Along Came a Demon (10 page)

I stepped outside to a cool Clarion evening, the sun descending in the west and flaming distant peaks with crimson. Down the street, the neon on the new Megaplex center flashed a bright, green welcome. People entered the impressive portal of the Clarion Hilton across the street in ones and twos, from their attire going to some fancy function. The Golden Spike Bank advertised a drop in home mortgage interest rates with a huge banner slashed across its face.

What am I going to do?
A demon in the Clarion PD. And he was ideally placed to
make
those little boys disappear. With Mortensen on Lawrence’s case, the kid would never be found. He’d make sure of that.

Who to talk to? Only Lynn, and she couldn’t help me. I was on my own.

“
Miss Banks!”

Mortensen trotted down the steps before I could get in my car. I stood with my back to him, frozen in place. My heart pounded as if trying to jackhammer through my chest.

“
I think I - ” he began.

“
I know what you are,” I blurted as I turned to face him.

He looked amused. “I’m sure Mike gave you the rundown, and - “

“
I
know
what you are!” I growled. “I’m psychic. I see you as you really are.”

He tucked his chin in his neck, his expression wry. “And what am I, Miss Banks?”

“
I don’t know what you call yourself, Mister Pointy Teeth. You tell me.”

I got in my car and drove off, leaving him on the curb, looking after me. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Chapter
Eight

I like a hearty breakfast, but not taking the time to prepare one. Toasted frozen waffles are not bad when you slather them with strawberry preserve and a squirt of the stuff supermarkets call whipped cream. Mel and Jack watched me swallow every mouthful.

They don’t remember the taste of food, but watching me eat fascinates them. Sometimes they ask me to describe flavors, but since they have no point of reference, what I say makes no sense to them. They still ask.

As their eyes tracked each forkful of waffle, I wondered they were not bored. I was totally their world, their drama and their amusement. Yes, shades still experience the entire spectrum of emotions, including envy.

“
What
are
you going to do about him?” from Jack.

“
Obviously she can’t do anything,” Mel said.

“
There has to be
something
I can do,” I replied fretfully, “but I can’t think of a thing.”

I chewed slowly, strawberry and cream and a slightly rubbery pastry-like product. I would have liked to believe Mortensen was a
nice
demon, if there were such a thing, but what I knew of them pointed to the opposite. Mortensen was in solid with the cops, too.

I couldn’t work with him. And after opening my big mouth, I could have three demons coming after me instead of two. What made me let on I knew about him?
What happened to common sense, Tiff? Where did you lose that edge you’re so proud of?

Did Mortensen hex me soF I couldn’t think straight? My hand twitched, making my fork chime on the rim of the plate. But I didn’t feel anything from Mortensen, nothing like the power of the black-haired demon as he pinned me to the ground.

I didn’t care what Mike said or what he laid on me, official or otherwise. I would find Lawrence Marchant, and I’d do it alone. I would start at Mary Frances, talk to Lawrence’s teacher. A mother does not always perceive her children as others do; other people could give me a different picture of Lawrence. And, talking of pictures, I would like one of the boy.

“
Visitor!” Mel chimed the same time as the doorbell.

Would I ever again have a peaceful, uninterrupted morning?

“
Tiff,” Jack hissed. “It’s one of
them
.”

Please, be mistaken,
I anguished. I pushed my plate away, got up, crept to the hall and stuck my head around the kitchen doorframe far enough I could see through the glass either side of the front door. A frisson of foreboding shuddered down my back. Royal Mortensen stood on my doorstep.

He looked luscious in a black, silky short-sleeved shirt tucked in tight black jeans, his badge clipped to his front left pocket. Any other man I would have called crazy for wearing a thin shirt in November, but maybe demons didn’t feel the cold. He wore a shoulder holster. I wondered what gun he used, so he could safely handle the metal.

He didn’t look any less beautiful for looking more like a human than a demon. But his hair was still metallic copper and gold, and his eyes an incredible burnished brown.

“
Now he is what I call drop-dead
gorgeous,” Mel said.

“
Har har,” from Jack.

The bell chimed again.

“
Don’t let him see you! Pretend you’re out,” Jack hissed in my ear.

I leaned away from him. Touching Jack hurts neither of us, but it would be an intrusion, so we try to respect each other’s space. “My car’s out there,” I whispered.

“
Miss Banks? I know you’re home. Please open the door.”

“
He doesn’t know. He can’t,” Mel said.

Mortensen slid his hands in his hip pockets and looked through the glass. I ducked back in the kitchen. “I heard you on the phone,” he called out.

“
The phone?” from Jack.

“
He must have heard me talking to you guys, but knows I’m alone.”

“
Thinks
you’re alone,” Mel corrected.

I peeked through the hall again. Mortensen propped his hip on the glass. “We can work together, Tiff. We can find Lawrence Marchant. Just give me a chance.” He peered through the glass again. “I’m not going anywhere until we talk.”

Oh hell.
I recognized the stubborn set of his jaw for what it was. He would wait all day. “I’m going out,” I told Jack and Mel. “Don’t sidetrack me.”

I pulled up to my full height, ran my palms down my hips to wipe the sweat off them, and with a single deep breath, went in the hall and to the door.
You’ll be fine,
I told myself. I just had to remember what he really was.

I opened the door and glowered at him.

Mortensen smiled slightly. “Miss Banks. May I come in?” And he stepped right over the steel filings still scattered on the floor.

I backed up, speechless, every profanity I knew on the tip of my tongue, too astonished to spew them out.

He walked past me, along the hallway like he owned the place and in the kitchen. “May I?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting at the table.

I followed him in. “No, you may not. Get out.”

“
But I just got here. Mm, waffles.” He looked over at the toaster. “Any to share?”

I was frustrated and afraid. A demon in my home! “You leave my house right now!” I spluttered.

Jack and Mel shrank in the corner of the room near the backdoor.

I unclipped my charm bracelet and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand. “Pretty, in a metallic kind of way.”

Mouth open, I sank to the chair opposite him. “How can you - “

“
No. How can you?” He dropped the bracelet on the table top with a little clatter. “I’ve worked with mediums and psychics before - how can
you
know what I am?”

So much for the
let me in so we can help Lawrence Marchant
routine. I crossed my arms on my chest and hunched my shoulders. “I’m not sitting here in my own house, in my own kitchen, answering your questions.”

He reached behind his neck with both hands to adjust the strip of leather which bound back his glorious hair, and my gaze was drawn to the muscles of his arms and the way his chest expanded. I had to concentrate on his words when he said, “Then why don’t we trade information? You answer my question, I answer yours.”

“
Do it,” Jack said.

“
Why?”

“
It seems fair.” Mortensen told me.

“
Because you could
learn
something,” from Jack.

Like what?
As if Mortensen would be honest. I couldn’t believe anything he told me. And I definitely did not want to share what I knew with him.

There again, being a demon himself, Mortensen must know his buddy demons chased me, and why. He’d know whether one of them did something to Lindy. He knew more than me. Maybe he would slip up.

I realized I was locked into his incredible brown eyes, and blinked. I also realized my fascination, not any arcane demon powers, pulled me in. I gave my head a quick little shake to shake me out of it. “I don’t want to know anything about you.”

“
But you already know quite a lot about me and my people if I’m not mistaken,” he said smoothly. “Yet you told no one. You are a rarity, Miss Banks.”

“
No, but I’m not an idiot either. Who would believe me?”

“
True,” he said with a nod. His fingers stroked the poorly applied white paint of the tabletop; long, lean fingers moving in a caress, as if he touched skin, not wood. “So, what have we? We have already established I am not of any race native to your world. What else do you want to know?”

I couldn’t ignore the opportunity. “Where do you people come from?” I asked.

“
Could be difficult to explain.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “I knew it!”

“
We did not come from another world,” he went on. “We live here, on Earth, as you do but in a different … sphere, or dimension. You could say we occupy a different space.”

“
Sure,” I said with perfect understanding. Not! “You watch too many sci-fi movies.”

He put his head back and laughed, a warm, rich baritone which made my skin tingle in a far from unpleasant way. He met my gaze, amusement making his eyes shine, and slid the bracelet across the table to me. “Here.”

I took it and refastened it on my wrist. “How come alloy doesn’t bother you?”

He traced a pattern on the table top with one finger. I wished he would look someplace else, because his deliberate concentration on my face discomfited me. “We become inured to it if we remain here for a long time. Those of us who were born here, like me, have no problem with alloys.”

That widened my eyes. “You were born here?”

“
Many of us form relationships with your people, have children, careers, spend our lives here. From you we get a certain, well, pleasure we don’t experience with our own kind.”

I grimaced. “You’re talking about sex.”

His expression was serious. “Yes and no.” Then he widened his eyes theatrically. “What, do you think our own women are lacking in that department? But you give us something above and beyond sex. It is … pervasive.”

“
You feed off us.”

A chuckle burst from him. “Where did you get that idea? It just feels damned good, Tiff!”

And they also used what
feels damned good
to control us, like the other two demons tried with me.

Something he’d said posed a question. If they formed relationships with human beings, and had children … . “You have babies, the same way we do. I mean how our women do?” I felt my face redden at how stupid that sounded coming from my mouth.

He rolled his eyes. “No, we lay eggs and hatch them - of course we have babies! We think the reason we can enter your reality so easily is we are very like you.”

“
How, like us?”

He leaned in. His gaze bore into me. “Physically.”

I almost gulped aloud. Avoiding his eyes, I laid my arms on the table and twined my fingers together, concentrating on my nails. “How many of you are here?”

“
Here? You mean worldwide? Many of us; although we gravitate to the highly populated areas. My turn. Why can you see my true form?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I see supernatural beings. That’s all there is to it. Don’t know why. Don’t know how.”

I sounded calm, but a part of me was somewhere else, looking down at the stupid woman having a casual conversation with a demon. “How long have your people been here?”

He smiled and looked down at his moving finger, still making invisible patterns on the table. Tiny laugh lines formed at the corners of his mouth. “We have been here for a very, very long time, Tiff.” He looked up, laying his palm flat on the table.

With an inward shiver, I reminded myself I faced a dangerous man. I needed the reminder, because as we talked I was letting my guard down, feeling comfortable sitting at my table with a supernatural … something, and I was defenseless. My gaze flicked to the kitchen drawer where I kept the Ruger.

I leaned back in my chair. “Your turn, Roy.”

“
I prefer Royal.”

Did I really just call him Roy! I was losing it, and fast. What was wrong with me? Was he working his magic on me after all? Surely I would know if he were.