Dark Wings Descending (17 page)

“Hub. It’s where the demons come out from hell to walk on the earth.”

Rafe pulled them both to a stop, staring down at Ashley until people began to bump into her because they were blocking the sidewalk. She tugged Ashley over to a store window out of people’s path. “You know where they get in and haven’t plugged the fucking hole up?”

“We don’t employ demon border patrol, Rafe. It’s not like it’s one big revolving door we have to watch. But the area is a weak spot, and the demons use it to their advantage and slip right in.”

Lifting her head to the heavens, Rafe muttered, “I’m moving to Kansas. Big, endless fields of nothing there.” She looked down at Ashley’s snigger. “What?”

“You really don’t want me to tell you what’s in Kansas.”

Rafe had the horrible feeling Ashley wasn’t joking. They continued walking in silence. Finally, Rafe risked a sideways glance.

“You still don’t want to know,” Ashley said in a tone that Rafe had never heard from her before. Authoritative, the kind of tone that made Rafe realize maybe she shouldn’t ask about things she didn’t need to know about. She had already learned way too much about things not of this world to ever go back to a normal existence.

“So, do you like Mexican food?” Ashley asked with a cheery lilt to her voice that hadn’t been there just seconds before.

“How do you remain so unaffected?” Rafe was amazed by how normal Ashley was once she got past the glamour and the fact she knew about demons and hung out with an angel.

“I’ve grown up in this world, Rafe. I’ve seen it colored by demons right from the start.” She tugged at Rafe’s sleeve gently. “Come eat and I’ll tell you my entire family history.”

Rafe followed her. She was a touch apprehensive at what she was going to learn about Ashley. She knew when Ashley employed her shape-shifting ability she could see the golden glamour. Yet nothing ugly ever surfaced to cover Ashley’s true beauty. Rafe had always been able to see her, and what she saw was someone who called to the loneliest part inside her heart.

“You’ve gone awfully quiet,” Ashley said.

“Just enjoying the night in your company,” Rafe said. Ashley’s answering smile was something beautiful. Rafe’s heart clenched at the sight and she had to fight to stop herself from pulling Ashley into a doorway and kissing her senseless.

“You’re quite the charmer under all that bluff,” Ashley said.

“You mean you couldn’t see through
my
glamour straight away?”

Ashley’s laughter sent tingles down Rafe’s spine. “I could always see right through you, Detective. I just didn’t realize how deep you were going to let me look.”

“As deep as you want to go.”

“I’ve a good mind to skip the food.” Ashley cuddled into Rafe’s side.

Laughing, Rafe wondered why she was going to stupidly disagree when all she wanted was to take Ashley somewhere private and kiss her for hours on end. “We both need to eat, and I’m most intrigued about your lineage, so you’re not getting out of telling me your life story. Then you promised me a night out with you. There’s no reneging.”

“Can I get a rain check on what I would rather be doing with you?”

The low, husky quality of Ashley’s voice warmed places in Rafe that had lain dormant for too long. She groaned at the spark of fire that burned in her gut and spread lower. “Yes, please,” she replied, surprised by the blatant yearning in those simple words. Suddenly food was the last thing on her mind, but she tagged along behind Ashley blindly, happy to just follow her lead.

*

“So let me get this straight. Your father was an angel. He fell in love with your mother and fell to earth, losing his angelic status. He then became a demon who could take on human form, moved in with her, and they created you.” Rafe’s mind sifted through all the fantastical information Ashley had given her. “You displayed your particular talent early on and your mother couldn’t cope, so she left you with your father. He, in turn, worked his way through a line of mortal females who couldn’t resist his particular brand of angelic/demonic charm until he found a woman who kept him on a short leash and he fathered another kid with her.”

Rafe sat back on the old deck chair that was placed on the roof of Ashley’s apartment block. The location afforded her a grand view of the run-down area and beyond. In the distance, Willis Tower stood tall, its dual antennae looking eerily like horns reaching heavenward. Noticing this gave Rafe pause for thought. They sat eating take-out burritos, neither seeming to notice the cold air that surrounded them high up on the roof. “Ashley, to be honest, your folks sound like some weird and wacky country-and-western song. Something along the lines of,
My daddy was a demon and my mama was a woman who took the devil by the horns
.”

Ashley nearly choked on her mouthful of food. “Thank you, now I’m going to be trying to fit those lyrics to music in my head.” She wiped at her mouth with a grin. “He was a lover with an incredible wandering eye. He spotted my mother and, damnation or not, nothing was going to keep him from her.” She edged forward in her seat as something on the street below caught her attention. “Oh, the drug runners are out again.” She sat back and reached for more food.

Rafe shot upright and tried to pick out faces. “I’m too far away to get a proper ID.” She reached for her phone. Ashley’s hand stopped her movement.

“I promise I’ll tip off the police the next time they’re around here so they can come collect them.” She pointed to each one of the five men below, picking them off. “He’s the ringleader. I can get an address for you since he’s a neighbor. Newbie, newbie, regular customer, and ringleader’s bodyguard.”

“You haven’t called this in before?”

“I’ve got more important things to deal with than folk dealing in mind-altering substances.”

Rafe sat back, but her eyes never wandered from the transaction taking place below. It chafed at her not to do anything about it. “I could just call it in. It wouldn’t take me a minute.”

“But the paperwork would, and the disturbance would be detrimental to the area tonight. I don’t want your guys swooping down here. Not tonight, Rafe. Please?”

Rafe stared at the warm hand touching her own where she clutched her cell phone. Rafe slipped her phone back inside her pocket. “I just want scum like that off the streets.”

“You can be Dudley Drug Buster another night, Detective. Tonight, I want you to see something else once these players have exited stage right.”

Rafe took a deep breath and purposely turned her head away from the street activity to regard Ashley. “So your mother was human.”

“They met, fell in love, and had me. Dad said I began to show signs very early on that I wasn’t your typical baby. I did all the usual things, crawled, walked, cut teeth, but Mom was never sure whose baby she was going to find in my crib. If I spent a day at the nursery, I would come back and change into all my little friends. The first time it happened she swore my father had brought the wrong kid home by accident.” Ashley shrugged. “That’s when Dad had to tell her I wasn’t just any kind of kid.” She grimaced. “I’m told it didn’t go down too well.”

“It’s a hard concept to swallow, I’d imagine,” Rafe said.

“She stayed until I was school age, then she took off and left me behind.”

Rafe heard the underlying sadness in Ashley’s offhand comment. She wrapped her fingers around Ashley’s clenched fist. “It was her loss. She missed out on seeing you become someone beautiful.”

“With the power to shape-shift at will.”

“Sure, you have a little something extra going on. Aren’t all mothers desperate for their daughters to be exceptional? Mine sure as hell was.”

“She’s not impressed with your detective badge?”

“She’d rather it was my husband’s while I stayed at home and raised the kids and played happy little homemaker.”

Ashley laughed. “Forgive me, but that image just does not sit well in my head.”

“The whole lesbian thing nearly pushed her over the edge.” Rafe shrugged it off, not wanting to bring up her mother’s disappointment at Rafe not being all she’d dreamed. “She’s got my sister-in-law fulfilling her perfect daughter fantasies. I’m the gay black sheep of the family.”

Ashley gave her a sly look. “Should we inform your mother you’ve kissed demon spawn too?”

“Not unless I want to induce a heart attack.” She pretended to consider it. “Another time, maybe. And don’t refer to yourself as that.”

“But it’s true. My daddy was an angel who fell to earth to copulate with a human woman.”

“Gee, when you put it like that it just leeches all the romance out of the tale.” Rafe shifted in her seat carefully as the chair creaked beneath her. “You’re the product of love, albeit a little unconventional and religiously frowned upon, but they say the same about gays, so you’re screwed either way.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Rafe shook her head. “I can’t honestly say I’m not a little freaked by what you’re telling me. But when I look at you, I don’t see the same thing I saw in the alley. I never have.” She searched Ashley’s face and smiled. “You must have gotten the angel part of your father because I don’t see any demon at all.” She was horrified to see Ashley’s eyes suddenly tear up.
What did I say?

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Rafe relaxed a little, relieved she hadn’t messed up. “It’s true, besides which, you have a guardian angel. Surely you wouldn’t have one if you were considered to be fighting for the other side.”

“Eli’s always been there. I used to see him when I was a child. No one else’s imaginary friend had wings, though. But from the age of about twelve he came to me. He said that was when my calling began.”

“Your calling?”

“To help contain demons.”

“Tough call considering your father was one.”

“Eli said my father was living on borrowed time, but he promised I’d never have to be the one to return him to his rightful place.”

“Is your father still here?”

“No, Eli banished him some years back. I watched him
leave
, for want of a better word.” She shook her head. “I was old enough to be parentless, but he’d left another child fatherless at a much younger age.”

“So you have what? A sister? Brother?”

“A brother. Lucas Thorpe. I think he’d have been about twenty-one now. I remember seeing him as a baby, and I think the last time he was about ten years old. Last I heard he and his mother were in a car crash where no one survived. I hardly knew them, so it was hard to mourn their loss. I didn’t get on with Marion. To be completely honest, for a human, she was more demonic than my father. She didn’t like some other woman’s brat taking my father’s attention away from their child.” Ashley picked at her food as she spoke. “I got used to my dad not always being at our home while he made nice with his other family. It made me very self-sufficient.”

Rafe hated him for what he’d put Ashley through as a child. “He had two homes going? He’s no different from many a mortal man.”

“I never kept in touch with his other family. Marion knew I had powers. Dad told me he got drunk one night and spilled the whole demon lineage beans, so she was always afraid of me after that. I didn’t do anything to provoke it, but I was always daddy’s little angel in her eyes and she hated me for it.”

“Did Lucas display any talents?”

Ashley shrugged. “I was never there to know. Not all demon born do, though. I hope for his sake he didn’t. It would be nice if one of us had been normal.”

“Families,” Rafe said.

“I only saw my dad on occasion until his time to depart was set.”

“Is he still
alive
?”

Ashley nodded. “Yes, and residing happily in hell.”

“The hell of brimstone and endless torment?”

Ashley nodded again. “Some people like that kind of thing.”

“Do all bad people go there?”

“No, just the demons. Don’t believe all that you read. A lot of it is propaganda for the masses, to keep the people in line and living in fear.”

Rafe only just managed not to let escape the sigh of relief pressing at her rib cage. She looked out into the darkness instead, wondering at what else the night had in store. She decided to share her day’s news.

“There’s been a development in the case today. We had someone confess to all three murders.” Rafe watched closely for Ashley’s reaction.

Ashley didn’t even feign surprise. She just continued fixing her next burrito. “Really? Tell me about him.”

Rafe described Epcot in detail and his crazy familial bonds.

“Well, he certainly ticks a lot of your profile’s boxes.” Ashley took a small bite from her burrito. “Did you see any sparkles?”

Rafe fought the urge to roll her eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

“Any smell of sulfur? A hint of Hades in his eyes?”

Rafe bit back a sigh. “No, he was decidedly human from what I could tell.”

Ashley shrugged. “Then it’s not your killer.” She took a more generous mouthful from her food, then spoke with her mouth full. “You’re wasting your time pursuing him.”

“I still need to rule him out. After all, he confessed to the crimes I am investigating. You know, the ones currently terrorizing the city?”