The Demon Hunters (22 page)

Starting near us, the murmuring died
away, a tide flowing over the demon horde until an uneasy silence
filled the big hall. The demons bowed their heads, one by one
lowering their gazes to the floor. They scooted to either side,
creating a corridor walled by their bodies which led between the
staircases to an arched doorway at the back.

I’d wondered if a few demons could
take on Gia and Daven. Guess I had my answer.

We followed Gareth to a wide,
windowless passage stuffed with furniture. We threaded through
scatterings of deeply upholstered burgundy or cream chairs,
delicate little tables on spindly legs, pieces of dark furniture
gilded with gold. It looked like something out of a medieval French
king’s palace. The thick burgundy carpet cushioned my feet and
smothered my footsteps.

To cut a long trek short, after
passing through a dozen rooms and as many corridors, we stepped
outside again.

Awe made my lower jaw drop. The
gargantuan, flat-roofed house formed a circle with a big grass park
in the middle. Small copse of weeping willow dotted a sculpted
landscape, and all about stood little white buildings with domed
roofs something like summerhouses. Reeds fringed several small
pools, and a good-sized lake in the middle boasted a wood jetty.
Small boats like punts floated over the lake, each carrying two or
three demons.

Demon children raced around the
perimeter. One group surrounded a boy who held the string of a
kite, laughing at the flapping blue and white shape drifting high
above the rooftops of the massive house. Five demon girls sat in a
summerhouse not fifteen feet from us, their heads close, and I
heard giggling like the tinkle of a dozen tiny bells.

Off to one side - I can’t say north,
south, east or west because I have no idea where they were - a
four-foot white brick wall and wood tiers like bleachers at a
baseball diamond surrounded a flat area of packed dirt. Demons
occupied most of the tiers and two small figures darted about in
the middle. We headed that way.

We reached the arena and stood
together just inside a break in the wall. The combatants were boys,
one of them Lawrence. The other boy, a young demon with frosted
green hair, stood taller than the High Lord as they batted at each
other with long, straight swords. Lawrence had his bronze-brown
hair bound back in a short braid and a sweatband around his
forehead. He held his own, but sweat streaked his face and
spattered patterns on the ground as he moved. From the dirt on him,
I guessed he’d gone down a number of times. His opponent gave it
all he had, bashing away at Lawrence without letup. The swords were
wood, but they looked heavy and must pack a wallop. Both were
bruised on their bare upper arms, but I couldn’t see any
blood.

A tall, stocky demon with hair the
color of bleached linen, clad in a brown leather tunic and short
brown leather skirt, shouted at the boys from where he stood mere
feet away. He darted in now and then, and the boys immediately
froze in place. He moved an arm, kicked the back of a leg to make
it shift, altered a posture or the grip on a blade, then stepped
back and they went at it again.

Now we could finally rest, I took a
better look at the house. I had to turn a circle to understand the
scope of what I saw. The park must have been a good two miles
across, girdled by the High Lord’s House in an unbroken line. A
small village could have fit there. It was enormous.

The demons knew we were there, they
must have, yet not one approached us or looked our way. They
watched their young High Lord battle his opponent.

I leaned against a wood post, my gaze
skipping over the Gelpha. I think I will always identify demons by
the colors of their hair and eyes, and these ran the gamut.
Sunlight sparked fire in their multicolored hair and to look at
them was almost painful. I had to squint. I didn’t look too long at
any one of them lest I draw their eyes to me.

A sense of unease seeped under my
skin. I couldn’t think of them as anything but prospective enemies,
and hundreds surrounded me. I’ll never forget what happened when
demons took me from Clarion to Bel-Athaer. I stared at the white
building, remembering a gray cavern and a multi-lashed whip tipped
with crystal shards on the floor where Royal’s brother dropped
it.

I shivered, crossed my arms and
wrapped my hands around my biceps.

“
Must we waste time while
boys play with wooden swords?” Daven muttered from behind
me.

With eyes dead ahead, Royal said,
“That boy is High Lord of Bel-Athaer. You would be wise to
remember.”

Daven snuffed through his nose
disparagingly.

The stocky demon looked up, his eyes a
peculiar cream which sparkled nonetheless. Lawrence lowered his
sword to his side, as did the other boy. Daven had either forgotten
the keenness of a demon’s hearing or didn’t care.

Lawrence strolled toward us. Someone
tossed him a grubby gray towel and he wiped his face and neck. He
stopped, facing us, his gaze slowly sliding over Gia and Daven as
if he measured them. “I have heard of the Dark Cousins. I thought
them tales to scare small children.”

Cousins?
That indicated kinship. Gia said she and Daven
were not Gelpha, but were
they
related? Another type of demon, ones who didn’t
glitter?

Lawrence didn’t sound like
a little boy. Sure, his voice was young, but deep, and his tone
brought a shiver to my spine. It said something like,
I expected something fantastic, but you’re really
not much, are you
. Power rolled off him in
a wave. Every nearby demon softly moaned, even Royal. I felt it as
a pleasantly warm tickle up my side, but Gia and Daven gasped and
the hair lifted off Gia’s shoulder as if by a breeze.

Lawrence’s mother had a little demon
blood in her veins from somewhere way back in her ancestry, but not
enough so I saw it in her. Apart from his demon looks, Lawrence
seemed little different from a six-year-old human child when I met
him, until he spoke. I felt his power as he ordered Gorge to
accompany him to Bel-Athaer and it was nothing compared to now.
Poor Gorge didn’t stand a chance. Feeling that uncanny force roll
off Lawrence made me wonder how powerful he’d be when he reached
adulthood.

Unlike the demons in the big house,
the young lord did not seem at all intimidated by Gia and
Daven.

Lawrence suddenly smiled, a bright
little-boy smile, all innocence and bonhomie. He deliberately
inserted himself between me and Royal, and Gia and Daven, which
placed him with his back to them. He smiled at Royal. “I am always
happy to see you here, friend Royal.”

Gia’s face looked like a thunderstorm
infused her skin, and I couldn’t really blame her. Lawrence had
told Royal to bring her and Daven here, and now he acted like they
didn’t exist. Did the boy need a lesson in diplomacy, or did he
know exactly what he was doing? But nobody came up to him and said,
“Er, your Lordliness, this isn’t how you treat powerful
visitors.”

He honored me with a slight bow from
the waist. “And you, also, Tiff Banks.” He came upright. “I will
never forget what you did for me and my mother. You saved my life
and helped her find peace.”

I sincerely hoped so, but for all I
knew Lindy Marchant still wandered. Perhaps she haunted the
apartment in which she and Lawrence lived.

I felt a ridiculous
compulsion
to curtsy, and stopped myself
because I’d make a hash of it. “Just doing my job.”

Damn, but the boy had a presence to
him.

“
Thank you for coming to
see me,” Lawrence continued amid a dead silence. All the
surrounding demons were absolutely still. “I know you have urgent
matters to attend, so I won’t keep you.” He smiled at me again.
“Please come back again. Gorge would be so happy to see
you.”

“
Sure,” I said.
Like hell I will.

***

The walk back through the
big House was a long, stiff affair. In any other circumstance, I’d
have enjoyed seeing Daven and Gia in a snit
.
Talk about ruffled feathers. Their
high and mightinesses were well and truly rebuffed and insulted by
a little boy and could do nothing about it.

Outside again, Royal asked me, “How’s
the Dramamine holding up?”

My stomach sank at the thought of the
return home, not just the mode of travel; I didn’t want Royal to
hold me. I had no choice. He plucked me off the grass and cradled
me against his chest, and away we went.

***

We ended up in Royal’s apartment, but
I saw nothing but a blur until he put me down on my feet. He didn’t
even stop to let us walk through Clarion.

No nausea this time, but I staggered.
Royal put a hand out to steady me, but with my gaze on the floor,
which didn’t feel level, I fended him off with a wave of my hand. I
grasped the window frame, braced myself, and after a couple of deep
breaths the room stopped tipping.

I looked out the window while Royal
spoke to Daven and Gia. Band music blared, and with traffic barred
from using Twenty-Second and side streets, people wandered freely
back and forth across the road. Tantalizing aromas seeped inside
despite the closed windows.

I barely heard them, but I gathered
they wanted to talk and Royal said it would have to wait. He
insisted I needed a break and I didn’t butt in to argue. They
surprised me by giving in without a struggle. Perhaps they realized
further talk would be unproductive with the mood I was in. They
said we should meet at Royal’s apartment the next
morning.

They left without another word. I
looked down at the street, but I didn’t see a thing. Now we were
back home, the excitement of Royal’s world over, the manner of
Maud’s death hammered at me. I hoped Royal would leave me alone,
because I no longer knew what I felt for him.

I turned and headed for the stairs
with my face averted. “I’ll be off then.”

“
Tiff. . . .”

I didn’t want to hear anything he had
to say. “No, don’t say anything. I can’t listen to you right
now.”

“
I don’t want to lose you,
Tiff.”

I almost made the stairs, but his tone
made me falter. I stopped walking, though I didn’t turn back.
“Really? What you did makes me think you don’t place much value on
our relationship.”

He came up behind me and stood close.
I felt the heat from him down my spine. “You know what I feel for
you.”

I opened my mouth to say something
scathing, but what I had in mind would only make matters worse. I
was through talking. I made it out the door and to the top of the
outside stairs, and had to hold the metal banister with one hand. I
always considered myself tough, nothing much fazed me - I saw dead
people, for crying out loud – but the day’s events had me all shook
up. I looked at the cheerful people down below, the strolling
couples, the happy little family groups, the gangs of teen boys and
girls, yet I’d never felt more alone.

***

I had to take a cab home. As the
streets blurred past, I remembered what else Maud said as she
faded.

Elizabeth’s
journal.

With everything else churning around
in my mind, I forgot about that. Did Maud send it, or only know
about it? It must be important. A clue of some kind, but to what?
The identity of the Charbroiler? If it was, I didn’t see
it.

I sighed aloud. Now I had to tell
Royal and the Dark Cousins about the journal, and why I kept it to
myself.

Chapter
Eighteen

Sitting in Royal’s kitchen as we
waited for Gia and Daven was a most uncomfortable experience. I
should have waited outside the door for them. Royal, and his choice
of attire, proved a distraction I didn’t want. He wore a pair of
old faded Levis and a white chef’s apron, and nothing else. With
his back to me, he padded around his kitchen on bare feet like a
huge supple cat.

An overhead lamp hi-lit
lightly-bronzed skin, gilding his torso. I closed my eyes on a
flood tide of images. His hands, tongue and lips exploring my body
in the leisurely way of his love-making. Silken skin, muscles
shifting and rolling beneath, hands tightening on my buttocks, my
thighs. Soft sighs and equally soft moans. The exquisitely,
incredibly. . . .

I dug my nails into my
palms - I
couldn’t
think of that now.

I’d had a rotten night. When I got
home, I fed Mac and let him out back for five minutes. Jack and Mel
were engrossed in some television show. I exchanged a few words
with them, said I was tired and went up to bed. A tiny part of me
congratulated myself on how normal, even serene, I acted and
sounded.

I don’t think I slept more than three
hours. I showered and dressed in a kind of mental fugue this
morning. Every now and then I snapped out of it, and wondered what
I was doing. How I came to be sitting at the kitchen table with a
cup of coffee when I didn’t recall making it. Why I stood at the
open back door when I didn’t remember opening it. I got in my car
and drove to Royal’s place on automatic.