by Terry Spear
“Sorry,” Jared said.
“So her abilities have morphed again, and she can be in a solid form in two places,” Hunter guessed.
“Remember her father said he could do that?” Jared asked helpfully.
“Yeah. So how does she get back to her real physical self?” Hunter asked.
“Probably have to get the two of them together. I didn’t want to bring Alana to the airport in the event she’s been seen on the news and passengers or employees wondered if she had escaped the police and was trying to flee the country.”
“But if her mother’s with her astral self, who’s with her physical form? You know she shouldn’t be left alone!” Hunter said, finally realizing she was alone.
“No, no, we have another demon watching over her.”
Hunter stared at him. “Did you tell him to keep his hands off her?”
Samson had the guts to smile at him. “The demon is a girl.”
Hunter relaxed a little, trying to calm his rapid breathing. His eyes had to be brilliant red by now. “Okay, you can tell me about her later. But back up a bit. What news? Why would Alana need to escape the police?” Hunter was getting a really bad feeling about this. Then realized he hadn’t even asked why she was at the police station in the first place.
“A Matusa killed a summoner at the reptile house at the Baltimore zoo. That’s where Alana was. At least, her astral self. Alana was a witness. Or so they say. So, now she’s in custody. Or, at least one half of her is.”
Hunter couldn’t believe it. Then again where Alana was concerned… he could.
***
Alana might look real to all these people at the police station, the two who were questioning her, and the myriads she believed were watching through the mirrored glass of the interrogation room, but keeping up her look-alike astral projection in full body form was taking a toll on her. She didn’t think she could keep up appearances forever. She glanced at her mother sitting at the end of the table, looking at her as though she would do anything to get her out of this mess, short of killing anyone.
Her mother had already tried several times to convince the detectives interrogating Alana to let her go, and she wasn’t making any headway. Not when the police highly suspected Alana had seen the killer. And they were worried for her safety.
If Alana had been in her physical form and could see the person eye-to-eye, she could have made each of them forget that she even existed. In her astral form, she couldn’t do that witch’s trick. Although she couldn’t convince those watching from behind the mirror even if she was in her physical form, not without seeing them eye to eye.
“I don’t know what the killer looked like,” she repeated for the third time. Gorgeous. To die for. If the humans did back him into a corner, she had no doubt he’d take them all out. “I didn’t see anyone in the reptile exhibit except reptiles.”
“What kind of reptiles?” Detective Ryker asked, throwing her for a loop. Police detectives liked to do that sort of thing. Keep grilling the one under interrogation with details about a crime, then switching to something so different that it threw the perp off the track.
Just like it did her.
She had to guess. She didn’t have any idea what was in the reptile exhibit this morning except she suspected lizards and snakes. So that’s what she said. And hoped they really were in the exhibit or she was in even bigger trouble. Reptiles weren’t her big draw to the zoo. Birds and mammals were.
Detective Ryker looked like a hard-charger, hair all chopped off like he was rough and tough and ready to get his man. Even if his man was a seventeen-year-old girl who couldn’t kill a flea. Or at least looked that way. She probably had eliminated more bad guys in the form of ghosts and demons than he’d ever taken down, well, human variety, in his whole police career. And she was just getting started.
His eyes were hard gray shards of steel, and he didn’t look like he had a sympathetic bone in his body. He was the one who would play hardball. She wondered if he had any kids. Woe to his kids if he did. They probably had to walk on the proverbial egg shells around him. No messing around. No getting into trouble. Or they’d be dead meat.
Detective Saunderson was the softy of the two. He looked totally sympathetic, as if he was on her side and was worried the bad guy might be out to get her if she could identify him. That she wasn’t safe in the least. Well, she had news for the detective. He would be right.
When she found wherever her body was and reunited with it, she wouldn’t be safe. Not from one highly interested and deadly serious Matusa demon.
“Mr. Bradshaw, the maintenance man at the zoo,” Detective Ryker said, flipping through his notebook, “said you were talking to someone in the exhibit.” He glanced at her again with that hard look that threatened her to fess up or else.
Her skin prickled with unease. Her hands sweated. A dribble of perspiration ran between her breasts. She was sure the room was ice cold, but she was growing hotter. The maintenance man must have had abnormally great hearing. She had whispered the words to the Matusa. She thought the Matusa had also. But maybe he had spoken out loud. She’d been so concerned about what he’d done and what he intended to do, she hadn’t really been paying that much attention.
“What was the man’s name?” Detective Saunderson asked.
Thorst, came to mind. “I didn’t see anyone. I talked to no one. I just saw reptiles.” And a pesky ghost and a deadly demon. The police detectives wouldn’t believe her if she told them the truth.
Changing tack, Detective Ryker asked, “How did you project yourself from one place to another?”
“I didn’t.” They could look to kingdom come but they wouldn’t find a projector anywhere. Mr. Maintenance Man had to have been mistaken.
The two detectives leaned back in their chairs. The only good thing about any of this was that she had thoroughly confused them. Other officers would have been conducting a thorough background check on her and her mother, but they wouldn’t find anything on her father. He didn’t exist. Not unless they took a visit to the demon world, that none of them believed existed. Nothing indicated either she or her mother had been in any kind of trouble with regard to violating law enforcement issues.
In other words, neither had a rap sheet. As for Alana, she’d never been in trouble at school either. No skipping school. No bad grades. Nothing.
Detective Ryker flipped through his notebook again, and she was really beginning to dislike the man. She imagined he could make anybody feel guilty even if he or she hadn’t done anything bad in their whole life. She was certain he’d dredge up some memory of something that wasn’t exactly a proper way to behave in polite society and then the person being interrogated would feel as guilty as he was making him out to be.
He cleared his throat. “We checked into your school records. Talked to some of your teachers from last year.”
She folded her arms and looked cross. Her school records were fine. Average to above average to excellent student, depending on the subject. No trouble with other students. She left them alone and they left her alone. Teachers had no trouble with her except…
She tried to stop the way her heart began racing again. She’d teleported a few times at the end of the school year, left her body, and heavens knew what the teachers thought. Well, that she was having coma-like symptoms that they couldn’t understand. Trips to the school nurse ensued, and then Mom had to make up doctor’s reports that said she was just having a slight seizure in class. They had a standing order: Call her mother and have her picked up at school if it happens again.
“You’ve had some medical trauma at school.”
She didn’t say anything. He was waiting for her to describe in detail how it all went down. She hadn’t known what had happened. She hadn’t been there. At least not mentally. That was one trick she couldn’t do yet. Be fully in two places at the same time. How weird would that be? Trying to answer questions from different locations at the same time? Or trying to do two different actions at the sam
e time in different places? Just plain unthinkable.
When she didn’t enlighten him, he continued, “The record states you have seizures from time to time. What brings them on?”
Portals opening into the demon world. Summoners who try to bring demons here to make them work for them.
She shrugged.
“Trauma? Upset?”
She didn’t respond. She must have looked like an annoyed teen, she imagined. At least that was the look she was trying to project.
“Did you have a seizure when you went into the reptile room? Is that why you couldn’t remember the man who was there?”
The officer had done it again. Thrown her off track. She wasn’t sure how to answer him without causing him to ask another barrage of questions.
Cautiously, she said, “Maybe I did have a seizure. If I did, I wouldn’t have seen a man in the reptile exhibit. I wouldn’t have seen anything. That’s the way it works. I have no memory of what happens. Ever.” She didn’t fully lie. She didn’t remember everything of the place when she left it on her astral trip, if she’d been having one of her out-of-body experiences. She might remember some details, but others she wouldn’t. Like waking from a dream.
She didn’t lie about not seeing a man, either. He was a demon. And she hadn’t seen the summoner, who had probably been a man. Or possibly a warlock. A lone warlock was well out-matched by a deadly Matusa.
“Several students said you were in class, including a kid named Ferengees Samson, who said he walked you to your next class even.” He paused and that pause was to make her think about Samson, to squirm in her seat, to make her wonder where the questioning was going.
She did think about Samson. About how he was managing. About what he’d done with her physical form.
But she wasn’t going to squirm. She was really controlling her physical reaction, to an extent. She couldn’t stop the way her heart was pounding against her ribs, or the way her hands were so dreadfully clammy. She was sitting so stiffly in the chair, she realized even that posture was a sign she was tense and worried. If she could, she should sag a little, untense her muscles, appear more relaxed. If she did that now, would she look defeated instead? Unable to hold up under the interrogation? Or even sassy? Indolent?
So, she remained stiff and felt that she’d made a mistake in the way she held herself, but there was nothing to do be done about it now. The pause in his speech did make her worry about where he was going with the questioning.
After a lengthy pause, Ryker continued, “The teacher worried that you were having a seizure.”
Uh-oh.
“You were supposed to have gone to the nurse’s station, but the nurse said you never arrived.”
Each time, Ryker paused, waiting for a reaction, waiting to see if Alana knew very well what had happened to her while she’d been in the class.
“When the nurse checked, she found you were in class. Samson was to take you to the doctor and call your mother. But your mother was still at work. Samson took you in your car and left the school. Where did he go? Did he take you to the zoo? Why would he have taken you there if you were having one of your seizures? Did you fake having one?”
Ohmigod, Samson. They couldn’t believe he had anything to do with the killing.
Detective Ryker tapped his pen on his notebook. She wanted to break the pen in two. “He’s new to the school. Where’s he from?” he asked.
A village in the demon world. And this was going to get really bad, really fast.
They wouldn’t be able to find any record of him. He could very well be the man who had killed the other. If the detectives were trying to find a scapegoat, Samson was the perfect one for the job.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Ryker gave her an accusatory glare. “We would, but we can’t locate him.”
He was hiding her real self, protecting her. Now he was in trouble because of her, and she felt awful because of it.
“How do you know him so well if he just moved here and today was your first day back to school?”
She had to tell the truth in part. Or else they’d know she was covering up for him for some reason. They’d most likely assume he killed the man, but she wouldn’t let on. “We met at Disney World.”
Detective Ryker’s brows rose marginally. “Disney World. And how did that come about?”
He helped them to fight bad demons. Jeez, give her a break!
“We met at one of the rides.”
“Which ride?”
Omigod, if Ryker got hold of Samson before she was able to, he’d grill him, too, and what would Samson say?
“I don’t remember.”
He looked over at her mother and said, “Do you remember what ride Samson and Alana met at, Mrs. Fainot?”
How could things get any worse? Her mother wasn’t even there. She didn’t even know that Alana had been there, either. As hot as Alana’s face was, she was sure it was crimson.
“Why, I was working,” her mother said, glancing at Alana, a concerned expression on her face. It wasn’t so much as worrying about what she’d done, but more that she didn’t know how to protect her. Alana loved her mother for it.
“You were working at Disney World?” the detective asked her mother.
“No, here. In Baltimore.”
“So you were with other family?” Detective Ryker asked Alana. “Your uncle out of Dallas, perhaps?”
This wasn’t going to get any easier. She sighed. “I was with friends.”
“Names?”
What a nightmare. Even her mother looked expectantly to see what she said.
“Hunter and Jared of Dallas.”
“Last names?” She swore Detective Ryker was fighting a smirk. The good little girl who never caused any trouble was now in the midst of one big mess of it.
“I don’t know their last names.”
He straightened. “You went with two men to Disney World when you didn’t even know their last names? How old were they?”
They were demon hunters. And so was she. She saved their butts. They saved hers. Last names just didn’t seem to be that big a deal. But the age thing… she was jail bait. And they’d been eighteen. Both of them. Or at least she knew Hunter was.
“Listen, they’re friends. We helped each other when Hunter was really sick. He stayed with me and my uncle. My uncle can vouch for them.”
That took Detective Ryker down a notch. She was certain he thought he had her over a barrel.
“Okay, I’ll do that. So when you were at Disney World, where did you all stay?”
She was back in the frying pan. “The Disney Hotel.”
“Separate rooms?” His pen was poised over his notebook, his head tilted down, but his eyes were looking up at her in an accusing manner.
At least she felt it was accusing. Particularly once he learned of the details. She felt hot all over again.
“Same hotel room. But the guys were gentlemen and stayed on the fold-out couch.” Only because she’d forced the issue. The Matusa did not sleep on fold-out couches. At least according to Hunter.
“Hunter and Jared?”
She nodded.
“What about Samson?”
She couldn’t tell him he’d stayed with them also. No way.
She glanced at her mother. Her eyes were huge.
Okay, so she hadn’t told her mother all that had happened. But everything had been on the up and up. And she had slept in the bedroom. Alone.
If she said Samson had stayed at another hotel, they’d check it out and find she’d lied. If she told them Samson had stayed with them, the detectives would discover they hadn’t paid for another occupant sleeping in the room. Unless Jared had made adjustments with the billing clerk. His parents paid for everything so she thought he might have done so.
“He stayed with us.”
“On the fold-out sofa? Kind of crowded for three grown males, wasn’t it?” Detective Ryker said.
“Samson slept on a roll-a-way
bed.”
“Hmm.” Detective Ryker sneaked a glance at Alana’s mother. She looked a bit pale.
Alana tilted her chin up higher. The one time she’d been in a hotel with three guys and not one of them had hit on her and it was all perfectly legitimate. They were demon fighters and watching each other’s backs. If they hadn’t stuck together, one or all of them might have been dead. Although she’d had to beat on Hunter, but that had been a necessary thing. She wasn’t about to tell the detectives about that.
Or her mother.
“You never did say how old the men were.”
Not sure. Which was the case in Samson’s situation. She had no idea how old he really was. Hunter was eighteen for sure. She wasn’t certain about Jared. Seventeen or eighteen.
As if he was truly worried that older men had taken advantage of her and they had a new case to try, Detective Saunderson broke in, “Twenty-five? Twenty? Ballpark figure?”
“My age,” she said.
The detective nodded. “We don’t believe you had anything to do with the killings, Alana,” he said in a fatherly voice. He looked as though he wanted to reach out and pat her arm. She moved her hands under the table in her lap to keep them out of view.
Everything she did or said they could construe as guilt, she figured. She tried to look them straight in the eye, not fidget, appear as though she had nothing to hide. But she had everything to hide. It was becoming harder and harder to do. She was a half demon, half witch, gate guardian who astral traveled. All of which was pure fantasy as far as these men were concerned.
Her eyes were drooping with weariness, her heart rate slowing despite how nervous she felt. She couldn’t maintain two bodies at the same time without something giving out.
Detective Ryker gave her a half smile that was faked to high heaven. She knew just how to offer one of those when she didn’t mean it in the least. “We think you went to the zoo to see the lions like you told the maintenance man.”
Liar. He didn’t think anything like that at all. He was trying to get her to spill the truth, and then they’d hang her with it.
“You probably saw the man enter the reptile house, and you wondered what he was up to.”
