Demon Marked (19 page)

She recognized the sounds a moment later. “Two people are inside the house, talking,” she said softly. “I can't make out what they are saying, but it's definitely a man and a woman.”

“The Boyles?”

A man and a woman . . . maybe they were the Boyles. If so, they weren't familiar.

The realization brought an unexpected lump to her throat.
Their voices weren't familiar.

“Ash?”

“I don't know,” she finally answered. “They are—Wait.”

She frowned, listening. Had they gone so silent? Why couldn't she hear anything at all from the house now?

Why didn't she
feel
anything?

“They're gone,” she whispered. “They've left.”

“In a car? There wasn't one in the drive.”

No, there hadn't been—and she hadn't heard the garage door open, or an engine start. What the hell?

Frowning, she glanced back at Nicholas. “They're simply gone. And there's something more I just realized: I couldn't sense them at all. Their emotions were blocked, like yours are. Actually,
more
than yours. I can feel the barrier you put up. I couldn't feel theirs.”

“Fuck.” His heart sped up. “Guardians. We've got to go.”

“No!” Ash scrambled into the front seat, snatching the keys from the ignition before he could turn them. She didn't give him time to become angry. Before he'd had more than a second to stare at the empty keyhole, she said, “Nicholas, something happened in that house. I
need
to know what.”

“The Boyles aren't there.”

“No, because something happened. I have to know.” When he hesitated, she added, “Please.”

“The Guardians might come back. If they do, you're dead.”

She didn't care. “I need to look.
Please
.”

It didn't matter if he agreed. In another second, she'd jump out into the snow and go, anyway. But he set his jaw and nodded, holding his hand out for the keys.

He needed to know, too, she realized. Discovery by the Guardians could jeopardize their bargain and his search for Madelyn, yet he'd agreed to go back to the house, anyway. Ash wished she could kiss him for that, but she settled for shutting up and letting him concentrate on reversing the SUV down the icy lane. He backed into the driveway, as if preparing for a quick getaway. Perhaps he was.

She leapt out before he cut the engine. Cold air bit into her face, her lungs. Her heel skidded out from under her, and the world seemed to twist, icy and dark and erupting with screams all around her, the dark tower spearing up into the red sky, not trees but worse, Lucifer looking down at them all, but he'd let her free and the agony would be over, and the screaming pain, her body gone, gone—

No.
Ash planted her feet, stayed upright. Her stomach heaved up a scream, but it couldn't get past the dread tightening her throat. The house was too still, too cold.

And she could smell the blood from here.

“Come on.” Nicholas caught her elbow, pulled her forward. He carried a crossbow, the bolt already loaded and ready.

“Something's wrong,” she whispered.

“I know.”

She followed him to the porch, up the stairs. Nicholas swore at the locked front door. Ash found the key exactly where it should have been, beneath the blue cushion on the front porch swing. He took it from her without question, studying her face.

“Are you sure you want to go in?”

Ash couldn't imagine what she looked like, that he had to ask that. “Yes.”

“You stay here until I've cleared the rooms, made sure no one is waiting.”

“No.”

He shook his head, but didn't argue. The police tape ripped away easily. Opening the door, he took a step inside—and stopped. Though his shields, she sensed the hot burst of rage, the hard bitterness of grief.

Nicholas backed up, began to turn. “Let's go out—”

Ash ducked under his arm, was through the doorway before he could touch her, before he could stop her.
Oh, God
, she knew this house. The wooden floors polished to a high shine, the coatrack that looked like a bowling pin with arms, the pine chest beside it that was the perfect place to sit and remove a pair of boots. Emotions flooded her, so many things that she knew but couldn't remember. She couldn't breathe.

Then she did breathe, and smelled the blood again. She turned toward the living room and saw it.

The cornflower blue rug that should have been in the center of the living room was missing, and she knew, she
knew
that somewhere that rug had a huge, irregular stain on it. Because the rest of the blood was splattered and dried against the walls, across the marble fireplace, in handprints on the floor.

The scene blurred, and she suddenly wanted to stop feeling anything, wanted to go back to the way life had been at Nightingale House, where every emotion skimmed along the surface. Because now the emotions stabbed, and stabbed, and even though she held her stomach and tried to keep her guts in, she could feel how they ripped and tore with every drop of blood she saw in that room.

With her demon vision, she saw them all.

Then Nicholas was in front of her, holding her face, forcing her to see
him
. “Ash. We don't know what happened here. Who it happened to. And whatever happened, they might have survived.”

She knew who it had happened to. She knew who'd been in this room. The knitting basket set beside the armchair and the haphazard tangle of a partially finished scarf told her that Rachel's mother had been here. The tray tipped over next to the recliner, the scattered pieces of a model train said that Rachel's father had been here, too.

“Ash.” He shook her a little, and with effort, she focused on him again. “I'm leaving you here to check the rest of the house. All right?”

No.
But she nodded.

As the sound of his footsteps moved down the hallway, she entered the living room. A framed photo sat on the fireplace mantel. Taken during the summer in the house's backyard, it depicted a smiling Rachel flanked by a middle-aged man and woman. Her parents.

They didn't look any more familiar than Nicholas had the first time Ash saw his picture. How could that be? How could she feel this much fear and dread, this terror that they'd been hurt—or worse—and yet have no memory of them at all? How could she recognize the location where the picture had been taken, but have no memory of being there?

“There's no one here,” Nicholas said from behind her. “Ash, we have to go now.”

Yes, they did. She joined him in the hallway. “We need to find out what happened.”

“We will.” His gaze dropped to the photo she still held, but he didn't tell her to put it back. Perhaps he realized she wouldn't have. “Who would have put that tape across the door?”

The township didn't have a police force. “The county sheriff. His office is in Duluth.”

“We'll head back, then. Look, you can't go with me. There might be family, friends at the sheriff's or the hospital. People who'd recognize Rachel. So I'll take you to the bed-and-breakfast. I have to leave you there alone. Do you have any weapons in your cache?”

That mental storage space. “If I do, I don't know how to get to them.”

“I'll give you some, then. What can you use?” He lifted his crossbow. “This?”

“I . . . don't know.”

“A sword? I have one in the car.”

She glanced down at her hands. Could she use a sword? “I don't know that, either.”

His mouth tightened. “Can you fight hand-to-hand?”

“I don't think so. Why?”

“Because if the Guardians were here, they are obviously looking for you.”

“And if they knew exactly where I was, they'd already be on me. Wouldn't they?” When he nodded, she said, “So chances are, they don't know I'll be at the B and B, either.”

He must have agreed. With a nod, he said, “All right. I'll drop you off, and you stay in our room.”

Easy enough. “And if they do come?”

Nicholas started for the door, his expression grim. “Can you run?”

“Yes.”

“Then you'd better run faster than they do.”

 

The crime scene photos were worse than the house had been.

Taylor closed the Boyles' murder file and passed it to Revoire. No longer the farmer, he'd changed into the same “federal agent” suit that she wore. Appearance was always important. Not many of the smaller law enforcement agencies had heard of Special Investigations, even though they were a legitimate division within the Homeland Security Department.

“They aren't pretty,” Sheriff Brand said, nodding at the photos. He was the kind of cop Taylor liked: professional, courteous, damn sure of his job and how to do it. He hadn't put up a fuss when they'd arrived and asked to look at the Boyle case, claiming that the MO matched that of a serial killer they'd been tracking. He'd simply taken a look at their credentials, checked them out, and invited them into his office.

“No, they aren't,” Taylor agreed. Horrific—and she knew Brand felt the same. He wasn't interested in getting involved in a pissing contest with the feds. He reserved his anger for the man who'd done it, and his pity for the couple killed. “Did you know them?”

Brand shook his head. “I talked with them a few times after their girl, Rachel, went missing six years back. But she was working over in London at the time, so there wasn't much to do. A shame. Pretty girl, sharp as a tack. We looked at Steve Johnson then, just routine—she'd had some trouble with him—but they hadn't seen each other since she left that school in Chicago.”

Rachel Boyle. Why did that name sound familiar? Taylor couldn't immediately recall, but she remembered the photo on the fireplace mantel at the Boyles' house. Just the three of them.

“No other family?”

“Nope. It was a neighbor who spotted Steve Johnson sitting on their front porch swing holding that butcher knife. No coat, no shoes, all cleaned up and just staring off into space. She didn't recognize him, so she called it in.” Brand shook his head. “That part of the county, we get a hunting accident now and then. A few meth heads, a few missing hikers. Nothing like this. Sick.”

So they had Steve Johnson pretty much red-handed, and with a confession on top of it. Case closed for the locals. Taylor and Revoire wouldn't be able to do the same so easily. They wouldn't pursue Steve Johnson. The courts could take care of him, and influenced by a demon or not, the man had made a choice. Free will mattered. He'd made a choice to seek out the Boyles. He'd made a choice to pick up a knife. He'd made a choice to murder them. At any point, he could have chosen differently, and there was nothing the demon could have done to force him.

But Johnson hadn't resisted, and his actions had served the demon well. The choice Johnson had made would probably send him to Hell, too.

Brand looked to Revoire, who'd finished flipping through photos and closed the file. “And you still think we have your guy in our lockup?”

“Probably not,” Revoire said. “There's a distinct difference in the blood spatter. There's no control. This looks like he was angry. He knew the victims?”

“Not well.” The sheriff sat behind his desk, removed his hat. “They're from up Lakewood, Steve Johnson has been here in Duluth for nine years now. Came in from Chicago. Says he was following Rachel, but when she moved to England and then disappeared . . . he found himself a few other girlfriends. He says that he never contacted the Boyles before Saturday morning.”

“But he claimed that Rachel's ghost visited him?”

“Yes. Visited, and said that she hadn't gone missing. Said she hadn't been killed by some rich man. That her parents had done it, and she needed Johnson to get revenge for her.” Brand sighed. “The defense is already working up their insanity plea.”

“And what do you think?” Taylor wondered.

“I don't think it'll fly. He's been working up to this for years. Rachel had a restraining order on him after he stalked her on campus. We've had other complaints from other girls. No violence in the priors, so this is unusual—but he said flat-out in the interview that he knew it wasn't right, but he had to do it for her. So he's got something loose up there, but he knows right from wrong. He'll stand trial.”

So the demon had probably known about Johnson's obsession with Rachel, had known exactly who to push. To know that, it had probably accessed court records and found the restraining order. There might be a paper trail.

Taylor and Revoire would start there.

They took their leave of Sheriff Brand, walked to the front of the building. Teleporting around a busy city in the middle of the day was out, except in an emergency. Taylor didn't mind. Growing up in San Francisco, she hadn't seen a lot of snow, but it was falling outside and she wouldn't get cold.

She didn't think Revoire was ready to teleport again yet, anyway. She caught his eye. “All right?”

“Fine. Just reminded of why I can't always tell the difference between humans and demons. That little shit deserves to burn.”

Yes. Johnson had his issues, but when it came down to it, he'd wanted to kill the Boyles. Taylor had about as much sympathy for him as she did serial killers who blamed their mamas.

She nodded her agreement, squinting a little as they emerged from the dim office to the bright fall of white. The sun wasn't out, but the daylight and the reflection off the snow still glared on her sensitive eyes.