Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four (3 page)

Out the corner of my eye, I saw a tall man
with long, glistening copper-gold hair near the lot’s entrance. But
when I looked in that direction, holding my breath, it was the
factory sign and sunlight glinting off the brass lettering.

I swallowed a sigh. At least the plant was a
distraction, but over too quickly. Royal had been gone only two
days, so why did I feel so . . . uneasy?

The way he left raised my hackles. On the
rare occasions when Gelpha business pulled him out of bed at odd
hours of the night, if I didn’t wake, he woke me so I wouldn’t
worry. Why not this time? I did come half awake, but I thought he
got up to use the bathroom. I went back to sleep. And not a word, a
note, a phone call since then. No reassurance he would be back.

I shivered, hunched my shoulders and plunged
my hands deep in the pockets of my down coat.
Idiot. Royal’s
fine.
Not much can harm a powerful demon.

Not much. But they
can
be hurt. They
can be killed.

Stop it!
I chided myself.
He’s
just fine, wherever he is.

I should not call him a demon when I’ve
known for a long time he and his people are Gelpha. Stronger than
the average human being, with enhanced senses and the ability to
influence us on a sensual, sexual level, demon seemed an
appropriate title when I first learned of them.

A smile tickled my lips as I recalled his
expression the first time I called him a demon to his face. Now I
often say “my big bad demon.” People use endearments casually
nowadays, but they don’t come naturally to me and that is as close
as I get.

Damn
! I stamped my feet down hard as
I walked. I needed to get angry. I
needed
something fierce
and hot in my belly, not the slow, sleety coiling which felt
suspiciously akin to anxiety.

I tromped back to the rear lot where I
parked the Xterra near two huge industrial dumpsters. Exposed to
the strong east wind, snow had formed a top crust which my boots
broke through, making walking difficult. An icy sheath bowed pine
branches nearly to the ground. Snow mounded about low
shrubbery.

The Xterra looked lonely and frosty cold.
The inside would be as chilly as the outside. I got in, started her
up and drove away, watching the gauge to see when she’d warm up
enough that I could turn on the heater.

I tore down the icy road. Even the Xterra’s
four-wheel-drive couldn’t efficiently cope with a three-inch
buildup of ice covered in two inches of slush, not at this speed.
Enough commonsense lurked on the fringes of my mind that I tapped
the brakes a few times before reaching the next bend, but I still
took it wide. I took my foot off the accelerator and let the next
hill slow me down naturally.

On the flat, I slammed my palms on the
steering wheel. “Okay! Enough!”

This was it; enough with being pathetic. If
I found Royal at my house when I got home, he could kiss my
ass.

Um.
I narrowly missed a half-buried
pothole as that statement conjured visions in my mind.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the
way.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t turn Jack off as
easily as the radio. “Jack, can’t you sing something else. I hate
that.”

I don’t hate
Jingle Bells
and
We
Wish You a Merry Christmas,
but they do annoy me. The
repetitiveness makes them easy for youngsters to learn, and you
won’t get a prize for guessing which songs my foster parents made
us kids sing when we went door-to-door caroling at Christmas. Some
people even enjoy hearing little kids caterwauling tunelessly at
the front door during what is supposed to be the season of
goodwill.

Remembering Christmas past, I smiled a
little. The shelters and foster homes weren’t Dickensian
institutions, it wasn’t all bad, and Christmas was a good time of
year. Local charities gave us toys, new clothes and Christmas
goodies for the table.

My smiled blanked out. I caused a lot of my
problems during my childhood and adolescence. I was rebellious and
intransigent, even with Deanna and Craig West, the super-nice
foster parents who about busted a gut to make me feel safe and
loved. Well, maybe not loved. Loving a kid as difficult as me was
near impossible, but I believe they wanted to. They treated me with
unending patience and kindness. But, anyhow, Craig was diagnosed
with Muscular Dystrophy and went downhill fast. They couldn’t cope
with his illness and an intractable fourteen-year-old.

I went back into the system and ended up
with the guy who proved what an evil, perverted sonofabitch a
foster dad can be.

My eyes unglazed and I took in my small
hall, the stand where I tossed my keys and wallet, the pegs for my
outerwear, the staircase leading upstairs. I finally found a home,
the place I was supposed to be.

“Hey!” Jack barked in my ear. “Did you
forget something?”

A home complete with pesky roommates.
“Huh?”

An insistent beep turned me back to the
front door. I forgot to turn off the security alarm again. Royal
installed it after someone bombed his apartment and tried to do the
same to my house with a nasty device connected to an electrical
outlet. If you find a plug half hanging from an outlet, you
automatically push it back in, right? Royal did with his
coffeemaker. His superhuman hearing detected an odd click, and his
speed got him out the apartment ahead of the blast. I would not
have been so fortunate, but the bomb squad found the device in my
house after Royal alerted them. He said the security system would
pick up the smallest movement above Mac-height, but I still made
sure the plug was already seated in the socket before turning on an
appliance.

And I still looked over my shoulder on
occasion.

“I’m getting into the spirit, because we’re
so
festive this year,” Jack mocked as he pointed at the
ceiling and our single festive decoration.

A bunch of artificial mistletoe attached to
a little gold bell. Royal put it up there with the idea he could
ring the bell and I’d come running, which I did as fast as my size
nines could carry me. Believe me, the reward was worth the
effort.

I peeled off my coat as I walked through the
hall to the kitchen. The place felt blissfully warm compared to the
cold outside. Sitting at my old wood kitchen table, I unzipped my
boots and eased them off. I rested for a moment, coat over my
knees, and casually glanced at the answering machine. No light
blinked to indicate a new message.

“No calls from you know who,” Mel
sing-songed.

Oh well. “Guess I needn’t bother looking
then, not with you to tell me.”

“You don’t have to bite my head off.”

Under the table, my Scottish terrier
MacKlutzy opened his eyes, lifted his head and eyed me as if to
say,
You’re back? I just noticed.
He lumbered to his feet,
walked to the pantry and stared as if his eyes had the power to
melt the wood which separated him from his food.

“No. Doctor Steve says you’re overweight.
You’re not getting a snack each time I come home, it’s bad for
you.”

He gave me a bright look from his dark-brown
eyes and wagged his tail.

“Don’t try that on me, little buddy. You
heard me. You know what ‘no’ means.”

That got me a curled upper lip and snarl for
my troubles. With an audible sigh, Mac settled in front of the
pantry, head on his front feet.

I went to the hall and threw my coat at the
coat-rack, put my boots in the drip tray beneath, then picked my
coat off the floor, shook it and hung it up. Back in the kitchen, I
stood at the stove. My fat pink fridge hummed next to the pantry,
the round plastic wall clock ticked away the seconds.

I’d trekked mushy footprints through the
kitchen. After getting some paper towels from the cabinet beneath
the sink, I crawled across the floor on hands and knees,
mopping.

“Did you get anything out of them?” Jack
asked.

“Yep. Harmon Humphries did it.”

“His daddy killed him?”

“I doubt he did it intentionally, Jack.”

Jack slapped palms to cheeks. “How awful.
The poor thing.”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for him.” Mel
rested hands on hips. “He didn’t check the building so he didn’t
care who he killed.”

“It was locked for the night, guys. He had
no reason to think anyone was in there. He planted the explosive
the day before. He pressed the button from outside.”

“What a shame. You can’t claim his
‘information leading to an arrest’ reward,” Mel observed.

I realized I stared at the phone with
something close to venom.

“Tiff, I said - ”

I shifted to eye her from beneath my brows.
“I heard what you said.”

“But you. . . .” Mel flounced to the table.
“For goshdarned sakes, it’s only been two days and you’re like -
”

“And a half,” Jack corrected. “Two and a
half days.”

“I know that!” I rose up on my knees and
tossed the paper towels in the bin. “I’m not worried. He’s a big
boy, he can take care of himself.”

“Oh, yes, an exceptionally big boy,” Mel
said, followed by a sigh. If dead people could drool, her chin
would be awash.

“I tell you, when he wears that one pair of
tight black jeans. . . .”

Getting to my feet, I gave her a filthy
look.

“Put him in a pair of Speedos, I swear I
would melt,” Jack said.

So would I. Royal in Speedos? Oh. My.
God.

Mel exclaimed, “Is she insane?”

She now stood at the kitchen’s west windows,
watching Sally from three houses down who wore a white thong bikini
as she dashed over her lawn to the curbside mailbox. Bear in mind
six inches of snow covered the grass, but she did have heavy rubber
boots.

I rolled my eyes. “Bet she won’t do that
when it’s ten below.”

Jack zipped to the window. “Would you get a
load - ”

“Jack!”

He half-turned to watch her run back in her
house. “What is she doing, wearing that in December?”

“She does it intentionally. She knows you
enjoy watching.”

“Really? Does. . . ?” His tone went flat.
“Ha ha. Hilarious.”

“She has a tanning bed, Jack. She likes to
look toasted year-round.”

Did I expect any radical change in Jack’s
behavior in the three months after he and his ex-lover got together
and declared their gay status? I did, but he’d been in straight
mode too long. He still ogled passing women, or women on
television, or pictures of them in the newspaper. I made the
mistake of saying he could quit the manly act and he got huffy with
me. So I shut up. Jack could be who he wanted to be. None of my
business.

At the same time, he happily droned on about
his ex-lover Dale, back and forth through their years together. The
eternal romantic, Mel couldn’t get enough, she lapped it up.

Restless, I went through the hall to the
living-room, then wished I had not. Royal and I relaxed and cuddled
in here. I flopped in the big armchair and propped my feet on a
stack of books with worn leather covers. Soft, warm, sage-green
fabric surrounded and cushioned me, but I suppressed a shiver. The
room felt chilly, the wood-burning stove needed lighting, but that
was Royal’s job. I’m no good at lighting wood-burning stoves.
Silence pressed on me. Why? Royal wasn’t here all the time. I
should not feel lonely.

I felt lonely because I
wanted
him
here.

I needed a clock. Yes, a clock softly
tock
ing in the background. Or some music. Anything to fill
the silence.

I should be used to silence, I’ve lived
alone most of my life. Until Royal barged in, filling my waking and
sleeping moments and all kinds of interesting moments in
between.

The window filled with the gathering gloom
of evening. My gaze lit on the long, slim box propped against the
wall next the stove.

I had to do something to occupy my mind. I
opened the box and pulled out a five-foot mess of plastic pine
branches crushed together. This was a Christmas tree? It was a
disaster. A trip to the garbage can would be an act of mercy.

“Guys! I need a hand here!”

Mel hurried in. “With what?”

I held the thing up. “This tree Royal
bought. It is a tree, right? I know what they’re supposed to be
like and this ain’t it.”

“Sure I’ll give you a hand.” She thrust her
arm through the wad till her hand protruded from the other side.
“This one?” She pushed her other hand into the arm of the couch.
“Or do you prefer this one?”

“How incredibly funny.” I frowned. “Have you
ever put one of these together?”

Thus began my education in how to erect,
shape and decorate an artificial Christmas tree. My gleeful
roommates were delighted to tell me precisely what I should put
where, interspersed with sarcasm, including:

“You need a stand.”

“Put the end in it. No, the other end.”

“It’s wonky.”

“Lord, it’s worse than Charlie Brown’s tree.
You have to shape the branches.”

Finally, I walked a circle around the tree.
“Hey, it looks good, doesn’t it?”

Royal must have paid a fortune for the tree;
it looked real now the branches were fluffed out.

“It’s lovely,” Mel said. “Now, the
decorations!”

“Decorations?” I reluctantly squinted at the
other cardboard box, the bigger box, the one overflowing with
sparkly bits of this and glowing pieces of that. Royal persuaded me
to get Christmas decorations. Rather, he wheedled me into letting
him get them. I should have guessed he loves Christmas decorations
as six fully loaded Christmas trees are permanently displayed in
his living room. “Does it need decorating?”

“Yes, it needs decorating,” Jack said
long-sufferingly. “You don’t have a naked Christmas tree.”

“Why not? It’s beautiful as it is.”