Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (20 page)

He
was
green
. Wet, dark-green hair dripped over his back and green
distinctly tinged his olive skin.

Angelina
went to him and palmed his cheek, and he leaned into her hand. His right hand
slid down her spine and cupped her buttock.

With
a throaty chuckle, Angelina reach back and lightly smacked his hand. “Naught
boy.”

Studying
a potted fern, Chris pretended he didn’t see their interaction. I would have
felt sorry for him, except his flagrant infatuation with her sort of piqued me.

“Drive
them to Rain’s apartment,” she told Micah.

“What
is he?” I said.

“Beats
me,” Maggie replied in a subdued voice.

“What’s
the matter with you?”

“I
was
attracted
to her,” she said so quietly I barely heard her.

“Welcome
to the gang. I don’t think any of us escaped unscathed.”

“Not
you, too.”

“I
felt something when we first came in. Didn’t like it.”

“I
don’t—” Maggie swallowed her words as she noticed every eye on her. She glared.
“Are we leaving or what?”

“Yes,
do take them, Micah,” Angelina said. She cupped her cheeks in her palms. “Oh
dear, I forgot the tea. Another time, perhaps. I’ll be happy to see you again,
if you’re so inclined.” Her invitation encompassed everyone, but her gaze lingered
on Chris.

As
we followed Micah, she said, “And be sure to tell Rain and River I recommended
them.”

The
room we entered must have spread over the rest of the first floor and contained
a swimming pool more than thirty feet square surrounded by marble tiles. Perfumed
water gently sloshed against the sides. Two stools with soft white seats sat
near it, and fluffy white towels overflowed from a cabinet.

“This
way.” Micah led us along the wall to a door.

Chris
looked at the pool. “A swimming pool, in an apartment?”

“Did
she not mention it?” Micah said. “Angelina and I are mers.” He grinned at
Chris’ perplexed expression. “Yes, mer, as in mermaid and merman.”

Maggie
was quiet during the drive through Gettaholt. She didn’t look through the car
windows at the amazing scenery.

“What’s
bothering you?” I asked after the un-Maggie-like silence began to puzzle me.

“She
said kill him and everyone agreed without hesitation. Now you’re going to talk
to someone about doing it for you.”

Royal
and Chris didn’t suspect she spoke to me. “The Cousins should have executed him
years ago,” Chris said.

Royal
said, “If killing Shan troubles you, think of it as the execution of a vicious
murderer, restitution for the lives he took, the suffering and anguish he
caused.”

I
thought back to Royal’s and my brief exchange inside the coffee shop. “In the
café, when I told Royal we should go home, I said it because I know he’ll go
back to Dagka Shan and try to kill him if we don’t find an alternative. Royal
knew what I meant, and refused. Maggie, Shan didn’t go to all this trouble simply
to talk to Lawrence. Something else is going on. And no matter Shan’s
assurances to the contrary, Royal is in terrible danger. Hush,” I said before
she could speak. “He’s desperate. He’ll do anything to save me, even try to kill
Shan.”

A
low breathy, “Oh,” escaped her.

“And
if you’re wondering if I’m okay with it. . . .” I swallowed hard. “I’m not. I’m
terrified of what Shan may do. The game has changed, Maggie. The way I see it, what
we’re doing is no longer about me, it’s about stopping Shan before he hurts
Royal. I’d sooner spend eternity in this condition than let him die because of
me.”

I
gazed upon the drenched streets. If Rain and River couldn’t help, perhaps I
should disappear. It would be easy, release the aura I clung to and walk
through a wall, long gone minutes later. They’d never find me in Gettaholt. Then
Royal need not risk his life for me.

But
he would spend the rest of his days Downside, looking for me.

The
apartment building looked old, an unadorned rectangular block eight floors
high. Brick showed through in patches where once white plaster had crumbled
away.

I
stop walking so suddenly, my legs tried to tangle.

“Maggie,”
I whispered, then lifted my voice. “Maggie!”

She
turned on the step. “What? I’m sorry, Tiff. Didn’t know you lost me.” She
stepped down.

“No.
Wait! Stay there.” I closed the distance between us.

“You
can move!”

I
grinned enormously. I had stepped from the car and followed the others without
a thought to the fact I did it on my own. I didn’t need to cling to an aura, I
moved independently.

“That’s
great.”

“Yeah.”
Pleased as punch, I spun a circle.

She
quickly explained to Royal and Chris as we trudged up the first flight of
stairs.

Royal
acknowledged with a nod. “Watch her. This is new territory for Tiff, we don’t
know what affects her mobility,” he warned.

He
had a point. For all we knew my ability to move might work oppositely to how it
did at home. Perhaps I could walk freely in the streets but not inside a
building. Bearing this in mind, worried my feet would decide to stick to the
floor, I held Maggie’s aura as we ascended three flights of stairs. On the first
and second, to get to the next staircase, we turned along a corridor running
the breadth of the building, lined with a dozen doors. The apartment we looked for
faced the staircase on the third floor. Royal rapped on the door but nobody
answered.

“What
now?” Maggie asked.

“We
wait,” Royal said.

“I’ll
see if there’s an exit to the roof. Perhaps I can spot The Station from there.”
Chris strode off along the corridor.

Good
idea. We didn’t know whereabouts in Gettaholt Micah took us.

Royal
and Maggie sat on the steps outside the apartment. I leaned on the wall. We waited
fifteen minutes and got to wondering if these people would return today, when a
petite girl came around the corner of the staircase, her chin-length blue-black
hair slicked by the rain. With white skin, big dark eyes and pixie features,
she looked Goth in a long black leather coat, a black T-shirt, black jeans and black
boots. Behind her, a tall young man wore similar clothes, except black and red
patterned his T-shirt. Pale skin, dark eyes, long black hair so fine it draped
his shoulder and cobwebbed over his eyes; they glinted dark amethyst behind the
strands.

The
two stopped and eyed us expectantly.

Royal
heaved to his feet. “Are you Rain?”

“I
am. This is my partner, River.”

Royal
helped Maggie to her feet. “I understand you take care of monsters.”

Rain
continued up the stairs. “You came to the right place.”

Chris
chose that moment to silently skim along the corridor. Rain and River stopped
on the steps again. Rain’s hand went to her nape; River’s slid inside his
leather coat. Both stood tightly poised.

“Chris
is a friend.” Royal released Maggie’s hand. “This is Maggie. My name is Royal
Mortensen.”

The
pair shared a look and visibly relaxed.

Rain
pushed her fingers through her damp hair. “Why don’t you come in and tell us
how we can help?”

She
waited for Royal and Maggie to move aside so she could get to the door,
produced a key and unlocked it. After opening the door, she stepped aside and
waved us in with one hand.

The
apartment didn’t have much in the way of furniture: an old brown couch, the
leather cracked like crazy paving, a small dinette table and two chairs near a
kitchenette and a big yellow plastic chair shaped like an ice-cream scoop hung
from the ceiling by a chain. A window looked out on the street; a door behind
the kitchenette and another in the left wall.

Rain
and River shucked off their leather coats. River tossed his to Rain and she
disappeared through the door behind the kitchenette. She left the door open
when she came out and I saw into a small bathroom. The coats hung from the
shower rail to drip.

And
I saw what she reached for when Chris returned; a rig of leather straps held a
long scabbard on her back. A hilt poked from it. Rain unbuckled the rig and
placed it on the kitchen counter.

From
the size of the holster belted on River’s waist and the grip sticking from it,
he carried a
big
pistol.

“The
Station Master said guns don’t work,” Chris said.

River
patted his holster. “Mine does.”

“Find
a seat.” Rain went to the window looking over the street. She crossed her legs one
over the other, folded her arms across her chest and leaned her spine on the window
ledge. River joined her and adopted the same pose.

They
puzzled me. Brother and sister? Why, despite the difference in height and facial
features did they remind me of twins?

Chris
and Royal remained on their feet. Maggie tried the yellow chair. It started
revolving as she settled into it and her feet didn’t touch the floor to anchor
herself.

“It’s
a good thing this isn’t giving me motion sickness,” I told her.

“Yeah.
Does ghost vomit wash out of clothes?” she replied unthinkingly.

“What
did you say?” River asked.

“Ah,”
Chris began. “She’s talking to. . . .” He threw a look at Royal.

“There
are four of us,” Royal began bluntly, but hesitated to elaborate.  “One of us
is a. . . .”

Exasperated,
Maggie shook her head. “One of us is a ghost. Right? Her name is Tiff. I’m her
mouthpiece.”

“I
am
not
a ghost,” I sighed.

River
and Rain shot looks at each other.

“Seriously?”
Rain asked, voice lilting with poorly suppressed hilarity.

If
they didn’t believe us, they were worse than useless. Unsmiling, Maggie nodded.
Tiny muscles ticked in Royal’s taut jaw and pulsed in his neck. Chris’ eyes turned
icy.

River
spluttered and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Rain tipped her head
and grinned at the ceiling.

“Repeat
after me,” I told Maggie. “What’s so damned funny?”

But
she held her tongue when Royal more or less said it for me. He ground out the
words. “I assure you, it is far from amusing.”

The
two looked at us with sparkling eyes. Rain sobered. “No, it’s not but it is an
incredible coincidence. You see, there are three of us. My partner Castle was
murdered but his ghost walks.” She looked sideways at the couch. “Or lounges on
my furniture, or tries to watch me in the shower. And do
not
pretend you
don’t, Castle.”

I
didn’t see any ghost. “I don’t see a ghost.”

“Me
either,” Maggie said.

“Not
surprising,” said Rain to Maggie after she spoke for me. “Why are your eyes
closed?”

“As
Maggie told you, Tiff speaks through her. When she closes her eyes, the words
we hear are not hers,” Royal explained.

“I
don’t see a ghost,” Maggie said for me again.

“Are
ghosts something you normally see?” River asked.

“If
the victim died violently, yes.”

“And
did you see many as you came through Gettaholt?”

I
frowned. “Not one.”

“This
is a city of desperate people who’ll kill you for the contents of your
pockets,” said Rain. “If the dead were visible to you, you’d see little else in
Gettaholt.”

So
I didn’t see the dead here. “Does everyone return as a ghost?”

“I
don’t know. We only see dead wraiths.”

Wraiths?
Castle was a wraith before he died? Myth says wraiths are shades of the dead,
so how did her partner die if . . . he was already dead? Either the legends had
it all wrong or Downside wraiths were different.

“You
brought a dead woman with you.” Rain slid down the wall and sat with her knees
to her chin; she folded her arms on them. “Has she something to do with what
you need from us?”

I
slipped away from Maggie, tried a few steps and found I could move freely. I
went to Rain and looked closely at her. I thought she and River used makeup to
enhance their Goth look, but her skin had pure, natural clarity and the black
ringing her eyes came from thick black eyelashes, not paint. There was
something elfin about her, a beautiful, delicate little woman.

“There
is a man, Dagka Shan. A killer. He slew families: mothers, fathers, their
children. He physically tore them apart. Tiff and I tracked him. With four of
my brethren, we confronted him. He killed everyone but me and Tiff, and he
severely wounded me. Tiff shot him, his people captured and incarcerated him.” Royal
spoke carefully as if considering each word. He didn’t want to expand the story
to a saga about Gelpha, Dark Cousins and Bel-Athaer.

He
dipped his head and studied the floorboards as he continued. “They came here
and now Shan is free. He arranged to have Tiff shot in the head, which put her
in a coma and tore her spirit from her body. He is with a mage, Arthemy, who
claims if we bring Tiff’s body he can return her spirit to it, but Shan demands
we bring another, a boy. He says he wants to merely talk to young Lawrence but
I disbelieve his motives.”

He
looked up. “Although still a child, Lawrence rules a faraway kingdom. I dare
not hand Lawrence to Shan, but Arthemy told us he will not restore Tiff if we
do not bring Lawrence. Shan must be . . . stopped. But you must understand he
is extremely powerful by human standards.”

“You
want him killed,” River interrupted.

“Yes,”
Royal admitted. “We were sent to you because you deal with monsters. Shan is
the king of monsters.”

River
tucked his thumbs in his belt. “We’re not vigilantes.”

“A
lot of bad things call Gettaholt home,” Rain said. “Unless they mess with us,
they’re none of our business. We’re not hired killers. We accept a commission
only with evidence there’s a danger to Gettaholt’s citizens. Few beings by
their nature earn an automatic death warrant.”

“Ghouls?”
Chris said.

“They’re
one.” Rain squeezed her lips together. She
pffd
out a breath. “Give us
evidence Shan has taken lives, maybe we can help you.”

“I
told you,” Royal said. “He murdered families, children. I can bring you the
newspaper articles. If I must, I will raid FBI Headquarters and bring you their
files.”

Surely
he bluffed. He didn’t mean to break into FBI headquarters!

“Look,
we’re not unfeeling. I’m sorry something so horrendous happened, I’m sorry for
what those deaths must mean to family and friends. But from what you said, I
gather you’re from Upside. What has he done
here
to warrant a death
sentence?”

Then
I got it. “If people behave themselves Downside, they’re not condemned for something
they did before they came here. It’s kind of as if our world is another
jurisdiction and its laws don’t apply here.”