The Demon Hunters (20 page)

I’d rather have stayed there, taking
in the ambience, than go through Bel-Athaer to Russia to see a
dying woman. I would rather have the flu.

Gia and Daven almost hugged the
storefronts so they walked beneath the awnings. We trooped past a
trio of musicians who followed Gia with their eyes, and turned the
corner to Childress, trying to avoid pedestrians too busy looking
in shop windows to see us. A little ways further and we were a half
block from Gorge’s Antique Emporium.

Gorge does not live there anymore, nor
operate the business. Gorgeous Gorge lives in Bel-Athaer with High
Lord Lawrence. He pops back every so often to see everything runs
smoothly, but his home is Royal’s world.

We stood close to the west wall of an
empty shop. Royal wrapped one arm around my waist.

Chapter
Sixteen

Like most ancient Russian cities,
one-thousand-year-old Kazan is a melding of the incredibly
beautiful and the dismally drab. The Cathedral of the Annunciation,
crowned by jewel-toned domes. Gleaming white Kazan University. The
National Library with its elaborate reading rooms. The Tatar
Theatre of Opera and Ballet. The famous Alexandrov Arcade, now used
by retail stores. The ornately decorated Peter and Paul Cathedral.
In the lower town, the Shamil House, the Sovet Hotel, the Azimov
Mosque. And all over the place, huge brown or gray apartment blocks
which earn the title tenement.

I didn’t see any glorious
architecture. I did see the hideous apartment blocks.

It’s a small world; you hear it all
the time, and it’s true. I helped police in Jackson, Wyoming, find
the killer of a Russian girl three years ago. Anya worked in an
ice-cream shop, there for the summer to earn money for her
schooling back home. A month later via Clarion PD, I received a
package containing a beautiful book all about Kazan, with an
invitation from Anya’s family to go visit them any time I felt so
inclined.

A big old gray building
faced us across the street, but I had no clue to its name. In fact,
I had no clue to whereabouts we were in Kazan. I
presumed
we were in
Kazan.

After a few seconds of hovering on the
sidewalk, the three speedsters took off, towing me with them and I
didn’t have time to see the sights. I spotted the apartment
buildings as we tore through the streets, huge drab constructions
surrounded by plots of dirt or concrete, or both, but only because
my power-walking companions had to briefly stop when we came to a
cross-street busy with traffic. Soon as they spotted a break, over
we went.

We stopped too abruptly for me and
Royal had to steady me as I teetered. I clung to his shirt front
with both hands fisted in the material. When I felt I could lift my
head from his chest, I saw Gia striding up and down the sidewalk
with cell phone in hand, waving it in the air. Suddenly she threw
it to the ground, whereupon impact it exploded in a cloud of metal
and plastic fragments.

“
What’s up with
her?”

Royal spoke out the corner of his
mouth, close to my ear. “Can’t get a signal.”

“
And?”

“
We did not think to bring
a GPS. We thought we could use our cells.”

I still didn’t get it. I shifted away
from him a fraction. “Perhaps you could spell it out for
me.”

“
We have an address, but we
don’t know how to get there.”

I gaped at him. “Don’t know. . . .” I
swallowed a chortle. I guess Otherworldy powers mean zilch when
you’re lost.

Daven strode toward us. “We need a
map.”

“
We could backtrack, go
into the city center and find a map, or,” Royal pointed along the
street to two old cars lined up at the curb, “we could take one of
those cabs.”

Gia and Daven sped along the sidewalk.
Royal put on a burst of speed and got ahead of them. I started
after them. From Gia’s wild gestures, it looked like they were
arguing, but they shut up when I reached them.

We climbed into a ratty old Saab which
had seen better days, Gia up front and the rest of us crammed in
back like sardines in a can. Daven argued with the driver in what I
think was Russian. He said the man was trying to talk us into a
tour through Kazan. The guy looked pleased when Daven fluttered a
wad of notes in his face.

The second dose of Dramamine did the
trick and I felt just fine. As our maniac of a driver sped through
the streets and over bridges at double the speed limit, I
fantasized about exotic vacations with Royal. With the aid of the
blessed little anti-nausea pills, we could reach our destination
via Bel-Athaer, saving time and a whole lot of money. A hot sandy
beach with turquoise waves lapping our toes, a Margarita in hand,
Royal smoothing sun-block lotion all over my body. Mm,
mm.

No, I hadn’t forgotten why
we were in Russia. I was doing my damnedest to think of
anything
but
that.

We slowed down in what looked like the
countryside, badly paved roads and hedges. We drove into a village
with the cutest cottages I have ever seen. Lacy scrollwork, carved
and painted plaques, geometrical designs and stylized animals and
birds adorned the colorfully painted buildings, not just the walls
but also window and door frames, porches and eaves. Overflowing
flower beds reminded me of pictures of English country gardens. The
plain, square brick tower of a mosque rose from among the clustered
homes.

At six thousand feet above sea level,
Clarion’s climate is close to Kazan’s year round, so at least we
were appropriately dressed. A lovely summer day, and warm,
flower-perfumed air gushed through the cab’s open windows. I kind
of wished we had time for a sight-seeing trip, especially with what
I knew came next.

I should have thrown myself out the
cab.

I felt Royal as a warm tingle tight
against my side, more intense than usual, so I knew he was worried.
Groping, I found his hand and twined my fingers with his. He
gripped it fiercely, almost hurting. But when I glanced at him he
kept his gaze firmly ahead.

We stopped at the low wood gate of a
cottage little different from the others we’d passed, although each
had individuality. Nothing about it said a dying Otherworldy being
waited inside. Cream, pink and salmon chrysanthemums clustered
along the stone pathway leading to the door.

Being squished against the passenger
door on one side and Royal on the other, I nearly fell out when
Royal reached around me and opened the door. We managed to safety
extract ourselves and started along the path. The cab waited in the
street.

Daven opened the door without knocking
and we went into a narrow hallway, with a staircase on the left and
doors ahead and to the right. The interior of the house was far
from pretty. Distorted by little ripples and bulges, hideous
mustard-brown wallpaper with tiny blue flowers had been poorly
applied to the walls. We went up the staircase to the narrow
upstairs hall. An open door faced us, and I followed Daven and Gia
into a small bedroom furnished with a twin-size bed and blue wood
dresser. The room looked crowded and stuffy with five demons
standing inside.

I suppose they were beautiful, but I
barely saw them. What lay on the bed took my entire
focus.

I had never seen such a badly burned
person.

Daven said it was female, but nothing
indicated that. A head, body and limbs charred black, a
crazy-paving pattern of red, weeping fissures. Her skin looked like
lava as it cools and cracks to show the red fire beneath. A
featureless face, a charred blank, and flat like a
reptile.

And the smell . . . oh god, the smell.
. . .

The only thing I know about the
treatment of burn victims is it is lengthy, complicated and
extremely painful. This woman didn’t even have a morphine drip to
ease her pain. As I stood in the doorway, I wondered how she still
lived. My last meal curdled in my stomach and threatened to crawl
up my throat. I held the back of my wrist to my mouth.

“
This is what they do to
us, and to Gelpha,” Gia said, her face marble-white.

I knew it would be bad, but the
reality was worse than the image conjured by my imagination. I
wanted out of there in the worst way. I didn’t know if I could
cope. “Royal!”

“
I’m sorry, Tiff.” But he
looked everywhere but at me. “I’m so sorry to put you through
this.”

I swallowed bile and looked at the
demons, who looked back at me. I had to do this, I had no choice.
“What’s her name?”

“
Maud.”

How long would the poor woman linger,
how long would I have to wait for her to pass over, a burned body
on a bed with just a tiny lift and fall of her chest to show she
still lived?

The poor thing lay there, suffering,
as we waited for her to give up her pain and go on her way, and no
guarantee I’d see anything. She was Gelpha, and neither I nor the
Gelpha themselves knew if they lingered when violently slain, as
humans do.

With this thought, came another. “Wait
a minute. I don’t think this will work.”

Every eye in the room turned to
me.

I put my splayed fingers to
my head and dug them in my hair. “I see people at the place where
they are killed. Technically, as she was attacked and died - will
die - from her injuries, she
was
violently slain. But although she will die here,
she wasn’t
killed
here, nor at the place where she was attacked.”

Royal faced me. He gently enclosed my
hands in his and lowered them to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said
again.

I peered at him. My statement didn’t
surprise him. He already knew.

A demon with blood-red hair threaded
with gold squatted and picked something off the floor, a long
object wrapped in white material. He stood, shook the bundle and
the cloth unraveled. He held a long, wide-bladed sword.

“
What. . . ?” Confusion
swiftly became comprehension and disbelief. I looked wildly at
Royal. “No!”

He pulled me closer. “I know it’s
barbarous, or will seem so to you. But she is no longer a person,
she is a soul trapped inside a shell and in terrible
pain.”

Oh no.
Oh my god no!
I tried to pull away.
“No! You can’t!”

The bastards knew I saw the departed
at the scene of their violent death. They asked themselves the same
question I just posed, and came up with a solution. They meant Maud
to die here, right in front of me, and violently, their plan all
along and Royal part of it.

“
It will be a mercy, Tiff.”
He tried to pull me to him, but I struggled in his arms and twisted
away.

The red-haired demon stood by the bed
with the blade angled in his hands. I narrowed my eyes at him and
growled, “You were on the mountain, you and another.
Why?”

“
They were curious about
you,” Royal said.

I could barely get the
words out. “You
lied
to me!”

“
I did not, Tiff, not
technically.”

“
You knew
why
they were
curiou
s
about me!
You knew this was coming!”

Royal grabbed me by the upper arms and
pinned me to him. I couldn’t move an inch.

A long silvered blade
clasped in two hands, descending almost faster than could be seen.
A wet, meaty thunk. . . . My face against Royal’s chest, I didn’t
see it happen, but a victim of violence see’s their death with
something other than their eyes, and through Maud, I
did
see.

Royal let me go just as quickly, but
kept hold of my hands. I wrenched them free and turned. My insides
loosened and crawled up my throat like they were trying to find a
way out. I gasped and bent over, gagging.

The sword had disappeared and a dingy
blue sheet completely covered the body. A woman hovered just above
the floor, swaying like a leaf caught in a gentle
breeze.

This time I didn’t have to ask the
victim who killed her. He stood in the room with me, a beautiful
red-haired demon with glinting hazel eyes. Bent over, I tilted my
eyes up at him. He held my gaze for a moment, then dropped
his.

I straightened up and made myself look
at the shade. The first female demon I saw, and of course
beautiful. Long hair black as ebony tumbled over her bare shoulders
and the breast of the white ankle-length gown. Her eyes sparkled
like citrine jewels beneath black arching eyebrows and a rose blush
colored her high cheekbones.

But she was coming apart in ribbons,
strips of her peeling off and dissipating like smoke. She held out
hands on which the fingers frayed.

“
Forgive me!”

“
Who attacked
you?”

She drifted across the room toward the
wall. “I betrayed them! Forgive me!”

“
Maud, what happened? You
must tell me.”

Slowly she spun, what remained of her
arms splaying out as she disintegrated. Her voice whispered through
the room. “Elizabeth’s journal.”