Interview With a Gargoyle (12 page)

“I have no doubt she’s going to hurt someone tonight. Hopefully it will be a demon.”

Palmer took two steps toward the back door, and Blake grabbed his shoulder, halting his escape. “You can’t leave.”

“What? Tracking demons is my job. I know what I’m doing, DeWitt.”

“You can’t walk away and leave this mess here. Melodie will lose her job, and there will be an awful lot of explaining to do to the authorities. Isn’t the first rule of demon hunting to never leave evidence of a kill behind?”

Palmer deflated. If Blake hadn’t been worried about Melodie, he might have found time to savor the Kodak moment. “You expect me to clean this up?”

“Unlike Gogmars, Betryminars don’t dissolve. They come apart pretty easily, though, so you can probably hack this one up and stick it in a couple of trash bags.”

Palmer’s complexion turned mossy. His eyes glazed, and he shuddered. “Ugh.”

“Call Calypso. Maybe when she gets back from her witch conference, she can help.” Blake didn’t wait to see if Palmer stepped up to the plate or ran for the porcelain altar. The tingle of the Cabochon was beginning to fade, and he had to follow Melodie’s trail while it was still fresh.

The gnarled, bony hands of a monster resolved themselves into the gnarled, bony limbs of a small tree as Mel’s vision returned to sharp focus. A barrel-chested guardian became one of the stone-fronted water fountains in Veteran’s Park, and the caress of evil fingers became the soft touch of a gentle autumn breeze.

Melodie drew herself up from a crouch and swiped at the pine needles clinging to her jeans.

Smears of gooey orange marred the denim.

She lifted her hands in the faint bluish moonlight and stared. From the tips of her fingers to her wrists, her skin was coated with something that smelled sharp and coppery. Her white shirt bore signs of a struggle. Something had bled on her—copiously.

She staggered to the fountain and held the control lever in one slippery hand while she tried to rinse the other. The thin trickle of water served only to moisten the half-dry stains and spread them around.

Frantic rubbing and splashing and wringing of her hands only made matters worse. She might have just given up then and sunk to the ground in a miserable heap, except something caught her eye. An orange trail disappeared under the low branches of a pine tree, and for some inexplicable reason, she felt drawn to follow it.

The creature lay on the aromatic pine carpet, partially covered with dead branches. It resembled a goat, but with a flat snout and extra horns and the potbellied body of a man.

She remembered killing it.

“Oh…my.” Worse, she remembered the small army of creatures who had helped her start to bury the remains. Maybe two feet tall, they had slender bodies, hair like dirty mops and round, black, soulless eyes. They’d surrounded her as soon as the body of the larger demon hit the ground. She hadn’t been afraid at all. In fact, she recalled being…pleased.

They’d been the ones to drag branches over the corpse. They were still nearby, whispering to each other in the shadows and watching her with reverence.

“Oh my God.”

One foot at a time, she backed out from under the pine tree, hands out, palms down to steady her on her feet and to keep the scuttling creatures at bay. “Stay back. Don’t come any closer.”

They froze. Only half-hidden in the shadows now, they watched like frightened children, peering one-eyed from behind rocks and tree stumps. “Stay. Easy now.”

An unrequited sob lodged in her chest. How had this happened? She’d blacked out after coming face-to-face with the monstrosity at the back door. She’d left Palmer all alone to fend for himself, and she’d gone…hunting.

Her hands bore the evidence of her success.

“Oh, no no no. This can’t be happening. I refuse to—”

One of her minions—that’s what they were, after all—chattered a warning to her. Something was coming. Something big and dangerous.

Mel swallowed air in an aborted attempt to breathe. What could be bigger or more dangerous than the thing lying under the branches?

A twig cracked, and something hissed out a sharp breath. She ran, and behind her, the miniature demons closed ranks, forming a staunch line of defense.

She knew this without turning to look, because they told her they would protect her. Six of them died trying to do just that. Their screams were like the squeal of bats or the whine of rusted gears. The remaining ones fled in fear. They were only demons, after all, and couldn’t be expected to march to their own slaughter when the odds had shifted out of their favor.

Now it was up to Mel to protect herself.

She stopped running and turned swiftly to face this new threat, ready to deal with anything that came at her with the same unconscious ferocity she’d shown the goat-faced demon.

He stood bathed in moonlight, his black leather jacket kissed by silver and his eyes dark and fathomless. The mini-crossbow she’d stolen from Palmer and dropped during her flight through the park rested over his forearm, cocked and ready to fire, the arrow pointed at her chest.

“I’ve only got one shot left,” he said. “And I have a feeling it wouldn’t do any damage, but that won’t stop me from trying.”

Relief swept over her, followed by a wave of debilitating embarrassment. She sank to her knees in the grass and covered her face with blood-sticky hands.

He was next to her a moment later, strong arms drawing her to him, protecting her from the cold. “I’m sorry. The Cabochon was infused with an incredible amount of power, and that must be taking a toll on you.”

“Palmer?” She wrapped her damp hands around the collar of Blake’s jacket. “Is he dead?”

“No. He’s pretty hard to kill. Apparently, you ripped the heart out of the Betryminar demon that attacked you. You disarmed Palmer—not that hard, by the way—and ran after the Fryyk that had come to kill the Betryminar.”

“There are freaks after me now too?” She thought about wiping dirt and tears from her face, but the blood on her hands stopped her. DeWitt pulled a blue bandanna from his back pocket and handed it to her.

“F-R-Y-Y-K. It’s a type of demon. I saw what was left of the body back there right before a small herd of Fremlings attacked me.”

“Fremlings? Oh. They’re mine.” She sniffled and climbed to her feet, reluctant to leave the relative safety of DeWitt’s embrace but acutely aware that she didn’t belong there.

He stared. “Yours?”

“They seem to be following me and trying to help me. They covered the body.”

DeWitt’s stunned expression told her this was not a good thing. “We need to get inside, somewhere safe.”

“I have to get back to work. Oh my God. There was blood all over the—”

DeWitt grabbed her arm and marched her toward the pathway that led to the entrance of the park. “Palmer’s taking care of it. He was going to call in Calypso to cover for you. I think you might need to take a few days off if you don’t want Gleason’s to be the site of a demon attack every time you walk through the door.”

“I can’t do that. I need to work.”

“Right now you need to stay where the demons can’t find you. It appears the ones that aren’t trying to kill you are forming a posse on your behalf. It’s best not to encourage that kind of behavior.”

“But if they were trying to help me…?”

“Fremlings are like seagulls or stray cats. If you throw them a few crumbs, they’ll swarm looking for more. Tonight you had what, half a dozen?”

“At least that many.”

“Tomorrow you might have hundreds.”

Mel stopped short so fast that DeWitt lost his death grip on her elbow. He got three steps ahead of her and had to double back. “What?”

“It’s because I’m their queen, isn’t it? I’m a Fremling.”

He looked her up and down. “You’re obviously
not
a Fremling. They’re the rats of the demon world, and you’re no rat.”

“What if I’m
part
Fremling? That’s why they’re drawn to me and why I could absorb the Cabochon.”

“Impossible. No human could ever mate with a Fremling.”

“How do you know?”

“I…well…it just isn’t done. Now come on. Let’s get out of here before they regroup and decide to protect you from me again.”

Chapter Thirteen

Blake should have had a million things on his mind during the ride from Veteran’s Park to his place with Melodie clinging to his back. He should have been worrying about the Fremlings, the roving Ak’mir and the amazing array of demon breeds that seemed to be roaming the streets and back alleys of sleepy little Amberville.

At the very least, he should have been wondering how Melodie would survive any length of time hosting the dark power of the Cabochon.

Instead he spent those twenty minutes wondering if he’d left any dirty underwear in the living room, or if he had a clean coffee cup on hand to offer her something warm to drink.

He never brought women home.

Not that he hadn’t dated now and then. Nothing serious. It could never be serious. They usually got suspicious and dumped him when he refused to take them home to his place, figuring he was married or some type of deviate. Well, technically he
was
some type of deviate.

At least Melodie McConnell already knew that.

Fortunately at the moment, she didn’t care. She climbed off the back of his Harley when he pulled into his narrow driveway and made her way on unsteady legs up the small flight of stairs leading to his front door.

“This is nice,” she said, craning her neck to survey the faux-brick finish topped on the second floor by colonial gold aluminum siding.

“Thanks.” He stifled the urge to explain his parents had left him the house. It was enough she knew his secret. Sharing the details of the normal part of his life with her just seemed way too intimate. He plowed through the awkward silence and unlocked the front door.

“Here.” He handed her his cell phone before slipping ahead of her in the entry hall to turn on the lights. “Why don’t you call the bakery and see how Palmer’s doing.”

She nodded and dialed hesitantly. He led her to the living room, which, to his relief, was reasonably clean. He’d never considered himself sloppy, nor was he a neat freak. He figured the place looked no worse or better than she might have expected of a thirty-five-year-old bachelor.

Palmer’s voice exploded out of the tiny receiver, and Melodie held the phone away from her ear. “I’m fine…I’m…really sorry about what I—no, I
do
need to apologize. I don’t know what came over me. Well, yes I do know. It’s the demon thing, I’m…” Her words dissolved into a hiccupping sob, and Blake swiped the phone from her.

“Everything all right, Van Houten?”

“Yes. I’ve got most of the mess cleaned up. Calypso said she’d handle Melodie’s work for tonight. Thanks for leaving me here with a dead demon.”

“Would you have preferred being left with a live one?” Blake imagined Palmer’s expression and smirked.

“Is Melodie really all right?”

“She’s in one piece, and the blood on her clothes isn’t her own. That’s about as okay as can be expected at the moment.” He watched her cross the room and sit gingerly on his sofa. Overall, she looked helpless, scared, tired, beyond vulnerable, except for her eyes. Something shone in them that spoke of the power lying momentarily dormant within her. It would tear her apart if she held on to it for too much longer. “Calypso is going to have to smooth things over with Mel’s boss for a few days. I don’t think she should be out and about. She’ll stay here tonight.”

“Here? Where’s here?”

“My place.”

“
Oh
.”

“Don’t worry.” Blake dropped his voice to a whisper. “If she tries to seduce me, I know exactly how to handle it.” He didn’t hang on to listen to Palmer’s explosive diatribe. With a certain perverse pleasure, he shut the phone off and dropped it on the table beside the kitchen door.

“Don’t worry about a thing. Palmer and Calypso have it all under control.” He hoped that was close to the truth. The girl had enough on her mind without having to worry about losing her job too.

She glanced at him and shrugged. “Right now, I’m not worried. It’s…scary and liberating. I go through these little manic moments where it feels like everything is going to be just fantastic. Then, wham, it all hits me again like a ton of bricks.”

Blake crossed the living room and took a seat on the edge of his favorite recliner. “I don’t mean to upset you, but demons are capricious. They can be ecstatic one minute and morose the next. All the breeds are different, but they’re all known for being unable to control whatever emotions they possess.”

“Oh. That makes me feel so much better. I’d hate to be an abnormal demon.”

“You’re not a demon. The Cabochon is just making you act like one.”

“So then, aren’t you afraid I might become morose and take out my malaise on you?”

He laughed. “No. Actually, I’m banking on a theory. If I can’t hurt the one who possesses the Cabochon, I’m willing to bet she—meaning you, in this case—can’t hurt
me
, either. That would undermine the purpose of the spell which is for the witch hunter to suffer, and believe me, at this point, I might be tempted to let a demon take me out.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t say that. There’s still hope to break the curse.”

He smiled and rose from the chair. “Good. Keep believing that. Now, I have some clean clothes you can borrow, and then I’ll see if I can round up something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry. I haven’t been all day.”

“You should try to eat and try to sleep. If you’re weak, the Cabochon will have a greater effect on you.”

That seemed to strike a nerve, and she sat up straighter. “I can fight it, can’t I? I can just sit here and let it take me over, or I can resist.”

Blake nodded, though he wasn’t at all sure it was possible to resist the power of the Witch’s Curse. He hoped for Melodie’s sake it was. “I have a feeling you’re a lot stronger than you think you are, lass.”

Mel wished she shared DeWitt’s faith in her inner strength. Right now, the last thing she felt was strong. Sitting in his cozy, if sparse, kitchen, dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and an oversize white T-shirt, she felt lost, as though she were wandering through a dream world.