’s
gone now.”

I half rose. “Royal?”

“No. I did not recognize him.” She tipped
her head on one side. “Were you followed?”

“I’m pretty sure not by a human, but a
Gelpha. . . .” With the way they can move, I’d not spot a demon
trailing me.