Demon on a Distant Shore (3 page)

I clasped my hands behind my back and crossed the space between us. I looked directly into his eyes. “Thank you for joining me, Nicholas. Or can I call you Nick?”

“You most certainly cannot - ” He drew himself up from a slouch. “You see me. You actually see me.”

“Yep.”

“You’re the real thing.”

“Depends what you mean by that. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is where Gordon Eccleston Junior is, and I think you probably know.”

His head went up so I looked up his nostrils. “I may. But why should I tell you?”

I smiled. “I think we can come to an arrangement.”

Royal rose to his impressive height and was at the wall in two strides. “Here?”

I looked at Jordan’s head where it stuck through the paneling. “Positively.”

Royal spread his big palms flat on the wall. It reminded me of another case, when he sensed something odd about an office and found a secret panel and steps leading down to where a mini army bivouacked.

He reached to one side and pressed something too small for me to see. The panel swung inward with a soft
clunk
.

Everyone gathered around the opening. Darkness crept up old stone steps and a dry, musty smell greeted us.

“Flashlights,” Royal said.

Michael proved he could move fast. He returned in a couple of minutes carrying two large flashlights. “I’m going with you.”

“Michael - ” Brienne began.

“Wait here, darling. No telling what condition the place is in.”

Or what we’ll find down there
.

Royal went first, then Michael. I brought up the rear, shining my flashlight down. The steps had crumbled on the edges but were remarkably clean, as if regularly swept.

My voice sounded muffled. “This is old.”

Michael spoke over his shoulder. “I didn’t know it was here.”

How many secret hidey holes did this house have? Michael’s grandfather’s business ventures were thought to have a shady side, particularly during the Depression. I would not mind betting this hidey-hole, and maybe others like it, were excavated after the house was built.

The steps didn’t descend far. Royal and Michael stood at the bottom, checking out a heavy wood door. They waited until I joined them. Royal passed his palms over the door, then the frame. He pushed what looked like a natural knot in the wood, a
click
, and the door swung inward.

Michael’s flashlight found Gordon Junior curled like a kitten in a corner of the small concrete-lined room. He squeaked awake when Michael took him up in his arms, but settled into a sob when he heard Michael’s croon.

I directed my flashlight around until I found what I was looking for.

A heavy brocade curtain tied with nylon rope wrapped the body. The corner was set up like a primitive chapel. Bunches of dried flowers and tiny glass jars of melted wax surrounded a small table draped in a crimson satin cloth. An old bible sat on the table, and a blackened, wide-bladed knife.

My beam found the boy’s flashlight on the floor as Michael carried young Gordon from the room. I picked it up and clicked, but the battery had died. Poor kid. I hated to think what he went through when the light died, trapped alone in this tomb, knowing no one heard his cries.

Trapped.
I turned to Royal. “How could we get out if the door was shut?”

He went to the door, closed it and in seconds found a button high up on the vertical frame. The door came open.

Gordon watched someone come down the stairs and open the door. But he never came inside to see how it could be opened from in here. He returned here on his own, came into the room and then could not get out.

The anger I’d felt since the butler told me where Gordon Junior was boiled up my throat.

Light from Michael’s study window shone on Anarosa’s hair as she sat facing me, hands clenched around a balled up handkerchief. Her face was the color of unbleached linen and she still had not looked me in the eyes.

I spoke gently, keeping my tone reasonable, soft and even. “You were sixteen. You let a man into the house so he could pocket some valuables. Mr. Jordan caught you. There was - ”

“It wasn’t like that.” Tears dribbled down Anarosa’s cheeks. She wiped them with one palm, the other still clutching the soggy handkerchief. “Jordan . . . did something to me and there . . . there were consequences. I had to tell my brother. He came here to confront Jordan. They struggled, Jordan pulled a gun and shot Mario. I stabbed Jordan in the back with a kitchen knife.”

The old bastard lied to me. Not surprising.

“So you hid Mario’s body down below.”

A huge sob burst out as she violently nodded her head. “We only had each other. I had to think of my future without him.”

Foolish woman. She didn’t even wipe the knife. It had Jordan’s blood and her fingerprints on it. Modern forensic science would link her to Jordan’s murder.

I could guess what Jordan did to a maid little more than a child, and the consequences. I’d feel sorry for Anarosa, if not for what happened to Gordon Junior. Still, I hoped she lived to a ripe old age because Jordan was stuck here until she died. I hoped there was a Hell and Jordan went there when Anarosa finally passed on.

“Gordon saw you go to that room, so he took a look yesterday. Didn’t it occur to you he could be down there?”

“I . . . I didn’t. . . .”

“You didn’t look because you were afraid you’d find him there, and what would you do then? How would you explain what he saw?”

“I’m so sorry.” Anarosa wept into her hands, entire body shuddering.

I rose up. “I really don’t give a damn about what you did to Jordan, or hiding Mario’s body. You left Gordon to die alone in the dark.”

Sirens sounded in the distance. I passed Royal as he came in the room, and left Anarosa with him towering behind her. I went to meet Captain Mike Warren of Clarion PD in the mansion’s porch.

Nicholas Jordan stood in the hall. He saluted me as I passed him, then faded through the wall. He told me what happened the night of his death and where to find Gordon, and I fingered his killer. Deal done.

Chapter Two

Sunlight from the west window bathed the side of Royal’s head, dazzling on his metallic-looking copper and gold-streaked hair, adding a subtle sheen to his pale-copper skin, picking out the mica speckles in his shining new-penny eyes.

Gelpha are beautiful, and human beings - if they knew of the Otherworldy - would call them supermen. They possess heightened senses and can move like the wind. With effort, they can even slightly alter their appearance. But the killer ability is how they can make a person feel and there are those who use it as a weapon, making their victims compliant to their wishes. They have a scent particular to them; one whiff and you are weak in the knees. A certain look from their eyes and you are breathless, swimming in a delicious soupcon of sensation. And when they actually, physically touch you. . . . Oh, mama.

Royal does not need to use that particular ability to make me weak in the knees.

Meeting him opened up a whole new world for me. Literally. The Gelpha world, Bel-Athaer, occupies another dimension, or space, or whatever, which links to Earth. Don’t look for a better explanation, I don’t have one. Our relationship and business partnership involved me in some deep, dark Gelpha investigations, not to mention their politics. I went to Bel-Athaer a number of times, not always willingly, and managed to put the rightful ruler on the throne - or as they call it, Seat - take down a vicious, demented ancient Dark Cousin, find the lost heir and expose Gelpha Seers for what they really are.

And I discovered I am one of them.

It was still hard to come to terms with after spending my entire life until recently living and believing a lie.

Funny, I used to dream of finding my family. But I couldn’t have an ordinary mom and dad. Not Tiff Banks. I have a maniacal, murdering uncle who is an Otherworldy being to boot. We don’t have gleaming eyes and hair, slightly pointed teeth, or superhuman abilities. But we have something other Gelpha don’t: we see and communicate with the dead.

Royal brought me back to the present. “I have not been to England in years. We could do with a vacation.”

“Yeah, the last one didn’t go down so well.”

Our only vacation so far was to Boston, where the FBI kidnapped us and whisked us all over the country in search of a serial killer.

I rolled onto my stomach and adjusted my neck on Royal’s thigh. “You’ve been there?”

“A few times on business, years ago. And I vacationed in London for three weeks.”

“When was that?”

“Five years ago.”

“But this would be an investigation.”

“Yes, but uncomplicated, I think. We could take some time to see the sites. Do you want this case?”

I twisted my mouth up. “I don’t know.”

He caught the end of my braid and fingered the loose strands. “Pros and cons?”

We often played this game when offered a new case. I put forward the cons, and Royal destroyed them with a few well aimed pros.

“Cons: England is an awful long way away, and doesn’t it rain all the time over there? Janie isn’t too fond of Mac right now after he bit that Pomeranian. I don’t trust anyone else to care for him. Jack and Mel will go ballistic.”

He jiggled his foot, which made my head jog up and down. “England. Not always raining. Filled shore to shore with history and mystery and magic. Does Janie make a lot from her kennel? I could bribe her.”

“I don’t know if you can come up with enough cash to make her take Mac if she doesn’t want to.”

“From what you tell me, Jack and Mel always go ballistic when you leave. They get over it.” He arched a dark-copper eyebrow.

My roommates didn’t have a choice. I left, they remained, nothing they could do about it but sulk.

I scowled. “Okay, pros: It’d look good, wouldn’t it, to say we did an investigation in Europe?”

“Hm. I see your cons outweigh your pros. Could that be deliberate?”

I tried for an innocent expression. “There is another pro. One-hundred-fifty dollars an hour.”

My head hit the cushion as Royal sat up and swung his legs over the side of the couch, dislodging me. “You asked for one hundred and fifty an hour, triple our regular fee?”

“Something wrong with your hearing all of a sudden?” I grinned. “Patricia Norton is loaded. She didn’t bat an eyelash.”

He lounged back on one elbow. “I suppose by the time we deduct travel, meals, accommodation, etcetera.”

“One-hundred-fifty plus expenses.”

He whistled. “Well, I’m in.”

“Bloody hell, mate. You can’t take off to Old Blighty just like that!”

“Good accent, Jack, but that’s Aussie, not Brit.”

Mel repeated an oft-used phrase. “You’ll be gone ages.”

I looked in my closet with no notion of what to wear in England. They still had summer in August, didn’t they? “I just may be at that.”