The Demon Hunters (25 page)

I got off the lounge chair, picked up
my cola and the journal, and headed back to the house.

Jack sidled up to me as I went through
the door. “Feeling better?”

I summoned a sick smile. “Not
really.”

“
Want to hear a good joke?”
he offered. “It’ll cheer you up.”

“
I’m not that bad
off.”

“
Aw, c’mon,” he said from
behind me. “Have you heard the one about the dead
psychoanalyst?”

I groaned aloud. Jack had not told a
dead joke in ages. They were never very funny.

Chapter
Twenty

Gia cradled the journal in her hands.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”

I was getting mighty tired of sitting
in Royal’s apartment under cross-examination by a couple of
clients. “I didn’t see a connection. I wondered who sent it to us,
and why, but how could I know it had anything to do with killings I
knew nothing about?”

Daven paced around the couch, looking
agitated, which further unsettled me because he was normally the
calm one. “Until Maud spoke of it. You said nothing then,
either.”

Gia perched on the couch with her legs
tucked under, her high-heeled shoes on the floor. She looked like
she wanted to hit me alongside the head with the journal. I
concentrated on what Royal had said: she was distraught over her
Rio’s disappearance. Still, the look in her eyes set my pulse
fluttering in my throat.

Her gimlet glare did not let up. “You
read it. Did you reach a conclusion?”

I spread my hands in a helpless
gesture. “It’s a real interesting story.”

“
There
must
be a connection,” from
Daven.

Gia still glared at me as though I
were guilty of criminal negligence. “Obviously, there is. Maud sent
it here, she spoke of it with her last breath.”

“
Because she spoke of it
doesn’t mean Maud herself sent it,” I said.

Royal cleared his throat to get their
attention. “Tiff has a certain reputation in Bel-Athaer. She saved
the life of the High Lord. I think if Maud sent her the journal, it
was because she thought if anyone could help, it would be
Tiff.”

“
Us,” I corrected. “The
journal came to the agency, not to me. Whoever sent it, I wish
they’d been more succinct. Instead of the stupid journal, they
could have sent a plain old letter.”

“
It is beside the point
now,” Daven said as he settled next to Gia. “We must put on our
collective thinking caps and solve this puzzle.”

“
Huh,” Gia said. She left
the couch and went to the nearest window. “It’s small. I will read
it and thank you not to interrupt me.”

I felt like making a childish face,
along with childish remarks about snooty stuck-up bitches, but I
didn’t. I’m all grown up and I don’t do things like that anymore.
Wished I could, though.

Royal’s apartment looked a little
messy and I thought maybe the case was getting to him. But of
course it was; the murder victims were his people and our clients
had meddled with his mind. Dishes filled the sink instead of his
stainless-steel fronted dishwasher and a paper plate sat on the
dining table with a crumpled napkin atop. In the living room,
although he had swept up the broken glass, the battered tree
adorned with a mess of broken lights still huddled drunkenly
against the wall. A glass half full of spirits perched on the bar.
No doubt that lonely dust bunny still hid under the couch. Now this
might not seem real untidy to your average person, but as far as
Royal was concerned, his apartment had turned into
Slobsville.

Royal avoid my gaze and I caught his
only by accident. I wanted to ease the awkwardness between us and
didn’t know how. We had to work together, at least for this case.
Tension and stilted exchanges do not facilitate
communication.

As Daven and Royal discussed the case,
or cases - did we have one or two? - very quietly so as not to
disturb Miss Fiction Writer from hell, I focused on the man in the
black Mercedes-Benz. A man with money and power. He sent men after
Daven. Could he be the Charbroiler? If so, he didn’t do his own
dirty work, but was the mastermind behind the killings. He took Rio
because Rio witnessed the attempt on Daven’s life.

My breath caught in my throat - maybe
he had another motive. His men saw Gia at Daven’s house, how she
killed Ronald and John. The Charbroiler, the killer of Gelpha and
Dark Cousins, would know Gia for one of them. Finding her would be
his main objective, of more importance than silencing a young
Latino punk. Perhaps he meant to use Rio to find Gia.

I didn’t want to think what someone as
brutal would do to Rio Borrego to make him talk. I sure as hell was
not going to voice my suspicions to Gia.

But if I was right, he must be in the
area. You would not transport what could be your biggest asset to
another state when your quarry was here.

The Utah DMV check had turned up
nothing, so not a longtime local resident, or he hadn’t registered
his vehicle in Utah. Some people don’t till they must; they keep
their old license plate as long as they can.

Which left me with nothing to go
on.

Ping!
- bright idea. I could always check with my buddies. Time to
do what I did best: pound the pavement and talk to dead
people.

I got to my feet. “Think I’ll take
off.”

Gia looked up from the
journal.

“
I’m gonna ask around town
about the Mercedes.”

With her eyes on the journal again,
she wafted a hand at me. “Wait.”

Royal nodded at the couch. He agreed
with her. I sat with a thump.

She closed the book a few minutes
later and held it up. “You should read this,” she told
Daven.

She took the book to Daven and sat
beside him as he read, and I silently grumped. Another wait, but
the journal was small, and Daven was either a fast reader or he
skipped parts. He closed it after just a few minutes. With it in
one hand, he rose and strolled behind the couch to the window which
overlooks the street. I wished they’d just stay together, first one
at the window, then the other.

Daven finally went back to Gia. “We
must go there.”

“
Yes,” Gia said. “Do you
think . . . is it possible?”

He sat beside her and handed her the
diary. “That is what we must discover.”

What were they talking about? Gia
diverted me by saying, “But why did Elizabeth’s journal came to
you”

“
No idea. Elizabeth and
those who murdered her are long gone.”

“
Murdered?”

I kept digging that hole deeper with
every word come out my mouth. “A German guy, name of Hans
Stadelmann, wrote a book on the expedition.”

“
You have it?” Royal
asked.

I shook my head. “I read it in
Vegas.”

“
And?” Gia
prompted.

So I told them about Stadelmann’s
book.

“
Yet another piece of
information you kept to yourself,” Gia pointed out, her expression
grim.

“
It’s connected to the
journal and I told you, I had no idea the journal had anything
whatsoever to do with the murders! How could I?” I protested, my
voice high with exasperation. If she were human I’d be close to
slapping her out of that couch.

“
The journal was sent to
you, specifically. Did Maud think your talents would be useful?”
Daven asked.

I gave my head an impatient
little shake. That someone sent
me
the journal never had felt right. Knowing it came
from Maud made less sense. My only edge over other investigators is
I talk to dead people, and that would not have helped, except Maud
ended up dead and I talked to her shade. But she didn’t know what
would happen when she mailed the journal.

So why me? Unless. . .
.
I grimaced as an idea settled into place.
“It was for Royal, not me,” and answered Gia’s question before she
could open her mouth. “He’s an enforcer for Gelpha activities in
this world.”

She tapped one long red fingernail on
her teeth before saying, “That actually makes sense.”

“
It does?” Lord Almighty, I
actually said something she considered intelligent.

“
Yes,” Royal said, “because
I would have given the journal to them.”

They had lost me, all of them. “And
this would be because. . . ?”

“
Dagka Shan and his people
. . . we could share a common ancestry,” Daven said.

I took a moment to mull it over, but
couldn’t why see the Dark Cousins reached that conclusion. “You got
that from the journal?” I had to ask.

“
The etchings on Nagka’s
walls. We have been here a long time, Miss Banks, and we did not
always look as you see us now,” Gia said.

“
Long arms and legs,
pointed teeth?”

“
We change with the times,”
she said, which told me nothing at all.

I looked down at my twined fingers. So
Dagka Shan and his people could have been Dark Cousins, and the
more I learned of Dark Cousins the more it seemed to me they were
related to Gelpha. It had to be relevant to this big sorry
mess

Daven said: “I will arrange passage to
Myanmar.”

Whoa there!
I read about modern Myanmar. They have enforced
labor, forbidden areas, guerilla bands, and women
have
to wear skirts. “Not
me.”

Gia glared at me before looking at
Royal. “Could we go to Myanmar through Bel-Athaer?” she asked
him.

Royal made a face. “I’m afraid not. It
was a one-off for you and Daven.”

I saw panic in those great dark eyes.
Her gaze darted to Daven. She stared at him for a few seconds,
clasped her hands on her lap and looked down at them. “Our journey
to Kazan was swift, but what you suggest will take many days. I
cannot leave here.”

Daven gave one of those attractive
Gaelic shrugs which involve shoulders, arms and hands. “I
understand. I will go alone.”

She met his eyes. “I will worry about
you.”

She didn’t want to leave the area
because she still hoped we would find her Rio, but she worried
about Daven going off alone to Myanmar. Maybe she wasn’t such a
bitch after all.

But I bet she would say or do
something to change my mind.

“
I speak the language and I
am not without resources,” Daven said. “And I do feel we should
investigate this Nagka.” He turned his head in my direction. “Do
you remember if Stadelmann described the route to the
city?”

I creased my brow, concentrating. I
have a good memory for details, but I compartmentalize them, stow
them away in a corner until I need them. I had to summon up Hans
Stadelmann’s record of his journey to the lost city.

“
He flew to Bangkok, to
Yangon, then to Myitkyina. Then he went by foot, east to the Shan
Plateau and some place called Ngawlanwngtam.” I couldn’t pronounce
the cities in Myanmar, but Gia helpfully corrected me. I gave her a
sour look and continued: “Nagka is east of Ngawlanwngtam near the
Myanmar/China border.”

The four of us went upstairs to
Royal’s bedroom and office. Although it doesn’t look so when you’re
standing on Twenty-Second, the top floor is half the size of the
others, the ceiling slanting sharply to the floor on the north
side. A door gives access to a flat roof and a wrought-iron
staircase which spirals down the rear of the building. The master
bathroom which overlooks Twenty-Second is bigger than the
bedroom.

The blue silk sheets on Royal’s
king-size bed were all over the place, the pillows on the floor.
The Dark Cousins didn’t appear to notice the disheveled appearance
of the room. They went right to the computer and summoned up Google
Earth.

I eyed the bed and remembered happier
times.

The area where Nagka possibly hid
looked small on the screen, but for all I knew could be hundreds of
miles. Maybe thousands. Just how big is Myanmar? Google couldn’t go
in for a close look at Myitkyina, just a little square on the map.
It didn’t show Ngawlanwngtam.

I was glad when we trooped back down
to the living room, because those sheets distracted me something
awful.

Before Daven and Gia left, Gia again
asked if they could go through Bel-Athaer to reach Myanmar. She was
torn between going there and staying in Clarion. “Could you not at
least ask the High Lord?”

This time Royal’s voice held more
sympathy. “A waste of time. I am sorry.”

“
But - ”

“
He told me, specifically,
you are forbidden Bel-Athaer.”

I heard the reluctance of his tone. He
didn’t want to tell them. Daven frowned fiercely.

“
The High Lord can forbid
us nothing!” Gia hissed.

“
Remember our pact,” Daven
said.

Pact? All these little
pieces of information made me want to pin a Dark Cousin to the
floor and
make
them tell me everything there was to know. But I knew they
wouldn’t elaborate. I could only stow it all away, hoping I’d learn
more one of these days.