Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four (5 page)

Standing in the parking lot, looking across
at Royal’s apartment, I wanted to scream with frustration.

I spent the next hour going door to door. He
did not go to the bakery for a breakfast Danish, or eat in any of
his favorite restaurants. Royal is popular on the street and people
notice him, but no one recalled seeing him in the last few
days.

I drove home with my mind buzzing, taking me
along paths which led nowhere.

I noticed the flag up on my mailbox as I
left the Xterra at the curb and plodded up the driveway, so
detoured across the lawn to check it, making slushy footprints in
the snow.

Two bills and a cardboard mailing
sleeve.

I suspiciously eyed the sleeve with a
feeling of déjà vu. A similar package led to a mess of trouble
three months ago. The last time I received a mailing sleeve,
addressed to Banks and Mortensen, it contained the journal of
Elizabeth Hulme, an English girl of the Victorian era. This had a
return address I didn’t recognize, but the journal was sent
anonymously.

An image formed in my mind’s eye, changed -
Janine Hulme as I first saw her in her lovely Las Vegas home became
a figure drenched in her own blood.

Would she still be alive, had I not opened
the package meant for Royal?

Janine died at the hands of ancient Dark
Cousin Dagka Shan, along with twelve more people. And I suppose
Hans Stadelmann was a casualty too, as Philip Vance, aka the
Charbroiler, stole Stadelmann’s ward Jacob and used him to hunt his
own people. Stadelmann loved the boy and missed him terribly.
Sadly, the old man passed away before Jacob could reunite with
him.

Vance thought Jacob was a vampire and I
understand why. Jacob, Shan’s son, once called Teo Papek, is an
ancient Dark Cousin who prefers the night hours and has sharp,
pointed teeth like his father.

I still feel guilty for keeping the journal
to myself and not giving it to Royal, though how could I know it
was specifically sent to him? I doubt anything would have changed
if Royal read the journal before I got my hands on it. He would
have given it to Dark Cousins Gia Sabato and Daven Clare. They
would have understood why the beautiful Gelpha traitress, Maud,
sent the journal to Royal, and gone directly to Myanmar. They’d
still have found Stadelmann, Jacob, Vance and Gia’s lover Rio, and
later, Dagka Shan. Shan would have still gone on his mad rampage.
But I would not have met Janine, seen Maud die, been involved in an
FBI manhunt. Not faced Dagka Shan in the High House.

Not see Janine’s face in my dreams.

I came back to real time, opened the front
door, disabled the alarm, stripped off my down coat and kicked off
my boots. I walked in the kitchen and tossed the envelopes and
sleeve on the table. Strident, staccato sounds came from the
television, which I left on to entertain Jack and Mel.

I forgot to pick up scones at the bakery and
hungry butterflies romped in my stomach, so I opened the
refrigerator and peered in the depths. The leftover spaghetti and
meatballs still looked okay. I pulled a bowl from the cabinet,
dumped the pasta in and put the bowl in the microwave.

I swear he wasn’t here a second ago, but now
Mac hugged my ankles.

“Not for you, idiot.”

Deciding to mope, he went to the backdoor
and curled up with his back to me. I puffed out air, opened the
pantry and put kibble in his bowl. Microwaves are fast, but my boy
cleaned his dish before the oven dinged.

A spicy, meaty aroma suffused the kitchen’s
warm, humid air. Taking the bowl and a fork to the table, I sat and
dug in.

Royal never mentioned any Cicero. Was he
human, or a demon? A friend, or business acquaintance? A new
case?

As he bent over me, Jack’s shriek almost
lifted my hair. “
Tiff!”

“What?”

“For the third time, can you change the
station?”

I slid my weary gaze to the small television
on the kitchen counter. Animé. Jack loathed it.

“Okay,” I grumbled as I got upright. “What
do you want to watch?”

I paused on my way across the kitchen.
“
Not
MTV.” MTV started Jack rapping, and he could
not
rap. Thankfully, we rarely heard a mangled syllable from him
nowadays.

“The History channel.”

I could cope with that. I found the remote
on the windowsill and flicked to the right station. Jack pretended
to sit on a kitchen chair. Mel drifted in from the hall. I went
back to my cooling lunch.

“What’s this?” Mel asked as she hung over
the package.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled through a
mouthful.

Jack forgot his TV show. “I didn’t notice
that!”

Mail can be an exciting experience for
shades.
Anything
out of the ordinary is an exciting
experience.

I dubiously eyed the package where it lay on
the kitchen table.

“I wouldn’t open it if I were you,” Jack
said. He moved a few paces back from the table.

“Remember what happened last time,” Mel
reminded me.

“Yeah,” I agreed. Elizabeth’s journal is not
something I’ll forget in a hurry.

I also recalled that when the package
containing the journal arrived, Jack and Mel had a rare time
guessing the contents. Jack said it had to be a bomb from someone I
pissed off. Not to be outdone, Mel suggested anthrax.

“Or, it could be. . . .” I leaped to my
feet. “A
bomb!
”

I should not joke, the bomb in the kitchen
freaked my roommates as much as it did me, but I snickered when Mel
and Jack froze.

I put my thumbnail between my teeth and bit
down as I walked around the table, checking the cardboard from all
sides. Trying to smother my grin, I darted in and whisked it off
the table. Jack back-pedaled till he came up against the
refrigerator. He stopped as his back-thrust elbow disappeared in
the shiny pink surface.

I ripped the easy-open zipper, which was
anything but easy, stared in disbelief and dropped the sleeve on
the table as if it dirtied my hands.

Mel had both hands over her eyes. “What is
it?”

A mass-market paperback. The pale torso of a
woman adorned a smoke-gray background. A black briar, the thorns
tinted red, girdled her waist and snaked between her breasts. In
blood-red letters across the top:
GIA’S SONG
.

I snorted through my nose. “I don’t believe
it.”

Mel parted two fingers to peer through them.
“What?”

I turned the jacket to check the return
address. Damn, I
did
know it. Why in hell’s name did
she
send me her book?

The edge of a piece of cream card stuck from
the pages. I held the business card out to Mel.

Jack was beside me. “That’s Gia Sabato’s
first book and her business card!”

She must be crazy, to think I’d want her
book.

“Open it!” Jack urged. He hopped about as if
tap dancing.

Maybe she put something else in there. I
upended the book and shook, then fanned the pages, but nothing fell
out.

“He means so we can read it,” said Mel.

I slid my gaze sideways at her. “I know what
he meant. I’m not interested in her book.”

“Maybe not, but we are.” She looked at Jack.
“Right?”

“Go ahead, read it. I won’t stop you,” I
said unkindly. Why should I spend time turning pages for them when
I had other things on my mind?

“You’re mean.”

They have no hands with which to pick up an
object, no fingers with which to feel. Refusing them is akin to
denying help to a living, handicapped person. But neither can I
give in to all their whims and requests. I would be run off my
feet. I’d never have time to myself. My life would be nothing more
than an auxiliary part of theirs.

Oh, hell.
“Okay, a few pages
then.”

They were at my shoulder before I could draw
another breath. I opened the paperback to the title page.

“She signed it!” Jack cooed.

Well I’ll be damned. In elegant, slanting
italics:
To Tiffany Banks, who should write a book. Gia
Sabato.

Mel cracked up. “She wrote
Tiffany!
”

I scowled at the page. Trust the bitch from
hell to deliberately write my full name. “I noticed, Melanie.”

I’m not alone in loathing my name. Mel
cannot scowl, but she turned her shoulder to me and looked down her
nose.

“You
could
write a book, you know,”
Jack said as he leaned in.

“About what?”

“Your exciting life and adventures.”

I flicked the corner of a page. “Yeah, as if
anyone involved would let me do that.”

“I don’t see why not. It would be a work of
fiction.”

“No it wouldn’t, Jack.” I found the first
page. “Do you want to shut up and read this or not?”

CHAPTER THREE

Every person has their song. It could evoke
a memory, happy or sad. It could bring to mind someone, or
something they crave but can never have.

I listened to my song on the radio.

“
Do you really want to live
forever?”

Yes!

***

It is time for a change
.

Who, at some time in their life, has not
expressed that sentiment? Yet I doubt they envisioned the dramatic
change of lifestyle I experienced that gray evening in October.

A mist seeped through the door. Note, I say
through the
door
, not through the
doorway
, for the
door was fastened to keep the chill at bay.

The mist solidified, particles drew
together. And there he stood. Pale, lazy, hazel eyes.
Chestnut-brown hair cut away from his face to fall long in the back
and flop over his brow. He wore a blue-gray wool suit over an open
necked cream shirt, with navy-blue suede loafers. In his late
twenties, absolutely gorgeous, a little pale, but not unnaturally
so. My friend, Darrin Call.

Extreme exhaustion can debilitate the body
and play tricks with the mind. I was bone weary, and now I was
hallucinating. Perhaps I should see my doctor.

I tapped my cigarette on the lip of the
ashtray. “Darrin, be a dear and knock next time.”

He smiled. “Do not pretend your eyes
deceived you.”

I looked away, preferring the view through
my window to the glow of his eyes. Had his eyes always shined that
brightly and I did not notice? “What
are
you talking
about?”

“We call it transmogrification. Long ago,
people called it magic.”

A magic trick. “Ah, magic,” I said, feeling
pleased that he provided me with a logical explanation. “You must
show me how you do it one of these days. But not now. I’m too tired
to concentrate.”

He sat on the couch, rested one arm along
the back and smiled again. “You admit you did see something
inexplicable. What if I told you I altered the constituents of my
body so I could pass through your door?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. People cannot
mist through two inches of wood and steel.”

He shrugged both shoulders. “They can if
they are a vampire.”

I slapped the page and hooted. “Darrin
Call!”

“I can read,” Jack said.

“Don’t you get it? Darrin Call. Daven Clare.
She put him in her book!”

“She’s in there, why not him too?” Mel said.
“She made herself the heroine in her own novel. Clever, isn’t
it.”

“I finished the first page,” said Jack. “Get
on with it, you two.”

We read the first chapter, which took time
as Mel is a slow reader. Jack tutted when I closed the book and
pushed it aside. “That’s all we get, one chapter?”

I jerked my shoulder. “Sorry. I have to be
somewhere. You can read more tonight.”

“They’re not real vampires are they?” Mel
asked.

“Positively not.” I pressed my palms to the
tabletop and pushed to my feet.

Dark Cousins certainly use an arcane ability
to charm humans, but it is their only vampire-like trait. Oh, that
and their preference for lurking in the shadows.

The reminder of Gelpha and Cousins allure
took me back to the last time I experienced it at the hands of an
enticing demon with an English accent. Not precisely at his hands,
but I know he wanted to get them on me. I pictured Christopher
Plowman, his long, silky gray hair threaded with glinting black,
his lazy shimmering gray eyes with those remarkable hematite
pupils.

However, Mel meant people with fangs who
plunge them into human necks and suck their blood. Dark Cousins
don’t even have the slightly pointed teeth of the Gelpha, those I
call demons, and I’ve seen no evidence they drink blood. They
give
blood. I believe Gia’s blood saved her lover’s life,
and she administered a transfusion to Royal in the High House
infirmary. He came home four days later with only scars as evidence
of the terrible wounds Dagka Shan inflicted.

A chill crawled over my flesh as I saw Shan
in the bowels of the High House with dead and dying demons lying in
their blood. He went through them like a cyclone, unstoppable.
Curiosity prevented him killing me, but it was a momentary
reprieve. He had me pinned to the ground, about to rip my throat
out when I shot him in the head with my Derringer. All the other
hairy situations I’ve got into pale in comparison.

I cleared my throat. “I think Gia Sabato is
laughing at us when she writes a book. She puts herself in there to
make her readers wonder. Is she, or isn’t she? A clever marketing
ploy, that’s all.”

I took my bowl to the trashcan and scraped
it clean, then put it in the sink, filling it with water to soak
off the crusted-on sauce.

“Where are you going, anyway?” Mel
asked.

“The PD.”

Jack sounded perky. “You have another
job?”

I had to disappoint them this time. “I’m
going to Mike Warren about Royal.”