The Demon Hunters (4 page)

“
Are you feeling anything,
Royal?”

“
Come again?” Royal asked,
still looking behind him.

“
No cold zone?” from
Jack.

“
Cut it
out
!”

Royal turned back to me.
“What
is
going
on?”

I let my shoulders sag. “Jack was . .
. oh, forget it.”

Royal was something of a mystery to
me, and he still is. Sometimes I forget he’s not human, other times
I see him as an exotic enigma. I don’t always understand him, but I
thought he understood me; I thought he believed in me. He saw my
one-sided conversations with my spectral informers. He acted on the
information they gave me. Why this incredulity now? To say I felt
disappointed is inadequate.

I went to a kitchen drawer next the
pantry, rooted till I found the newspaper cuttings and threw them
down on the table: Jackson Trewellyn, twenty-eight years old when
he disappeared in the mountains above Clarion in 1986 while hiking
alone, and Melissa Trent, who disappeared in 1990, her car found on
the bottom of Long Meadow Lake.

Then Royal snorted. He met my eyes,
looked away, but couldn’t hide his grin.

I looked daggers at him. “Is something
funny,” I asked, still not catching on.

“
You should see your
face!”

Then it dawned on me - he was teasing
me. Again.

For a moment, I didn’t know how to
react, because Royal’s humor seemed cruel. But that was just me. He
didn’t know his idea of fun cast me back into a world where nobody
understood me, or ever would. We had never discussed my former
boyfriends, so he didn’t know one dumped me because he couldn’t
reconcile with my odd behavior and the other two dumped me because
I kept them at an emotional distance, afraid to let them know my
secret. Back then, I carried my ability like a burden, because I
didn’t think I could share with anyone. Telling Royal was a relief,
a kind of freedom. I didn’t have to watch what I said and did with
him around.

I heard Colin’s voice in my
head. “
People who say they see ghosts are
delusional.”
And, “
Don’t tell me you thought you saw a ghost, Tiff?”

Royal must have seen something in my
face. “Tiff, are you mad at me? It’s just . . . I could not resist.
. . .” And he chortled again.

I recalled the third time I saw him,
when he came to my bedroom in the early hours of the morning.
Having him so close did un-Tiff-like things to my body and when he
noticed - he couldn’t help but notice - he deliberately laid on the
sex appeal hot and heavy. Remembering made me smile and soothed the
sting.

I should be happy he knew all about
me, knew I wasn’t crazy. He didn’t see Jack and Mel or any other
shade with whom I interacted, yet still believed. He could even kid
me about it, not to be mean, but for fun. I should be able to live
with that.

But I would not let him get away with
it that easy. I went over there and swatted the air in front of his
face, but he caught my wrist and pulled me between his knees. It’s
kind of hard to pretend you’re mad at your boyfriend when he’s
nuzzling between your breasts.

“
For god’s sake, get a
room!” Jack groaned.

Just so you don’t think Royal and my
roommates became best buddies, one big happy family, he would
rather I devote myself to him and not chat away at thin air when
he’s at my house. Yeah, he believes they are here, but I can see
how the one-sided conversations would make anyone uncomfortable.
Kind of like when you have a couple of people in your gang who
speak a different language, and chat away, knowing you don’t
understand a word they’re saying. So I keep it to a minimum, and of
course doing so irks Jack and Mel.

Lesson in life: you can’t make
everyone happy.

***

Driving past the tall building which
houses the Fifth District Court and Clarion City Police Department,
I took my eyes off the road to glance up at the third floor,
recalling the last time I walked in Lieutenant Mike Warren’s
office. Mike heads up Clarion PD Homicide Division and I met with
him to tell him I quit. I worked as a consultant for the division,
until Mike and I had a misunderstanding. I miss Mike, sometimes,
like when his help with a case could make life easier for me. But I
don’t dare contact him, not since I accused one of his men of
murder, and he ignored me, and I was wrong anyway. It was one of
the rare times I got it all wrong, and boy am I glad I did, since
Royal was the culprit in question.

Royal lives on Twenty-Second Street.
To look at it now, you would not believe just fifteen years ago a
decent woman - or for that matter, a decent man - avoided
Twenty-Second after sunset. Hookers and pimps, drug dealers,
panhandlers; Twenty-Second was their domain when night fell. Of
those days, one decrepit old hotel which caters to the down and
out, two pawn shops and two bars remain. The rest of the narrow
buildings are a diversity of restaurants, coffee shops,
microbreweries, antique shops, art galleries, gift shops,
miscellaneous boutiques and three bakeries. Replica gas lamps and
bronze statuettes line the street and it hums with activity during
the day and evening.

Twenty-Second Street was
notorious in northern Utah in the late 1800s. Famous for its
bordellos, opium dens and saloons, not to mention assassinations,
it was a totally lawless place. Troops disembarked at Clarion
Station during World War II and whipped up the street for a
“quickie” before catching the next train. Now it is
the
place to visit in
downtown Clarion.

Like all those on Royal’s block, his
building is twenty feet wide but stretches back fifty. He leases
the first and top floors from an art gallery called Bailey and
Cognac, which occupies the ground floor. Sometime in the past,
those upper floors were made into two separate apartments. This
means to get from his living space on the first floor to his
bedroom, office and master-bathroom one floor up, you have to go
outside and climb the enclosed staircase which joins Royal’s
building to another, but this is no more inconvenient than me
taking my stairs to my bedroom. It can be chilly in winter, but
Royal doesn’t feel the cold.

The walls are of the brick
you see in old buildings of that era, of different shades of brown,
red, cream, black and yellow, and none of them uniform in size or
shape. The polished oak board floors are dark with age. In his
living space, a few truly huge pictures hang on the west wall,
modern art in creams and pale pastels, blotches and squiggles and
splashes of color. If art is supposed to reflect life, I would not
want to live in
that
world.

Half a dozen light bulbs with white
shades dangle on long copper chains from the ten-foot-high ceiling,
marching along the length of the room. Two pale-blue leather
couches face across a big wood and leather traveling case used for
a table. You have to lift a flap in the circular black lacquer bar
to get inside, and a gigantic lacquer Buddha crouches in the corner
of the room facing the street. Then there are the five
traditionally decorated Christmas trees in various sizes which line
the east wall, the lights on them twinkling away year long. The
décor is a little unusual, but surprisingly, it all comes
together.

If you’re wondering what significance
Christmas trees have for a demon, there isn’t one, arcane or
otherwise. Royal thinks they make fine decorations. He likes the
shapes of the trees, the gleaming glass ornaments and twinkling
lights. That’s all there is to it.

The kitchen space is conventional and
modern, with oak cabinets and stainless-steel appliances. The
dining table is chrome and glass, the chairs chrome with blue
thickly-padded cushions. But the room is so big and sparsely
furnished, going from kitchen to living room areas feels like a
trek, and it has an empty-room echo to it.

I walked in to see a man
and woman standing at the window, from where they gazed down at the
street. Royal sat on the couch facing away from the window. He had
sounded fine on the phone, but now he sat erect and stiff, looking
uncomfortable.
What’s going
on
? I mouthed. He grimaced.

Although they must have heard me
enter, the visitors did not turn to face us as I stood in front of
Royal, then, becoming impatient, sat next to him. How rude. I
looked the length of the room, drumming the fingertips of my right
hand on the leather of the couch.

I didn’t hear movement, but suddenly
they stood side by side in front of us. I tensed; every muscle in
my body wanted to lock.

Only demons moved that
fast.

Chapter
Four

They were abnormally fast, but they
were not demons, although to say they were mere human beings
belittles their appearance, for both were striking. Tall, my height
and pale-skinned, the man’s brown hair, of one length brushed
straight back from his forehead, barely touched the collar of a
fine cream linen shirt. His hazel eyes seemed exceptionally clear
beneath narrow arched eyebrows. With a slightly hooked nose, large
moist lips and cleft chin, he had a Roman gladiator statue look to
him. He wore moss-green pants, a matching jacket folded over one
arm, a white silk polo shirt and leather shoes of a dark green. He
held a woven straw Panama hat in the other hand and wore thin
leather gloves of pale tan.

The woman? Nothing short of stunning.
Not beautiful, not even pretty, yet totally arresting. She had on
one of those dresses I’d never dare wear: a black strapless,
skintight affair which covered her fanny and two inches of long
shapely legs. I can’t help staring at those style dresses because I
wonder why the hem doesn’t roll up. It also drew my attention to a
bust to die for and a tiny waist. She carried something long, red
and silky which matched her high-heeled red shoes and elbow-length
red gloves. A coat, or cloak? She was all red and black, with her
long red earrings glittering and the red jewel hanging between her
breasts, her waving, lustrous black hair down past her shoulders,
pale creamy skin, pouting red lips and black, black
eyes.

She looked incredible and I absolutely
could not suppress a twinge of envy.

Hat, gloves and, yeah, the long red
thing was a hooded cloak. Strange clothing for a warm summer day,
but I’d seen more eccentric attire.

They stared at me
unblinkingly, and the sun blazing through the windows at my back
was not the only thing making me sweat. My hair stuck to the back
of my neck and I wanted to lift it away, but felt like prey must
feel when confronted by a predator. I dared not move. My mind
flip-flopped and my senses went haywire as I looked at them and
thought,
Gelpha
.
My eyes wanted to paint glittering metallic hair and glossy,
glimmering eyes on them.

Royal took my hand. I slipped it free.
I didn’t feel comfortable doing something remotely affectionate
with our two visitors looking on.

“
Tiff, meet Daven Clare and
Gia Sabato.”

I knew the name. Gia Sabato, the
author. She wrote hugely successful books about vampires.
Bookstores couldn’t keep her novels on the shelves. I had never
read any of her stuff, but hers was a name on every urban
fantasy-lover’s lips.

I stared at her like an idiot as my
brain somersaulted, trying to see something which was not there.
She and Daven weren’t Gelpha, but I was sure of one thing: they
were not human.

“
Please. . . .” Royal said,
gesturing at the couches.

They sat together on the opposite
couch and I slowly released a breath.

But she turned her head in my
direction, face expressionless, yet her eyes were cold,
calculating. I felt as if someone very slowly doused me with
ice-cold water from head to toe. Shock made my expression blank
out. In an otherwise immobile face, a smile nudged the corner of
her mouth, and I felt chilled all through.

Silence blanketed us. When
someone down on the street yelled, and I twitched, I congratulated
myself on not jumping out my skin. I silently chastised
myself.
Okay, Tiff, snap out of it. This
is ridiculous. Say something intelligent.
But I couldn’t form words while her eyes pinned me to the
couch.

Gia looked away.

Whew.
I cleared my throat and pasted a smile on my face. “So what
can we do for you?”

Daven took one of Gia’s hands and
gently squeezed. His voice resembled a demon’s: soft, musical,
seductive, with a faint accent. French? “Miss Banks, we hope you
and Royal can help us.”

My voice sounded overly chirpy.
“That’s what we’re here for!”

Gia stared. What was
wrong
with the woman? Had
she no expression other than blank? A sense of gut-deep uneasiness
wiped the smile from my face.

I glanced at Royal and tried to clear
my throat, worked up saliva to moisten my dry mouth, swallowed. I
had to shake off the feelings our visitors aroused in me. Had to
get down to business. “You already talked to Royal?”