Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (12 page)

Maggie
started opening cabinets and closets. One held clothing and blankets. Another
opened to show us racked rifles, shotguns and handguns on the back wall and
inside the doors. Boxes of ammo filled the bottom.

“Well,
it’s warmer than upstairs though not by much.” Maggie wrapped up in two
blankets and sat on a cot.

Two
hours later, a
whoosh
signaled Royal’s return. I expected him to be longer.

“Quite
a setup,” he observed.

His
gaze cut to Maggie. “The police are heading here. I suggest we go to where we can
continue our conversation.”

“What
happened with Avery?” I asked.

Maggie
repeated my question.

“My
statement says I read the obituary and knew Tiff . . .
you
were involved
in the investigation which led to Ethan Magnusen’s conviction. I know Magnusen is
a sharpshooter. I discovered he owns this cabin and came to go through it. I
heard a noise and found Magnusen. He ran, I gave chase, we fought and went
through the window. I overcame him. Magnusen admitted he shot you. Mike wants
to follow up with me after he gets Magnusen’s statement.”

Adding
nothing more, he climbed the ladder. Maggie folded the blankets, replaced them
and followed and I scooted behind her.

“Fingerprints,”
I said to Maggie.

“Um,
should we wipe off my fingerprints?” Maggie said to Royal.

“Already
done,” he said tersely. He opened the back door and waited for her to follow
him.

Outside,
Royal shut the door and started along the sloping snowy driveway. Maggie
trailed behind him with me attached to her aura.

“So
you don’t know anything apart from what Avery said?”

“I
wish.”

“This
Dagka Shan, he scares you.”

“That
obvious, huh?”

“When
Avery gave Royal the message, you faded in and out and your voice went wobbly.”

“I’m
not surprised. Shan is a devil and a message from him shocked me almost as much
as his method of delivery. Maggie, I feel bad for getting you involved. If I’d
known Shan was behind my shooting, I wouldn’t—”

“Really?”
she said dubiously. “I think you would. I’m all you have. You wouldn’t have
gotten this far without me.”

Royal
handed the keys to Maggie. “Get in your car. I’ll check the cabin to make sure
nothing implicates you and follow.”

“How?
I don’t see another car.”

“Do
not worry about it.”

I
debated whether to tell her Royal sped from Clarion on foot, which is why he
came back sooner than I expected. But how do you explain demon speed?

“Where
do you want to go, your place or mine?” Royal asked.

I
pictured Maggie’s parlor. “Tell him his,” I said quickly.

She
frowned. “Why?”

“Just
tell him. Don’t say anything else. We’ll talk later.”

She
huffed, but told Royal, “Your place.”

Royal
nodded. “228 Twenty-Second, above Bailey and Cognac. I will meet you there.”

“Why
can’t we go to my house?” Maggie changed gears as we reached a hairpin bend. “I
could use a shower and change my clothes. I think I sweated clean through these.”

“Royal
is skeptical of . . . um . . . the spirit world. He reluctantly believes in
ghosts because he’s been forced to, but he’s not at all comfortable with it. If
he saw your séance room, he’d think you’re duping people.”

“I
am.”

“Yeah,
but we don’t want
him
to know. It’ll destroy any credibility you build
with him. And be careful what you say to me. Hearing you have conversations
with yourself about things you shouldn’t know will make him suspicious. I don’t
want to confuse him more than he already is.”

“He
doesn’t have to go in my séance parlor.”

“He
will anyway. Trust me, he’ll know every nook and cranny in your house better
than you do in minutes.” The first thing Royal does in a place new to him is
scope it out. Maybe not a government building for it’s guaranteed to rouse
suspicion, positively a private residence.

We
drove east, taking lesser used roads. Their icy condition made Maggie grip the
steering wheel and grind her teeth.

“Another
thing,” I said, “Royal has acute hearing, so don’t go whispering anything to me
you’d sooner he didn’t hear.”

We
came down from Nordic Meadow and I told Maggie to continue east. Reaching
Clarion took longer, but the police would take the more direct route across the
valley and not spot us on this road.

“So
Mrs. Magnusen keeping Avery’s interest in backwoods survival a secret was a
delaying tactic,” Maggie said. “She hoped to give Avery more time to get away.”

“Yep.
The cops already looked at the cabin but missed the bunker. Anne knew they
routinely dig into financials and track purchases and those might lead them to
think he has a hideaway someplace. Perhaps they’d take another look at the
cabin. Seeing the magazines, or a heads-up from a neighbor who saw them, might
clue them in sooner.”

“How
did he mean to escape? He doesn’t have a car.”

“No
idea.”

“Suppose
he hitched a ride to the lake? The cabin is near the resort and it has night
skiing, plenty of skiers use these roads. But afterward. . . .”

“His
choices were limited. The police are watching airports, bus and train stations,
probably sent alerts to car rental agencies. I guess he could hitch across the
country. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”

Five
minutes later, Maggie said, “I know you’re not technically a ghost, but you are
near enough. What’s it like?”

I
watched the lake as we followed the east shore. “As if my life took a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree
turn. Only shades have physicality in an insubstantial world, when before it
was the opposite. Perhaps it’s why we can feel aurae; they’re not part of the
solid world.”

Did
my voice leak sorrow, to make her say, “I’m sorry,” in a tiny voice?

“No,
I’m
sorry. I let it get to me every so often.”

“You’ll
get back, Tiff.”

“I’m
sure I will.” Yet why did a vision of Brenda Lithgow’s last moments as a shade blossom
in my head? She looked so happy and peaceful, glowing with silver light.
Will
the light come for me?
Will I welcome it?

No
.
Remaining this way until Avery Magnusen died was not an option. I was not dead,
not
a shade, I didn’t have to follow their rules.

What
did Dagka Shan mean?
Only blood and magic can bring your woman back.

Only
Shan knew the answer.

We
drove through Clarion to Royal’s apartment and our office. In the dusk, street lamps
already glowed on Twenty-Second. The street still hummed with shoppers and
early diners. Maggie found a parking spot a block from Royal’s place. Royal waited
at the bottom of the enclosed stairwell to his apartment as Maggie wended
between pedestrians. He stood aside to let her through. He relocked the gate
and didn’t speak as he climbed the steps, expecting her to follow.

I
went with Maggie, wishing I felt wrought-iron under my feet.

I
knew she felt intimidated and perhaps apprehensive, and dying to say something for
she opened her mouth twice, but firmly clamped it shut.

Royal
unlocked the door to our office, ushered Maggie inside and came in after us.

He
pointed at the client’s chair. “Sit.”

Maggie
hesitated. Seeing Royal’s expression, I knew how she felt. His eyes were colder
than the icicles hanging from the eaves outside.

Royal
flipped the tail of his long burnished hair over his shoulder as he lowered to
the seat behind the desk. He gestured at the chair again. “Please, sit.”

Maggie
gingerly perched on the chair’s edge. I released her aura and took a few steps
to determine I could move in the office.

“Now,
Maggie Benson, tell me everything, from the beginning,” Royal said. He leaned
his spine on the chair-back and crossed one leg on the other.

“Go
ahead,” I told Maggie. “Tell him.”

So
she began with me, Jack and Mel surfacing in her house. She said she was
sensitive
to spirits but didn’t mention her clairvoyant sideline. As she spoke, Royal’s
face got stiffer, his mouth harder.

My,
this was fun. Not.

Under
his stern regard, Maggie began to struggle for words. I didn’t help when, “Hell
in a hand-basket! I forgot Jack and Mel!” burst out of me.

Maggie
came an inch off the chair.

“My
bad,” I whispered. “I won’t say another word till you’re finished.”

How
could I forget Jack at Clarion PD and Mel at the Magnusen home? I couldn’t go
after them now. Man, I could expect a good chewing out when I saw them next.

Maggie
finished, hands clasped so tightly the blood left her skin.

Eyes
glued to Maggie’s face, Royal used a pencil and tapped the end on the desk. Oh,
no, not the damn pencil. I’d been on the receiving end of his pencil action.
The
tap tap tap
about drove me crazy.

“So
Tiff is here now, with you?” he finally said.
Tap.

She
nodded.

“Tiff
needed help and found you. How convenient.” Royal’s eyes closed to slits. “Maggie
Benson, or should I call you Madam Magenta. Do you think claiming you
communicate with a woman who formerly talked to the dead, a woman hanging on to
life by a thread, a woman in the
news
, will enhance your dubious
reputation?”

Maggie’s
eyes widened, her hands unfolded to grasp the chair’s arms. She opened her
mouth but nothing came out.

Great.

Tap
.
“Did you think I believed what you said when we were in the cabin? I want you to
begin again, but this time tell me where you got your information.”

He
did
believe back at the cabin! I knew he did. But the interim between
leaving the cabin and returning to us gave him time to think it through and come
up with an explanation. Although it was virtually impossible, he’d decided
Maggie had inside information.

Logic
can often successfully be applied to the inexplicable but not this time. Royal
knew where my roommates’ bodies lay; no one but we two knew Haney did see us in
Portland. And no human being knew what happened when I went to Bel-Athaer to
find Royal.

“Okay,
Maggie, listen. Tell him I’m going to speak to him. Repeat what I say word for
word. Don’t say anything else. Don’t argue with him. Let me do the talking. Nod
if it’s okay.”

Maggie
licked her lips and nodded. “Er, Mr. Mortensen? Tiff wants to talk to you.”

With
a violent
tap
I’m surprised didn’t shatter the pencil, Royal leaned in,
but I launched my attack before he said a word.

“Listen,
Royal. This is me, Tiff. You don’t get to doubt me. You don’t get to deny me.
I’m here and that’s all there is to it.

“So
it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility Maggie hacked into the FBI database
and read Haney’s file. But our trip to England, Carrie and the elemental I
thought was a demon at first? Seriously? And what happened with my Uncle, no
human being knows.”

Poor
Mr. Pencil snapped in half between Royal’s fingers. “I can think of any number
of ways you found your information which have nothing to do with clairvoyance.”

 No
he could not. He hoped persistence would eventually make Maggie crack, although
I couldn’t guess what he expected her to admit to. “Huh. I suppose searching
the internet told her all about Cicero and your sojourn in his dungeon. How about
an addendum: You knew my history but kept it from me for years. You obeyed the
Burning Man and ended in his clutches, and I came to find you. Does the name
Hecate Bon Moragh ring a bell?”

Royal
paled.

“Yeah,
I came for you, your personal knight in shining armor. But no white charger for
me, I rode pillion on Chris Plowman’s bike.”

I
paused to let Maggie catch her breath. She did great, not only repeating my
words but using the same inflection.

I
changed tactics. I wanted to get him good and riled. “Chris asked me to go with
him when he left Clarion.”

“I—”

“You
watched us talking in the street and don’t pretend you didn’t listen with your
super-duper hearing. Did he tell you he kissed me when we were in Bel-Athaer? How
did it make you feel?”

He
came halfway off the seat, leaning over with his hands gripping the edge of the
desk. “You can guess how it made me feel.”

“No,
I can’t. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Were
he not my friend, I dread to think what I would have done.”

“Why?
You knew it meant nothing to me, right?”

“It
meant something to him.”

Although
he didn’t see it, I smiled. I spoke softly and Maggie aped me. “Royal, listen
to yourself. Who are you talking to?”

He
stared at Maggie as if trying to see inside her. “I can’t believe—”

I
fisted my hands.
Agh!
“Ryel Morté Tescién, if you say that one more
time, I swear I’ll slap you to Kingdom Come.”

To
me, Royal’s eyes truly are windows to the soul. They sparkle like sunlight on
mica when he is elated or amused. When he is angry, they darken to a flat, dark
bronze, or roil as if a storm boils in their depths. Now, looking into his
eyes. I saw the light of hope.

His
mouth worked, he wet his lips with his tongue. “Tiff?”

My
voice gentled. “Yes, Royal.”

He
thumped in the chair.

Maggie
trapped her hands between her knees. After half a minute of silence, her heels
started bopping up and down. She wanted to speak
so
badly and I gave her
kudos for holding her tongue.

Royal
abruptly got up, went to the door connecting the office and his apartment and
opened it. “In there,” he told Maggie. “Close it behind you.”

“But—”

“Please.
I need a moment with Tiff.”

“She
can’t speak to you without me.”

“I
know.” He pushed the door wider.

She
tiptoe through in an exaggerated manner. The door clicked shut softly.

Eyes
briefly closed, Royal raked his hair with one hand before returning to his
chair. He put his elbows on the desk and tented his fingers. “Tiff,” he began,
and stopped.

He
lifted his head and I felt the weight of his gaze, as if he saw me. “Tiff, I am
so very sorry I could not protect you.”

He
pushed his chair away from the desk. With knees apart, he put his elbows on
them, joined his hands and bowed his head. “I do not understand how your . . .
your spirit can be present, yet I am convinced you are with me.” He paused,
looked up and said in a voice tinged with awe. “You are here.”

I
sank to my knees in front of him, wishing this didn’t hurt so much. “I am,
Royal. And we’ll get through this, we’ll make it right.”

His
gaze circled the room. “I wish I knew where you are.” He lifted his eyes. “Are
you in front of me?”

I
stood and looked down as he looked up. For a moment his warm copper eyes
trapped me and my chest tightened for we seemed to gaze into each other’s eyes.

One
hand lifted from his knee. “I want to reach out and touch your hair, take your
hand in mine, gestures as natural as breathing.”

Those
idiotic invisible tears swamped my eyes.

“I
love you, Tiff Banks.”

And
now I was bawling.

He
sighed heavily and stood. “I’ll bring Maggie back in now.”

He
went to the connecting door and opened it. Maggie stood in the middle of the
living room. “Miss Benson?”

I
sniffed down my tears so Maggie didn’t ask what upset me.