The Demon Hunters (11 page)

I’d never seen anything like those
swords. With an unadorned steel guard and grip long enough to
accommodate two hands, the double-edged blade was a thirty-inch
monstrosity. Although smooth for the first and last ten inches,
jagged serrations deeply notched both edges of the middle section.
I didn’t need a whole lot of imagination to think of how they could
be used, what they could do to flesh and bone.

Each man held his sword one-handed,
the tall one with the blade casually on his shoulder, the other
held his out to one side.

I walked away from the house and back
up to the road, my boots crunching on cinder. The tall guy’s
expression was neutral; the other guy frowned as he looked down at
me. Their heads sat strangely on their necks, kind of tilted to one
side.

They moved toward the roaring flames
which engulfed the house. The killer came at them fast. Too fast to
be surprised. Too fast to be astonished. Too fast to defend
themselves. Around behind them, an arm wrapped around the top of
the head, the other hand on the chin, so terribly, incredibly
strong. A fast, hard jerk. A snap. First one, then the
other.

I stood still until the vision passed
and my racing pulse stabilized, then walked the rest of the way to
the road.

I would not normally accost two
strangers out in the middle of nowhere, but I felt safe with these
two. I stopped six or seven feet away. “What’s with the
swords?”

Both looked behind them, back at me.
“Yes, you,” I said.

The taller man pushed the fingers of
his free hand under his cap and scratched his head. “She ain’t
talking to us, is she, Ronald?” He waved the sword, making me take
a step back. Although I knew the weapon - as insubstantial as the
man who wielded it - couldn’t hurt me, instinct kicks in when
someone waves a long, shining length of sharp steel
around.

His companion stared hard at me.
“Can’t be.”

“
So he’s Ronald. What’s
your name?”

Ronald bristled. “This ain’t -
”

His friend broke in. “Don’t you know
we’re dead?” He glanced at Ronald. “We’re still dead, ain’t we,
Ron?”

Ronald looked down at himself, then
put splayed fingers to his neck. “Oh, we’re definitely dead,
John.”

Ronald and John. I didn’t remember
reports of their deaths in the newspaper. I looked at Ronald.
“That’s the point, I do know you’re dead.”

“
How about that,” John
said. “What are you, one of those ghost whisperers?”

“
That’s television. I’m the
real thing.”

“
Why d’they call them that
anyhow?” John asked Ronald.

“
It’s like horse
whisperers, ain’t it,” said Ronald.

“
Horse whisperers tame wild
horses,” John said.

“
Yeah, and ghost whisperers
tame ghosts to stop them haunting.” Ronald guffawed. “Whadya know,
John, we’re wild ghosts.”

“
Don’t be stupid all your
life, Ron.” John took a step nearer me, stopped, stuck his sword
point down in the ground as if he braced himself on it. “You gonna
send us onward, ‘cause we been here a time and it’s getting
old.”

I looked about. These guys would
rarely see another person, except maybe a few locals hiking the
area. But they had each other, and in summer the mountainside was
beautiful. In winter, below-zero temperatures and deep snow would
not impact these two. But it did have a desolate air.

I folded my arms. “You want to tell me
what happened to you?”

Ronald looked up at John
lopsidedly.

I saw men like Ronald and John in
Clarion every day. They were down-and-outs; they probably spent
their nights in a homeless shelter, or under the Twenty-Fourth
Street viaduct near the river in summer. The cops kept clearing out
the makeshift camps, but the homeless just came back again. They
panhandled, or stood with others of their ilk on a particular
street corner, hoping a local farmer or contractor would come along
and hire them. All strictly illegal of course. They were paid
out-of-pocket and the government never got any taxes out of
them.

They stared at me, turned away, and
had a muted conversation. I hefted out a sigh and told myself to be
patient. You don’t rush the dead, not if you want
answers.

They turned back to me. “Word was
someone wanted guys with a working knowledge of munitions,” John
said. “Me and Ronald, we’re ex-military, we fit the
bill.”

Knowing Ron and John, albeit briefly,
I could imagine them bragging.

“
So we passed the word we
were interested,” Ronald said. “We were outside Saint Anthony’s and
a black car pulled up alongside, and a guy in back asks if we want
a job.”

“
What sort of black
car?”

“
Dunno,” John
replied.

“
Said he needs guys who can
handle incendiaries. Said he heard we got experience,” Ronald told
me.

I got fairly excited. “Who was he?
What did he look like?”

“
Dunno,” John repeated.
“Couldn’t see him. Car had tinted windows, real dark, and he
cracked his window down just a bit.”

“
Enough to pass us a
hundred-dollar bill,” said Ronald.

“
Each,” from
John.

I held up my hands to slow them down.
“What about his voice?”

“
Er . . . foreign-ish,”
John said.

“
Old? Young?”

They exchanged looks. “Might be
somewhere in between,” Ronald said.

I paced back and forth in front of
them. Possibly a middle-aged man, and when a person says foreign,
they usually mean European. “Go on,” I urged.

“
So we meet five other guys
and a van picks us up and brings us here. We took the perimeter and
launched grenades at the house,” John said.

So my first impression was correct,
the house was bombed. The guy in the black car meant business. “Who
were the other five?”

“
Never seen them before,”
Ronald said. “Didn’t take much notice of them.”

“
The van - did you see the
license plate?”

Both shook their heads. “It was plain
white,” John offered helpfully.

“
The driver?”

“
White-haired guy,
mid-thirties, tall,” Ronald said.

“
The guy with the
accent?”

“
Had an accent all right,”
John said.

“
Chicago, I’d say. What
d’you think, John?” said Ronald.

“
Dunno. He didn’t say
much,” said John.

“
Caucasian?” I
asked.

They looked at me as if I were stupid.
I gave them stupid-look right back. “A lot of men have white
hair.”

“
Yeah, he was white, all
over,” from Ronald.

“
He briefed you and let you
at it?”

Ronald nodded.

I kept pacing with their eyes tracking
me. “What time of day was this?”

“
Eight-ish,” from
John.

“
What happened to you two?”
I knew someone killed them, but I wanted their take on
it.

“
We hung around to make
sure the guy didn’t make it out.” John hefted his sword. “He comes
out, we take care of him with these.”

“
Strange, that,” said
Ronald. “Said we gotta take his head off if he gets out the house.
I says to John, ain’t nobody coming out of there. I was wrong,
though.”

John swung his arms out, the sword
cleaving the air. “The place went up like a bomb.”

“
Then they came at us,”
Ronald said.

What?
“Wait a minute! What guy, and who came at you?”

I think the ferocity of my tone
unnerved them. They drew closer together. “Guy who owned this
place. Clare?” Ronald said.

“
Daven Clare was in the
house?”

John sniggered. “Till he came out the
back like a campfire on legs.”

My nails dug into my palms.

“
We waited till he fell
over and settled down to a smolder. Looked dead to me, but a deal’s
a deal.” John smacked the blade of his sword on his palm. “I was
going down there to finish him off and Ron headed for the others to
tell them, then
they
turned up,” John said.

I advanced on them. “What makes you
think it was Clare?”

Ronald eyed John, who pretended not to
see him. “We waited till he got home to light up the place,” Ronald
said. “We hid out till he drove up. The white-haired guy identified
him. Clare used a key to get in - you don’t lock your house when
you got company staying with you, do you. He had to be alone in
there.”

Obviously, they were mistaken. Someone
else was in Daven’s house.

“
You said
they
came at you after
dark;
they
turned
up,” I prodded.

“
A young guy, Latino, long
black hair. And a woman with him, wasn’t there, John.”

“
Hard to pin her down. She
was here. She was there. Only got a glimpse of her as she zipped
about. Never seen a person move that fast.”

Warning tingles ran up my spine. I had
a decidedly eerie idea of whom they spoke.

“
You didn’t get a good look
when she broke your necks?”

They looked at me dumbly. I
squinted at them. They turned their heads to avoid my gaze. Could
they possibly
not
have seen the face of their killer? But something about their
posture told me otherwise.

“
Guys, you’re dead. You can
tell me.”

Ronald hunched his shoulders. “So, it
was a woman.”

“
Not that I’m embarrassed a
woman did me in, but there was nothing to her,” from
John.

“
Yeah. Didn’t look like she
could snap a twig,” Ronald added.

“
So she killed you and
wounded your ego at the same time. Big deal.” I smothered a grin
-
don’t
laugh at
dead people. “What did she look like?”

“
Be-ootiful,” said John.
“Long black hair, white skin, red lips, legs up to her
backside.”

Gia Sabato. Had to be. And she must be
one powerful lady to snap a man’s neck. And fast. Like a
demon.

They had nothing more of value to tell
me. The dead go through a period of disorientation, or a kind of
sleep, which lasts anywhere from half an hour to a day. The fire
department was there when Ronald and John woke, the fire almost
extinguished. Someone must have removed their bodies before
emergency services arrived.

Where was Daven while all this was
going on? They hadn’t seen him with Gia and Rio; they were
convinced he died at the house.

Time I was gone from there. I flapped
my hand at them. “I gotta get going.”

“
Wait!” John called.
“Aren’t you going to whisper us onward?”

I could have told them they would
remain near the ruins of Daven Clare’s house until their killer
died. I could have told them all the things I tell victims. But I
didn’t look back, I just kept going. “You tried to burn a man alive
in his own home. What do you think?”

I doubted I’d revisit Daven Clare’s
property without a good reason. Weird as it may sound, I count some
shades as my friends and make a point of spending time with them.
Others are useful to me. But there are some I’ll never willingly go
near again, and these two fell into that category. John and Ronald
were not worth my time.

***

I drove home slowly, but I barely
noticed the scenery.

An anonymous man hired John, Ronald
and other homeless men to kill Daven Clare. A man with white hair
drove them to Daven’s house in a white van. They waited till Daven,
or someone they thought was Daven, got home and then set fire to
his house. John and Ronald were at the rear of the house when a man
came out. Poor guy - sounded like he was a goner. They were about
to obey orders and cut of the guy’s head when Gia and Rio arrived.
They killed Ronald and John, and they must have taken the body of
the arson victim. The rest of the gang found Ronald’s and John’s
bodies and got out of there before emergency services
arrived.

Who was in the house? It sure as hell
wasn’t Daven Clare.

Chapter
Nine

I made a list. I checked it twice. So,
who was naughty and who was nice?

Three weeks ago, someone
hired local bums to burn down Daven Clare’s house. Not just your
regular arson, either. They used grenade launchers. Someone took no
chances; they want Daven very definitely dead.

The arsonists didn’t see
who hired them, but he drove a big black car. He could be
middle-aged and he has a European accent.

The bums thought Daven
died in the blaze. Gia and Rio turned up before they could leave.
(How did they know about the fire? Where was Daven? If he wasn’t in
the house, then who did John and Ronald see?)