KnockingonDemon'sDoor (4 page)

“So you like what you see?”

Blake watched the way the bodyguards hovered nearby, ready to draw their weapons if Blake showed any sign of protest. He cleared his throat but also noted that his voice didn’t quite sound like his when he said, “What I see is money.”

Trevor nodded his approval. “Good. Your new job is to audition women. I’ve seen the way they watch you. Christ, they’re drawn to you like flies to shit.” When Trevor laughed at his own expression, the guards laughed with him. A show of respect, he presumed, for a man who deserved none. What he deserved was a life of pain and suffering and Blake wanted to be the guy to give it to him.

“I’m pretty good with the ladies,” Blake said, biting down on his temper. He would have exploded then and there, tearing the bastard to shreds, but that wouldn’t help him discover his sister’s whereabouts. And if he wanted to protect all the other unsuspecting women by putting a halt to Trevor’s productions, he had to play along.
For the time being.

“We’re looking for women with little to no family, but if they’re really good,” he stopped to wink, and then added, “thanks to the coroner, we’re able to work around it. If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean,” Blake said. Under the guise of anticipation, he gave a wicked grin and scanned the room, memorizing the layout in case he needed to draw on it later.

After they exchanged a few more instructions one of the guards herded them all back out into the long hallway, locking the doors behind them. Darkness had already fallen by the time Blake was guided back to the main lobby and given the understanding that he’d begin auditioning women immediately.

Trevor turned to him. “I’ll be away for the next few days. You can check in with
Lex
and Neal to let them know how things are progressing, and now that you’re on the team, we’re moving you onto the top floor, to our VIP suite.” He handed him a new keycard.

“My room is fine,” he assured him.

“Take it,” Trevor demanded.
“Nothing but the best for all those working on my special project.”

When Blake reluctantly accepted the key card, Trevor nodded toward the underground entrance. “They’ll be waiting.” Before Trevor turned to make his way back to his office he added, “And we’ll be watching you, Ash.”

With those words of warning bouncing around inside his head, and fighting down a surge of rage, Blake made his way back to his old room to sort through matters. Had the bastards gotten their hands on his sister? Cass sure fit Trevor’s specific requirements. A low growl rumbled in his throat and he began to think, to strategize,
to
figure a way to shut down his operation for good. Not just for his sister, but for all those poor, unsuspecting women who’d gotten more adventure than they’d bargained for.

When Blake opened the door to his room, his skin prickled in warning. Two faint yet distinct scents curled around him. One was from a demon. The other was the enticing aroma of vanilla.

Preparing himself for a confrontation, his gaze darted around the small room, but his search came up empty. Blake stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The demon he couldn’t do anything about. It had probably tried to find itself a fix without having to go through the hassle of dealing with Blake. The bastard would find him sooner or later, when he was desperate for drugs, although Blake had never dealt heroin for them in the past, nor did he intend to do it now. What he did intend to do was drive that fact home in a manner the demon and its friends would never forget.

The vanilla, on the other hand…

If Blake disliked the thought of a demon invading his space, he hated the thought of a cop even more.
Especially when he was now hip deep in something that could not only get his ass nailed to the wall, but leave him dangling there like a poster boy for fucked-up good intentions.

* * * * *

Except for a picture of a striking woman with physical characteristics similar to Ash’s, the search of his room turned up nothing. As Michelle committed the picture to memory she wondered if Ash was related to the woman. She replaced the picture, her mind racing, noting how familiar she looked. Was she one of the missing?

After a quick trip back to her own room, Michelle logged onto her computer to check through her reports. Less than a half an hour later she’d found the woman’s picture, and learned that Cassandra Smith had gone missing a couple of months ago. Her disappearance was reported by a man she’d dated only a few times while working at the resort. With no known family to contact, her file was simply added to the rest of the missing cases.

Michelle then proceeded to do a check on Blake Ashen. Shock watered her limbs. He had a rap sheet a mile long, which meant he’d walked the daylight hours of the mortal world for a very long time. A hot temper as a youth had earned him a place in a correctional center. Michelle spent an extra moment absorbing that tidbit of information. She had to admit, Ash’s clear, dark, straightforward eyes didn’t give him the look of a seasoned criminal.
At least, not a human one.

Michelle grabbed her parka, strapped her dagger to her hip and then went to meet up with Dan to discover if he had any new information to share. Except when she found him in the bar, still surrounded by bunnies, she suspected he hadn’t even tried to investigate, and undoubtedly considered this trip nothing other than a vacation.

Disgusted with her partner, she made her way back to the main lobby, sat on the sofa and grabbed the newspaper. If Ash made a move, she planned to follow.

For the next two days while Dan did what he did best, avoid her while he indulged in all the resort had to offer, she watched Ash, studying his habits and his movements. When he ate, she ate. When he slept, she slept. When he worked at night, she sipped drinks with the other bunnies, keeping tabs on him. She’d yet to see him with a woman. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to avoid them.

Watching him all the time was having a seriously bad effect on her. There was something undeniably primal about him. Everything from the way he moved to the way he licked his fingers clean after eating had her blood pulsing hot and aroused her libido to the point of distraction. Never had her nipples tightened so painfully, her pussy throbbed so hard, clamoring for his undivided attention. If she wasn’t careful she feared she’d lose herself in him and allow him to do the most delicious things to her body. As her mind went off in an erotic direction she pictured their hot naked bodies coming together, his mouth taking possession of hers as his cock drove inside her, pushing deep, driving hard, filling her in a way she’d never been filled before. The truth was, Ash made her feel ravenous, carnal and completely out of control.

Damn him.

She shook her head to clear her lusty, yet dangerous, wanderings, and glanced around the table. Once again she found herself sitting in the corner booth the bunnies had claimed, twirling her glass and sipping the awful fruity drink Tabby had ordered for her, as well as for everyone else, and tried to maintain a professional detachment. Difficult, considering everything about him screamed sin, seduction and danger. Pure sensual delight raced through her veins whenever his eyes turned her way, forcing her to fight off unwanted shivers of longing. In spite of herself, her mouth watered and she once again let her mind drift for one glorious minute, imagining what it would be like to feel his naked body climbing over hers. To feel that sensual mouth graze every speck of her flesh, licking and sucking and rehydrating
himself
with her cream. Her sex muscles fluttered in eager anticipation.

Oh God…

She knew it had to be the allure of the demon that caused her salacious mind to conjure up such erotic images because it certainly wasn’t in her nature to be drawn to a suspect. And it should sicken her to know that a demon could do this to her.

But her mind kept flashing back to the way he’d taken such painstaking care of Mac a couple of days earlier. Surely a soulless monster wouldn’t have cared if the guy drank himself to death. She recalled the look of sympathy that had come over him, and the way he’d switched Mac to soda pop. Not to mention that he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. As far as she could tell he kept his nose clean, and kept to himself. Deep in her gut she suspected that Ash had nothing at all to do with the missing girls and that she was simply attracted to him, the woman in her drawn to his charisma and charm. She pushed herself deeper into the booth and bit back a moan. He had to be involved, he just had to be.
Because all demons were monsters.
Even ones that could walk during the day.
Weren’t they?

Michelle decided she’d had enough of watching him for now. A long day on the slopes had tired her out more than she’d expected and sitting at the bar with the bunnies for the rest of the night was more than she could take. She pushed the last of her drink away with her fingertips and excused herself, pleading a headache when the other women protested. The headache wasn’t too far from the truth. She was sick and tired of listening to them talk about their sexual games and knew it wouldn’t be long before they’d put the pressure on for her to join in.

Michelle wanted this case closed.
For many reasons.

She stopped when she got to the lobby, taking a quick moment to run through the headlines in the newspaper, dying to know what was going on in the outside world. How the bunnies could spend their lives ignoring
reality,
totally baffled her. The closest Tabby got to reality was watching
American Idol
.

Before she’d finished scanning the paper, Ash rushed from the bar, looking like sex incarnate. A black leather coat billowed around his powerful legs, the well-defined thigh muscles bunching as he cut across the wide expanse of floor. Michelle cast her eyes down as though concentrating on a news article, but mindless compulsion forced her to glance up and watch his sexy swagger.

A gorgeous, curvy Barbie-doll type stepped up to him and blocked his path before he could reach the main doors. He took a quick glance around, then, with a look of weariness on his face, leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Michelle’s distance kept her from hearing the exchange, but she could well imagine that the girl would soon be decorating his arm and eventually his bed. Then God only knows what came after that.

The cop in Michelle had to put a stop to that, and the woman in her, well, the woman in her felt a tinge of jealousy, aching to be the one on his arm, and feeling his mouth on her pussy as they explored a brief affair.
Dammit
.

She stood and casually made her way across the room, straining to hear the conversation. As she listened she caught snippets of their discussion and what she heard shocked her. Ash had turned the girl down and then resumed his long strides toward the doors. Demons never turned down women.
Ever.
Seducing unsuspecting females seemed to be their driving force, their reason for stalking the night in this world.

And night was already upon them.

Michelle zipped up her jacket, felt for the reassuring length of the dagger at her hip, pleased that she’d secured it there before meeting the bunnies for drinks and then followed him outdoors into the dark. Keeping a reasonable distance between them she followed his footprints in the rising light of the moon, her boots crunching on the freshly fallen snow. It was a bit frightening how fast he could move, and without sound.

The last of the day’s skiers trudged back to the lodge, unaware that a demon walked amongst them, which brought out her protective instincts all the more.

She caught a glimpse of him up ahead. He paused for a brief moment, seeming almost to be sniffing the air, and then, as if something or someone had suddenly caught his attention, he twisted around and made his way to the secluded staff parking lot. After a brisk walk across the vacant, snow-covered lot, Ash suddenly disappeared from her sight.

Wind whistled around her, her heart beating double time, her hand automatically going to the dagger at her hip and pulling it free. As she cautiously crept forward through the shadows she heard low, angry voices.

Pale white light from one of the few lampposts in the poorly lit lot provided sufficient illumination for her to see Ash with another monster.

“I don’t deal drugs,” Ash said, the disgust in his voice loud enough for her to hear. “Get that through your dumbass head.”

Michelle couldn’t hear the demon’s response, but it was obvious that it wasn’t happy. After studying and hunting demons for years, she knew heroin was a demons drug of choice. It didn’t seem to have the same addictive effect on them that it did on humans. What it did do, however, was enhance their already impressive strength. The one time Michelle had gone up against a demon
who’d
had a fix, she almost hadn’t walked away. The drug had somehow slowed the effects of the holy water she’d used on it too.

As far as she was concerned, demons could have the Earth’s entire supply of heroin, but it was the currency they used in order to buy it from humans “seers” that had her worried. A promise of immortality could buy a demon a lot more than drugs in this world. And what if that promise turned out to be true?

As Michelle shivered in the cold, wondering what she should do, if anything, Ash must have decided the conversation was finished. He suddenly reached out and
earslapped
the other demon with two cupped hands.

Michelle wasn’t the only one caught off guard. The demon let out a howl of pain, its eyes flashing yellow. Why did he have to go and do something so stupid?

Blake Ashen looked more than capable of handling himself, but Michelle wasn’t about to take that chance. So far, he was the only lead she had in finding out what had happened to all those dead and missing women. She gripped the dagger tighter and rushed forward.

“Get the hell back!” Ash shouted when he saw her coming. He only shifted his attention to her for a split second, but it was long enough for the demon to seize an opening. It lunged up, striking Ash across the throat with the
vee
of its thumb and forefinger. Ash dropped to his knees, choking, his hands going to his neck.