The Demon Hunters (16 page)

We faced them together, Royal tall at
my side, his warmth enveloping me like protective armor. This was
my partner, the guy who watched my back, not their
puppet.

“
There,” Gia
said.

Daven twirled my Ruger in his fingers
like a gunslinger about to holster his weapon. He leaned forward
and presented the butt. “Take a seat, Tiff.”

I stepped nearer and took
the pistol, moved back and lowered my aching body to the couch just
as I started to shake. My insides churned. I felt sick. In the heat
of the moment, I forgot Gia killed two men with her bare hands. Of
all the crazy things I’d
ever
done, going one-on-one with Gia Sabato had to be
the craziest.

Royal sat next to me. “Are you all
right?”

“
I’m getting
there.”

Keeping a cautious eye on Gia and
Daven - not that it would do me any good - I holstered the Ruger.
Sounds filtered from the street into the dead silence of the big
room. I waited, but nobody said a thing. Looked like I had to
launch the conversation.

“
I know what you are, but
what I don’t know is why you stopped Royal confirming it when I
asked him.”

Gia sat up away from the back of the
couch. “You have no idea what we are.”

“
You’re Gelpha, although
you’re working damn hard to make me see you as human
beings.”

Both Gia and Daven appeared
momentarily confused, then exchanged small, smug smiles. Smug,
definitely smug. Were they happy I identified them, or happy I
misidentified them?

“
Tiff sees us as we are,”
Royal explained.

“
By
us,
you mean Gelpha?” from
Daven.

Royal nodded his agreement.

I frowned at Royal. “You didn’t tell
them?”

“
I did not tell them
anything about you.”

“
Then why did they hire us?
I thought it was because I . . . because our other cases . . . well
you know.”

Daven’s gaze shifted back and forth
between us. “Royal has been helping with a situation which
threatens us and the Gelpha both. It has nothing to do with
Rio.”

“
When Rio disappeared, he
thought you could help us locate him,” Gia added.

I tried to sort it out. “So
the Gelpha have a
situation
and Royal’s been helping you with it.” I turned my
head in Royal’s direction, but he apparently found the far end of
the room totally absorbing, to the extent he couldn’t tear his eyes
away to meet my gaze. “And he talked you into taking me on to find
Rio, but you sealed his lips so he can’t talk about your other
problem? Why would you do that?”

“
You’re not listening, Miss
Banks,” Gia spat my name like it tasted bad in her mouth. “We are
not Gelpha. We are faster and stronger than humans and we possess
other qualities Gelpha do not. More than that, I cannot tell you. I
strongly suggest you do not ask. It would be better for all of
us.”

My head was still muzzy. I guess it
hadn’t sunk in when Daven said “us and the Gelpha.” She didn’t say
what they were and she didn’t want me to know. They hexed Royal so
he couldn’t tell me.

So that’s it.
They don’t want me looking too closely at
them
.
I got angry again. How dare they do that to Royal!

Then Royal took my hand.
“Tiff, listen to me. It is important you remain calm. A
lot
is at stake
here.”

As I realized what he meant, I closed
my mouth and took in a few slow, shallow breaths through my nose.
These two were dangerous, more than a single demon could
handle.

Could more than one demon take them
on? Now there was a cheering possibility. What if Royal got a bunch
of his guys to lay into them? For that I’d pay, if it wiped out my
savings account.

“
Okay,” I eventually said,
after a happy half minute picturing Gia Sabato smeared all over
Royal’s living room. “When you say you and the Gelpha have a
situation, do you mean you personally or your . . .
people?”

Daven settled back. “Someone is
targeting our people and Gelpha.”

“
We’re talking multiple
murders, Tiff,” Royal said. “We think a serial killer.”

I looked at him with a frown on my
face. “How long have you known about this?”

“
We do not discuss every
homicide which occurs in your world.”

I supposed not, but that information,
with what I already knew, clicked together in my mind like pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle. These murders . . . if the same killers went
after Daven. . . ? Rio witnessed the attempt on Daven’s life. He
could identify the men with John and Ronald, so they abducted him,
my suspicion all along.

I scowled. “What a pity you
didn’t, because I think Rio’s disappearance is linked to these
murders.” I leaned over my knees. “They tried to kill
you
, didn’t they,
Daven.”

Gia clasped Daven’s arm. “How did you.
. . ?”

I narrowed my eyes at Gia. “They blew
up his house and they thought he was in there. You and Rio went
there. You killed two of them, but the others got away.”

I paused, staring at her.

“
Royal, did you know one of
our clients is a murderer?” I asked, still watching her.

He didn’t answer me. I looked at him.
“No, I did not know,” he said leadenly.

I faced Gia again. “They got a good
look at Rio and described him to their boss. I think that’s who has
him.”

Gia rose to her feet. “Who? Who has
him?”

Her distress killed my satisfaction,
but I didn’t forget she almost beat me to a pulp and I kept my
voice cool. “The guy who hired the arsonists is probably
middle-aged. He has a European accent and drives an older model
Mercedes-Benz, the same car seen driving Rio’s home turf a number
of times. The men he hired are homeless and could have a military
background. I’m sorry, it’s all I’ve found out so far.”

“
How did you discover
this?” Daven asked.

I started to fold my arms, but my
shoulder hurt too much. I leaned back. “Oh, you didn’t know? I talk
to dead people.”

Gia went very still, then sank down on
the couch.

“
I talk to people who’ve
died a violent death. There are a lot of them about. They see
things.”

Daven leaned forward over his knees
and clasped his hands. “They are your informants.” He sounded
delighted.

Gia, however, appeared awed, her
eyebrows riding her hairline. She must have realized I talked to
her two victims. Or perhaps the fact I could talk to the dead at
all upset her more. “You didn’t mention this,” she said to
Royal.

“
You didn’t give me the
chance,” came his retort.

“
I spoke to Ronald and John
- oh, that’s right, you didn’t ask their names before you killed
them.”

One eyebrow sank, the other remained
cocked. “They tried to kill Daven. I was not interested in their
names.”

“
And they told you about
this man, and the car?” from Daven.

“
He hired them, and another
of my friends saw the car in Rio’s old neighborhood.”

Gia glanced over at Royal. “It seems
we owe you an apology.”

I rubbed my shoulder. “I wouldn’t say
no to one either.”

I knew, from her expression, I would
not get one.

I squinted down the length of the
living room, wondering if supernatural speed and strength would
make my life easier. Nah. I’d rather stick with talking to dead
people.

Chapter
Thirteen

I sprinkled tenderizer on the steak,
stabbed it with my fork, slapped it on the electric grill and
closed the lid. The grill sat on the stove so I could use the
extractor fan to pull some of the heat from the fierce little
machine. I had a charcoal grill out back, but firing it up for one
small steak was not worth the effort.

Apart from a twinge or two and a lump
on the back of my head, I didn’t feel too bad after my set-to with
Gia. My state of mind wasn’t so hot, it hadn’t stopped whirling
since I left Royal’s apartment, particularly because nobody would
tell me more about the Gelpha murders. You would think after I told
them what I knew concerning Rio, proved my worth so to speak,
they’d open up. But no.

The killers went after
Daven.
Did
they
abduct Rio? With what I now knew, the answer seemed obvious, but I
wondered. Too many pieces of the puzzle were still
missing.

T
he
arsonists saw Gia, but they hadn’t nabbed her, despite her being
something of a celebrity. There again, those more in the public eye
tend to go to greater lengths to protect their privacy. Finding
Daven was easy, but hard as I delved, I found nothing on Gia apart
from what Bristow repeated in that forum, and if Royal’s snoop
programs couldn’t pin down her location it was a lost cause. The
bad guys were looking; they just hadn’t found her yet.

I wanted to know
why
someone was killing
Gelpha. I wanted to know what Gia and Daven were. I had the feeling
if I knew that, a whole lot would become clear to me.

I don’t necessarily waste time digging
for details when I’m given oddball information, but I don’t brush
it aside. I knew questioning Gia and Daven further would be a waste
of time - they’d told me all they were going to - but after I left
them, I thought long and hard on it.

So, they were not demons, but like
them in many ways. What the hell were they?

I phoned Lynn again, but she didn’t
know anything about another supernatural race similar to demons.
She didn’t know of any other supernatural races, period. If they
weren’t human, they had to be demons, she told me.

I didn’t look for supernatural
creatures like our clients on the Web. According to the thousands
of people posting, there are hundreds of weird and wonderful
creatures, all without a shred of proof. So, where to
start?

The sizzling sound and wonderful aroma
from the grill pulled Jack and Mel into the kitchen. They zipped in
just as I took the baked potato from the microwave.

Yep, instead of pulling the nearest
box of frozen food from the freezer, I had an actual menu planned.
Grilled steak, with a baked potato soaked in butter and piled high
with shredded cheese, chopped green onion and sour
cream.

I split the potato and mashed at the
insides with a fork, sprinkled on salt and pepper, slathered on
butter, closed it, wrapped it in foil and put it next the grill to
keep warm.

Three minutes later, with the steak
cooked to perfection, medium-well, just as I like it, I doctored
the potato with all the savory, gooey accompaniments and took
everything to the table. The steak tasted wonderful and the potato
just oozed calories.

“
I wonder you don’t eat
yourself to death,” Mel said enviously, an absurd statement when
according to her all I eat are
dinky
microwave meals
.

Jack groaned aloud. “Of all the things
I miss, food comes top of the list.”

I snorted. I didn’t bother to remind
them, yet again, they can’t remember what food tastes like. “Think
of it this way: you don’t have to worry over obesity or hardening
of the arteries. Death set you free.”

“
You can be one cruel
bitch,” from Jack.

I forked in another mouthful of
dripping potato.

“
And just look at her!” Mel
said. “Never gains a pound!”

“
I do look, all the
time.”

I glared at Jack. “Hey! I
work hard at it. You think I
enjoy
all those hours on the treadmill?”

He leaned closer.
“
I
enjoy them.
Legs pumping, boobs bobbing, all that sweat making you
shine.”

I stopped chewing. “Jack, you know the
rules. The bathroom is off-limits, whatever I’m doing in
there.”

“
Oops.”

“
Am I gonna have to get
tough with you?”

“
Ooh, baby-baby,
please.”

I looked at my plate, shaking my head.
“I give up.”

I pulled Elizabeth’s journal from the
shelf beneath the table and found the right page.

“
He waded toward me until
we were very close. As I looked into his Eyes I became dizzy. For a
moment I forgot where I was. I did not think it strange that I knew
without his instruction precisely what he wanted me to do. With his
help I climbed on his Shoulders. My wet Skirts wrapped around his
Head and Face. I stood on his Shoulders and stretched upward but I
was yet five feet below the Hole.

“
And he boosted me. I
clearly recall how I rose upward leaving his Shoulders and soaring
up with my gaze fixed on the Hole until I was there with arms and
elbows inside the opening. I dragged myself inside.